• "Not One Inch": A Brief Review Of The Archives On NATO Expansion
  “Not One Inch”: A Brief Review Of The Archives On NATO Expansion

  Authored by Michael Chapman via The Libertarian Institute,

  Although the Joe Biden administration and much of the major media contend that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO expansion, U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor (ret.) told Valuetainment Founder Patrick Bet-David that Vladimir Putin has opposed “the movement of NATO to his borders” for “at least 15 years” because he sees such expansion “as a threat.”

  Macgregor’s view is shared by the University of Chicago’s Distinguished Service Professor John Mearsheimer, considered one the world’s leading scholars on “realist” foreign policy. He argues that Russia considers NATO expansion into Ukraine as an “existential threat,” a position it has publicly held since at least 2008.

  Yet U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the conflict “was never about NATO enlargement” or “about some threat to Russia’s security.” Blinken also claims that Russia’s assertion that it was promised NATO would not spread eastward after the collapse of the USSR is false.

  

  So who is telling the truth? Let’s look at the record.

  On Bet-David’s June 28 PBD Podcast, Macgregor explained that Putin has “been talking at least for 15 years about his opposition to the movement of NATO to his borders. He’s made it very clear that he regarded it as a threat. One of the reasons he moved into Crimea was that he saw that becoming a NATO naval base principally for the U.S. Navy, obviously in the Black Sea. So, he moved on that first and then said, look, this has got to stop.”

  Declassified documents in the National Security Archive at George Washington University show that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, starting in 1990, was given many assurances by U.S. and European leaders that they would not expand NATO eastward to Russia. “Not one inch eastward,” said then-Secretary of State James Baker.

  Ukraine, the cradle of Kievan Rus (Russia), is on Russia’s western border, and western Ukraine borders Poland, Hungary, and Romania.

  The archives document that one of the earliest assurances to Gorbachev came from a speech by the German foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, in January 1990. In a cable to Washington, DC, the U.S. Embassy stated that Genscher made clear that NATO should rule out an “expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e., moving it closer to Soviet borders.”

  In a February 10, 1990 meeting between German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Gorbachev, the archive reports that the “West German leader achieved Soviet assent in principle to German unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east.”

  The archive further states, “Not once, but three times, [U.S. Secretary] Baker tried out the ‘not one inch eastward’ formula with Gorbachev…He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that ‘NATO expansion is unacceptable.’”

  Baker also assured Gorbachev that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” [Emphasis added]

  After being briefed by Baker, Chancellor Kohl told Gorbachev, “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity.”

  On May 31, 1990, President George H.W. Bush said to Gorbachev, “[W]e have no intention, even in our thoughts, to harm the Soviet Union in any fashion. That is why we are speaking in favor of German unification in NATO…Such a model, in our view, corresponds to the Soviet interests as well.”

  In 1991, British Prime Minister John Major assured Gorbachev, “We are not talking about the strengthening of NATO.” As for NATO inclusion of East European countries, Major said, “Nothing of the sort will happen.”

  After a meeting in July 1991 with NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner, a Russian memo reads, “Woerner stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO (13 of 16 NATO members support this point of view).”

  The archive article concluded, “Thus, Gorbachev went to the end of the Soviet Union assured that the West was not threatening his security and was not expanding NATO.”

  After Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin became the first president of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Vladimir Putin became president in May 2000, serving until 2008. He then returned to the presidency in 2012.

  Professor John Mearsheimer warns Glenn Greenwald that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will result in significant casualties due to the Russian army’s overwhelming artillery advantage, air superiority, and the undermanned and undertrained Ukrainian forces.

  Professor Mearsheimer… pic.twitter.com/35dZa45MPQ

  — KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) July 3, 2023

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

  According to Professor Mearsheimer, author of “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin,” “Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion.”

  “For Putin, the illegal overthrow [in 2014] of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president—which he rightly labeled a ‘coup—was the final straw,” said Mearsheimer. “He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.”

  “The United States pushed forward policies towards Ukraine that Putin and his colleagues see as an existential threat to their country, a point they have made repeatedly for many years,” Mearsheimer said in a June 2022 speech at the European Union Institute. “Specifically, I am talking about America’s obsession with bringing Ukraine into NATO and making it a Western bulwark on Russia’s border.”

  “The United States is not seriously interested in finding a diplomatic solution to the war, which means the war is likely to drag on for months, if not years,” added Mearsheimer. “The United States and its allies are helping lead Ukraine down the primrose path.”

  Mearsheimer made those remarks one year ago. Today, the Ukraine-Russia war is still ongoing and the U.S. has made no serious effort to broker a peace deal.

  President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and their cheerleaders in the major media relentlessly deny that potential NATO expansion into Ukraine had anything to do with Russia’s invasion in 2022. Such an assertion, they claim, is Putin propaganda. However, the historical record does not support their story, “not one inch” of it.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/25/2023 – 02:00

• The US Government's New 'Ministry Of Truth': The Cybersecurity And Infrastructure Security Agency
  The US Government’s New ‘Ministry Of Truth’: The Cybersecurity And Infrastructure Security Agency

  Authored by Peter Schweizer via The Gatestone Institute,

  Mission creep is a serious problem in the federal government, and the ongoing investigations by House Republicans into “weaponization” of government misdeeds have shown how pervasive and deep the problem can be.

  

  The FBI, Justice Department, CIA and even the Internal Revenue Service all look as we have seen, like tempting operatives for use against political opponents or to run interference for allies. But what about an agency that is supposed to protect us against cyber threats? A new interim report from the House Judiciary Committee highlights politically motivated mission creep where we might least have expected it: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

  CISA, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, was created in 2018 with a simple, non-political mission statement: “To prepare for, respond to, and mitigate the impact of cyberattacks.” As reported here previously, CISA works to prevent state-sanctioned hackers from attacking and compromising America’s digital infrastructure. The agency exists to warn companies and government entities of pending computer vulnerabilities. It also works to stop ransomware attacks on American companies and their computer networks, and to minimize damage from cyber exploits by foreign and domestic sources. In short, CISA’s mission brief was to watch out for attacks on our digital “boxes and wires.”

  Instead, as the House Judiciary Committee report documents, CISA “has facilitated the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries.” The agency, under the administration of President Joe Biden and under the leadership of Jen Easterly, ramped up efforts to flag “misinformation and disinformation” on social media. According to documents the committee obtained only through subpoena, CISA considered the creation of an anti-misinformation “rapid response team” capable of physically deploying across the United States to stamp out what it would decide constituted such “misinformation.” The agency went, for example, from ensuring the digital security of American voting systems to censoring criticism of those systems.

  The internal communications of agency staff and members of its outside advisory group show they knew they were on thin legal ground. Members of CISA’s advisory committee agonized that it was “only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work, ” the report said.

  After the Biden administration was sued in federal court, CISA outsourced its censorship operation to a non-profit group funded by CISA itself. The Judiciary Committee report charges that the outsourcing was an implicit admission that CISA knew that its censorship activities were unconstitutional. CISA, meanwhile, said that it outsourced material to another agency to “avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”

  Today, a look at the agency’s website and Twitter accounts shows only its statutory activity – issuing warnings about ransomware attacks and “zero-day” exploits, warning about hardware vulnerabilities, and some educational advice for ordinary Americans on staying safe during their online activities. This is important work, as the US is under constant cyberattack from state-sanctioned, or state-tolerated, hackers operating from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. These hackers extort millions of dollars from companies and institutions through overt attacks that can cripple their networks and computers. Cyber criminals go in hard, looking for cash, while cyber espionage attacks attempt to go in quietly, harvesting secrets without detection. Stopping them at the firewall is a matter of national security.

  So, to dilute that mission with a politically motivated dive into censorship is unconscionable and dangerous. The Judiciary Committee is right to pursue this inquiry to prevent CISA from going off the rails again, as their own mission pledges.

  There is more to see here, however, and more to root out than just a thwarted attempt by a government bureaucracy to police the political speech of the American people in violation of the First Amendment. It is the use of funded or politically affiliated non-profit groups to do the government’s dirty work for it. Note that when pressed by a pending lawsuit over its actions, CISA offloaded its “election misinformation” activity to a non-profit organization called the Center for Internet Security (CIS). It was this group, CIS, that served as a singular conduit for election officials to report what they alone determined were false or misleading claims about elections to the large social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter, according to the report.

  This parallels the behavior of the Justice Department under then Attorney General Eric Holder during the Barack Obama administration. The Government Accountability Institute did research into the DoJ’s pattern of using “consent decrees” to force private companies with threats of anti-discrimination lawsuits to donate funds to one or more designated non-profit organizations on a list helpfully provided by the Justice Department. These groups were largely “social justice warriors” who would then use the money to exert political pressure. This practice was immediately banned by the Trump administration when it took office in 2017, but that ban was quietly reversed by Biden four years later.

  CIS enjoyed government funds for its work, much of which is focused on anti-cyberattack activity, as it should be. But its actions in enforcing censorship of “election misinformation” were revealed in the now-famous dump of internal chatter known as “the Twitter files.”

  Not only that, but the woman who in October 2020 made the fateful decision for Twitter to censor the New York Post‘s 2020 scoop about Hunter Biden’s laptop, Vijaya Gadde, became a member of CISA’s “Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation” subcommittee after the Biden administration took office. Gadde, you may recall, was unceremoniously fired by Elon Musk on his first day of owning Twitter.

  Gadde was a member of this subcommittee, known as the “MDM Subcommittee,” which also counted Dr. Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, and Suzanne Spaulding, a former legal adviser for the CIA. According to a report in The Intercept, this committee in 2022 recommended that CISA closely monitor “social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources.”

  The MDM committee’s report urged the agency to take steps to halt the “spread of false and misleading information” and recommended that CISA stay up to date with the ongoing research on “debunking vs. pre-bunking” information that the committee tars as either unknowingly false (misinformation), deliberately planted by hostile foreign actors (disinformation), or what it termed “malinformation,” defined in its report as “information that may be based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

  What the Judiciary Committee’s work so far has highlighted is the creation of “feedback loops”: that an agency of the government can create and use advisory boards to go well beyond its statutory mission, giving it cover for exercising power Congress never meant it to have.

  How many more federal agencies are doing similar things?

  Peter Schweizer, President of the Governmental Accountability Institute, is a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow and author of the new book, Red Handed: How American Elites are Helping China Win.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 23:40

• Thomas Jefferson University President Resigns After "Liking" Inconvenient Tweets
  Thomas Jefferson University President Resigns After “Liking” Inconvenient Tweets

  By Molly Gamble of Becker Hospital Review

  Mark Tykocinski, MD, has resigned from his roles as president of Thomas Jefferson University and interim dean of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Philadelphia. 

  Jefferson CEO Joseph G. Cacchione, MD, wrote in an email to the university community July 20 that Dr. Tykocinski is exiting his leadership roles “to focus on his research,” according to a copy of the message obtained by Becker’s. Dr. Cacchione said Dr. Tykocinski’s cancer immunotherapy research has reached a pivotal stage. He will continue his work as a professor.

  Dr. Tykocinski started as president of Thomas Jefferson University July 1, 2022. He previously served as the university’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and as dean of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College. Much of his research centers on immunotherapy and gene therapy — he holds a series of patents related to protein and cellular engineering. 

  “We appreciate Dr. Tykocinski’s years of transformational service to Jefferson and wish him an abundance of success in his scientific and other endeavors given their importance to humanity,” Dr. Cacchione wrote. 

  Board member Susan Aldridge, PhD, is now the interim president of Thomas Jefferson University, and Steven Herrine, MD, vice dean of undergraduate medical education, will serve as interim dean of the medical school. Dr. Cacchione’s email notes that the university’s searches for a provost and medical school dean were nearing completion.

  Dr. Tykocinski’s resignation followed controversy this spring when tweets he had “liked” were called into question. Some tweets questioned the validity and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and called gender reassignment surgery “child mutilation.”

  Dr. Tykocinski said he used the “like” function on Twitter to bookmark tweets — not endorse them — in an effort to learn more about the subject matter and better understand particular points of view. 

  At the time, Dr. Cacchione conveyed disappointment in Dr. Tykocinski’s “careless” use of the social media network to the Jefferson community. “At his level, he is held to a higher standard and should have known better,” Dr. Cacchione wrote in an email to faculty, employees and students.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 23:20

• Obama's Personal Chef Found Dead Near Family's Martha's Vineyard Mansion
  Obama’s Personal Chef Found Dead Near Family’s Martha’s Vineyard Mansion

  The personal chef of former president Barack Obama was found dead in a “paddleboarding accident” near the family’s $12 million mansion on Martha’s Vineyard (which is situated at sea level, a paradox for fervent believers in the melting iceberg theory).

  Massachusetts State Police confirmed that the paddleboarder whose body was recovered from Edgartown Great Pond on Monday was Tafari Campbell, 45, of Dumfries, Virginia.

  According to the AP, Campbell was employed by the Obamas and was visiting Martha’s Vineyard. The Obamas were not present at the home at the time of the accident. In a statement, the former president and his wife, Michelle Obama, called Campbell a “beloved part of our family.”

  

  “When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House – creative and passionate about food, and its ability to bring people together,” the couple said. “In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter.”

  “That’s why, when we were getting ready to leave the White House, we asked Tafari to stay with us, and he generously agreed. He’s been part of our lives ever since, and our hearts are broken that he’s gone.”

  Campbell had worked in the White House during Obama’s eight years in Washington. During that time he helped create some of the most famous presidential recipes, included a beer brewed from ingredients grown at the White House.

  On Sunday, Campbell went missing in the waters of Edgartown Great Pond on Martha’s Vineyard. When it was time for the first family to depart Washington, they asked Mr Campbell to join them and he “generously agreed” the Obamas’ statement added.

  “He’s been part of our lives ever since, and our hearts are broken that he’s gone. Today we join everyone who knew and loved Tafari – especially his wife Sherise and their twin boys, Xavier and Savin – in grieving the loss of a truly wonderful man.”

  

  The search was launched on Sunday night for “a male paddleboarder who had gone into the water, appeared to briefly struggle to stay on the surface, and then submerged and did not resurface,” according to a police report.

  “Another paddleboarder was on the pond with him at the time and observed him go under the water,” it added; it wasn’t clear why the other paddleboarder did not intervene and rescue Obama’s cook.

  On Monday, his body was found “approximately 100 feet (30 meters) from shore at a depth of about eight feet”.

  It remains unclear how a healthy 45-year old male, who is reportedly a good swimmer, can drown in what is literally an 8 feet deep pond.

  The Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit is investigating his death, but it is believed to have been an accident, CBS News reported.

  The Obamas said Campbell is survived by his wife and their twin boys.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 23:18

• CIA & MI6 Seek To Recruit Among Russia's Elite After Wagner Rebellion
  CIA & MI6 Seek To Recruit Among Russia’s Elite After Wagner Rebellion

  The CIA and allied intelligence services are expanding efforts to recruit “insider” and high-level Russians to spy for the West, following last month’s short-lived mutiny by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which was widely perceived as a serious challenge to Putin’s grip on power. 

  The CIA director himself has called the Wagner rebellion an “opportunity” to continue to exploit cracks in the Russian system, also amid continued domestic uncertainty for the future amid the Ukraine war. Director William Burns in remarks to the Aspen Security Forum late last week bluntly told the audience that the US intelligence community sees a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to exploit influential levels of Russian society and government. He had said something similar earlier in the summer.

  

  He openly called for recruits from among Russia’s elite while saying, “I think Putin is already a little bit uneasy as he looks over his shoulder.”

  The comments also came as Putin cracks down on ‘angry patriots’, or pro-war hardliners who think Putin has been too hesitant in executing the war effort. One prominent blogger and ex-security official, Igor Girkin, who led Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in 2014, has recently been arrested on “extremism” charges.

  The CIA’s Burns continued in his remarks from last week: “What it resurrected was some deeper questions … about Putin’s judgment, about his relative detachment from events and even about his indecisiveness.”

  “I think in many ways it exposed some of the significant weaknesses in a system that Putin has built,” he said further.

  Also last week during a speech in Prague, MI6 Chief Richard Moore had a similar assessment, saying “our door is always open” for Russian officials who are fed up with the war.

  “There are many Russians today who are silently appalled by the sight of their armed forces pulverizing Ukrainian cities, expelling innocent families from their homes, and kidnapping thousands of children,” Moore said last Wednesday. 

  “I invite them to do what others have already done this past 18 months and join hands with us. Our door is always open,” he said.

  Meanwhile, there are fresh figures out this week on Russia’s continuing war-driven capital flight:

  A record $253 billion has been pulled out of Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian Central Bank has said.

  The net capital outflow from Russia starting February 2022 and ending June 2023 was calculated by the Bank’s Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Forecasting.

  “Net inflows on current transaction accounts [of $236 billion] and net outflows on financial accounts have reached unprecedented levels,” the Bank’s experts said in their analysis published Monday.

  The flight of $239 billion from Russia last year, including $13 billion in the pre-invasion month of January, was four times the amount that was pulled out of the country in 2021, according to the analysis.

  Burns additionally commented on the West’s support to Ukraine as sending a “message” to Beijing related to threats against Taiwan…

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reinforced China’s doubts regarding a potential incursion into Taiwan, said CIA Director, William Burns pic.twitter.com/Mq6I1UvGeU

  — Reuters (@Reuters) July 21, 2023

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

  As for Wagner, it’s been widely acknowledged that Prigozhin fundamentally sought a coup within the defense ministry. While he did issue rare criticism directly at Putin amid the events of June 23-24, he later explained he wasn’t trying to overthrow the government. He has lately been seen at Wagner camps inside Belarus, but also appears to be moving freely in and out of Russia via his private plane as well.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 23:00

• Border Patrol Chief Relieved Of Command Same Day He Testified Before Congress
  Border Patrol Chief Relieved Of Command Same Day He Testified Before Congress

  Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  House Republican leaders have raised the prospect that a Border Patrol chief was the target of retaliation by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) chief after the Border Patrol official sat for a transcribed interview with Congress.

  

  Gregory K. Bovino, the chief patrol agent of the El Centro Border Patrol sector in California’s imperial valley, offered a transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee and House Homeland Security Committee on July 12, 2023. According to Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.), within hours of finishing his testimony, Mr. Bovino was informed that he had been relieved of his command at the El Centro sector and “reassigned to a vague, indefinite, and temporary headquarters assignment.”

  The timing of Mr. Bovino’s reassignment raised suspicions for Mr. Comer and Mr. Green that the CBP had reassigned the Border Patrol official in retaliation for his testimony.

  In a letter to acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller, the two lawmakers shared allegations from a whistleblower that Mr. Bovino’s new assignment is “one of no certain mission, no articulable purpose, and without any timeline of completion.”

  “The whistleblower further alleges that this practice is consistent with the way in which CBP officials have dealt with employees who they wish to leave the agency, by placing maximum pressure on them to relocate, retire, or resign,” the Republican lawmakers added.

  Citing further whistleblower allegations, Mr. Comer and Mr. Green raised allegations “that Chief Bovino may have produced written testimony in preparation for this hearing that was dissatisfactory to CBP officials: so much so that he was verbally reprimanded by headquarters officials.”

  The Republican lawmakers called on the acting CBP commissioner to provide answers about the reassignment. The lawmakers specifically asked for all CBP documents and communications relating to Mr. Bovino’s employment. They also asked for records of any discussions between CBP and Department of Homeland Security or White House officials pertaining to Mr. Bovino’s past congressional testimony or appearances as a witness for transcribed interviews.

  The lawmakers further called upon Mr. Miller to be ready to brief House committee staff on this issue by July 28 at the latest.

  NTD News reached out to CBP for comment but the agency did not respond by the time this article was published.

  According to a CBP statement obtained by The Washington Times, Mr. Bovino was previously reassigned to a headquarters position in 2021, and his subordinates ‘did an excellent job’ handling the El Centro border sector while he was gone. The CBP also claimed it’s dealing with a broader reorganization effort after the overall U.S. Border Patrol chief, Raul Ortiz, retired in June.

  Border Patrol Chiefs Previously Blocked From Speaking to Congress

  Mr. Bovino was one of several Border Patrol sector chiefs who were invited to testify at a House Oversight Committee hearing earlier this year, but Mr. Comer accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of blocking some of the Border Patrol officials from doing so. Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol Chief Gloria Chavez and Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin did testify, but Mr. Bovino and others did not appear for the hearing.

  “It is unfortunate that you are trying to prevent the American people from hearing candid and truthful testimony of U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agents,” Mr. Comer wrote in a Jan. 27 letter (pdf) to Mr. Mayorkas. “This is necessary oversight, which you and your Department are attempting to block.”

  After Mr. Bovino and other Border Patrol officials were blocked from attending the Feb. 7 hearing, Mr. Comer sent a letter (pdf) to Mr. Miller, requesting that he help facilitate interview times for Mr. Bovino and the other Border Patrol officials. Mr. Bovino’s July 12 transcribed interview was the culmination of this earlier effort to get him to talk to members of Congress.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 22:40

• Every Mask Is A Nail In The Coffin Of Humanity
  Every Mask Is A Nail In The Coffin Of Humanity

  Authored by Todd Hayen via Off-Guardian.org,

  Aren’t you tired hearing about masks? Mask-talk is almost as ubiquitous as Hitler-talk. Well, if the shoe fits…Just because we are tired hearing about appropriate things to discuss, does not mean they should not be discussed. At least that is how I see it. Obviously.

  

  Mask-talk may be annoyingly worn thin, but seeing a mask on the street still makes my blood boil—even more so than it used to. It has become a symbol of ignorance to me if seen in places that don’t require it, and a symbol of compliance and apathy when in places that do require it, such as medical facilities here in Canada. But as shameful as it is to admit, I am guilty of throwing the damn thing on when visiting my urologist, after being told I would have to leave if I didn’t.

  Can you believe that? Me? Complying?

  There are two types of “non-compliers,” one complies from a place of ignorance, a place of succumbing to authority because that is the “right thing to do.” The other complies when they know the truth but comply because it is just too much trouble not to, doesn’t want to make a scene, and knows at this point that one person standing up and facing the consequences isn’t going to amount to a hill of beans. In other words, being a coward.

  Heard that one before, eh? One might ask, “which is worse?”

  The second reason to comply is still no good reason, and I come to you here fully exposed and deeply ashamed. But…I wore a FAKE MASK. Even though that makes no public statement, it does make me feel mischievously satisfied. Mind you, I do not wear masks anywhere else, public or private—only in medical facilities (albeit fake, but not even that anymore).

  I make this distinction because, in the context of this article, it is an important one to make. I think the person who wears the mask for the second reason stated above, is not stabbing humanity in the eye with an ice pick. There will come a time when those reasons will no longer fly, and wearing a mask, even when required, will be a powerful betrayal to be avoided. I do not believe we are at that point now.

  Some may disagree with this reasoning, but the mask isn’t the problem, it is the reason we wear them that is. There is also a tiny bit of rationale in wearing masks in a medical facility. A tiny bit.

  I do not think we will win this war allowing ourselves to be mowed down with a machine gun when we refuse to wear a mask. If we can get away with persecution and punishment by pretending to follow the rules, then so be it. Revolutionaries have done this in the early days of a revolution for centuries. There are more effective ways to fight these injustices then getting kicked out of a doctor’s office because you refuse to wear a mask.

  I can clearly see the other side of this argument. I would stand up and applaud anyone who refuses to comply and is then humiliatingly banished from the premises. More power to them; such a person is a hero. But I also at the same time applaud the person who is fighting this fight in other ways and chooses to “pretend” to follow the rules in order to get medical care if it is needed (ala a fake mask!). But, for me personally, I am on the fence. And I may slip down to the other side of it soon enough and make a spectacle of myself in the near future by telling the receptionist at the hospital they can take their mask and shove it.

  I sat down in the waiting room at my urologist’s office with my fake mask on and feeling rather smug, “I showed them,” I said to myself. Yeah, sure, whatever. My urologist is pretty cool—young, ambitious, a good surgeon (at least he appeared that way to me when he cut out a sizable stone from my kidney a few years ago). I fancy myself a decent judge of character and summed him up as one who would think all this mask crap was a farce. I was mask-less when he came into the little exam room; it was just the two of us. He had a mask on.

  “You can take that off,” I said, “don’t keep it on because of me.” He sat down and made no movement to remove it.

  “You don’t really think that does any good, do you?” I said after an awkward pause. He then launched into the speech the sheep-folks give when dealing with a client or patient who indicates they believe in all that conspiracy hoopla out there. He wanted to remain kind of neutral, which was not a success. It was obvious.

  I shut up. But left the fake mask in my hand, off of my face. I was devastated. “Of all people,” I thought. This is very sad.

  I had no way to know if he was just toeing the company line or sincerely believed in his rant. These doctors have been threatened beyond comprehension to walk the straight and narrow, and probably don’t think the mask thing is really a hill to die on. I guess I am one of them myself. At this point it really does not feel like the hill to die on—but am I wrong? I think about all the rebels and dissidents during soviet times. They did not walk around with a sign on them saying “F—k Lenin.” They knew their protest would be lost. “Live to fight another day.”

  I left the doctor’s office pretty depressed. I put the fake mask away and checked out, and then walked out, barefaced. The fact I was deceiving everyone with a fake mask no longer appealed to me. I no longer felt excused being an undercover agent for the cause, worried I would lose my cover if I stood on a chair and lit my mask on fire screaming, “viva la revolución!” I was a spy after all, best to lay low. That attitude lost a bit of its appeal.

  Doctors don’t seem to have a problem following the rules in order to stay in practice. Most of them don’t even think about it. The orders come down from above and they acquiesce. I wouldn’t be surprised if the CDC, FDA, AMA or whoever else in authority, told doctors to administer gasoline through an IV to cure some new (fake) disease afflicting the masses, most of the “soldiers of medicine” would comply.

  Maybe I am being too harsh here. And maybe they comply with something like mask wearing because they see no harm in it, and if it is required for them to keep their license (the license that allows them to help people, which is the real concern in their mind) they are perfectly willing to do it. To be honest, wearing a mask in a medical facility with a ton of sick people milling about (with pathogens that a mask could block) may not be such a stupid idea.

  But when does this sort of compliance based on these sorts of reasons, start to backfire on us? Maybe we truly are at a point here where the sacrifice of not getting into to see the doctor becomes necessary to preserve humanity?

  Yes, it is that big of a problem now. Being forced to wear a mask has nothing to do with preventing disease, whether people think it does or not, it doesn’t. It has everything to do with marking those who are willing, happily, to comply with arbitrary authority. The mask is a symbol of humility and degradation. It is a submissive gesture, just as shackles are on a slave, or the Star of David is, if it is sewn onto the coat of a Jew.

  Complying with mask wearing, if you are doing so because you are afraid of a ghost virus, or of authority that will punish you if you don’t wear one, is being compliant to a lie. That is why it is not a choice. People believe they are wearing masks because it is their right to choose to wear one. But their decision to wear one as their choice, is based on a lie. Any decision based on a lie is false, it is wrong, and it is a nail in the coffin of humanity.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 22:20

• Senate Democrats Sneak Gun Control Into Military Funding Bill
  Senate Democrats Sneak Gun Control Into Military Funding Bill

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  Senate Democrats are attempting to sneak an authorization of an outdated gun control law into the “must pass” National Defense Authorization Act, also known as the US Military budget. 

  The law in question is the 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act, which was championed by groups like Handgun Control Inc, now known as the Brady Campaign. The Act set the stage for the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.  

  Gun Owners of America is working in Congress today to ensure that history does not repeat itself with either of these attacks on your rights.  

  The Act itself bans any firearm that cannot be detected by metal detectors. But back in the 1980s, when this bill was written, detection technology was in its infancy. Nowadays, we have sophisticated detection technology that doesn’t rely on metal detection to find firearms. In fact, modern detection technology can spot all objects, including guns regardless of the materials of their construction. 

  The Act itself not only hinders innovation in the firearms industry, but the potential for the weaponization of this law is huge, similar to how the 1934 NFA was weaponized to attack pistol braces and expand ATF’s illegal registry. 

  A weaponized ATF might do this using the “Major Components” section of the Undetectable Firearms Act. To state it simply, the section makes clear that all guns and the major parts need to be recognizable by an x-ray machine. Who knows what they could twist into new law via “Regulatory Authority,” or how this could affect newer technologies, like 3D printed firearms, which have been a target of the anti-gun machine since their inception with the Defense Distributed Liberator. 

  

  Anti-Gun politicians like Chuck Schumer knew that they wouldn’t be able to reauthorize this contentious piece of unconstitutional legislation through traditional means, so this reauthorization was added to the NDAA via a process called a substitute amendment. 

  These substitute amendments are typically used for fixing grammar or spellchecking bills, but it’s also a way to get law into the final bill text without having it be voted on.  

  Requiring firearms to meet archaic standards of metal detection technology from the 1980s is pure feel-good security theater. Reauthorizing the Undetectable Firearms Act will not keep anyone safe from criminals or terrorists intent on doing harm.  

  

  Only law-abiding gun owners and hobbyists will obey this weak, ineffective, and outdated law. On the other hand, if Congress wants to help bolster security at a sensitive location, it ought to invest in and prioritize modern detection technology. 

  So, you’re probably asking: “What can we do to stop this from becoming law?” 

  Well, the answer lies in the lawmaking process. Both the Senate and the House have their own versions of the NDAA. Because the Senate version has this awful poison pill, but the House version doesn’t, we can stop this by demanding its removal. 

  This is where we need your help. Please, call your Senators and Representatives and tell them to remove the “Permanent Authorization of Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988” from the NDAA immediately! 

  *   *   * 

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 22:00

• "Another Pay-To-Play?" Hunter Art Buyer Revealed As "Friend" Who Received Favor From Biden White House
  “Another Pay-To-Play?” Hunter Art Buyer Revealed As “Friend” Who Received Favor From Biden White House

  While the DOJ continues to run cover for the Bidens, a new report from Insider reveals yet another shady looking transaction involving the first family.

  

  While President Joe Biden promised on the 2020 campaign trail that there would be an “absolute wall” between his family’s private business and his official duties, it appears that was yet another lie – as the identities of several buyers of Hunter Biden’s art turned out to be “friends.” One buyer, whose ideitity remains unknown, spent $875,000 on 11 Hunter Biden artworks, while another received a direct benefit from the Biden White House.

  The buyer has been revealed as Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real estate investor and philanthropist who is extremely influential in California Democratic circles, and has given extensively to the Biden administration ($13,414) and the Democratic National Campaign Committee ($29,700). In 2022, Nirsh Naftali hosted a fundraiser headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris.

  Hirsh Naftali was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad – a position Hunter had previously suggested he could arrange to have friends seated on. As Insider notes, it’s unknown whether Hirsh’s purchases were before or after the appointment.

  In July 2022, eight months after Hunter Biden’s first art opening, Joe Biden announced Hirsh Naftali’s appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. It is unclear whether Hirsh’s purchase of Hunter Biden’s artwork occurred before or after that appointment. Membership on the commission is an unpaid position that is often filled by campaign donors, family members, and political allies — the same crowd that often winds up with US ambassadorial appointments.

  …

  In the past, Hunter Biden has privately suggested that he could arrange to have friends seated on the commission. Eric Schwerin, Hunter Biden’s longtime business associate, was appointed to the same post by President Barack Obama in 2015. -Insider

  “If it was done after her appointment, and she likes the painting, it’s less of an issue,” said Bruce Weinstein, a professional ethicist and ethics trainer. “It’s more of an issue if she’s deciding to buy it beforehand. Then it might be perceived as a quid pro quo.”

  Regardless, “if you really wanted to choose the most ethically appropriate course of action, that would not involve any conflict of interest, real or perceived, then you don’t buy the painting,” he concluded.

  According to House Oversight Republicans, the report reveals “potentially another pay-to-play scheme” involving the Biden family.

  🚨 Major Democratic donor and Biden-appointed commissioner Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali has been revealed as a buyer of Hunter Biden’s art, revealing potentially another pay-to-play scheme. https://t.co/vLx2ZwOMC0

  — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 24, 2023

  According to an administration official, Hirsh Naftali’s appointment was made following a recommendation by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and that there’s no connection to the art purchases. They added that she’s deeply involved in Jewish causes in Los Angeles and Israel, which qualifies her for the role – along with her service on a policy board at the RAND Corporation.

  “Hunter Biden is a private citizen who is entitled to have his own career as an artist,” said White House spokesperson Ian Sams. “We are not involved in his art sales, and any buyers of his art are not disclosed to the White House.”

  Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said that Hunter only learned the identities of Hirsh Haftali and a second buyer after they had purchased his art through the gallery.

  

  “The gallery sets the pricing and handles all sales based on the highest ethical standards of the industry, and does not disclose the names of any purchasers to Mr. Biden,” wrote Lowell.

  Hunter Biden’s gallerist, Georges Bergès, told Insider: “Names of buyers are strictly confidential,” adding “Any attempt to get them is illegal and will be reported to the proper authorities.”

  $875,000 mystery buyer

  According to internal documents from Georges Bergès Gallery, a single buyer snagged 11 Hunter Biden artworks for $875,000.

  The identity of the $875,000 buyer is unclear. That one buyer represents the majority of the $1,379,000 in receipts that Hunter Biden’s gallery received for his work, the documents show, with the gallery receiving a 40 to 45 percent commission. The $875,000 art buyer resides outside New York and purchased some of Hunter Biden’s largest format works, including a 12-foot-long red-white-and-blue piece painted on sheet metal and entitled “Pandemonium.” -Insider

  Insider also reports that the only other art buyer known to Hunter Biden is Kevin Morris, a wealthy LA attorney known as Hunter’s ‘sugar brother’ who was recently spotted smoking a bong on the balcony of his Malubu, California home while Hunter was visiting.

  What a small world!

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 22:00

• Desperate SF Grocery Stores Turn To High Tech Upgrade To Combat Theft
  Desperate SF Grocery Stores Turn To High Tech Upgrade To Combat Theft

  Authored by Bryan Chai via The Western Journal,

  As crime continues to soar, businesses and stores are resorting to increasingly restrictive measures to mitigate that destructive spillage.

  

  Whereas many businesses have already adopted some sort of a receipt checkout before leaving the store’s premises, certain Safeway stores in San Francisco are adding a high-tech wrinkle to that established practice, according to KPIX-TV.

  In short, these new checkouts in San Francisco have replaced the elderly lady who glances at a customer’s receipt with a physical gate that won’t open until a receipt is scanned.

  KPIX reporter Betty Yu tweeted out a video of the new gates in action:

  San Francisco Safeway stores install new gates to deter shoplifting 🛒

  Safeway has installed gates inside some of their high-theft stores where customers have to scan their receipts to exit. This one is located on Webster Street. @KPIXtv @DaKPIX reports: https://t.co/gi05hGhNqu pic.twitter.com/BgLeiHq4tG

  — Betty Yu (@bett_yu) July 16, 2023

  It’s a simple setup: There is an automated kiosk located at the exit of the grocery store. After scanning something printed on the receipt, the gates slide open, and the customer is free to go about their day.

  At first blush, it feels like there could be a number of hassles associated with this that would turn off local customers. Apart from the actual act of always having to, effectively, “punch-out” of your grocery trip, what happens if there’s an issue with the kiosk?

  KPIX notes that Safeway workers can manually override the gate to open it, but that still doesn’t account for what happens if the unit fails altogether (or if there’s a massive power outage.)

  Despite those potential annoyances, local customers at these Safeways (KPIX notes that two locations in San Francisco that have adopted these sliding gates) all appear to be for it — because anything appears to be better than the crime wave that has the city in its clutches.

  “Everyday,” one customer told KPIX. “You see (shoplifting), you just mind your own business.”

  Another customer told KPIX that the new sliding gates are “the best.”

  That same customer added: “It’s going to cut down on the crime. I guarantee it cuts down on the crime.”

  “The more they shoplift, the more we have to pay for the products,” another shopper lamented to KPIX.

  The outlet also noted that, across the customer spectrum, there was a lingering sense of dread about store closures, which is an issue with precedent in the Bay area.

  A much-hyped new Whole Foods that opened in San Francisco lasted all of a year before a number of issues — including shoplifting — shuttered the business in April.

  Time will tell if these new sliding gates can help mitigate the rampant shoplifting in the area, but that still leaves a number of other issues afflicting the jewel of Northern California — or at least the once considered jewel of NorCal.

  Apart from this bubbling retail exodus, San Francisco has been subject to a string of negative headlines, ranging from the bizarre to the tragic.

  Earlier this month, San Francisco mothers were being terrorized by youths with baseball bats.

  In April, San Francisco was thrust into the negative spotlight when CashApp founder Bob Lee was wantonly stabbed to death in the streets.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 21:40

• How Washington Ruined America’s Future
  How Washington Ruined America’s Future

  Authored by MN Gordon via Economic Prism,

  United States Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen has an incredible job.  She writes rubber checks to pay America’s bills.  Yet, somehow, the rubber checks don’t bounce.  Instead, like magic, they clear.

  

  How this all works, considering the nation’s technically insolvent, is quite miraculous.  But it works, nonetheless.  Again and again, the Treasury borrows money.  And Washington spends it.

  Yellen likely knows that full faith and credit is too good to be true.  The U.S. government’s gross fiscal mismanagement should call the veracity of its notes into question.  But why focus on it when there’s an abundance to be acquired from weekly Treasury bill auctions?

  On a recent trip to China, Yellen was spotted by a local food blogger consuming a plate of magic mushrooms.  An aide to Yellen later confirmed that she did, indeed, order them.  The restaurant’s “staff said she loved [the] mushrooms very much.  It was an extremely magical day.”

  We don’t know what their acute effects on Yellen were, while she was in Beijing.  But the mushrooms appear to be contributing to her chronic hallucinations about the U.S. economy’s current health.  This week, for example, while attending the G20 meeting in India, Yellen remarked:

  “For the United States, growth has slowed, but our labor market continues to be quite strong.  I don’t expect a recession.  The most recent inflation data were quite encouraging.”

  These, no doubt, are the fantasies of a person under the influence of mind-altering chemicals.  Either that, or her mind has turned soft over decades of working as a professional economist for the Federal Reserve and the Treasury.

  Tempered Perspective

  The unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is, in fact, just 3.6 percent.  Yellen can celebrate the data point.  But the quality of the jobs being created is not the type that will drive economic growth.

  Higher-paying technology and finance jobs are being purged.  While leisure, hospitality, and government are the sectors contributing to employment growth.  These jobs may be important.  Still, they will not create new wealth or help America compete with its global rivals.

  Yellen, while under the influence, also remarked that she doesn’t expect a recession.  Maybe this is why you should expect one.

  Her predictive acumen has missed the target in the past.  If you recall, in 2017 she said she did not believe another financial crisis would happen in our lifetime.  Since then, we’ve had one financial crisis after another, including the most recent bank failures this spring.

  Just this week, Bank of America reported its bond losses in the second quarter increased $7 billion to nearly $106 billion.  And Starwood Capital Group just defaulted on a $215.5 million mortgage on an Atlanta office tower.  Probably nothing to worry about, right?

  In addition, this week Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the mega chip maker, reported its first profit drop in 4 years.  Revenue slipped 10 percent from a year ago.  What’s more, net income fell 23.3 percent.  Wasn’t AI supposed to drive silicon wafer production to commanding heights?

  With respect to what Yellen called ‘encouraging inflation data’.  While under the influence, she was likely referring to the recent CPI report from the BLS, which showed that in June, consumer prices increased at an annualized rate of 3 percent.  This is still 50 percent higher than the Fed’s arbitrary inflation target.

  Moreover, the energy commodities component showed a 16.7 percent price decline over the last year.  This has coincided with President Biden draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 40-year low.  Without these short-sighted actions, the current inflation data would be much less encouraging.

  Structural Crisis

  In short, the U.S. economy’s prospects do not quite align with Yellen’s positive outlook.  And if you look out further than just the current data reports, you’ll be greeted with a structural crisis of significant consequence.

  In fact, simple arithmetic quickly reveals the precarious predicament the 118th Congress is putting the American people in.

  The Treasury Department, the agency Yellen oversees, recently reported that for the first 9 months of the 2023 fiscal year, the federal government ran a budget deficit of nearly $1.4 trillion.  That’s a 170 percent increase from the same period last year.

  The big surprise, however, was that interest on Treasury debt securities for the first 9 months of FY2023 topped $652 billion.  A 25 percent increase for this period a year ago.

  Rapid and repeated interest rate hikes by the Fed to contain the raging price inflation of its own making, has blown out the interest owed on Treasury debt.  Anyone with half an inkling knew this was coming from miles away.

  The growth of federal debt has been out of control for decades.  But the rate of debt growth in the 21st century has rapidly accelerated.

  The solution that’s commonly offered by the politicians for getting a handle on Washington’s debt problem is for the economy to somehow grow its way out.  Countless policies over the years have generally involved borrowing money from the future and spending it today.

  Yet economic growth never manages to outpace the debt increases.  Instead, the debt piles up higher and higher with each passing year.  The simple fact is you can’t grow your way out of debt when the debt’s increasing faster than gross domestic product (GDP).

  For example, in 2000 the federal debt was about $5.6 trillion, and U.S. GDP was about $10 trillion.  Today, the federal debt is over $32.5 trillion, and GDP is about $26.5 trillion.  In just 23 years the federal debt has increased by over 480 percent while GDP has increased just 165 percent.

  How Washington Ruined America’s Future

  Recently, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation attempted to characterize the $32 trillion federal debt.  The number is so large it is difficult to comprehend.  Here is some of what the foundation came up with:

  The $32 trillion debt is more than the combined values of the economies of China, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  It represents $244,000 per household or $96,000 per person in America.  And if every household contributed $1,000 per month towards paying down the national debt it would take over 20 years.

  Without question, Washington has run up an impossible tab.  Yet, what does it have to show for all this recklessness?

  America’s cities are decaying from the inside out.  The infrastructure is crumbling.  The country has been involved in one overseas quagmire after another.  And the populace is struggling with gender identification pronouns.

  The political will to stop this massive debt pileup has been nonexistent.  Democrats and Republicans have both spent like drunken sailors.  There’s been no tradeoffs or compromises to cut spending.  There’s been zero effort to balance the budget.  And now it’s too late.

  As mentioned above, interest on Treasury debt securities for the first 9 months of FY2023 topped $652 billion – a 25 percent increase from a year ago.  But this is just the beginning.

  As interest rates continue to rise, the annual interest on Treasury debt will soon pass $1 trillion.  That would put this line item at par with outlays for Social Security, the U.S. government’s largest expenditure.

  This would also put spending on interest payments above the combined spending of research and development, infrastructure, and education.

  Consequently, by repeatedly borrowing and spending money, piling up massive debt, and then being forced to jack up interest rates, Washington has ruined America’s future.

  Yippee!  Look Ma, no hands!

  [Editor’s note: Is the Pentagon secretly provoking China to attack Taiwan?  Are your finances prepared for such madness?  Answers to these important questions can be found in a unique Special Report.  You can access a copy here for less than a penny.]

  Sincerely,

  MN Gordon

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 20:40

• CMT 'Murders Own Brand' After Pulling Jason Aldean Video
  CMT ‘Murders Own Brand’ After Pulling Jason Aldean Video

  Country Music Television just went full Budweiser after pulling the singer Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” which makes reference to the right to self-defense and firearms.

  

  CMT aired the video for a few days before removing it last Monday, sparking backlash over censorship.

  Critics of the video also pointed to the fact that part of Aldean’s video was shot outside a courthouse where a black teenager was allegedly lynched around 100 years ago.

  “In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous,” said Aldean in a Twitter post.

  In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous.…

  — Jason Aldean (@Jason_Aldean) July 18, 2023

  Aldean says the lyrics also refer to his childhood, when “we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief,” because “they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences.”

  “My political views have never been something I’ve hidden from, and I know that a lot of us in this country don’t agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy where we go at least a day without a headline that keeps us up at night. But the desire for it to—that’s what this song is about,” the statement continues.

  The production company behind Aldean’s video said that the courthouse was nothing more than a “popular filming location outside of Nashville” which has been used for a number of other productions and shows.

  “Any alternative narrative suggesting the music video’s location decision is false,” said the company, adding that Aldean had nothing to do with picking the location.

  “I’ve seen a lot of stuff suggesting I’m this, suggesting I’m that,” Aldean told concertgoers recently. “Here’s one thing I feel, I feel everybody’s entitled to their opinion. You can think something all you want to, it doesn’t mean it’s true. What I am is a proud American … I love our country. I want to see it restored to what it once was before all this [expletive] started happening to us. I love my country, I love my family and I will do anything to protect that.”

  “CMT just murdered their own brand and for what? Because a bunch of leftist[s] who don’t even listen to country music complained about Jason Aldean’s music video? Let’s give CMT the Target and Disney treatment. Hold the line!” wrote influencer Charlie Kirk on Twitter.

  CMT just murdered their own brand and for what? Because a bunch of leftist who don’t even listen to country music complained about Jason Aldean’s music video?

  Let’s give CMT the Target and Disney treatment.

  Hold the line!

  — Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 19, 2023

   Meanwhile Rep. Ronnie Jackson (R-TX) tweeted: “CMT has gone WOKE! Do they know who their viewers are? Guess not!! I’ll tell you this … I’ll NEVER watch CMT ever again. BOYCOTT CMT!!”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 20:35

• Shrinkflation And Skimpflation Are Eating Our Lunch
  Shrinkflation And Skimpflation Are Eating Our Lunch

  Authored by Jonathan Newman via the Mises Institute,

  Economist Jeremy Horpedahl dismissed the silly claim by anticapitalists that capitalism must engineer food scarcity for the sake of profits. He presented a graph of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data demonstrating a substantial decrease in household food expenditure as a percentage of income—from 44 percent in 1901 to a mere 9 percent in 2021. This is something to celebrate and certainly can be attributed to the abundance of market economies.

  

  But when Jordan Peterson asked, “And what’s happened the last two years?” I went digging. First, I confirmed Horpedahl’s observation: the amount we spend on food as a proportion of our budget has fallen dramatically. Second, I saw what Peterson hinted at: a significant spike in food spending when covid and the associated mess of government interventions hit (figure 1).

  Figure 1: Food and personal consumption expenditures, 1959–2023

  

  Interestingly, the spike looks like a blip. Someone oblivious to the events of the past few years might see this chart and say, “Yeah, something strange happened in 2020, but it looks like everything is back to normal.” I’m certain that this doesn’t align with anyone’s experience, however. Even today, no one would say that restaurant visits and grocery store trips cost the same as they did in 2019.

  What changed in 2020? Why does this graph not feel right? Assuming the Bureau of Economic Analysis data isn’t totally off (and it is important to be skeptical of government data), why would a January 2023 report on consumer inflation sentiment conclude that “there is a disconnect between the inflation data reported by the government and what consumers say they now pay for necessities”?

  The difference lies in the qualitative aspects of our experience as consumers. Spending proportions may have returned to their trend, but that isn’t the whole story. “Shrinkflation” and “skimpflation” have taken their toll on the quantity and quality of the food we enjoy—or maybe the food we tolerate is more apt.

  Businesses know that charging higher prices is unpopular, especially when many consumers are convinced that greed is driving price inflation. So businesses resort to reducing the amount of food in the package, diluting the product but keeping the same amount, or otherwise cutting corners in ways that consumers may not immediately notice.

  Thankfully, websites such as mouseprint.org document some of these cases:

  • Sara Lee blueberry bagels reduced from 1 lb., 4.0 oz. per bag to 1 lb., 0.7 oz.
  • Bounty “double rolls” reduced from 98 sheets to 90 (how is it still a “double roll”?)
  • Gain laundry detergent containers reduced from 92 fl. oz. to 88 fl. oz. without any obvious difference in the size of the container
  • Dawn dish soap bottles reduced from 19.4 fl. oz. to 18.0 fl. oz.
  • Green Giant frozen broccoli and cheese sauce packages reduced from 10.0 oz. to 8.0 oz. with no change in the advertised number of servings per package

  In some instances of skimpflation, the volume or weight of a product remains the same, but the proportions change. For example, Hungry-Man Double Chicken Bowls (a frozen dinner of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese) maintained a net weight of 15.0 oz., but the protein content dropped from 39 grams to 33 grams.

  And while firms are reducing the quantity and quality of the food they sell, consumers are also choosing to purchase less food and even lower-quality food. The January 2023 report on consumer inflation sentiment shows that 69.4 percent of respondents “reduced quantity, quality or both in their grocery purchases due to price increases over the last 12 months.”

  We have also seen a widespread and long-lasting change in customer service at restaurants. Many restaurants switched to providing only takeout for months or years. Even though the dine-in option has been reintroduced at some restaurants, the service hasn’t quite been the same, with QR-code menus, shorter hours, less staff, and terse demeanors.

  It’s not surprising that the massive government interventions, including creating trillions of new dollars, would have countless effects—some that show up in various statistics but many that do not. For example, if we look back at the period of German hyperinflation, we see surprisingly boring data on food spending proportions (figure 2).

  Figure 2: Household expenditures in Germany, 1920–22

  

  There wasn’t much change in expenditure proportions, despite prices soaring to absurd levels. The food price index over the same period increased 14,613 percent. All prices, not just food prices, were skyrocketing, so the expenditure proportions across categories remained relatively stable.

  Historian Gerald D. Feldman commented on the German household expenditure data in a way that sounds familiar: “As one study after another pointed out, however, the full impact of these changes had to be understood in qualitative terms.” There was “reduced quality and quantity of the food consumed” and “poorer quality clothing,” among other qualitative changes.

  Government statistics are unable to capture these subtleties. This should be obvious—your personal experience as a consumer is more than just the price you pay for a certain weight of food. We aren’t merely machines; we don’t describe our lives in miles per gallon or kilowatt hours.

  This is why Ludwig von Mises attacked the conceited aggregates and indexes purported to measure various aspects of consumers’ lives: “The pretentious solemnity which statisticians and statistical bureaus display in computing indexes of purchasing power and cost of living is out of place. These index numbers are at best rather crude and inaccurate illustrations of changes which have occurred.”

  He concludes: “A judicious housewife knows much more about price changes as far as they affect her own household than the statistical averages can tell.”

  Dr. Jonathan Newman is a Fellow at the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD at Auburn University while a Research Fellow at the Mises Institute. He was the recipient of the 2021 Gary G. Schlarbaum Award to a Promising Young Scholar for Excellence in Research and Teaching. His research focuses on Austrian economics, inflation and business cycles, and the history of economic thought. He has taught courses on Macroeconomics and Quantitative Economics: Uses and Limitations in the Mises Graduate School.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 20:20

• Biden's Gun Control Backfires After Fifth Circuit Ruling: Ghost Guns Legal Once More
  Biden’s Gun Control Backfires After Fifth Circuit Ruling: Ghost Guns Legal Once More

  The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Defense Distributed and other companies that make and distribute “ghost guns” and denied the Federal Government a “stay” in the case VanDerStok v. Garland. 

  This ruling allows Defense Distributed, Blackhawk Manufacturing Group (incorporated, doing business as 80 Percent Arms), Second Amendment Foundation (incorporated; Not An LLC, doing business as JSD Supply), and Polymer80 the ability to continue selling unfinished gun parts or 80% receivers legally — a significant blow to President Biden’s war on ghost guns. 

  Previously, US District Judge Reed O’Connor granted a motion for summary judgment against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) because the agency exceeded its authority. This judgment vacated the entire rule nationwide. 

  The Federal Government’s response to that judgment was to request a stay, essentially a continuance of the status quo until the case ends. Today’s decision denied that stay, with the court stating:

  “Because the ATF has not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, nor irreparable harm in the absence of a stay, we DENY the government’s request to stay the vacatur of the two challenged portions of the Rule.” 

  This is the third time the 5th Circuit has nullified an executive order by President Biden to usher in gun control. Notable cases, such as GOA v. Garland, Mock v. Garland and Cargill v. Garland, have stopped the enforcement of Biden’s “Frame or Receiver” rule.

  Defense Distributed had this to say about the favorable ruling: 

  “The 5th Circuit knows the ATF will not succeed on the merits. This rule was never the result of the popular will, but was instead a cynical ploy to launder Bloomberg gun control priorities through the APA rulemaking process as a reward for gun controllers supporting the Biden campaign in 2020.”

  In 2021, Biden directed the Department of Justice and ATF to ban ghost guns using the administrative rulemaking process. The result was ATF’s “Frame and Receiver rule.” 

  Recall Biden unveiled the new rule to rein in ghost guns and ban the manufacturing of untraceable firearms at an event in the White House Rose Garden in April 2022. 

  “These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals.

  “We’re going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice,” Biden said at the event last year. 

  

  The rule intended to prohibit businesses from selling gun kits without a serial number. However, following this new ruling, companies like Defense Distributed and Polymer80, which manufacture ghost guns, are now free to carry on with their product sales and expand. 

  Also, the ruling allows Defense Distributed to unleash a barrage of lawsuits against any state AG who decides to send a cease-and-desist letter over this legal victory. This is a legal ‘checkmate’ and will deter other states from taking matters into their own hands on this issue, as it often happens as state AGs routinely send these companies threatening letters. 

  *   *   *  

  Here’s the ruling:

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 20:00

• "Can You Ring Your Dad?" Joe Biden Spoke Directly To Hunter's Business Partners Dozens Of Times
  “Can You Ring Your Dad?” Joe Biden Spoke Directly To Hunter’s Business Partners Dozens Of Times

  President Joe Biden, a serial liar, spoke with Hunter Biden’s business associates via phone, dozens of times, while he was Vice President of the United States, according to testimony expected before Congress this week from Devon Archer – Hunter’s former best friend and business associate.

  

  The 48-year-old Archer, who’s facing prison time for his role in a $60 million bond scheme, is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee about meetings that were either attended by Joe Biden in person or via speakerphone, when Hunter would call his father and introduce him to foreign business partners or potential investors, the NY Post reports.

  “We are looking forward very much to hearing from Devon Archer about all the times he has witnessed Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden’s overseas business partners when he was vice president, including on speakerphone,” said Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the committee.

  One such meeting was in Dubai late in the evening of Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, after a board meeting of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which was paying Hunter $83,000 a month as a director. 

  Archer, who also was a director, is expected to testify that, after dinner with the Burisma board at the Burj Al Arab Hotel, he and Hunter traveled six miles north to the Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach to have a drink with one of Hunter’s friends. 

  While they were sitting outside at the bar, Vadym Pozharskyi, a senior Burisma executive, phoned to ask where they were because Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, needed to speak to Hunter urgently.  –NY Post

  “Can you ring your dad?”

  After Hunter’s drink at the Four Seaons with Archer and pals, Pozharskyi, the Burisma exec, asked Hunter: “Can you ring your dad?”

  Hunter called Joe, placed him on speaker, and introduced the Ukrainians to his father as “Nikolai and Vadym,” who “need our support.” Notably, two weeks before the call, on Sept. 24, 2015, US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt gave a speech in Ukraine about corruption in Odessa, in which he targeted the Burisma exec, Zlochevsky, by name. Of note, former Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin was investigating Burisma for corruption – and in fact seized four houses in Kyiv, two plots of land and a Rolls Royce belonging to Zlochevsky – who was then living in exile in Dubai. 

  One month later, Shokin was fired – and Ukraine received a $1 billion loan that Joe Biden had threatened to withhold.

  “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden would brag to the Council on Foreign Relations. “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.” 

  As Shokin’s probe gathered speed at the end of 2015, Pozharskyi ratcheted up the pressure on Hunter, emails on Hunter’s laptop show. 

  In an email to Hunter and Archer on Nov. 2, 2015, one month before the speakerphone call, Pozharskyi explicitly demanded that they use their influence to “close down” the criminal investigation against Burisma. -NY Post

  Three days after the speakerphone call, then-VP Biden was due to fly to Ukraine to address the Ukrainian parliament on Dec. 9, 2015, about the “poison of cronyism, corruption, and kleptocracy.”

  An urgent Burisma – VP Biden call took place on 12/4/2015

  What was the significance of that date?

  The NYT had requested comment for a on VP Biden’s connections to Burisma.

  Burisma was scrambling for a response – and wanted VP Biden’s “support” https://t.co/6wWzM2qyER pic.twitter.com/9jjD23ccm1

  — Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) July 24, 2023

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

  Archer is also expected to testify to other speakerphone meetings, including a Paris dinner where Hunter put his dad on speakerphone to impress prospective investors – one of as many as two-dozen such instances in Archer’s presence.

  Not just Archer

  Tony Bobulinski, another former business partner, recalls Hunter offering to ring his dad during a meeting by the pool at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

  “I am also aware of other Biden family business associates confirming that Joe would take phone calls from Hunter in the middle of business meetings and would weigh in via speakerphone,” said Bobulinski. “Sitting with Hunter at Chateau Marmont before I first met Joe Biden on May 2, 2017, Hunter was adamant that his father takes his calls at any time, no matter what his lawyers say or with gatekeepers like [former Biden spokesperson] Kate Bedingfield playing interference. 

  

  “The American people don’t fully appreciate yet the key role Joe Biden played in the Biden family global influence peddling … I would equate it to a chairman’s role in a traditional business structure.”

  Bobulinski says he met with Joe Biden twice in Los Angeles in 2017 as part of the vetting process for him to run a joint venture with Hunter and his Uncle Jim Biden, an a Chinese energy company (CEFC), which would end up netting them millions of dollars in exchange for no obvious products or services.

  JUST IN: Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer is set to testify this week that Joe Biden was deeply involved with Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings, attending meetings both over the phone and in person.

  Despite all of the growing evidence Biden is still… pic.twitter.com/MNrlaTA9k1

  — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 24, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 19:50

• Luongo: The DNC Soap Opera Gets A New Villain – RFK Jr.
  Luongo: The DNC Soap Opera Gets A New Villain – RFK Jr.

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats ‘n Guns blog,

  Last week was a big one for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  His testimony in front of a House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government created quite the row.

  It should not be a shock to anyone that the DNC is committed to killing RFK Jr’s candidacy.  The performance by Democratic members of the committee was just that; performance.

  They had their statements prepared, not for the general public but to generate the sound bites the rest of the Davos-controlled media complex will use to cut together propaganda pieces against RFK Jr., regardless of what was said, what data was presented, or anything else.

  

  This is how the game is actually played.  People like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz are there to play their part, hog the microphone when appropriate and ‘get the shot.’

  And that shot was to try and censor RFK Jr.’s testimony in a hearing about government censorship because he gave an opinion on research about COVID-19’s seeming ethnic bias.

  Efforts by Democrats to prevent Kennedy from testifying began earlier this week. On Monday, Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Judy Chu (D-Calif.) sent a letter signed by 102 House Democrats to House Republican leadership, requesting they “rescind Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s invitation to testify.”

  According to the letter:

  ‘Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly attacked two groups that have long been subject to deadly discrimination. His own credibility as a witness is nonexistent. Allowing Mr. Kennedy to serve as a witness before the Select Subcommittee only services [sic] to legitimize his antisemitic and anti-Asian views.’

  I guess the DNC still thinks they can shame us into not submission at this level of histrionics.

  Then they gave Economic Monologue to the voteless rep from the Virgin Islands to reinforce the NPC’s view of the evil GOP playing politics while the economy burns and jobs are being lost.

  If it wasn’t all so badly written it would actually be hilariously funny.  But it’s not.

  It’s all a big livestreamed soap opera, folks, with bad actors, worse direction, ad hoc script pages coming from the caffeine-addled third stringers in the writer’s room.

  They are the only ones left because, like in all things right now, there’s a skills deficit in all sectors of the economy.

  If you think the scripts coming out of Hollywood are bad, and most of them are, then you have to realize it’s the same people with the same functional deficits.

  It’s tightly scripted on their end to make sure certain phrases are said, captured on film and repeated ad nauseum through the 30 minute news cycle and seeded by bots into the social media cesspit.

  However, like Trump, RFK Jr. understands this process all too well.  He’s using it to seed ideas into the zeitgeist from alternative media sources which forces them to play whack-a-mole on an issue-by-issue basis.

  This isn’t to say that some of the issues he embraces aren’t good cannon fodder for the DNC because they are.

  *cough* Chemtrails *cough*

  But then that also begs the question why aren’t they making hay about those things.

  Because if you want to censor RFK Jr. for lacking “credibility” then this seems like fertile ground, rather than peer-reviewed research, which we are all supposed to unquestionably accept as fact.

  Or don’t we “trust the science” anymore?

  And he’s doing this months before the primary season begins for real while the DNC is trying to figure out how to replace Joe Biden with California Governor Gavin Gruesome while sidelining Vice-President Kamala Harris.

  RFK told the world what his strategy was when he was on with Joe Rogan and he’s following through on those statements.  He’s running the Trump Playbook from 2016 but this time using podcasts and alternative media voices rather than just Twitter to seed the zeitgeist.

  As I noted last week when I was on a podcast with Alex Mercouris of The Duran, RFK’s retweeting one of their videos on Ukraine and NATO was a massive signal that his staff is plugged into the alternative media at a level I think very few were suspecting.

  Every American needs to listen to the first 10 minutes of this conversation to understand the insanity that is driving our suicidal Ukraine policy. https://t.co/EsNFr276Ht

  — Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 9, 2023

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

  That tweet knocked me for a loop. Then this observation was further reinforced when RFK introduced the concept of gold/bitcoin redeemable US Treasuries is the real body blow to Davos.  

  This is a concept that I’ve been talking about for more than a year, advancing ideas put forth by Judy Shelton who was rejected by the Senate during the Trump administration joining the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

  High-fiving with Kamala Harris after blocking Shelton was one of the last things John McCain did before his brain tumor gave its life for our country and humanity.

  We know the idea of the US repairing its balance sheet is Davos’ biggest Achilles’ heel.

  A US with a corrupt globalist-tethered president is the fulcrum on which all of their evil rests, folks.  And “Joe Biden” is the perfect guy for that job. Like McCain, he wakes up every morning trying to figure out (if he’s figuring anything anymore) whose bread he needs to butter that day.

  I can’t put it more succinctly than that.  So, 2024 is all about ensuring no sovereigntist-minded person gets into the White House.

  And, unlike Trump, RFK is not the same kind of thin-skinned bully looking for payback. He’s a lawyer and the closest thing we have to the inheritor of American royalty. To think he won’t unmake most of what Obama has built over the past 14 years just out of spite is naïve in the extreme.

  In fact, I’d expect he already has a well-ordered To-Do List for his first 100 days in office.

  For that reason he’s more of a threat than Trump.  He’s got the pedigree.  He’s got the right strategy.  And he’s got, in political terms, the cleanest balance sheet of anyone on the campaign trail, Chemtrails notwithstanding.

  This makes him, by far, the most dangerous insurgent candidate they’ve seen in this Fourth Turning yet. Not Trump, not Ron Paul.  Certainly not captured Bernie Sanders.

  This is why as Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was trying desperately to keep him from speaking in front of Congress. It’s why Gavin Newsom all but declared his candidacy for president the same day.

  Newsom is being positioned to replace Biden on the campaign trail.  Time was running out with the primaries only a few months away. So, they got got crackin’.

  Newsom will inherit all of Biden’s money when Joe is forced out of the race.  There will be a negotiation between the GOPe and the DNC allowing Joe a way out of this with what’s left of his dignity intact.

  The big tell will be them doing to Harris what Obama did to Biden in 2016, sidelining the two-term Vice President to allow Hillary Clinton to run.

  It should also be no surprise that Mitt Romney threatened to switch his party affiliation to Democrat officially.  He knows he won’t be re-elected in Utah.  His work is done, now he gets to vandalize as much as he can before he’s out the door.

  Someone is positioning themselves for a either a Vice-Presidency vacancy or a split-party scenario once Joe’s been put out of our misery.

  RFK’s rise in stature through the grassroots of alternative media is a big deal.  He has his faults.  He may be yet another ‘looks good on paper’ candidate.  His environmental background is still very problematic for me.

  But his championing the Judy Shelton program of gold redeemable US Treasuries is such a huge tell that he’s for real.  This is a six-sigma event.  It means he understands what Powell et.al. are doing on Wall St. and at the Marriner-Eccles building.

  It means they are likely in consultation at the strategic level.

  Strategy matters.  What information you give your enemies matters.  How you go on the offensive while shoring up your flanks matters. I wish someone would tell this to the Ukrainian Military so they stop wasting thousands of men running headlong into Russian target practice.

  The Ukraine Middle Finger Trap

  The events in Ukraine trace a political throughline right back to Trump’s second impeachment and the 2020 election.

  While the DNC was persecuting Trump over the phone call to Zelensky. Back then, like many others I fell for the whole, “they’re impeaching Trump for Joe Biden’s crimes” narrative that was the low-hanging fruit.

  But I also made sure to always go one step further reminding everyone that all of the major players on Capitol Hill — Pelosi, Romney, Graham, McCain, the Clintons, Obama, etc. — were guilty as hell in Ukraine. They were all in over their hip-waders in the mud there.

  And the reality is… what this impeachment is really about is distracting and covering up the multiple layers of corruption in U.S. foreign and domestic policy stretching back decades. Many of the tendrils emanating from the events surrounding the FISA warrants improperly granted connect directly to the Clintons, Jeffrey Epstein, William Browder and the rape of Russia in the post-Soviet 90’s.

  We’re talking an entire generation or more of U.S. officials and politicians implicated in some of the worst crimes of the past thirty years.

  The stakes for these people are existential. This is why they are willing to risk a full-blown constitutional crisis and civil war to remove Trump from office.

  And it was the easiest thing to see unfold in real time.

  Ukraine and corruption there became the new third rail of US politics.  

  To Trump’s credit he not only touched that rail he lubed himself up in high conduction flux and rolled around on it until the rail exploded.

  The result was predictable.  They impeached him for it, for pity’s sake!  For what? Nothing.  It wasn’t what he said but what he signaled he was threatening by trying to broker a deal over Ukraine.

  For that alone, I have to give him immense credit.  Whether he’s the guy this time to exit us from this mess is an open question.

  But what’s important is that Davos’ plans as we have seen them play out since then have all been in the service of bringing us to February 2022 and Russia’s reluctant military operation against Ukraine.

  These globalists and Neocon freaks really did think they were going to win this thing.  They tore apart the US political system, rewrote whole swaths of the legal code, called in all the markers, activated every shadow operative — Alexander Vindman, Fiona Hill, John Bolton, etc.  They even got Mike Pompeo to tear himself away from the Swedish meatballs on the buffet table from time to time.

  Now they’ve recalled Nikki Haley from the Waffle House outside of Greenville to run interference on the debate stage this winter. She’s the only one Tucker Carlson didn’t completely eviscerate recently.

  The War in Ukraine has been a project close to 30 years in the making.  It’s accelerated since Putin’s speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference.  There isn’t any one issue that brings out the fangs of the Uniparty more than it.

  This is where RFK Jr. can really move the ball forward in a way that Trump can’t.

  Their corruption is so endemic it’s not just appalling, it is the thing they have to protect more than anything for their own personal empires.

  But now the whole thing is collapsing.  The GOPe is seeing the shift in the political winds on Capitol Hill. Blood is in the water not just over Joe Biden, but the entire rotten edifice. Is it possible they’ll finally get to Obama here?

  And they are beginning to press their advantage.  This is why we have Speaker McCarthy openly going after Biden.  Why there are IRS whistleblowers testifying.

  Lots of rats are beginning to run out of sinking political ships.  It’s a slow process and then it’s an avalanche.  Whatever finally takes down Biden will take down so many on the Hill.  

  Screaming “Anti-Semitism and Racism” at RFK Jr. by Broward’s Queen Debbie of old Queens, NY is so 2016 it’s not funny.

  While Elizabeth Warren is nearly ready for her close-up, Mr. DeVille.

  You’d think with the writer’s strike going on in Hollywood that some of those guys would be doing under the table work for their paymasters on the Hill.  Here’s the scary thought. What if they are? Then this thing is going to get more pathetic than Ilhan Omar stating with a straight face the recent heat wave brought the hottest seven days in the last 120,000 years.

  Maybe we really are in hell, and it’s not just other people.

  *   *  *

  Join my Patreon if you like air conditioning

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 19:40

• Warring Sides Vie For 'Alternative' Grain Export Plans As Russia Escalates With Strikes On Danube Port
  Warring Sides Vie For ‘Alternative’ Grain Export Plans As Russia Escalates With Strikes On Danube Port

  UN secretary-general António Guterres on Monday pleaded for Russia to immediately return to the Black Sea grain deal in order to stave off a food crisis amid rising prices.

  “With the termination of the Black Sea Initiative, the most vulnerable will pay the highest price,” the UN chief said. “When food prices rise, everybody pays for it. This is especially devastating for vulnerable countries struggling to feed their people.”

  But President Putin has been saying the opposite—that Ukraine exports have been intentionally favoring European partners while hard-hit populations in Africa and the Middle East suffer most. He has asserted repeatedly that Moscow did not sign on to the Turkey/UN-mediated grain export initiative in order to unfairly benefit already wealthy and food-secure Western nations.

  

  Guterres didn’t address these arguments of Putin, instead he pressed for the Russian Federation to “return to the implementation of the Black Sea Initiative, in line with my latest proposal.”

  “I urge the global community to stand united for effective solutions in this essential effort,” Guterres said. “I remain committed to facilitating the unimpeded access to global markets for food products and fertilizers from both Ukraine and the Russian Federation, and to deliver the food security that every person deserves.”

  The UN chief’s plan being referenced is described as follows:

  He proposed Russia extend it – with a daily limit of four ships traveling to Ukraine and four ships leaving – in return for connecting a subsidiary of Russia’s Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT global payments system, which the EU cut off in June 2022.

  Putin has also alleged that Ukraine has been hiding military cargo under the guise of exporting foodstuffs.

  Because of this suspicion, Moscow days ago warned that foreign vessels seeking to enter Ukraine ports risk being treated as military targets. Ukraine then sought permission from Romania to use its territorial waters as an alternate route. Russia’s military quickly responded on Monday.

  “Russia for the first time on Monday attacked a port on the Danube River in Ukraine, close to the Romanian border, Ukrainian and Romanian officials said, destroying a grain hangar in an escalation of its efforts to cripple Kyiv’s agriculture and risking a more direct confrontation with the United States and its European allies,” The New York Times detailed of the fresh attack.

  Russia is playing a dangerous game

  Last night, they struck targets right next to the Romanian border for the first time.

  This video was recorded by Romanians, showing the attacks on the port of Reni, right across the Danube river

  Romania is a NATO state pic.twitter.com/mJSvlUbxDh

  — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 24, 2023

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

  “The assault on the port in the town of Reni, across the river from Romania, a NATO member, targeted Kyiv’s alternative export routes for grain to reach world markets, days after Russia terminated a deal that had enabled Ukraine to ship its grain across the Black Sea,” the report noted.

  And crucially, “The attack is one of the closest Moscow has come to hitting the military alliance’s territory since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.”

  Over 50 Cargo Ships are currently Anchored in the Danube River between Ukraine and Romania with most waiting for the Ports of Reni and Izmail in the Odesa Region of Ukraine to Reopen for Grain Shipment after they suffered a number of Strikes by Russia Shahed-136 “Kamikaze” Attack… pic.twitter.com/8d6zAjXpZP

  — OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 24, 2023

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

  Location of the Russian strikes, just on the Ukraine-Romania border…

  

  Meanwhile, both sides are floating contrasting ‘alternatives’ and replacements to the original Black Sea Grain Initiative, but without the participation of the other. At this point, none of these ideas have been formalized. FT reported days ago:

  Russia is pushing a plan to supply grain to Africa and cut Ukraine out of the global market after Moscow’s withdrawal this week from a UN-backed deal, according to three people familiar with the matter. President Vladimir Putin has proposed a replacement initiative whereby Qatar would pay Moscow to ship Russian grain to Turkey, which would then distribute the crop to “countries in need”, the people said.

  As for Kiev, it is hoping to establish a land corridor for the export of Ukrainian food products to the EU, according to a fresh statement by Zelensky. But there are two obvious issues based on the greater logistical complexity (and in a warzone): 1) No comparable infrastructure exists to ship the same large-scale amounts by road, and 2) the price of the same shipments will massively increase.

  At the same time Russia is likely to escalate its attacks based on its rationale of ‘suspected arms cargo’ being hidden in the shipments. In this way immense pressure is being further brought to bear on Ukraine and its external backers (namely, what’s looking like a full export blockade taking shape), also at a moment of the faltering counteroffensive. Is this the start of the end-game for Ukraine’s defense efforts? Will catastrophe on top of catastrophe for Ukraine finally lead to some kind of negotiations in the near future?

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 19:20

• Rep. Jordan Says House Could Move To Impeach Merrick Garland At A "Pretty Quick Pace"
  Rep. Jordan Says House Could Move To Impeach Merrick Garland At A “Pretty Quick Pace”

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) indicated on July 23 that Republicans could soon move to impeach U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland following testimony from two IRS whistleblowers.

  

  In an appearance on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Mr. Jordan was asked by host Maria Bartiromo about recent public disclosures made by IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler and whether Republicans will move toward impeaching Mr. Garland.

  “It sure looks like now, based on the evidence that keeps piling up, based on what Sen. [Chuck] Grassley released this week, the 1023 form, what we heard from the whistleblowers this past week, and the conflicting statements from the Justice Department, it sure looks like we’re moving in that direction at a pretty quick pace,” Mr. Jordan said on July 23.

  “I will tell you this, the speaker has been very clear. Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy has said if we have to go to an impeachment inquiry, we will, in fact, do that.”

  In February, Mr. Jordan wrote to Mr. Garland about a possible special counsel investigation of Hunter Biden. The committee chairman said that Mr. Garland didn’t respond to him and has been “pretty quiet.”

  “I write him again, the attorney general; again, he doesn’t respond, but guess who does.” Mr. Jordan said. “David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, who’s supposedly handling the case. That, in and of itself, is unusual.”

  Later in the interview, Mr. Jordan made reference to the investigation into Mr. Biden and said it “could be more about the president himself” and suggested that President Joe Biden could also face impeachment. An impeachment would have to come after House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is finished with his investigation, he said.

  

  Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, looks on during a state dinner at the White House on June 22, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

  Watch the full interview below:

  Mr. Garland is scheduled to appear at a House Judiciary Committee hearing in September. Mr. Jordan said that any impeachment effort against Mr. Garland would have to be decided by the entire Republican conference.

  Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler appeared before a House committee last week and told lawmakers that federal agencies interfered in an IRS investigation into felony tax fraud related to foreign income connected to Hunter Biden. They said that Mr. Weiss’s authority was being limited by higher-ups in the Department of Justice, which Mr. Garland has previously denied.

  “It appeared to me based on what I experienced that the U.S. Attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited, and marginalized by DOJ officials as well as other U.S. attorneys,” Mr. Ziegler told the panel.

  And Mr. Shapley insisted that his allegations about limits on the authority placed on Mr. Weiss were “the absolute truth.”

  Mr. Garland “led Congress to believe the case was insulated from improper political influence because all decisions were being made exclusively by Delaware United States Attorney David Weiss,” Mr. Shapley said.

  “But that was not true. The Justice Department allowed the president’s political appointees to weigh in on whether to charge the president’s son.”

  Last week, some House GOP members floated the idea of impeaching Mr. Garland after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested an impeachment inquiry against him.

  “When a prosecutor shields his boss’s son from investigators, it smells like a cover-up. Garland’s DOJ did not aggressively follow the money. Why? Are they afraid where that trail ends?” McCarthy wrote for Fox News. “Clearly, someone is not telling the truth, and Congress has a duty to get answers.”

  The Epoch Times contacted the Department of Justice on July 23 for comment but received no response by press time.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 19:00

• Mayorkas Claims Illegal Border Crossings Are Down 65% Due To New Biden Policies, But…
  Mayorkas Claims Illegal Border Crossings Are Down 65% Due To New Biden Policies, But…

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

  The number of illegal crossings at the U.S. Southern border is down more than 60 percent owing to the Biden administration’s sweeping new immigration regulations, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

  

  Mr. Mayorkas made the comments in an interview at Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on July 20.

  The Homeland Security Secretary said officials have seen an approximately 65 percent drop in the number of people encountered at the border since Title 42—the Trump-era policy that allowed Border Patrol agents to turn illegal aliens back to Mexico immediately if they were deemed to pose a health threat amid the COVID-19 pandemic—came to an end.

  Title 42 expired in May, prompting widespread concerns that illegal border crossings into the United States would surge.

  “We have built lawful pathways for individuals so that they do not need to take that dangerous journey to our Southern border in pursuit of humanitarian relief, ” Mr. Mayorkas said. “We have accelerated our refugee processing, we have instituted family reunification programs, we use our discretionary authority under humanitarian parole and we are meeting people where they are,” he continued.

  “At the same time, we have sought to disincentivize people from taking that dangerous journey and we raised the evidentiary threshold that one must meet to make an asylum claim at the border,” Mr. Mayorkas said.

  The Biden administration has rolled out a string of initiatives aimed at deterring illegal border crossings since Title 42 came to an end, including a regulation under which most immigrants are presumed ineligible for asylum if they passed through other nations without seeking protection elsewhere first, or if they failed to use legal pathways for U.S. entry.

  

  Border Patrol Data Shows Encounters Down

  The administration had also expanded access to CBP One, an app that allows migrants to schedule an appointment to approach a border port of entry, and in some cases, has fitted members of immigrant families who cross the U.S.–Mexico border illegally and seek asylum with a GPS ankle monitor so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can continuously track them.

  However, Mr. Biden has also been criticized for allowing up to 100,000 individuals from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador into the United States under a family reunification parole process, and granting various other pathways for immigrants to obtain legal entry and work authorization.

  Despite concerns that illegal border crossings would surge after the expiration of Title, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) recently reported a decline in total encounters with illegal immigrants along the Southwest border in June.

  According to CBP data, encounters at the border, including individuals who presented at ports of entry with or without a CBP appointment, fell to their lowest level in more than two years, dropping around 30 percent from the previous month to 144,607 and marking the lowest monthly number since February 2021.

  The U.S. Border Patrol recorded 99,545 encounters between ports of entry, representing a 42 percent decrease from May, according to the data.

  In a press release announcing the figures, Troy Miller, CBP senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said the decline in encounters was due, in part, to the agency’s efforts to enforce consequences under Title 8 authorities, which allows expulsions if illegal immigrants don’t qualify for asylum, and the expansion of lawful pathways.

  Changes to Data Reporting

  Yet while the Biden administration is claiming illegal border crossings are down, House Republican lawmakers have raised concerns over how the administration has allegedly changed the way in which illegal entries into the United States are reported.

  Mark Morgan, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told Just The News this week that the Biden administration’s alleged encounter numbers for June are only focused on the Southwest border and not nationwide encounters, which he said paints an inaccurate view of the real number of encounters.

  Total nationwide encounters, he said, show that since Mr. Biden took office, encounters have risen 350 percent.

  The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.

  GOP lawmakers have also been calling for Mr. Mayorkas’s salary to be eliminated in response to what they say is his failure to enforce the southern border amid an increase in illegal immigrants crossing into the United States under his watch.

  Republicans are contemplating using the Holman Rule, which allows lawmakers to file amendments to appropriations legislation that would reduce the salary of or fire specific federal employees, or cut a specific program, to reduce Mr. Mayorkas’s salary to zero.

  “People are sick of inaction against elected officials who betray their oath and refuse to do their jobs. Congress is given the power of the purse by the Constitution, and if the president’s Cabinet secretaries won’t do their jobs, we should consider using any tool, including the Holman Rule, to defund them and their ability to do further damage,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said in a statement earlier this month.

  “Do your [expletive] job or Congress will act,” she said.

  Articles of impeachment have also been filed against Mr. Mayorkas over his handling of the border.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/24/2023 – 18:40

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• "The Race In This Cold Is Not About FX Devaluation; It's Technological – Like The Ones Before"
  “The Race In This Cold Is Not About FX Devaluation; It’s Technological – Like The Ones Before”

  By Marcel Kasumovich of One River Asset Management

  “Membership in the WTO, of course, will not create a free society in China overnight or guarantee that China will play by global rules,” President Bill Clinton said in pitch-mode. “But over time, I believe it will move China faster and further in the right direction.” Leadership requires risk. Being in a position of command demands that you adjust to the new realities decisively, tossing ego aside. WTO may have been the inevitable start of the next cold war. Or it may have been, as Clinton intimated, the alternative was worse. No matter – a strong China is a reality.

  China seized its moment with rapid export growth, a well-narrated story. The world economy has advanced at a 5% annualized pace since 2000, growing to $100 trillion last year. China’s goods exports, at $2.7 trillion, may not seem particularly exciting as a share of world GDP. But the growth since 2000 has averaged 12% per annum. And China exports share of world GDP leapt 4x since then. It is not nuts and bolts, either – it is higher value-add. China export complexity is now 25th place, on par with rich European countries and up from 54th in 2000.

  “I believe that my bilateral meetings served as a step forward in our effort to put the US-China relationship on surer footing,” Yellen said after two days and ten hours of meetings. “We believe that the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive,” the Secretary of the Treasury emphasized in a clear effort to deescalate tensions. Yellen is left to navigate growing frictions, inheriting a shaky position. She also left plenty of those behind. That’s the job – decide to take the pain today for better outcomes tomorrow or punt it forward.

  China has a voice again. And Beijing is using it – mostly through actions. Yellen’s visit follows the China Commerce Ministry imposing export restrictions on two key inputs for semiconductor production – gallium and germanium. Those start August 1. It’s not a ban – Chinese exporters will now need licenses to explain how the metals are being used by importers. But it is a clear warning shot. The political playing field is more level than in 2000 or even 2018. Yellen getting on a plane to visit Premier Li already made that point, emphatically.

  Royalty? China’s launch up the value curve is evident in subtle ways – like royalties and licensing. China came first in nuclear fusion patents on a careful survey by Japanese researchers. Patent trade has exploded – China royalties’ exports are up nearly 100x since the start of WTO. It has never been about FX devaluation as the path to prosperity. And now it is explicit – China policy is setting CNY to higher valuations against the USD than where it trades in the market. The race in this cold war is technological – like the ones before.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 23:00

• 'Serious Doubt' About COVID-19 Vaccine Safety After Forced Release Of 15,000 Pages Of Clinical Trial Data
  ‘Serious Doubt’ About COVID-19 Vaccine Safety After Forced Release Of 15,000 Pages Of Clinical Trial Data

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

  

  Conservative public interest advocacy group Defending the Republic (DTR) has obtained almost 15,000 pages of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data, claiming the data show an “utter lack of thoroughness” of the trials and calls the vaccine’s safety into “serious doubt.”

  As a result of successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the group recently announced it had obtained—and is releasing—nearly 15,000 pages of documents relating to testing and adverse events associated with “Spikevax,” Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.

  Since 2022, the group has been involved in litigation against the FDA relating to the production of data submitted by Moderna in support of its application to federal regulators for approval of its vaccine.

  As a result, the FDA agreed to produce around 24,000 pages of the Moderna records by the end of this year, with the 15,000 pages being the first installment.

  The records, some of which relate to adverse events related to the vaccine, include important information related to the safety profile of Spikevax, which was first authorized for emergency use in the United States in December 2020 and in January 2022 received full approval for adults.

  “The public can be assured that Spikevax meets the FDA’s high standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality required of any vaccine approved for use in the United States,” Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement earlier this year.

  But the new data call this view into question. The advocacy group says that the tens of thousands of pages of clinical trial data released by the FDA supports the conclusion that there is “serious doubt” about both  the safety of Spikevax and the FDA’s standards for approval.

  Neither Moderna nor the FDA immediately responded to a request for comment.

  More Details

  DTR filed its FOIA lawsuit after the FDA rejected requests to produce the Moderna COVID-19 records, justifying its decision by claiming there was no pressing need for the public to review the information.

  The documents obtained as part of the group’s litigation against the FDA are the first significant release of data from Moderna’s COVID-19 clinical trials.

  The studies reveal the causes of deaths, serious adverse events, and instances of neurological disorders potentially associated with Spikevax.

  One of the key takeaways from the documents is that many of those who died after receiving the Moderna vaccine were not given an autopsy.

  “According to one study, 16 individuals died after being administered the Moderna vaccine. The study’s authors indicated that out of those 16 deaths, only two autopsies were performed, five of the dead were not autopsied, and the autopsy status of nine of the dead was ‘unknown,’” DTR said in a statement.

  “Yet this did not stop those running these ‘studies’ from concluding, despite the absence of evidence, that the Moderna vaccine was not related to these deaths,” the group added.

  As an example, the group gave the case of a 56-year-old woman who experienced ‘sudden death’ 182 days after receiving the second dose of the Moderna vaccine.

  “The cause of death was unknown, and no autopsy was conducted. It seems they purposely decided not to investigate suspicious deaths in case the Moderna vaccine might be the cause,” the group stated.

  There were also numerous examples in the clinical trial data of participants diagnosed with post-vaccination Bell’s Palsy and Shingles, with numerous vaccinated trial participants seeing the onset of Shingles less than 10 days after getting the shot.

  The studies also showed that there were a number of serious adverse events noted in the vaccinated groups, with a number of participants experiencing heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, and spontaneous miscarriages.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 22:15

• 'The Perfect Crime': Tech Companies Are Manipulating Our Elections And Indoctrinating Our Children — How We Can Stop Them
  ‘The Perfect Crime’: Tech Companies Are Manipulating Our Elections And Indoctrinating Our Children — How We Can Stop Them

  Authored by Robert Epstein via the Gatestone Institute,

  

  Big Tech companies are deliberately manipulating the outcomes of our elections and the thinking and beliefs of our children. And they are having an enormous impact.

  If you doubt that, consider this latest snippet of data from my lab, the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT).

  Consider this: The GOP currently has a slim 10-seat majority in the House of Representatives. Without Google’s interference in 2022, it would likely now have a majority of between 27 and 59 seats.

  The 2022 midterm elections that gave the Democrats a two-vote majority in the U.S. Senate had quite a bit of help from Google, and, to a lesser extent, from a couple of other major tech companies.

  If Google had not interfered in the 2022 midterm elections, the GOP would likely have ended up with a Senate majority of up to eight seats.

  The Big Tech companies that exploded into existence over the past 20 years — as some of their prominent insiders have stated – have undermined our democracy, indoctrinated our children, and increasingly turned our freedom into an illusion.

  Tristan Harris, a former “design ethicist” at Google, says that he was a member of a team at the company, whose job it was to influence “a billion people’s attention and thoughts every day.” Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and one of the early investors in Google and Facebook, claims that Big Tech content has “morphed into continuous behavior modification on a mass basis.” Another early investor in these companies, the prominent author and venture capitalist Roger McNamee, has said that he now regrets having financed them, and asserts that they constitute “a menace to public health and to democracy.”

  Rigorous Research

  Such concerns are valid and the Senate numbers correct: we have been using rigorous, scientific methods to study Google and other tech companies for more than 10 years. During this time, we have discovered and quantified about a dozen powerful new forms of influence that the internet has made possible. We have also developed and deployed monitoring systems that track, record, and analyze the personalized content that Google and other tech companies send to voters and children 24 hours a day – in other words, we are monitoring their systems and doing to them what they do to us.

  Our basic scientific, peer-reviewed studies clearly show the power that Google and other companies have to alter thinking and behavior. Our monitoring systems confirm that these companies are actually using these techniques, as confirmed by company whistleblowers, as well as by leaks of documents, emails, videos, and other materials from Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

  The techniques we have discovered – the Search Engine Manipulation Effect, the Answer Bot Effect, the Targeted Messaging Effect, and others – can easily shift the opinions and voting preferences of undecided voters by between 20% and 80% after just one manipulation. Google can also repeat these manipulations many times over a period of months prior to an election.

  Assuming the effects of these techniques are additive, Google can likely produce even larger shifts in opinions and voting preferences than the ones from a single manipulation used just once.

  Google also knows exactly who is vulnerable to these manipulations – who is still undecided before Election Day, for example – so they can target and bombard just the right people on a massive scale 24 hours a day.

  Our research has shown repeatedly that the manipulations used can make them invisible to people, and can often produce shifts of 40% or more in the voting preferences of undecided voters without anyone having the slightest idea they have been manipulated. They feel free, even while they are being strongly controlled. As one journalist wrote, “It really is the perfect crime.”

  Finally, our research measures the influence of “ephemeral experiences” –– their term — meaning content that is seen briefly, affects the user, and then disappears forever, leaving no paper trail for authorities to trace, Most online content – search results, newsfeeds, video sequence, and so on – are ephemeral.

  Can Google deliberately use ephemeral content to manipulate people? You bet. If you doubt that, read this 2018 article from the Wall Street Journal about some leaked emails from the company. In that email exchange, Googlers are discussing how they might use “ephemeral experiences” to change people’s views about Trump’s temporary 2017 travel ban on visitors from seven majority-Muslim countries.

  Rapidly Growing Monitoring Capabilities

  In the days leading up to the 2022 midterms, the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology monitored Big Tech content through the computers of 2,742 registered voters in 10 swing states, and preserved more than 2.5 million ephemeral experiences – data that is normally lost forever – on Google and other platforms.

  We preserved overwhelming evidence of Google’s manipulations on their search engine, on their video recommendations on YouTube (owned by Google), and even on their homepage on Election Day. On that day in Florida, for example, 100% of liberals received go-vote reminders on their version of Google’s homepage (Figure 1), but only 59% of conservatives did (Figure 2).

  

  The Tried and Tested Solution: a Permanent, Self-Sustaining Monitoring System

  Google can, overall, easily shift the votes of between 20-80% of undecided voters; right now, that is about 40% of the electorate. This could be enormously consequential. By mid-2024, 20% of voters will likely still not have made up their minds on who to support. At that point, Google will still be able to shift up to 80% of the votes of those individuals — or up to 16% percent of the electorate.

  If, in 2024, 158 million people cast ballots, as they did in 2020, it means Google could likely shift the votes of between 6.4 and 25.5 million people, thereby easily controlling the outcome of any election in which the projected win margin is less than 4%. No laws or regulations are in place to stop them, but our monitoring can. We are monitoring their systems and doing to them what they do to us. When the Big Tech companies know that their manipulations are being watched, they back off. It has already worked to completely shut down manipulations in one important election.

  On November 5, 2020, three U.S. Senators sent a strong warning letter to the CEO of Google expressing concern about the extreme political bias our monitoring system had detected in the days leading up to the presidential election – bias sufficient to have shifted at least 6 million votes to Joe Biden.

  As a result, Google immediately shut down its election manipulations in the two upcoming Senate runoff elections in Georgia.

  We were monitoring Google content through the computers of a politically-balanced group of more than 1,000 registered voters in that state. Go-vote reminders ceased, and so did bias in Google search results.

  In other words, monitoring, combined with political pressure from our leaders and our public, can and will force Google and other tech companies to stay clear of our elections and our children. It will also give legislators, regulators, and litigants the ammunition they need to challenge both the company and its executives in court.

  Since 2016, we set up six election monitoring systems, for only the weeks leading up to each election. After the 2022 midterms – with the results being so blatant and disturbing – we decided that the time had finally come to set up a permanent monitoring system in all 50 states – a $50 million project that we were able to launch with $3 million indentations from some patriotic Americans.

  Without a permanent system like this in place, we will never know the extent to which Google-and-the-Gang are messing with our elections, our kids, or even with our own heads.

  Yes, they do mess with us. As explained in “How Google Stopped the Red Wave,” whenever you see online content screaming about Democrats who have perpetrated widespread ballot harvesting or ballot box stuffing, you are being manipulated by Google-and-the-Gang. It is their algorithms – controlled very precisely by their employees – that decide what content goes viral and what content is suppressed. If stories about other election irregularities are spreading like wildfire online and then being echoed on the news, it is because Google-and-the-Gang want them to. Why?

  So you will not look at them – at the tech companies themselves.

  As of this writing, we are preserving and analyzing Big Tech content through the computers of a politically-balanced group of 9,838 registered voters in all 50 states, and we have met our minimum “representative sample” thresholds in 5 states. We are also now monitoring and preserving content – some of which is quite alarming – through the phones and mobile devices of children and teens.

  Best of all, we have now preserved more than 25 million ephemeral experiences on Google and other platforms – content that is normally lost forever. Our goal is to make our findings available to the public in real time, 24 hours a day, through dashboards such as America’s Digital Shield.

  The problem is: unless we can find additional major funding soon, we will have to start scaling down our effort in August and may have to shut it down completely soon after.

  If this type of election interference continues unmonitored and unchallenged, could the GOP itself – and ultimately all of American democracy – become ephemeral experiences?

  Note from the author: If you are concerned about the dangers the Big Tech companies pose to our democracy, our children, and our autonomy, please contribute at https://MyGoogleResearch.com. All donations are fully tax-deductible.

  Robert Epstein earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1981. He is currently Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He has published 15 books and more than 300 articles in both mainstream media outlets and scientific journals, among them, Science, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. He is the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine and was a longtime contributing editor at Scientific American. His 2019 Congressional testimony about Google can be viewed at https://EpsteinTestimony.com. To support or learn about his work, visit https://MyGoogleResearch.com or https://TechWatchProject.org.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 20:45

• Texas' Operation Lone Star Seizes 422 Million Doses Of Fentanyl, Nearly 400K Migrants Arrested
  Texas’ Operation Lone Star Seizes 422 Million Doses Of Fentanyl, Nearly 400K Migrants Arrested

  Republican Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s operation to halt the influx of illegal immigrants, weapons and drugs into the United States has resulted in the seizure of more than 422 million lethal doses of fentanyl, and the apprehension of 394,200 illegal immigrants.

  

  Dubbed Operation Lone Star, the mission launched in March 2021 between the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

  “Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to over 394,200 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 31,300 criminal arrests, with more than 29,100 felony charges reported. In the fight against fentanyl, Texas law enforcement has seized over 422 million lethal doses of fentanyl during this border mission,” Abbott’s office said in a Friday statement.

  Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border. Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies.

  Meanwhile, the Abbott administration has bused more than 27,260 migrants to Democrat-run sanctuary cities across the nation – with most ending up in Washington DC and New York City.

  As Just the News notes, “The announcement about the operation’s achievements comes as the Justice Department plans to sue Texas over the state’s use of a floating barrier to stop illegal migration across the Rio Grande River, which separates Texas from Mexico. Abbott has fired back against the federal government, stating that his state has the authority to defend its border.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 20:00

• It’s Time To Acknowledge America’s Education Crisis
  It’s Time To Acknowledge America’s Education Crisis

  Authored by Tina Blum Cohen via American Greatness,

  

  The recent Supreme Court ruling regarding college admissions has once again thrust America’s educational system into the spotlight. A major question that has come from this ruling is whether America’s children are being intellectually and academically prepared to even enter or succeed in these colleges and universities. The tragic answer is that America’s public education system is failing to equip our youth with the tools necessary to succeed in higher education and in their future professional lives. We are failing America’s most valuable asset—our children.

  According to the Department of Education’s own report on the state of education in America, we are experiencing what is essentially an educational crisis. Scores in every subject and grade level have been declining over the years. While illogical and unscientific Covid policies certainly worsened the crisis to a point that lawmakers can no longer ignore the problem, the situation has actually been declining for years. Especially concerning are scores in reading and mathematics, with close to one third of students in elementary school behind in grade-level reading and only about a third of fourth graders able to perform grade-level math.

  Earlier this year, the nation was shocked to hear that 55 Chicago schools reported zero proficiency in math or reading despite billions of dollars of federal funding for the schools. But this crisis is not unique to Chicago. In my own Houston community, the Texas Education Agency has had to intervene in the leadership of the state’s largest public school district after years of failing to adequately educate our community’s children.

  Unfortunately for America’s youth and the future of our nation, public schools have put core educational instruction on the back burner, instead prioritizing culturally sensational philosophies. We now see schools artificially inflating grades in order to ‘pass’ students who do not have the educational tools necessary to succeed in higher grades. While this is done under the guise of “equity,” it is unfortunately setting kids up for future failure when they find themselves unprepared for the next steps in their education, and ultimately, for adulthood and success in society.

  Likewise, we see schools ditching the concepts of expectations and consequences, both educational and behavioral, including things like homework deadlines. Besides the negative effect this has on mastering educational principles that will be used to learn more difficult concepts later, this lack of personal accountability and consequences has our youth growing accustomed to an unrealistically lenient reality which does not exist in our society. We do our children a disservice when we do not intellectually and emotionally prepare them to deal with reality, including things like personal consequences or meeting deadlines. Imagine their shock when their first employer sets a hard deadline for a project, and they have no experience with being required to meet a deadline. They will have been set up for anxiety and potential failure rather than confidence and success.

  Beyond these misguided but culturally relevant philosophies that are failing to prepare our students for success, core educational instruction also has been eclipsed by ideological indoctrination. Instead of focusing time and attention on improving reading and mathematics, or even introducing practical principles of finance and economics, teachers and administrations prioritize the woke Marxist principles of social-emotional learning. Even as their students are unable to adequately read and write, teachers give classroom time and attention to discussing gender and sexuality, often behind the backs of parents who they know would not appreciate public school teachers having such discussions with their children.

  Even after-school clubs for practical skills or intellectual enrichment are being replaced by secret gender identity clubs, while activist educators go out of their way to entice vulnerable students to join and even encourage them to lie to their parents about their participation. These radical gender ideologies endanger both the minds and bodies of impressionable and developing youth, and yet parents who object are either vilified or kept in the dark entirely. In an effort to undermine parental rights and advance woke social agendas, schools go so far as to implement policies to keep secrets from parents, who are primarily responsible for the health and development of their children.

  The rising generation is America’s most valuable asset. They will carry on the legacy of the freest and greatest nation in the world, both enjoying and safeguarding our rights and liberties as they make valuable contributions to society. But this can only happen if parents, neighbors, and lawmakers come together to acknowledge and address the potentially catastrophic educational crisis which is already having a negative impact on America’s youth and their future. We must take the steps necessary to restore practical education to our public schools. We must protect the rights and facilitate the involvement of parents in every aspect of their children’s development and education rather than allowing public schools to go behind their backs. Now is the time to stand together in defense of our children and our nation.

  Tina Blum Cohen is a Republican running for Congress in Texas District 7. She is a graduate of Boston University. Education is a top priority for Cohen, a married mother of three.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 19:30

• California Demographers Forecast Population To Stagnate By 2060
  California Demographers Forecast Population To Stagnate By 2060

  Elon Musk was right when he told a Wall Street Journal forum in 2021: “One of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and rapidly declining birthrate.”

  The billionaire has since encouraged the public to make more babies as concerns of a population collapse or “Demographic Winter” mount.

  In a tweet in late March, Musk said that the US would face consequences due to a declining birth rate and that “Japan is a leading indicator.”

  Big reckoning coming due to low birth rate. Japan is a leading indicator.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 31, 2023

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

  “Population collapse is a major risk to the future of civilization,” the billionaire entrepreneur tweeted. 

  Musk’s comments should not surprise readers — as we’ve explained over the years, the Western world was already stumbling into a Demographic Winter.

  In a more in-depth view of America’s Demographic Winter, we focus on a new report from California demographers who warn that the state’s population might plateau in the coming decades. 

  The California Department of Finance released a startling report about its forecasted total population of the state will be around 39.5 million people in 2060 — or about the same level as it’s currently. State demographers were projecting 45 million just three years ago — and a decade ago, these folks were expecting a surge in population to 53 million. 

  

  A combination of a higher-than-normal death rate, a declining birthrate, a fall in international migration, and a flow of Californians moving to other states sent the total population down to 38.94 million in 2022, or minus 138,400 people, the first annual decline in more than a century. 

  “You don’t have those people, and those people don’t have kids,” Andres Gallardo, a demographer who works for the state government, told Bloomberg. He said this report is the first time California’s long-term population forecast has flatlined. 

  Even though California remains the nation’s most populous state, the economic impact of stagnating total population will mean municipalities will likely need help balancing their budgets. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 19:00

• Higher Military Spending Will Save Democracy, Says NY Times
  Higher Military Spending Will Save Democracy, Says NY Times

  Authored by William Astore via AntiWar.com/Bracing Views,

  Days ago, I got a story in my New York Times email feed on “A Turning Point in Military Spending.” The article celebrated the greater willingness of NATO members as well as countries like Japan to spend more on military weaponry, which, according to the “liberal” NYT, will help to preserve democracy. Interestingly, even as NATO members have started to spend more, the Pentagon is still demanding yet higher budgets, abetted by Congress. I thought if NATO spent more, the USA could finally spend less?

  No matter. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the hyping of what used to be called the “Yellow Peril,” today read “China,” is ensuring record military spending in the USA as yearly Pentagon budgets approach $900 billion. That figure does not include the roughly $120 billion or more in aid already provided to Ukraine in its war with Russia. And since the Biden administration’s commitment to Ukraine remains open-ended, you can add scores of billion more to that sum if the war persists into the fall and winter.

  

  Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times piece that I found especially humorous in a grim way:

  [Admittedly,] The additional money that countries spend on defense is money they cannot spend on roads, child care, cancer research, refugee resettlement, public parks or clean energy, my colleague Patricia points out. One reason Macron has insisted on raising France’s retirement age despite widespread protests, analysts believe, is a need to leave more money for the military.

  But the situation [in Europe of spending more on butter than guns] over the past few decades feels unsustainable. Some of the world’s richest countries were able to spend so much on social programs partly because another country – the U.S. – was paying for their defense. Those other countries, sensing a more threatening world, are now once again promising to pull their weight. They still need to demonstrate that they’ll follow through this time.

  Yes, Europe could continue to invest in better roads, cleaner energy, and the like, but now it’s time to buckle down and build more weapons. Stop freeloading, Europe! Dammit, “pull your weight”!

  You’ve had better and cheaper health care than Americans, stellar educational systems, child care benefits galore, all sorts of social programs we Americans can only dream of, but that’s because we’ve been paying for it! Captain America’s shield has been protecting you on the cheap! Time to pay up, you Germans, you French, you Italians, and especially you cheap Spaniards.

  

  Above: Look at all those cheap Spaniards. They have good stuff because of Captain America. Freeloaders! (NYT Chart, 7/12/23)

  As the NYT article says: NATO allies need to “follow through this time” on strengthening their militaries. Because strong militaries produce democracy. And European “investments” in arms will ensure more equitable burden sharing in funding stronger cages and higher barriers to deter a rampaging Russian bear.

  Again, you Americans out there, that doesn’t mean we can spend less on “defense.” What it means is that the US can “pivot to Asia” and spend more on weaponry to “deter” China. Because as many neocons say, the real threat is Xi, not Putin.

  We have met the enemy, and he is us. That’s an old saying you won’t see in the “liberal” NYT.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 18:30

• "Nobody Understands Where Bottom Is" For Commercial Real Estate
  “Nobody Understands Where Bottom Is” For Commercial Real Estate

  Starwood Capital Group’s Barry Sternlicht recently told Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein about the ongoing crisis in the commercial real estate sector, equating it to a severe “Category 5 hurricane“. He cautioned, “It’s sort of a blackout hovering over the entire industry until we get some relief or some understanding of what the Fed’s going to do over the longer term.”

  Currently, the biggest problem in the CRE space is sliding office and retail demand in downtown areas. Couple that with high-interest rates, and there’s a disaster lurking for building owners. According to Morgan Stanley, the elephant in the room is a massive debt maturity wall of CRE loans that totals $500 billion in 2024 and $2.5 trillion over the next five years. 

  Senior markets editor for Bloomberg, Michael Regan, chatted with John Fish, who is head of the construction firm Suffolk, chair of the Real Estate Roundtable think tank and former chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, in the What Goes Up podcast to discuss the biggest problems in the CRE market. 

  Fish warned that “capital markets nationally have frozen” and “nobody understands value.” He said, “We can’t evaluate price discovery because very few assets have traded during this period of time. Nobody understands where the bottom is.” 

  

  For a sense of recent price discovery trends, we were the first to point out to readers of a wicked firesale of office towers in the downtown area of Baltimore City: 

  • Beginning Of CRE Firesale? Baltimore Office Tower Dumped At 63% Discount
  • CRE Panic Hits Baltimore As Second Office Tower Dumped At 69% Discount

  As for the overall CRE industry, Goldman Sachs chief credit strategist Lotfi Karoui recently told clients, “The most accurate portrayal of current market conditions with Green Street indicating a 25% year-over-year drop in office property values.” 

  Here’s the transcript of the interview between Regan and Fish: 

  Michael Regan’s question: Can you talk to us about why this rise in interest rates that we’ve experienced is so dangerous to this sector?

  John Fish’s answer: When you talk about these large structures, especially in New York City, you get all these buildings out there, almost a hundred million square feet of vacant office spaces. It’s staggering. And you say to yourself, well, right now we’re in a situation where those buildings are about 45%, 55%, 65% occupied, depending where they are. And all of a sudden, the cost of capital to support those buildings has almost doubled. So you’ve got a double whammy. You’ve got occupancy down, so the value is down, there’s less income coming in, and the cost of capital has gone up exponentially. So you’ve got a situation where timing has really impacted the development industry substantially.

  The biggest problem right now is because of that, the capital markets nationally have frozen. And the reason why they’ve frozen is because nobody understands value. We can’t evaluate price discovery because very few assets have traded during this period of time. Nobody understands where bottom is. Therefore, until we achieve some sense of price discovery, we’ll never work ourselves through that.

  Now, what I would say to you is light at the end of the tunnel came just a little bit ago, back in June when the OCC, the FDIC and others in the federal government provided policy guidance to the industry as a whole. And that policy guidance I think is very, very important for a couple reasons. One, it shows the government with a sense of leadership on this issue because it’s this issue that people don’t want to touch because it really can be carcinogenic at the end of the day. It also provides a sense of direction and support for the lending community and the borrowers as well. And by doing such, what happens now is the clarity.

  Basically what they’re saying is similar to past troubled-debt restructuring programs. They’re saying, listen, any asset out there where you’ve got a qualified borrower and you’ve got a quality asset, we will allow you to work with that borrower to ensure you can re-create the value that was once in that asset itself. And we’ll give you an 18- to 36-month extension, basically ‘pretend and extend.’ Whereas what happened in 2009, that was more of a long-term forward-guidance proposal and it really impacted the SIFIs (systemically important financial institutions). This policy direction is really geared toward the regional banking system. And why I say that is because right now the SIFIs do not have a real big book of real estate debt, probably less than 8% or 7%. Whereas the regional banks across the country right now, thousands of them have over probably 30% to 35% and some even up to 40% of the book in real estate. So that guidance gave at least the good assets and the good borrowers an opportunity to go through a workout at the end of the day.

  Michael Regan’s question: This “extend and pretend” idea seems to me almost like a derogatory phrase that people use for this type of guidance from the Fed, or this type of approach to solving this problem. But is that the wrong way to think about it? Is “extend and pretend” actually the way to get us out of this mess?

  John Fish’s answer: Let me say this to you: I think some well-known financial guru stated that this was not material to the overall economy. And I’m not sure that’s the case. When I think about the impact that this has on the regional banking system, basically suburbia USA, we had Silicon Valley Bank go down, we had Signature Bank go on, we saw First Republic go down. If we have a systemic problem in the regional banking system, the unintended consequences of that could be catatonic. In addition to that, what will happen is when real-estate values go down? 70% of all revenue in cities in America today comes from real estate. So all of a sudden you start lowering and putting these buildings into foreclosure, the financial spigot stops, right? All of a sudden, the tax revenues go down. Well, what happens is you talk about firemen, policemen and teachers in Main Street, USA, and at the end of the day, we’ve never gone through something as tumultuous as this. And we have to be very, very cautious that we don’t tip over the building that we think is really stable.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 18:00

• CDC Changed Definition Of Breakthrough COVID-19 After Emails About 'Vaccine Failure'
  CDC Changed Definition Of Breakthrough COVID-19 After Emails About ‘Vaccine Failure’

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) altered its definition of COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated, leading to a lower number of cases classified as a breakthrough, according to documents obtained by The Epoch Times.

  

  The CDC in early 2021 defined the post-vaccination cases as people testing positive seven or more days after receipt of a primary vaccination series, according to one of the documents.

  The definition was changed on Feb. 2, 2021, to only include cases detected at least 14 days after a primary series, another document shows.

  “We have revised the case definition,” Dr. Marc Fisher, the lead of the CDC’s Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigation Team, wrote to colleagues at the time.

  The rationale for the change was redacted.

  A CDC spokesperson defended the altered definition.

  “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,” Scott Pauley, the spokesman, told The Epoch Times in an email.

  “That, in combination with the data showing that many cases of COVID-19 were incubating for up to two weeks before becoming symptomatic, required the change to refine the time period to eliminate cases where exposure happened before the vaccination response would be effective,” Mr. Pauley added.

  Dr. Harvey Risch, professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said there was “no cogent rationale” for excluding early cases and other events among the vaccinated, whether they occurred within seven days or 14 days.

  “With either of these delays, CDC addressed what is the theoretical best that the vaccination could achieve. If the vaccines don’t work for the first 7 or 14 days or increase risk of getting Covid-19 during that period, that is part of what happens when they are deployed in a population,” Dr. Risch told The Epoch Times via email.

  Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor health policy at Stanford University, said that the CDC should have been focused on advising people that they weren’t as protected immediately after vaccination.

  “Rather than playing games with the definition of breakthrough cases,” Dr. Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times in an email, the CDC should have warned “recently vaccinated vulnerable older people that they were at higher risk for being infected during that period.”

  

  An internal CDC email obtained by The Epoch Times. (The Epoch Times)

  Undercount

  The CDC excluded some post-vaccination cases because they did not meet the updated definition, the documents show, providing an inflated view of vaccine effectiveness.

  One document, for instance, shows that Kansas in early 2021 reported 37 cases among the vaccinated.

  Thirty-four were not counted because they occurred after receipt of one dose, not two. A primary series for both vaccines was two doses until recently, with the second dose not advised until at least 21 days after the first dose.

  The other three cases happened after a second dose, but they were not counted as breakthrough cases by the CDC because they happened within 13 days of completion of a primary series, Dr. Fisher informed colleagues in an email.

  On Jan. 29, 2021, the CDC learned in a call with Maryland health officials that a cluster appeared to stem from a person who was vaccinated with a single dose before experiencing symptoms. A CDC official said it was a “possible breakthrough case,” but the case would not have been counted under the earlier or later breakthrough definition.

  In another likely form of suppression of the true number of cases, states weren’t able to report cases through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System until February 2021, according to one of the emails.

  Kansas was the first state to send info through the system, according to a Feb. 1, 2021, email reporting the 37 cases.

  States could also report cases outside of the system through calls, as could health care providers, according to another email. Reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System were also analyzed for possible inclusion.

  The CDC started reporting the number of breakthrough cases on April 15, 2021. Some of the breakthrough cases led to hospitalization and death. CDC officials discussed breakthrough cases sporadically in public settings, but also made false claims about vaccine effectiveness, including claiming in March 2021 that vaccinated people did not get sick.

  

  COVID-19 vaccines in Washington in a Dec. 14, 2020, file photograph. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

  Change Came After Emails About ‘Vaccine Failure’

  The breakthrough case definition was revised after multiple CDC officials emailed about the vaccines failing to prevent infection.

  Dr. Fisher said in one missive on Dec. 21, 2020, that he was directed by a superior “to start working on a protocol to evaluate COVID vaccine failures or breakthrough cases.”

  Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director at the time, highlighted an editorial on Jan. 30, 2021, that described variants as a “growing threat” of escaping the protection from vaccines and said she’d spoken to the head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health about the matter.

  Around the same time, CDC officials circulated a one-page document about investigating post-vaccination cases.

  “What? There is a 1-pager from Tom about vaccine failures?” Dr. Nancy Messionnier, another top CDC official, said on Jan. 27, 2021, after hearing about the document, which was being distributed by CDC medical officer Dr. Thomas Clark.

  The version of the document The Epoch Times received was fully redacted. After Dr. Clark was asked for an unredacted version, the CDC declined to provide any other versions of the document.

  Dr. Fisher also made a presentation near the end of January 2021 on breakthrough cases and sent those slides to colleagues after emphasizing he’d developed them “for internal use” and that the slides “have not been reviewed or cleared by anyone.” Dr. Fisher did not respond when asked for the slides.

  Soon after the change, the CDC was alerted to a college athlete who tested positive for COVID-19 about three weeks after completing a Pfizer primary series. One CDC official described it as a “potential breakthrough case” and said data would have to be reviewed to see whether it would be counted.

  In a document distributed to states, the CDC outlined a number of ways post-vaccination cases, even one detected at least 14 days after a primary series, would not be counted. That included excluding people who received a vaccine that was not authorized in the United States, people with only a positive antibody test, and people who tested positive within 44 days of their latest test.

  Time Exclusion

  The CDC initially floated (pdf) counting a person as “fully vaccinated” as early as seven days after completion of a primary series but ultimately settled on 14 days after completion.

  The CDC declined to provide the name of the official who decided on the definition of fully vaccinated. The agency, in response to a Freedom of Information Act, also said it did not have any records on deciding to exclude cases that occur in what amounts to at least 35 days after the first vaccine dose.

  Officials pointed to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) materials that outlined the results from clinical trials from Pfizer and Moderna, which make the vaccines that the FDA authorized in 2020.

  The trials found efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 was much lower within days of vaccination. In Pfizer’s trial, for instance, suspected cases within seven days of a vaccine dose were 409 among the vaccinated versus 287 among placebo recipients. Moderna estimated a 50.8 percent efficacy within 14 days of dose one, compared to 92 percent efficacy 15 or more days after the dose.

  Observational data have also indicated lower or negative shielding in the days after vaccination, and almost immediately after the vaccines were rolled out, some vaccinated people were reporting getting infected anyways.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 17:30

• Tesla Attempts To Stoke Demand With 84-Month Loans Amid Affordability Crisis
  Tesla Attempts To Stoke Demand With 84-Month Loans Amid Affordability Crisis

  Most consumers rely on auto loans to finance new vehicle purchases. Tesla Inc. has offered an 84-month auto loan after Elon Musk said ‘something needs to be done’ about the auto affordability crisis, according to Bloomberg. 

  In general, 84-month loans are less common than 36 – 48 or 72-month auto loans, but with new vehicle borrowing rates at two-decade highs and prices at record-high levels, the solution has been to stretch out the payment for seven years to stoke demand. There’s one problem with these loans: the period is much longer, and the interest cost will be much higher. 

  Financing options for Tesla Model S Plaid

  

  “When interest rates rise dramatically, we actually have to reduce the price of the car, because the interest payments increase the price of the car,” Musk said in a July 19 earnings call. “So we have to do something about that,” he said. 

  According to Bankrate, a new car’s average 60-month auto loan rate peaked at 7.64%, not seen since December 2001. There are many Americans with +$1,000 payments. 

  

  Tesla’s chief executive officer has been critical of the Federal Reserve’s 16-month aggressive interest rate hiking cycle. Musk tweeted late last year that hiking interest rates were “massively amplifying the probability of a severe recession.”

  While there is no recession yet, used car prices have slid due to mounting affordability concerns. High borrowing costs have done exactly what the Fed’s goal has been, which is to stymie demand. We’ve covered the latest trends in used car prices in notes titled Used-Car Prices Continue Slide As Signs Of Normalcy Start To Reemerge and Used-Car Prices Tumble Most Since Start Of Pandemic, Record Drop For Month of June. 

  The move to offer 84-month loans is to stoke demand amid an EV price war with other carmakers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 17:00

• And Now, The Climate Gang Is Coming For Our Thermostats
  And Now, The Climate Gang Is Coming For Our Thermostats

  Authored by J. Kennerly Davis via RealClear Wire,

  In 2019, candidate Joe Biden pledged to voters that, if elected president, “We’re going to end fossil fuel.” Since taking office, he has worked ceaselessly with the radical environmentalists who call the shots and set the agenda to make good on his campaign promise by waging an all-out war against the production, distribution, and use of fossil fuels.

  

  The Biden administration immediately cancelled the Keystone pipeline and then blocked other pipeline projects. It has drastically curtailed the issuance of leases and permits needed to develop fossil resources on public lands and offshore. It has denied applications to expand refinery capacity. And it has issued unattainable carbon dioxide emission limitations designed to force the closure of hundreds of fossil-fueled electric power plants currently in operation.

  The Biden administration and its political allies in state and local governments have launched a series of aggressive regulatory initiatives designed to drastically restrict the availability and increase the cost of a wide range of fossil-fueled consumer products: gas stoves and furnaces, gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles, gasoline-powered lawn care equipment, wood stoves, and more.

  The openly stated utopian goal of all these regulatory actions is to “decarbonize” the entire American economy and somehow smoothly transition the whole country to a supposedly climate-friendly “sustainable” future that is powered and heated and cooled by electricity produced by renewable wind and solar generators.

  The Biden administration’s decarbonization campaign poses a grave threat to the reliability of the nation’s electric system. Electricity, unlike oil and gas and other forms of energy, cannot be stored in significant amounts. It must be produced by generators and supplied to customers in amounts precisely equal to the amounts demanded by customers at any given point in time. If the supply of electricity is not kept continuously in balance with the demand for it the electric system will crash, and a widespread blackout will result.

  Electric system operators can easily adjust the output of fossil-fueled generators, and nuclear generators, to meet customer demand as that demand fluctuates throughout each day. With electricity available to everyone “at the flick of a switch,” each of us is free to manage our daily affairs in the way that we find most convenient. The overall economic efficiencies and societal benefits that result from such flexibility are enormous.

  With renewables, it’s an entirely different story. Electric system operators have no such control over the output of wind turbine generators and solar panels. The amount of power supplied by these technologies depends entirely on the availability of steady wind and clear sunlight.

  Widespread smoke from the recent wildfires in Canada cut solar output across the U.S. Northeast by 90%. Calm weather cuts the output of a wind farm to a faction of its specified production capability. If the wind drops unexpectedly, system operators have to scramble to purchase replacement power from neighboring systems, or they must quickly cut power to customers enough to maintain system balance.

  Emergency power supply cuts are enormously disruptive for commercial customers, and tremendously expensive. Power cuts associated with wildfires in California have cost customers billions of dollars. 

  Independent regulators responsible for maintaining the reliability of the electric system are warning with increasing urgency that the forced retirement of fossil-fueled power plants and the growing reliance on weather dependent renewables pose a serious threat to the nation’s power supply. They are predicting that emergency power cuts will become more and more common in the future.

  Faced with such a threat, any responsible administration would moderate its energy and environmental policies. But that’s not what progressives do. They never change course, regardless of the objective evidence confronting them. They double down.

  If system operators cannot control the output of wind turbine generators and solar panels to meet fluctuating customer demand then, to advance the decarbonization agenda, system operators must be given the authority and resources they need to control customer demand on an ongoing basis and limit that demand to levels that can be meet by the fluctuating capabilities of weather dependent generators.

  Under pressure from environmentalists, more and more electric companies are installing equipment and implementing protocols that will allow them to remotely control customer demand continuously, not just during emergencies. California regulators have announced a goal to place 7,000 megawatts of customer demand under centralized control by 2030.

  To sell this normalization of power cuts, the companies have launched sophisticated media programs designed to convince customers that flick-of-the-switch power is an irresponsible indulgence that must be foregone, and demand “flexibility” must be embraced, to save the planet from catastrophic climate change.

  They came for our gas stoves and furnaces. They came for our cars and trucks, our wood stoves and firepits, our lawn mowers and leaf blowers. And now, they are coming for our thermostats.

  J. Kennerly Davis (Ken) is a regulatory attorney with over 40 years of experience in the electric and gas power industry. He can be reached at j.kendavis@verizon.net

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 16:30

• Woke Researchers Spin Mockery Of STEM/Trans Survey Into Laughable 'Online Fascism' Paper
  Woke Researchers Spin Mockery Of STEM/Trans Survey Into Laughable ‘Online Fascism’ Paper

  After a national survey meant to assess the representation of “transgender and gender nonconforming” undergrads in science, technology, engineering and math fields elicited a major dose of sarcasm and insults, five woke researchers have written a paper arguing the responses are proof that “fascist ideologues” are “living ‘inside the house’ of engineering and computer science.”

  

  Of 723 responses, only 299 were considered valid, and 50, or 15%, were classified as “malicious.” True to form, the researchers — all associated with Oregon State University — also claim injury from unwelcome words: 

  “The malicious words and slurs directed towards our research team had a profound impact on [our] morale and mental health…particularly for one of our graduate student researchers…who was already in therapy for anxiety and depression regarding online anti-trans rhetoric” and “had to be taken off the project to heal from traumatic harm.”

  Asked about their gender, many respondents identified as attack helicopters, a long-standing meme that mocks woke culture’s encouragement of people to “identify” as whatever they want. Comically, the authors took special offense that many respondents specifically chose the best-known attack helicopter: 

  “It is notable that the specific descriptor of an Apache Attack Helicopter is referenced by several different participants—itself a synthesis and reflection of U.S. military force and the appropriation of Indigenous language by colonizers.” 

  

  The 28-page paper is titled “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences.” It was rejected by multiple engineering-education journals before finding a home at “Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies,” which Northwestern University alumni can proudly claim as their alma mater’s contribution to society.  

  “Online memes associated with white nationalist and fascist movements were present throughout the data, alongside memes and content referencing gaming and ‘nerd’ culture,” wrote the authors, who call for academia to face STEM’s surging fascist menace head-on, as the survey results demonstrate “social justice STEM education must include perspectives on online hate radicalization and center anti-colonial, intersectional solidarity organizing as its opposition.” 

  There are plenty more word-salads strewn through the 28-page paper. Rather than ranch dressing, they’re served with a splash of Marxism: 

  • “The university at its most ideal can be envisioned as ‘a central site for revolutionary struggle, a site where we can work to educate for critical consciousness’ using ‘a pedagogy of liberation.’”
  • “Identities such as transgender status in STEM teaching should similarly not be taught as ‘single issues’ but be conceptualized as one component of our multifaceted experiences with power and oppression—and that categories such as race, gender, and sexuality have roots in European colonial logics shared by fascist movements.”
  • “Engineering graduates in the U.S. frequently work in fields such as fossil fuels, defense, construction, and technology upon graduation, and could be taught about these field’s relationships with national and global racial capitalism.”

  

  Keeping in mind that $5 Amazon gift cards were used as an enticement to participate, here’s a sampling of the responses that sent the study’s lead data analyst fleeing into the arms of a therapist…

  Gender:  

  • I identify as a gift card
  • Apache Attack Helicopter
  • Cis gender lizard king
  • A human being
  • F**king white male
  • V22 Osprey
  • DID YOU JUST F**KING ASK FOR MY GENDER
  • F-16 Fighter Jet
  • Pansexual attack helicopter
  • Non-cookie-cutter cis-furry dragonkin. Don’t judge. 
  • Quasi-Demi-poney; bankai-released state queercopter with a hint of faggotdrag lesbian and homosexual upside-down Frappuccino cake
  • I’m just here for the gift card

  Race/Ethnic Identity

  • I’m an ethnic gift card.
  • My skin color is not important 
  • Afro/Klingon-Asicatic Galapogayation
  • AH-64 Apache
  • Republican
  • Come on man, these questions are stupid. Everyone is a grab bag of genetics from all over the world
  • I’m a Swedish Muslim
  • Native American (Elizabeth Warren)
  • Pansexual attack helicopter
  • Cracker
  • Colored Native Mix w/oppressed ancestors
  • Born white but I spend a lot of time in the sun so I identify as a light skin black male
  • My skin is blue, I think I might be a smurf

  Disability 

  • I don’t have enough gift cards
  • My country is run by communists
  • Being 2.86% white
  • Pedophilia
  • Gender disphoria
  • Thinking I’m not a man
  • Being trans
  • That I’m a tranny
  • I’m mentally retarded
  • I have hands where my feet are and feet where my hands are 
  • Like all transgenders, my disability is the inability to come to terms with biological reality. Madness, essentially. 

  Open-Ended Responses

  • I am trans obviously I will have a job regardless of my skills thanks to diversity quotas inspired by surveys such as these
  • I don’t actually have any skills I’m just a diversity “affirmative action” student
  • You’re ruining genuine scientific disciplines here. There are two genders, male and female. If an engineer creates a bolt and a nut but then whimsically labels them, then they’re not that great of an engineer.
  • I wish people in universities (especially the faculty) would not focus so much on gender and identity. That doesn’t matter. Just let people do their thing and teach them how to do Gauss eliminations and whatnot

  Just think: If your wisecracks in our comments are potent enough, you too may find yourself quoted in an alarmist paper at the esteemed Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 16:00

• Asahi Gold Vault 30 Miles Outside Manhattan Added To COMEX Approved Vault List
  Asahi Gold Vault 30 Miles Outside Manhattan Added To COMEX Approved Vault List

  Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.us

  Those who keep an eye on the well-known COMEX daily gold and silver inventory reports, (officially titled CME’s “Warehouse and Depository Stocks”) will by now have noticed that a new depository / vault called “ASAHI DEPOSITORY LLC” has recently made an appearance on the reports, specifically since May of this year.

  COMEX inventory reports are always of keen interest in the precious metals space because they show, at least in theory, how much physical gold and silver in held within a group of ‘approved’ depositories / vaults in and around New York City to backstop or meet delivery obligations connected to the trading of gold futures and silver futures contracts on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX).

  Note that in addition to gold and silver, ‘Asahi Depository’ is also now an approved CME depository for storing platinum and palladium metals connected to the trading of CME platinum futures and palladium futures contracts on the NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange).

  Given that a new depository / precious metals vault joining the list of COMEX/NYMEX approved vaulters is quite a rare occurrence, it’s worth examining Asahi Depository and its approval by the CME Group (owner of COMEX and NYMEX), as well as looking at where the Asahi Depository vault is located in the US.

  COMEX SILVER VAULT TOTALS RISE OVER 2.2 MILLION OUNCES
  – Registered rose almost 1.2M oz. as the newly added Asahi Depository begins adding silver for the first time.
  – Open Interest is now equal to 254% of all vaulted silver and 2,252% of Registered silver. pic.twitter.com/JZgU1oPyY9

  — Michael #silversqueeze (@mikesay98) May 18, 2023

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

  As per the CME website, we find that Asahi Depository made an application to CME to become an approved depository for precious metals storage all the way back on March 15, 2022:

  “Application for Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium Regularity

  Notice is hereby given that Asahi Depository LLC. has applied to become an Approved Depository for gold, gold (enhanced delivery), silver, platinum, and palladium at the following location:

  Asahi Depository LLC       Location     Blauvelt, NY”

  Blauvelt is a municipality in Rockland County, New York, in the town of Orangetown, 30 miles from midtown Manhattan, and about 40 minutes drive from midtown via the NY-9A North/Henry Hudson Pkwy and then Palisades Interstate Pkwy North taking the Orangeburg exit.

  Following the application to CME in March 2022, NYMEX and COMEX then approved the Asahi Depository application on May 01, 2023:

  “Regularity Approval for Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Palladium       

  New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. (“NYMEX”) and Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“COMEX”) (collectively, the “Exchanges”) has approved the application of Asahi Depository LLC. to become an Approved Depository for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium at their facility in Blauvelt, NY.

  This approval is effective immediately.”

  While this might seem like a long delay between applying for approval (March 2022) and securing approval (May 2023), the delay – as you’ll see below – was probably due to the fact that the Asahi storage facility in Blauvelt, New York, was not fully up and running until early Q2 2023.

  

  Asahi Refining

  So who or what is Asahi Depository LLC?

  Asahi Depository LLC is a subsidiary of Asahi Refining, which itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Asahi Holdings, Inc. So technically speaking, a Japanese owned depository has now entered the COMEX precious metals storage market.

  For those who thought that Asahi is a Japanese beer, you’re not wrong. But … it’s not the same Asahi, and not even the same holding company. Japan’s famous Asahi beer is manufactured by similarly named Asahi Group Holdings. Asahi Depository is part of Asahi Holdings.

  Coincidentally, Asahi Holdings, Inc very recently rebranded as ‘ARE Holdings’, actually on July 01, 2023, so any confusion over Asahi Group Holdings vs Asahi Holdings will from now on be purely historical.

  Asahi Refining itself came into existence in March 2015 when Asahi Holdings Inc completed the acquisition of the Johnson Matthey Gold & Silver refining businesses in North America, following Johnson Matthey’s decision in 2014 to divest of its nearly 200 year old precious metals refining business.

  The Asahi acquisition included Johnson Matthey’s US precious metals refinery located in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Johnson Matthey precious metals refinery located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada.

  As per the Asahi Refining press release about the acquisition on March 06, 2015:

  “Asahi Holdings is a Tokyo, Japan based precious metals recycling company (collection, recovery, refinement) founded in 1952. “

  “Asahi Holdings is proud to announce on March 5, 2015 that it has finalized the acquisition of the former Johnson Matthey Gold & Silver refining businesses.”

  “The Salt Lake City, USA and Brampton, Canada refineries will collectively operate as “Asahi Refining.”

  The Johnson Matthey Salt Lake City refinery is now known as the ‘Asahi Refining USA, Inc’ while the Johnson Matthey Brampton, Ontario refinery is now known as ‘Asahi Refining Canada Limited’.

  Japanese gold refiner Asahi wins auction for the assets of bankrupt Republic Metals Corp (RMC) of Miami, with a bid of $25.5 million, after Asahi outbid the Swiss Valcambi refinery on Thursday – Reuters https://t.co/0MPkBLMGQx

  — BullionStar (@BullionStar) February 1, 2019

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

  Both refiners are on the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Good Delivery Lists for both gold and silver. Asahi Refining Canada is a full member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). Asahi Refining also operates a precious metals mint located in Miami, Florida and fabricates a range of gold and silver cast bars and minted bars as well as silver rounds.

  Further details about the precious metals recycling business of Asahi Holdings (collection, recovery, refinement) can be read here.

  

  Asahi Depository

  Let’s look at Asahi Depository LLC. The company Asahi Depository LLC was registered on December 17, 2021 New York State Department of State (NYSDOS).

  Looking at the Asahi Refining website, a press release published on June 02, 2023 refers to “Asahi Refining’s expansion into vaulting and storage services” where it “looks to establish itself as a leader in the precious metals storage industry”. This expansion is being done via Asahi Depository LLC.

  Specifically:

  “Asahi Depository LLC (ADL) is proud to announce its approval by the CME Group (CME) as a storage facility for Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Palladium.

  This is a significant achievement as the approval, which is dually applicable for both the Commodities Exchange (COMEX) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), ensures that ADL meets strict standards for security, transparency, and accuracy in the storage and handling of precious metals.”

  As regards the location of the vaulting facility, the press release goes on to say that:

  “Located in Blauvelt, NY, ADL is located within 30 miles of the CME in New York. ADL’s near proximity to the New York metropolitan area provides easy access to a range of financial institutions, and other industry professionals.

  Likewise, the location, just outside of Manhattan, offers a distinct advantage of accessibility without the hassle of navigating the city’s logistical challenges.”

  PDF version of press release here.

  

  875 Western Highway – Hudson Crossing

  Its very easy, using publicly available information on the web, to pinpoint exactly where this Asahi Depository vault is located. A quick Google search of “Asahi Depository” and “Blauvelt” reveals that the Asahi Depository is located at 875 Western Hwy, Blauvelt, NY 10913.

  The location 875 Western Highway is in the Hudson Crossing industrial park. The building is Building 11, and is 98,172 sq feet in area with a ceiling height of 23 feet.

  Asahi Depository LLC bought its building in Hudson Crossing in February 2022 from Partners Group & Onyx Equities LLC for US$ 24.565 million. The building is described as “100% leased, wet sprinklers, 6 docks, 1 drive-in door, CSX rail line spots”. See Lee & Associates Q1 2022 Industrial market snapshot here.

  You can also see plans of the building on the Hudson Crossing website, where it also says that the building, built in 1981, also has a 18,839 square foot mezzanine floor, and 40’ x 40’ column spacing. The site plan is also here on the CBRE website.

  

  Also in February 2022, Asahi then entered into a set of lease agreements with the County of Rockland Industrial Development Agency (IDA) so as to obtain tax relief, in which Asahi leased the property to IDA, and IDA leased it back to Asahi, and IDA promised to grant Asahi an exemption from sales tax up to US$ 711,000 for qualified expenditures up to US$ 8.5 million.

  

  On the Orangetown Tax Map, the Asahi Depository property (located at 875 Western Highway, Blauvelt, New York) is identified as Section 65.13, Block 1, Lot 2; in the LO zoning district.

  After buying the building in February 2022, Asahi also submitted some planning requests to the town of Orangetown on June 3, 2022 for modifications to the property:

  “Applicant is proposing to utilize the existing building for a NY based corporate office and for the storage of gold and silver”.

  “Applicant is proposing a new 8’-0” high fence which requires a 5’-4” setback from the property along the side yards and rear yard.”

  A more detailed letter on June 23, 2022 from Asahi’s architect to the Zoning Board of Appeals expanded on this request:

  “The building at 875 Western Highway, Blauvelt, NY was purchased by the Owner Asahi Depository LLC to be used as an office & storage facility where rare metals will be stored on site. The need for heightened security on the site is crucial for the operation of the facility. A new 8.0’ high fence is thus proposed along the side and rear yards of the property to ensure the controlled access into the facility.”

  Asahi also requested expansion of loading docks and expansion of turning radius area for armored delivery trucks.

  This request was heard by the zoning board on September 07, 2022 and the minutes of the hearing can be seen here, which include such facts as that Asahi’s armored delivery trucks are 75 feet long, that Asahi Depository wanted 4 loading docks (2 of which will be in use all the time), that they have trucks coming from Utah and Canada twice a week that are loading and unloading metal bars that are stored in the Blauvelt facility.

  Here the references to Utah and Canada refer to Asahi’s Salt Lake City refinery in Utah and Asahi’s Brampton, Ontario refinery in Canada.

  Asahi Depository has also recently been hiring staff for the Asahi Depository in Blauvelt, for example “full-time Security Guard positions available at our new facility in Blauvelt”, and also “full-time Material Handler positions available at our new facility in Blauvelt, New York“, and also a “a full-time Inventory & Logistics Administrator position available at our new facility in Blauvelt”.

  Conclusion

  You can see from these timelines that Asahi bought the Hudson Crossing warehouse property in February 2022, then applied for COMEX / NYMEX approval in March 2022, but then also needed to wait to receive local planning approvals and tax relief, and then presumably made security and other modifications to the property, and then CME granted the application for COMEX/NYMEX vault approval by May 2023.

   

  

  According to the COMEX inventory reports, as of July 20, 2023, the Asahi Depository in Blauvelt is storing 266,498 troy ounces of gold (8.29 tonnes) and 1,880,973 troy ounces of silver (58.5 tonnes), all of which is in the ‘registered category’ meaning that all of this metal has COMEX warrants attached.

  Interestingly, on July 18, a deposit of 593,497 troy ozs of silver (18.46 tonnes) was added to Asahi’s ‘registered’ silver category, which boosted the previous total of 1,287,476 ozs (40 tones) to 58.5 tonnes.

  COMEX SILVER VAULT TOTALS RISE 1.14M OUNCES
  – Registered rises 593K oz., courtesy of a deposit (not a transfer from Eligible) into the new-ish Asahi depository.
  – Open Interest is now equal to 264% of all vaulted silver and 2,076% of Registered silver. pic.twitter.com/JKulQqIgb8

  — Michael 🏳️‍🌈 #silversqueeze (@mikesay98) July 19, 2023

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

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

  The CME inventory reports show that the Asahi Depository has no gold or silver in the ‘eligible’ category. Apart rom the 18.46 tonnes inflow of silver, the quantities of gold and silver in the Asahi vault look static and don’t seem to be changing regularly at this point in time. But presumably that will change as the Asahi Despository at Hudson Crossing gets more business.

  CME warehouse inventory reports for platinum and palladium also show that the Asahi Depository, although listed on the reports, is holding no platinum or palladium in either the ‘registered’ or eligible categories.

  While most of the COMEX approved vaults are in New York City, not all of them are. This is because the CME (COMEX) Rulebook allows approved vaults to be within 150 miles og New York City.

  As per CME Rulebook – Chapter 7, 703 (11):

  ” The depository for gold deliverable against the Gold futures (GC) contract must qualify and be  designated a weighmaster and must be located within a 150-mile radius of the City of New York”

  For appoved gold depositories, the vaults of JP Morgan, HSBC, MTB, Loomis, Brinks and Malca-Amit are in New York City. But the vaults of Delaware Depository and IDS Delaware, are, as the names suggest, in Delaware. Now you can add Asahi to that list.

  For appoved silver depositories, the  COMEX list is identical to gold, except that the CNT Depository in Bridgewater, Massachusetts is also an approved depository for silver. While Bridgewater is about 220 miles from midtown Manhattan, the 150 mile rule does not apply to silver.

  This article was originally published on the BullionStar.us website under the same title “Asahi vault 30 miles outside NYC added to COMEX approved vault list“

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 15:30

• Visualizing America's $20 Trillion Economy By State
  Visualizing America’s $20 Trillion Economy By State

  A sum of its parts, every U.S. state plays an integral role in the country’s overall economy.

  Texas, for example, generates an economic output that is comparable to South Korea’s, and even a small geographical area like Washington, D.C. outputs over $129 billion per year.

  The visualization below by Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop and Joyce Ma uses 2022 annual data out of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to showcase each state or district’s real gross domestic product (GDP) in chained 2012 dollars, while also highlighting personal income per capita.

  

  A Closer Look at the States

  California is by far the biggest state economy in the U.S. at $2.9 trillion in real GDP—and when comparing its nominal value ($3.6 trillion) with national GDPs worldwide, the Golden State’s GDP would rank 5th overall, just below Germany and Japan.

  Here’s an up-close look at the data:

  Rank	State	Real GDP (chained 2012 dollars)
  1	California	$2.9 trillion
  2	Texas	$1.9 trillion
  3	New York	$1.6 trillion
  4	Florida	$1.1 trillion
  5	Illinois	$798 billion
  6	Pennsylvania	$726 billion
  7	Ohio	$639 billion
  8	Georgia	$591 billion
  9	Washington	$582 billion
  T9	New Jersey	$582 billion
  11	North Carolina	$560 billion
  12	Massachusetts	$544 billion
  13	Virginia	$513 billion
  14	Michigan	$490 billion
  15	Colorado	$386 billion
  16	Maryland	$369 billion
  17	Tennessee	$368 billion
  18	Arizona	$356 billion
  19	Indiana	$353 billion
  20	Minnesota	$350 billion
  21	Wisconsin	$312 billion
  22	Missouri	$301 billion
  23	Connecticut	$253 billion
  24	Oregon	$235 billion
  25	South Carolina	$226 billion
  26	Louisiana	$217 billion
  27	Alabama	$213 billion
  28	Kentucky	$201 billion
  29	Utah	$192 billion
  30	Oklahoma	$191 billion
  31	Iowa	$177 billion
  32	Nevada	$165 billion
  T32	Kansas	$165 billion
  34	District of Columbia	$129 billion
  35	Arkansas	$127 billion
  36	Nebraska	$124 billion
  37	Mississippi	$105 billion
  38	New Mexico	$95 billion
  39	Idaho	$84 billion
  40	New Hampshire	$83 billion
  41	Hawaii	$75 billion
  42	West Virginia	$72 billion
  43	Delaware	$66 billion
  44	Maine	$65 billion
  45	Rhode Island	$55 billion
  46	North Dakota	$53 billion
  47	South Dakota	$50 billion
  T47	Montana	$50 billion
  T47	Alaska	$50 billion
  50	Wyoming	$36 billion
  51	Vermont	$31 billion
  	United States	$20 trillion

  Altogether, California, New York, and Texas account for almost one-third of the country’s economy, combining for $6.3 trillion in real GDP in 2022. The only other state that reached the trillion dollar mark is Florida with $1.1 trillion.

  Texas’ economy is driven largely by industries like advanced manufacturing, biotech, life sciences, aerospace, and defense. The state is also home to a number of large companies, like Tesla and Texas Instruments, which make it a hub for jobs, innovation, and opportunity.

  New York state is a leader in the insurance, agribusiness, clean energy, and cyber security industries, among many others. Zooming into the New York City area reveals huge sources of economic output from the tourism, media, and financial services sectors.

  Regional Disparities

  While the aforementioned states are the big hitters, the median GDP per state was much lower at $217 billion in 2022.

  Under the BEA’s eight region breakdown, all states in the Great Lakes region had GDPs that were higher than the median, reflecting the industrial strength of states like Illinois and Ohio. Most of the states in the Mideast region including New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland also have GDPs higher than the country median.

  Comparatively, many states in the Plains region had lower GDPs, including Iowa and Kansas. Other states with lower GDPs (and generally lower populations) were spread around the country, including lowest-ranked Vermont in New England.

  Personal Income per Capita

  In addition to real GDP, this voronoi diagram has been color-coded in terms of personal income per capita in each state. Here’s a closer look at those figures:

  Rank	State	Personal Income per Capita
  1	District of Columbia	$96,728
  2	Connecticut	$84,972
  3	Massachusetts	$84,945
  4	New Jersey	$78,700
  5	New York	$78,089
  6	California	$77,339
  7	Washington	$75,698
  8	New Hampshire	$74,663
  9	Colorado	$74,167
  10	Wyoming	$71,342
  11	Maryland	$70,730
  12	Alaska	$68,919
  13	Illinois	$68,822
  14	Virginia	$68,211
  15	Minnesota	$68,010
  16	North Dakota	$66,184
  17	South Dakota	$65,806
  18	Rhode Island	$65,377
  19	Pennsylvania	$65,167
  20	Florida	$63,597
  21	Nebraska	$63,321
  22	Vermont	$63,206
  23	Oregon	$62,767
  24	Texas	$61,985
  25	Delaware	$61,387
  26	Nevada	$61,282
  27	Wisconsin	$61,210
  28	Hawaii	$61,175
  29	Kansas	$60,152
  30	Maine	$59,463
  31	Iowa	$58,905
  32	Tennessee	$58,279
  33	Indiana	$57,930
  34	Utah	$57,925
  35	Ohio	$57,880
  36	Montana	$57,719
  37	North Carolina	$57,416
  38	Georgia	$57,129
  39	Michigan	$56,813
  40	Arizona	$56,667
  41	Missouri	$56,551
  42	Oklahoma	$54,998
  43	Louisiana	$54,622
  44	Idaho	$54,537
  45	South Carolina	$53,320
  46	Kentucky	$52,109
  47	Arkansas	$51,787
  48	New Mexico	$51,500
  49	Alabama	$50,637
  50	West Virginia	$49,169
  51	Mississippi	$46,248

  Economic Engines and Future Growth

  Many of the largest state economies are fueled by strong urban populations. These metropolitan cities are the economic engines of the country, driving innovation and attracting new talent.

  The NYC-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area is a great example of this, generating over $2 trillion in economic output alone. Los Angeles generated $1.1 trillion.

  While these are the obvious and expected hubs, some new cities and states are beginning to attract new business and are anticipating significant economic growth. North Carolina, for example, has been ranked as the best U.S. state to do business in, thanks to a number of factors like ease of access to capital and a strong culture of tech and innovation.

  Over time, the centers of economic power may be slowly shifting in the U.S., but for now the top contributors to the nation’s GDP far outpace the rest.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 15:00

• America’s Mineral Strategy Is Missing American Mining
  America’s Mineral Strategy Is Missing American Mining

  Authored by Rich Nolan via RealClear wire,

  This may not be the reality anyone wants to hear but despite important steps forward, the nation’s minerals problem – notably the mismatch between soaring demand, available supply, and our alarming overreliance on imports – is only getting worse. And while the Biden administration has done important work to elevate the challenge, it has yet to clearly embrace the most obvious solution: more domestic mining. 

  

  This doesn’t mean the Biden administration hasn’t worked to fill holes in the mineral supply chain. It has. The administration is working closely with allies and overseas mineral producers to ramp up supply and has backed incentives to encourage development of domestic supply chains with loans and grants going to processors, recyclers, and, in limited quantities, to miners. But for everything the administration has said about critical minerals, it’s what hasn’t been said and done that’s perhaps most notable: The Biden administration has yet to plainly say we need to ramp up domestic mining and, in fact, has yet to approve a single major mine. 

  How can the U.S. possibly hope to address the enormity of the minerals challenge if we don’t place using our vast domestic resources front and center of any effort to do so? The short answer is, we can’t. And if we don’t solve – or get on track to solve – the minerals challenge, much of the Biden administration agenda will go down with it.

  This is an administration that wants to build, reshore, modernize our industrial base, rebuild our middle class, and compete with China’s industrial might and to accelerate the deployment of electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, wind farms, and tens of thousands of miles of transmission lines. Every piece of that agenda is incumbent on de-risking mineral supply chains and ensuring that the material inputs that make semi-conductors and lithium-ion batteries possible are both available and affordable.

  As the administration is so fond of saying, time is not on our side. Deployment of these energy and transportation technologies must accelerate to reach decarbonization goals. Yet, the current rate of deployment – and build out of manufacturing capacity – is already eclipsing the material supply chains needed to support it. 

  Consider the scale of the investment going into EV and battery manufacturing and the speed at which new capacity is coming online. New battery megafactories are going from blueprints to production in two years. Comparatively, the mines needed to supply those factories often take decades to reach production. 

  We simply don’t have the luxury not to energetically pursue domestic mining projects right now to build the massively expanded supply chains we need tomorrow. According to the International Energy Agency, global supply of key metals must expand many times over nearly overnight if we’re to keep up with mineral demand. For example, lithium demand is poised to jump 40-fold, and demand for nickel, cobalt, and graphite is set to soar 25 times by 2040. For copper, which provides the irreplaceable wiring for electrification, annual demand alone is projected by 2050 to reach a level equal to all the copper consumed in the world between 1900 and 2021.

  The U.S. has the resources – from rare earths to lithium to copper – to meet much of the demand now at our doorstep. What is lacking is the policy commitment to make it happen. As mines wait for approvals, as delays accumulate or hundreds of thousands of acres of mineral-rich land are withdrawn from potential production, our competitors, namely China, are only tightening their chokehold on the supply chains we know we need. 

  China’s mineral strength is now appallingly mirrored by our weakness. We’re now import-reliant for more than 50 minerals, with China the leading supplier of 26. The White House has warned that mineral supply chains could be weaponized in the same way oil was in the 1970s and natural gas was in Europe in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s not a matter of if but when it happens. China is already using its dominance of mineral markets to exert geopolitical leverage, announcing restrictions of exports of two rare metals just days before trade negotiations with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. 

  Secure, reliable, and responsible mineral supply chains need domestic mineral production under the world’s highest labor and environmental standards. The era of outsourcing essential industries, supply chains, and essential American jobs must end. And doing so means that made in America must also increasingly mean mined in America. The Biden administration’s minerals strategy can’t possibly succeed until it embraces domestic mining and we begin approving mines. 

  On mining, our time to act is now.

  Rich Nolan is president and CEO of the National Mining Association. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 14:30

• Meta Pushes Airhead Influencers Over Actual News As Priorities Shift
  Meta Pushes Airhead Influencers Over Actual News As Priorities Shift

  Facebook parent Meta is shifting away from current affairs and politics on its social media platforms, and will instead focus on short-form videos and content from influencers vs. news, the Financial Times reports.

  

  The decision comes after years of attempting to placate powerful publishers and striking deals with various media organizations. What’s more, Meta is currently in a stand-off with the Canadian government over legislation which requires platforms to pay publishers and broadcasters for their content. As a result, Meta announced its decision to remove the news from its feeds in the country, leading to a revolt by over 30 advertisers in Canada who say they’ll pull their ads in protest.

  “The Online News Act is based on the incorrect premise that social media companies benefit unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true,” Meta said, adding that news outlets can use social media to “help their bottom line.”

  Canadian minister of heritage Pablo Rodriguez disagrees, telling the Financial Times that he’s “deeply convinced that Google’s and Facebook’s concerns can be resolved through the regulatory process.”

  “If Facebook truly believes that news has no value, they can say so at the negotiating table. Threats to pull news instead of complying with the laws in our country only highlight the power that platforms hold over news organisations, both big and small,” he added.

  Meta is also assessing whether the Canadian legislation will require it to remove news links and other content on their rapidly imploding Threads app – which is built on the foundation of the popular photo-sharing app Instagram. The app notably prioritizes content posted by creators and friends over hard news or politics.

  Sandra Matz, associate professor of business at New York’s Columbia Business School, said that Meta appears to be discouraging news and politics from Threads as a business decision to avoid more scandals over misinformation and election denial, and to facilitate moderation.

  Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, insists Threads will be a “friendly” space in contrast to Twitter, which has loosened its moderation since Elon Musk bought the platform for $44bn in October, frustrating some users and advertisers. Meta has not hired new moderators for Threads but is relying on those at Instagram. -FT

  According to the report, senior Meta executives have concluded that there’s a fundamental clash of interests between the company and the news industry. According to research commissioned by the company, their 3 billion users prefer short-form videos and content from influencers over news and politics. Publishers disagree, and argue that news is a high-value offering that boosts engagement.

  “Without trusted news and being able to share that, you’re cutting out what is going on in the real world,” said Jason Kint, chief executive of Digital Content Next, a trade association representing the digital news industry. “Long term, the question is whether it’s sustainable for them.”

  Between the Canadian law and Meta’s internal research, the company has taken an increasingly combative approach – and claims that social media companies benefit less when news content is shared on their platforms vs. mindless distractions that give young girls body image disorders and generally degrade society.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 14:00

• US Experiencing 'Crises Of Early Death' Unique To Wealthy Nations: Study
  US Experiencing ‘Crises Of Early Death’ Unique To Wealthy Nations: Study

  Authored by Megan Redshaw J.D. via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

  A new study found more than 1 million U.S. deaths a year—including those in young people and working-age adults—would have been averted if the United States had mortality rates similar to other wealthy nations.

  

  Published in the journal PNAS Nexus, researchers assessed how many U.S. deaths would have been avoided each year from 1933 through 2021 if U.S. age-specific mortality rates had equaled the average of 21 comparable wealthy nations.

  The analysis includes Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

  Using mortality data from the Human Mortality Database and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, results showed the U.S. had mortality rates lower than peer countries in the 1930s-1950s, similar mortality rates in the 1960s and 1970s, and experienced a steady rise in the number of “missing Americans” in the 1980s.

  “Missing Americans” refers to U.S. excess deaths—people who would still be alive today if the United States had mortality rates equal to other peer nations.

  According to the study, there were 622,534 excess deaths in 2019. Numbers surged higher during the COVID-19 pandemic reaching 1,009,467 excess deaths in 2020, and 1,090,103 in 2021.

  

  Excess mortality was exceptionally high in people under age 65, with nearly 50 percent of excess deaths occurring in 2020 and 2021, despite data showing young people were least likely to die of COVID-19.

  

  “The number of Missing Americans in recent years is unprecedented in modern times,” the study’s lead author Dr. Jacob Bor, associate professor of global health and epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, said in a press release.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 13:30

• Monetary Vs Fiscal Dissonance… And The Return Of QE
  Monetary Vs Fiscal Dissonance… And The Return Of QE

  Authored by Kevin Smith and Tavi Costa via Crescat Capital,

  Monetary and fiscal authorities are currently running what we believe are unsustainably divergent policies. The simultaneous rise in the cost of debt by central banks and their deliberate reduction of balance sheet assets is entirely incongruous with the exponential growth in government debt.

  Following the COVID era, we have entered a period of fiscal dominance among major developed economies. Hence, the escalating debt burden is already near historical levels and compounding at an alarming pace.

  To sustain the current government spending deluge, we believe it is inevitable that the Fed and other monetary authorities reassume their fundamental role as the primary financiers of government debt.

  Quantitative tightening policies are the central banks’ own version of an illusionary “debt ceiling”, a disciplinary measure that needs to be consistently reversed in practice.

  

  Twin Deficits at GFC Levels

  The primary emphasis of our research will be centered on the United States, which is now running twin deficits that are as severe as those experienced during the worst parts of the Global Financial Crisis. This factor has contributed to the recent weakness in the US dollar. However, of even greater concern is the indication that this represents an ongoing structural issue that is still in the process of evolving.

  

  Note that with each prior recession, this measurement has reached new lows. This further emphasizes the importance of owning hard assets in this environment.

  Fiscal Impulse Turning Up

  The reality is that the fiscal agenda on a global scale has never been more expansive. While today’s severe inequality and wealth-gap issues have led to larger government social programs compared to historical norms, rising geopolitical tensions further exacerbate the issue. Countries acknowledge the significance of bolstering defense spending and the crucial need to reduce interdependence among trading partners by revitalizing domestic manufacturing capacities. Alongside this trend of reindustrialization, particularly among G-7 economies, governments persist in advocating for a substantial green-energy revolution, which necessitates a significant infrastructure overhaul.

  Indeed, in the US, the impact of such high levels of government expenditure is evident in the data. Excluding tax receipts, which have declined to levels comparable to those seen during recessions, fiscal spending alone represents a substantial 25.4% of nominal GDP in the US. That is higher than what we experienced after the global financial crisis or any other crisis in history outside of the Covid recession when the economy was in full lockdown.

  While interest payments are growing exponentially, that still contributes to a relatively small percentage of the overall fiscal outlays. To be specific, it accounts for less than 10% of it. Interest payments used to be close to 15% of government spending in the 1980s and 1990s when interest rates were higher. This number is set to undergo a substantial increase and has the potential to create a larger problem soon.

  Nonetheless, the US fiscal impulse has turned positive in a significant way recently, especially when calculating net of interest payments, which is now up 12% on a year-over-year basis.

  

  In a healthy economic growth environment tax revenues typically increase while government spending tends to decline. However, today’s situation is a complete reversal of this trend.

  Second-Largest Issuance in History

  The US is currently operating as if it were facing another pandemic lockdown from a fiscal spending and debt issuance perspective, yet there is one critical difference. Rather than the Fed financing over 50% of newly issued Treasuries, they are shrinking their balance sheet assets at the fastest pace in history.

  It is important to consider that, unlike during the recovery from the global financial crisis, other central banks have not been buying these government bonds either. In fact, foreign holders currently own only approximately 20% of all outstanding Treasuries, marking the lowest level in nearly two decades.

  

  Following the resolution of the debt ceiling agreement, the US government has already issued more than $1 trillion worth of US Treasuries. Notably, the month of June witnessed the second-largest issuance in history.

  Not Only Short-Maturity Treasuries

  As anticipated by the market, a significant portion of these issuances is comprised of T-Bills, which are short-term maturity instruments. However, what seems to be off the radar is the fact that there has also been a substantial issuance of longer-duration Treasuries in recent months.

  

  The significant increase in the overall supply of these sovereign instruments is exerting additional pressure on long-term yields, contributing to their ongoing rise.

  Nearly Half of the Federal Debt Matures in Two Years

  To reiterate, although US interest payments represent less than 10% of the overall fiscal outlays, these obligations are likely to surge even further in the next couple of years. Here is one main reason for that:

  The US will need to refinance almost half of its national debt in less than 2 years. As a reminder, interest rates were at 0% just 15 months ago.

  

  If the government decides to reissue these maturing Treasuries in short-duration instruments, as it did recently after the debt ceiling agreement, these obligations will need to be rolled over at over 5% interest rates.

  Surging Cost of Debt

  While the US government is shifting focus to boost military expenditures from historically depressed levels, the current interest payments on the Federal debt have already exceeded annual defense spending.

  

  This is likely the initial stages of a trend, and if no solutions are implemented, other components of the fiscal agenda may soon be constrained by the escalating cost of debt.

  Yield Curve Control: A Matter of Time

  The notion of an “improving” economy being linked to rising yields seems completely ludicrous in our view. The US debt problem is not only at staggering levels but is also compounding at almost 10% annually, while the Fed continues to shrink its Treasury holdings at a record pace. What gives?

  Based on the rate-of-change analysis, there has been a 17% decline in the Fed’s holdings of US Treasuries. Interestingly, historical patterns suggest that similar balance sheet contractions have led the Fed to eventually reverse its policy.

  

  Given the current magnitude of Treasury issuances flooding the market today, resulting in upward pressure on long-term yields, we believe that unspoken political pressure to implement “yield curve control” policies is already beginning to swell. The Fed’s inclination to implement such policies may only exist if the economy is in a recession, which we think is the path of least resistance today.

  Gold: An Escape Valve

  Investing in gold implies wagering on the notion that the debt problem will deteriorate further from its current state.

  The 1940s period was a compelling historical analogy to today given the severity of the current debt problem. However, there is one major distinction that is often ignored. During that time, the US dollar was effectively tied to gold prices, making the metal an unfeasible investment alternative.

  Today, with prices unpegged, it is highly probable that capital will divert away from US Treasuries and flow into gold. This becomes particularly crucial at a time when the government continues to issue a flood of debt instruments into the market after agreeing to extend the debt limit.

  

  Today the metal is likely to serve as an escape valve for those seeking the ultimate form of protection during times of debt and monetary crises.

  Gold > Treasuries

  If the rationale for owning US Treasuries today is solely based on the premise that the system cannot endure substantially higher interest rates, then gold is a far superior choice.

  

  It’s a neutral asset with no counterparty risk that also carries centuries of credible history as a haven and monetary alternative.

  Inflation in a Bottoming Process

  Just as base effects played a crucial role in reducing inflation rates, we anticipate that the opposite effect is on the horizon, with Consumer Price Index (CPI) likely to reach a bottom in the near future.

  Last week’s CPI report marked a significant milestone as it is the first time in 102 years that we have witnessed twelve consecutive months of declining CPI on a YoY basis. The last time we experienced such a situation was in 1921 after the Spanish Flu pandemic, which marked the actual bottom for inflation rates at -15.8%. Today, after the same monthly sequence of falling CPI, the rate is still positive and above the Fed’s target.

  The overwhelming focus on the recent slowdown in inflation appears to be rooted in backward-looking analysis. In fact, since last week’s CPI report, oil has broken out, gold rallied back above $2,000, silver surged, and agricultural commodities appreciated substantially.

  

  While the macro environment today differs from that of the 1970s or 1940s, a lesson from history remains: inflation tends to develop in waves. We have recently witnessed the conclusion of the first wave and are likely in the process of reaching a bottom in the recent deceleration period, with a new upward trajectory underway. The primary reason for this is the persistence of underlying structural issues that continue to drive inflation rates higher:

  • Wage-price spiral, particularly driven by low-income segments of our society

  • Ongoing supply constraints due to chronic underinvestment in natural resource industries

  • Irresponsible levels of government spending

  • Escalating deglobalization trends, which necessitate the revitalization of manufacturing capabilities in economies.

  Interest Rate Cut Expectations: A Crowded Consensus

  It is worth highlighting that, despite the strong potential for inflation rates to be in the process of bottoming out, the Eurodollar curve is currently pricing in the largest interest rate cuts in the history of the contract for the next year.

  

  Investors are highly likely to be caught off guard as CPI starts to accelerate again, leading the US monetary authorities to maintain higher Fed funds rates for longer and even engage in additional rate hikes in the short turn until its recessionary goals can be more clearly accomplished.

  The Upside Case for Oil

  After being down 45% from its recent highs, the risk/reward to buy oil today appears heavily skewed towards the upside. Excluding the outlier event of the pandemic crisis, we can observe two types of pullbacks in oil prices over the past few decades:

  • The GFC and the 2014 energy market meltdown resulted in an average decline of approximately 75% from peak to trough.

  • During the tech bust, the decline was close to 50%

  In the current environment, we believe there are strong similarities to the early 2000s period, particularly in terms of historically depressed capital spending.

  

  Despite the risk of a demand shock, which is already largely reflected in the current prices, in our view, oil supply remains incredibly tight with production still below pre-pandemic levels. Unlike a year or two ago, the government has already depleted its strategic petroleum reserves to levels not seen since the 1980s.

  Gold: “A Barbarous Relic”

  The current skepticism surrounding gold brings back memories of the late 1990s when equity markets soared due to the excitement surrounding the emergence of the Internet. During that time, gold prices experienced a significant decline of over 70% in 21 years, underperforming almost every other asset class (first chart below).

  

  Some less experienced investors even labeled the metal as a barbarous relic.

  However, markets often defy conventional expectations, and that period marked the bottom for gold prices, initiating a new long-term uptrend, propelling gold into a secular bull market that lasted over a decade.

  Following the mentioned period, gold prices embarked on a remarkable upward trajectory, delivering one of the most impressive performances in its history (see the second chart below).

  

  Notably, silver significantly outperformed gold during this period, leading to a substantial decrease in the gold-to-silver ratio from 81 in 2003 to 31 in 2011.

  Based on these historical trends, we maintain a strong conviction that we are on the brink of entering another enduring bull market for gold, with silver anticipated to spearhead the upward movement.

  Precious Metals Primed for a Historical Breakout

  Despite gold being within 5% of its all-time highs, skepticism towards the metal remains prevalent. A key turning point occurred in September 2022 when the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Gold Loses Reserve Status” on its front page, leading to a short-term bottom in gold prices. Subsequently, precious metals experienced a strong rally and recently formed a triple top, testing previous highs from August 2020 and the peak during the Russia-Ukraine invasion.

  In recent weeks, Bloomberg also published an article headlined “Gold Is No Longer a Good Hedge Against Bad Times,” at almost precisely the wrong time. Since then, precious metals have had another relevant move on the upside.

  

  We believe that a potential breakout to new levels could attract substantial capital inflows to the mining industry, which has been starving for capital.

  The Cheapest Metal on Earth

  Silver looks ready to break through its decade-long resistance this month.

  

  One thing is likely to be true, if this is indeed the onset of a new gold cycle, none of us own enough silver.

  Key Signals of Stagflationary Times Ahead

  It is hard to be structurally bullish on the economy when almost the entire Treasury curve is inverted, despite the fact that yields across the board, short and long-term, have been increasing. The tech bust and the global financial crisis certainly didn’t unfold in this manner. During those times, it was the collapse of long-term yields that led to a surge in inversions.

  Today’s issue in the Treasury curve resembles prior stagflationary times with yields across all durations continuing to move higher.

  

  Overall equity market valuations are completely out of line with an environment where the cost of capital for businesses remains on the rise, accompanied by an increasing risk of a severe economic downturn. Let us not forget that monetary policy works with a lag, and the Fed has been tightening financial conditions for almost 16 months now.

  A Euphoria-Driven Rally in Equity Markets

  Meanwhile, the valuation of US equity markets continues to defy logic, with completely delusional fundamental multiples. Since the market peaked, Nasdaq has been significantly impacted by the increase in interest rates. Despite the continuous upward movement in 10-year yields, this correlation has been disrupted by the euphoria surrounding AI and consequently the surge in mega-cap tech companies. We believe the present value of long-duration businesses must soon start to better reflect the ongoing rise in discount rates with irrationally exuberant investors bearing the brunt of the punishment.

  

  While these mispriced financial assets declined in 2022, they have only been reflated in 2023. We have yet to see the true bursting of financial asset bubbles that would correspond with the onset of a recession. From a valuation perspective, the excesses still rival those of 1929 and 2000.

  The “Magnificent” Top 10

  Even though the combined market capitalization of the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 constitutes an unprecedented 31.7% of the index, their earnings contribution has been drastically declining and now stands at only 21.5%.

  

  The dominance of megacaps in leadership is overwhelmingly unsustainable and cannot be justified by their current fundamentals.

  Recent Rally Not Justified by Fundamentals

  It is intriguing how the recent rise in tech megacap stocks has not been accompanied by a corresponding growth in projected earnings, despite the enthusiasm surrounding AI. In reality, we have seen the opposite of that in some cases. With the exception of $NVDA, tech megacap companies have either experienced stagnant growth in expected 2024 EPS (Earnings Per Share) or a substantial decline.

  

  The persistently elevated cost of capital, coupled with the current excessive valuations and narrow market leadership, continues to be a cause for great concern. Considering the ongoing major Treasury issuances as the Fed shrinks its balance sheet, these stocks are clearly priced for perfection.

  A Critical Divergence

  The year-over-year change in the S&P 500 is now diverging from the ISM New Orders index.

  

  Note that the last time this happened preceded the volatility event we had during the March 2020 crash and recession.

  An Attractive Segment of the Market

  The healthcare sector is one area of the market outside of natural resource industries where we have become highly constructive on the long side given the recent price dislocation and valuation proposition, particularly biotechnology businesses. While the spotlight has been on historically expensive mega-cap technology companies fueled by AI developments, we believe strongly that healthcare stocks are poised to be among the primary beneficiaries of such technological advancements.

  Over the past 30 years, the healthcare sector has demonstrated a consistent upward performance trend. Notably, these stocks tend to reach attractive valuations during market peaks and, more importantly, tend to outperform during economic crises.

  The case for the Biotechnology industry is arguably even more compelling. Since 2015, these companies have drastically underperformed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices. The Nasdaq Biotechnology index, which includes larger and established businesses, currently has a price-to-sales multiple of approximately 5.5 times, down from nearly 13 times.

  

  However, we find the development phase of the industry even more appealing. Several businesses on the cusp of breakthrough drug development are trading below their cash levels, with the potential to generate substantial cash flow over the next 3-5 years. To enhance our investment decision-making, we have recently hired Lars Thiel, Ph.D., as a research contractor. Dr. Theil seasoned scientist with over 30 years of experience in biomedical and drug discovery including 15 years with Amgen. Similar to our deep involvement in the mining and energy industries, we anticipate substantial growth in our exposure to the biotechnology industry in the coming years.

  Brazil Liftoff

  As an important way of capitalizing on a potential commodities-long thesis, we believe resource-rich economies are likely to perform exceptionally well. Rarely in history have Brazilian stocks been as cheap as they are today.

  Given recent macroeconomic and political developments, it would be reasonable to assume that Brazil would have faced significant consequences. Firstly, the Fed implemented the steepest rate-hike cycle in history. Secondly, oil prices dropped by 45% from the recent peak. Additionally, the commodities equal-weighted index declined by 26%. And lastly, Lula assumed the presidency.

  

  Interestingly and despite this sequence of facts, Brazilian stocks would have outperformed every developed market since 2022. In fact, Ibovespa continues to beat the S&P 500 year to date despite the AI euphoria. Today’s macro and fundamental reasons to own Brazilian equities are exceptional. In our view, this continues to be an incredible long-term buying opportunity.

  Crescat Macro Positioning Summary

  At Crescat, we have three overriding, high-conviction macro themes supported by our independent research and proprietary models that we believe are poised to unfold in rapid succession over the short and medium term:

  1. We see highly overvalued long-duration financial assets as ripe for a major leg down due to the rising cost of capital and the deluge of US Treasury issuances now hitting the market. The Fed will ultimately need to accommodate the Federal debt but not before causing a financial asset meltdown and recession which we believe is its unspoken short-term objective. In our view, there is an abundance of timely and compelling short opportunities in the equity and fixed-income markets today.

  

  2. We believe a powerful new demand wave for gold is coming in the short term from both institutional and retail investors. In aggregate, global central banks are already ahead of the curve as they have been accumulating the monetary metal recently as a reserve asset in preference over USTs. Gold is a haven asset that can provide an inflation hedge while also offering strong absolute and relative real return potential in the stagflationary hard-landing environment that our models are now forecasting.

  3. From our perspective, we see a significant secular demand boom for commodities on the horizon fueled by fiscal stimulus from G7 economies. We believe the level of spending has the potential to rival and exceed China’s resource demand surge in the 2000s. In the US, three recently launched Congressional spending Acts stand ready to be expanded along with monetary policy support as soon as the recession becomes widely acknowledged to likely drive the entire next global economic expansion cycle.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 13:00

• White Lowe's Worker Confronts Black Thieves – Gets Black Eye And Pink Slip
  White Lowe’s Worker Confronts Black Thieves – Gets Black Eye And Pink Slip

  After 13 years of service to Lowe’s, an elderly white woman has been fired after she received a beating and black eye from black shoplifters brazenly rolling $2,100 worth of goods out of a store in Georgia. That’s the steep price she paid for heroically trying to thwart the trio’s theft — in violation of Lowe’s policy. 

  “They say that if you see somebody stealing something out the door, not to pursue, not to go out. I lost it,” Donna Hansbrough told the Effingham Herald. “I grabbed the cart. I don’t actually remember going out but I did. And I grabbed the cart that had the stolen items in (it).”

  

  Police say that cart was being pushed on June 25th by Takyah Berry, who punched Hansbrough in the face three times, leaving her with a black eye that lingers almost a month later. Berry was allegedly accompanied by her uncle, Joseph Berry, and a man named Jarmar Lawton. After attacking Hansbrough, Berry and her accomplices left with the stolen goods. Lawton is in police custody on unrelated charges, but the two Berrys are at large. 

  Like many good citizens, it seems Hansbrough simply lost her patience with corporate America’s widespread toleration of shameless, daylight robberies.  “I just got tired of seeing things get out the door. I just, I lost it. I basically lost all the training. Everything they tell you to do, I just…I just lost it,” she said.

  

  With more than a dozen years working at the Lowe’s location in Rincon, Georgia — about a half hour north of Savannah — Hansbrough expected consequences but wasn’t braced for Lowe’s’ cruel reaction to her selfless reflex that drove her to try to stop wrongdoing. 

  “I didn’t expect to get terminated,” the now-former live-plants customer associate said. “Maybe a reprimand or a suspension.” Choking back tears as she contemplated her sudden unemployment, Hansbrough told WJCL, “A lot of people know me as the plant lady…and it hurts, because I like them all.” 

  Lowe’s policy prohibiting employee intervention against criminals is typical of major retailers, who seek to reduce the associated risks that intervention present to employees and to the company.

  The result, however, is a rising wave of theft that costs untold billions — Target alone said thievery slashed its latest fiscal-year gross margins by $600 million. Those costs will inevitably be passed along to honest consumers in the form of higher prices — a new form of wealth redistribution in a society that already has too much of it. 

  [News] 📸 Aubri
  Brighton, Colorado. — (@ppv_tahoe) Different Angle from video I posted a few days ago showing thieves stealing shopping cart full of merchandise at King Soopers. pic.twitter.com/yqNoa4hexn

  — PPV-TAHOE – News Journalist (@ppv_tahoe) June 2, 2023

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

  It’s one thing for companies to adopt such policies after their own risk assessment, but now liberal politicians want to make it illegal for employees to stop thieves. Last month, the California Senate passed just such a measure, which would only compound the state’s ongoing cultivation of criminal behavior — best exemplified by Prop 47, the law that made shoplifting of up to $950 of merchandise a misdemeanor. 

  Meanwhile, as she looks for new work, let’s salute Donna Hansbrough and people in America and around the world who team up to stop criminals: 

  Shop assistants have to forcefully take loot from shoplifters pic.twitter.com/Z9Yops4c1M

  — Ghost Browser (@AlliedDemocracy) July 21, 2023

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

  pic.twitter.com/5Capojnf0i

  — thieves getting fucked (@RobberyFaiI) July 22, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/23/2023 – 12:30

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• Escobar: The Neocons Want War With China
  Escobar: The Neocons Want War With China

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  It was a photo op for the ages: a visibly well-disposed President Xi Jinping receiving centenarian “old friend of China” Henry Kissinger in Beijing.

  

  Mirroring meticulous Chinese attention to protocol, they met at Villa 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse – exactly where Kissinger first met in person with Zhou Enlai in 1971, preparing Nixon’s 1972 visit to China.

  The Mr. Kissinger Goes to Beijing saga was an “unofficial”, individual attempt to try to mend increasingly fractious Sino-American relations. He was not representing the current American administration.

  There’s the rub.

  Everyone involved in geopolitics is aware of the legendary Kissinger formulation: To be the US’s enemy is dangerous, to be the US’s friend is fatal. History abounds in examples, from Japan and South Korea to Germany, France and Ukraine.

  As quite a few Chinese scholars privately argued, if reason is to be upheld, and “respecting the wisdom of this 100-years-old diplomat”, Xi and the Politburo should maintain the China-US relation as it is: “icy”.

  After all, they reason, being the US’s enemy is dangerous but manageable for a Sovereign Civilizational State like China. So Beijing should keep “the honorable and less perilous status” of being a US enemy.

  The World Through Washington’s Eyes

  What’s really going on in the back rooms of the current American administration was not reflected by Kissinger’s high-profile peace initiative, but by an extremely combative Edward Luttwak.

  Luttwak, 80, may not be as visibly influential as Kissinger, but as a behind the scenes strategist he’s been advising the Pentagon across the spectrum for over five decades. His book on Byzantine Empire strategy, for instance, heavily drawing on top Italian and British sources, is a classic.

  Luttwak, a master of deception, reveals precious nuggets in terms of contextualizing current Washington moves. That starts with his assertion that the US – represented by the Biden combo – is itching to do a deal with Russia.

  That explains why CIA head William Burns, actually a capable diplomat, called his counterpart, SVR head Sergey Naryshkin (Russian Foreign Intelligence) to sort of straighten things up “because you have something else to worry about which is more unlimited”.

  What’s “unlimited”, depicted by Luttwak in a Spenglerian sweep, is Xi Jinping’s drive to “get ready for war”. And if there’s a war, Luttwak claims that “of course” China would lose. That dovetails with the supreme delusion of Straussian neocon psychos across the Beltway.

  Luttwak seems not to have understood China’s drive for food self-sufficiency: he qualifies it as a threat. Same for Xi using a “very dangerous” concept, the “rejuvenation of the Chinese people”: that’s “Mussolini stuff”, says Luttwak. “There has to be a war to rejuvenate China”.

  The “rejuvenation” concept – actually better translated as “revival” – has been resonating in China circles at least since the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911. It was not coined by Xi. Chinese scholars point out that if you see US troops arriving in Taiwan as “advisors”, you would probably make preparations to fight too.

  But Luttwak is on a mission: “This is not America, Europe, Ukraine, Russia. This is about ‘the sole dictator’. There is no China. There is only Xi Jinping,” he insisted.

  And Luttwak confirms the EU’s Josep “Garden vs. Jungle” Borrell and European Commission dominatrix Ursula von der Leyen fully support his vision.

  Luttwak, in just a few words, actually gives away the whole game: “The Russian Federation, as it is, is not strong enough to contain China as much as we would wish”.

  Hence the turn around by the Biden combo to “freeze” the conflict in the Donbass and change the subject. After all, “if that [China] is the threat, you don’t want Russia to fall apart,” Luttwak reasons.

  So much for Kissingerian “diplomacy.”

  Let’s Declare a “Moral Victory” and Run Away

  On Russia, the Kissinger vs. Luttwak confrontation reveals crucial cracks as the Empire faces an existential conflict it never did in the recent past.

  The gradual, massive U-turn is already in progress – or at least the semblance of a U turn. US mainstream media will be entirely behind the U turn. And the naïve masses will follow. Luttwak is already voicing their deepest agenda: the real war is on China, and China “will lose”.

  At least some non-neocon players around the Biden combo – like Burns – seem to have understood the Empire’s massive strategic blunder of publicly committing to a Forever War, hybrid and otherwise, against Russia on behalf of Kiev.

  This would mean, in principle, that Washington can’t just walk away like it did in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Yet Hegemons do enjoy the privilege to walk away: after all they exercise sovereignty, not their vassals. European vassals will be left to rot. Imagine those Baltic chihuahuas declaring war on Russia-China all by themselves.

  The off-ramp confirmed by Luttwak implies Washington declaring some sort of “moral victory” in Ukraine – which is already controlled by BlackRock anyway – and then moving the guns towards China.

  Yet even that won’t be a cakewalk, because China and the about-to-expand BRICS+ are already attacking the Empire at its foundation: dollar hegemony. Without it, the US itself will have to fund the war on China.

  Chinese scholars, off the record, and exercising their millennia-old analytical sweep, observe this may be the last blunder the Empire ever made in its short history.

  As one of them summarized it, “the empire has blundered itself to an existential war and, therefore, the last war of the empire. When the end comes, the empire will lie as usual and declare victory, but everyone else will know the truth, especially the vassals.”

  And that brings us to former national security adviser Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 180-degree turn shortly before he died, aligning him today with Kissinger, not Luttwak.

  “The Grand Chessboard”, published in 1997, before the 9/11 era, argued that the US should rule over any peer competitor rising in Eurasia. Brzezinski did not live to see the living incarnation of his ultimate nightmare: a Russia-China strategic partnership. But already seven years ago – two years after Maidan in Kiev – at least he understood it was imperative to “realign the global power architecture”.

  Destroying the “Rules-Based International Order”

  The crucial difference today, compared to seven years ago, is that the US is incapable, per Brzezinski, to “take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence (…) can be contained without destroying the global order.”

  It’s the Russia-China strategic partnership that is taking the lead – followed by the Global Majority – to contain and ultimately destroy the hegemonic “rules-based international order”.

  As the indispensable Michael Hudson has summarized it, the ultimate question at this incandescent juncture is “whether economic gains and efficiency will determine world trade, patterns and investment, or whether the post-industrial US/NATO economies will choose to end up looking like the rapidly depopulating and de-industrializing post-Soviet Ukraine and Baltic states or England.”

  So is the wet dream of a war on China going to change these geopolitical and geoeconomics imperatives? Give us a -Thucydides – break.

  The real war is already on – but certainly not one identified by Kissinger, Brzezinski and much less Luttwak and assorted US neocons.

  Michael Hudson, once again, summarized it: when it comes to the economy, the US and EU “strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 23:30

• Understanding The Global Supply Of Water
  Understanding The Global Supply Of Water

  As the world’s population and its agricultural needs have grown, so too has the demand for water, putting the world’s supply of water under the microscope.

  A century ago, freshwater consumption was six times lower than in modern times. This increase in demand and usage has resulted in rising stress on freshwater resources and further depletion of reservoirs.

  Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandez introduces this graphic by Chesca Kirkland – using insights from Our World in Data – to break down water supply and also withdrawals per capita. The latter measures the quantity of water taken from both groundwater and freshwater sources for agricultural, industrial, or domestic use.

  

  How Much Water Do We Have?

  Many people know that more than 70% of the Earth’s surface is water. That’s 326 million trillion gallons of water, yet humanity still faces a tight supply. Why is that?

  It’s because 97% of this water is saline and unfit for consumption. Of the remaining 3% of freshwater, about two-thirds are locked away in the form of snow, glaciers, and polar ice caps. Meanwhile, just under a third of freshwater is found in fast-depleting groundwater resources.

  That leaves just 1% of global freshwater as “easily” sourced supply from rainfall as well as freshwater reservoirs including rivers and lakes.

  Per Capita Water Withdrawals

  Any look at a world map of rivers and lakes will reveal that fresh water distribution is highly uneven across different regions of the world.

  Yet developed and developing countries alike require a lot of water for both commercial and personal use. Agriculture use alone accounts for an estimated 70% of the world’s available freshwater.

  Below we can see how water withdrawals per capita have grown over the past decades, using the latest available data from each.

  Many of the countries with the largest water withdrawals per capita are located in the arid deserts of Central Asia, including top-ranked Turkmenistan at 5,753 cubic meters of annual water withdrawals per person in 2005.

  And for developing countries with high water usage, from Turkmenistan to Guyana, most of their water withdrawals are for agriculture. For example, an estimated 95% of available water in Turkmenistan goes towards agriculture.

  Developed nations like Finland, New Zealand and the U.S. also withdraw tons of water, at more than 1,000 cubic meters annually per person, but their uses are notably different. In the United States, for example, 41% of water withdrawals in 2015 went to thermoelectric power generation, while 37% went towards irrigation and livestock. For Finland, on the other hand, 80% of water was used for industrial production.

  Most of the countries with lower water withdrawals per capita, meanwhile, are concentrated in Africa. They include very populated countries, such as Nigeria and Kenya, which both withdrew around 75 cubic meters of water per person in 2015 and 2010 respectively. This also highlights the continent’s water accessibility and infrastructure issues.

  Bridging the Water Inequity Gap

  Over the years, various initiatives have emerged to mitigate the world’s water inequality gap.

  Efforts include promoting water conservation practices, investing in efficient irrigation systems, and enhancing water infrastructure in regions most affected by scarcity.

  Some nations in arid climates with coastal access, such as Saudi Arabia, are also converting ocean salt water to fresh water through desalination plants.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 23:00

• US Military Confirms Myocarditis Spike After COVID Vaccine Introduction
  US Military Confirms Myocarditis Spike After COVID Vaccine Introduction

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

  Cases of myocarditis soared among U.S. service members in 2021 after the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, a top Pentagon official has confirmed.

  

  There were 275 cases of myocarditis in 2021—a 151 percent spike from the annual average from 2016 to 2020, according to Gilbert Cisneros Jr., undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who confirmed data revealed by a whistleblower earlier this year.

  The COVID-19 vaccines can cause myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that can lead to mortality, including sudden death. COVID-19 also can cause myocarditis.

  The diagnosis data comes from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database.

  Mr. Cisneros provided the rate of cases per 100,000 person-years, a way to measure risk across a certain period of time. In 2021, the rate was 69.8 among those with prior infection, compared to 21.7 among members who had been vaccinated.

  “This suggests that it was more likely to be [COVID-19] infection and not COVID-19 vaccination that was the cause,” Mr. Cisneros said.

  No figures were given for members who had been vaccinated but were also infected. The total rate, 20.6, also indicates that some members weren’t included in the subgroup analysis.

  Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has been investigating problems with the database, questioned how the military came up with the figures.

  “It is unclear whether or how it accounted for service members who had a prior COVID-19 infection and received a COVID-19 vaccination,” Mr. Johnson wrote to Mr. Cisneros.

  Department of Defense (DOD) officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

  Mr. Johnson asked for the information no later than Aug. 2.

  Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist and president of the McCullough Foundation, looked at the newly disclosed data.

  “The large increase in myocarditis cases in our military in 2021 was most likely due to ill-advised COVID-19 vaccination,” he told The Epoch Times via email, pointing to a study from Israel that found no increase or myocarditis in COVID-19 patients.

  Some other papers have found COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of myocarditis. COVID-19 has been linked elsewhere to myocarditis, although the vaccines have never prevented infection and have become increasingly ineffective against it.

  The military encouraged COVID-19 vaccination after U.S. regulators cleared the vaccines for use in late 2020. Military officials were among the first in the world to raise concerns about myocarditis after vaccination and published an early case series of 22 previously healthy members who suffered myocarditis within four days of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. U.S. officials have since said the vaccines definitely cause myocarditis.

  U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mandated the vaccines in 2021, a requirement that remained in place until Congress forced its withdrawal.

  

  Repeated Changes

  Military officials have struggled to provide accurate data on 2021 diagnoses.

  Whistleblowers revealed in 2021 that myocarditis, as reflected in the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), had soared to 2,868 percent higher than the average from 2016 to 2020. They downloaded the data in August 2021.

  The number of 2021 myocarditis diagnoses, though, had plummeted from 1,239 to 263 when the data was downloaded later, prompting concerns of manipulation.

  Military officials said they reviewed the data and found it was “faulty.” They said the data for the years 2016 to 2020 were “corrupted” during a “database maintenance process,” which resulted in the display of only 10 percent of the actual medical encounters for that time period.

  Officials told Mr. Johnson in 2022 that the problem had been fixed. The fix significantly changed the records. Instead of a 2,181 percent increase in hypertension in 2021, for instance, the increase was just 1.9 percent. Female infertility, instead of increasing 472 percent, increased 13.2 percent.

  The updated percentages, though, were called into question when another whistleblower looked at the database in 2023 and found they were different.

  Testicular cancer, initially pegged as increasing 369 percent, was placed at 3 percent by the military. But the actual increase was 16.3 percent, the whistleblower found. Pulmonary embolism was among the other conditions that occurred more often in 2021 than the military had conveyed.

  The whistleblower alerted Mr. Johnson, the top Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, who asked military officials for answers.

  Mr. Cisneros acknowledged that the data given to the senator was incomplete. He said the change stemmed from December 2021 figures not being available when the corrected data was offered. There was a data “lag by about three months,” meaning the data wasn’t available in February 2022, when officials provided Mr. Johnson with the corrected data, Mr. Cisneros said.

  Pentagon officials replicated the analyses from the whistleblower and found the data “are similar” to the data the whistleblower sent to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Cisneros said.

  Military officials hadn’t previously mentioned any data lag previously while communicating with Mr. Johnson or the public, and they didn’t incorporate the available data when they sent him another missive in mid-2022.

  “Without the whistleblower’s disclosure, I doubt DOD would have ever acknowledged that it provided incomplete information to my office in February 2022 and again in July 2022,” Mr. Johnson said.

  He said the DOD had demonstrated “a complete disregard for transparency” and urged officials to make clear whether it has investigated whether any of the medical conditions for which diagnoses spiked are associated with the vaccines.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 22:30

• Here's How Much The Most-Followed Instagram Accounts Earn On Posts
  Here’s How Much The Most-Followed Instagram Accounts Earn On Posts

  Instagram is not only one of the biggest social media platforms, it’s also one of the most profitable for high profile creators.

  Despite having fewer users than platforms like Facebook and YouTube, Instagram’s higher engagement rate gives it one of the highest advertising costs. In 2023, average ad prices on Instagram were estimated at $3.56 cost per click, ahead of every platform except LinkedIn.

  For the celebrities with the most followers on Instagram, and the brands trying to profit from their followers, that translates into million-dollar costs for some sponsored posts. Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao and Pablo Alvarez has visualized Instagram’s biggest accounts, and their estimated earnings per sponsored post, using HopperHQ data from September 2022.

  

  Calculating The Earnings Per Sponsored Post

  It’s easy to assume that the most followed Instagram accounts make the most money on sponsored posts, but that appears to be only partially true.

  In conducting research for the dataset, HopperHQ utilized both publicly available data and reports and privately researched statistics to measure the impact of different factors:

  • Number of followers

  • Levels of engagement (legitimate views, likes & comments)

  • Influencer’s category (sports, music, acting, etc.)

  • Audience makeup

  • Influencer status (previous endorsements, number of endorsements, etc.)

  And though the number of followers was the biggest influencing factor, some stars earned more from followers than others.

  Costs of the Most Followed Instagram Accounts in 2022

  The most followed person on Facebook and Instagram, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo leads the list of the most expensive Instagram accounts in 2022 for sponsored content.

  It’s estimated that the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star was able to charge an estimated $2.4 million per sponsored post in 2022. With 442 million followers at the time of calculation, Ronaldo was estimated to charge nearly half a million dollars per post more than the next person on the list.

  Name	Category	Followers	Earnings Per Post
  Cristiano Ronaldo	Sport	442,267,575	$2,397,000
  Kylie Jenner	Celebrity	338,626,294	$1,835,000
  Lionel Messi	Sport	327,954,875	$1,777,000
  Selena Gomez	Celebrity	320,082,515	$1,735,000
  Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson	Celebrity	315,999,932	$1,713,000
  Kim Kardashian	Celebrity	311,685,198	$1,689,000
  Ariana Grande	Celebrity	311,302,908	$1,687,000
  Beyoncé Knowles-Carter	Celebrity	256,957,282	$1,393,000
  Khloé Kardashian	Celebrity	243,609,638	$1,320,000
  Kendall Jenner	Celebrity	237,977,121	$1,290,000
  Justin Bieber	Celebrity	236,391,845	$1,281,000
  Taylor Swift	Celebrity	210,659,702	$1,142,000
  Jennifer Lopez	Celebrity	208,469,193	$1,130,000
  Virat Kohli	Sport	200,703,169	$1,088,000
  Nicki Minaj	Celebrity	190,264,361	$1,031,000
  Kourtney Kardashian	Celebrity	177,874,659	$964,000
  Neymar da Silva Santos Junior	Sport	174,248,989	$945,000
  Miley Cyrus	Celebrity	171,147,090	$928,000
  Katy Perry	Celebrity	163,620,880	$1,029,000
  Kevin Hart	Celebrity	143,895,754	$780,000

  Kylie Jenner, the world’s “youngest self-made billionaire” according to Forbes, was second with earnings of $1.8 million per sponsored post on Instagram. Jenner, a member of the Kardashian–Jenner family with five of the top 20 most followed Instagram accounts, is also the youngest person among this cohort of big earners on Instagram.

  But the most commonly followed celebrities in the top 20 were musicians with household names, including Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift. They accounted for 45% of the most followed accounts.

  The Biggest Earners per Follower

  Though almost all of the most followed accounts were estimated to cost more than those with lower follower counts, Katy Perry (Rank: 16th) stands out.

  Perry was estimated to better utilize Instagram’s reach and earn more in total than #17-19, despite tens of millions fewer followers. In fact, she was calculated to earn more per follower than all of the top 20.

  Rank	Name	Earnings per Follower
  1	Katy Perry	$0.0062889
  2	Neymar da Silva Santos Junior	$0.0054233
  3	Miley Cyrus	$0.0054222
  4	Beyoncé Knowles-Carter	$0.0054211
  5	Taylor Swift	$0.0054211
  6	Virat Kohli	$0.0054209
  7	Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson	$0.0054209
  8	Kendall Jenner	$0.0054207
  9	Kevin Hart	$0.0054206
  10	Selena Gomez	$0.0054205
  11	Jennifer Lopez	$0.0054205
  12	Cristiano Ronaldo	$0.0054198
  13	Kourtney Kardashian	$0.0054195
  14	Ariana Grande	$0.0054192
  15	Justin Bieber	$0.005419
  16	Kylie Jenner	$0.005419
  17	Kim Kardashian	$0.0054189
  18	Nicki Minaj	$0.0054188
  19	Khloé Kardashian	$0.0054185
  20	Lionel Messi	$0.0054184

  The earnings per follower round up to just under a cent each, but tens of millions of followers make a sizable impact. In addition to Perry, Neymar (Rank: 18th) and Miley Cyrus (Rank: 19th) had the highest earnings-per-follower, ahead of accounts with hundreds of millions more followers.

  But a new year can bring a lot of changes. The most followed Instagram accounts have already been reshuffled, with Lionel Messi now the second-most followed and Selena Gomez overtaking Kylie Jenner as the most-followed woman. How will potential earnings be impacted this year?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 22:00

• Newsom's Plan To Fine School District $1.5 Million Over Blocked Textbook Lacks Legal Grounds
  Newsom’s Plan To Fine School District $1.5 Million Over Blocked Textbook Lacks Legal Grounds

  Authored by Micaela Ricaforte via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  There are currently no legal grounds for California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to fine a local school district $1.5 million for rejecting what the school board says is an “inappropriate” social studies textbook, the state’s top education official confirmed July 20.

  The governor announced the fine in a July 19 statement, adding that the state is securing the textbook in question for all 1–5 grade students in the Temecula Valley Unified Valley School District.

  State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said the anticipated passing of Assembly Bill 1078—a proposal that would prohibit local school boards from excluding books that contain LGBT and other minority groups—would allow the state to intervene in Temecula’s situation. The bill contains an urgency clause for it to take effect immediately should it pass the Legislature, Mr. Thurmond said.

  “Assembly Bill 1078 would establish this process and that bill is being heard in the legislature and it does have an urgency clause, so we’re waiting to see what happens with that bill,” Mr. Thurmond told The Epoch Times at an unrelated press conference in Chino, California, July 20. “We’re currently investigating the Temecula Valley Unified School District based on complaints from students about … LGBTQ+ student needs.”

  

  The bill will be heard in the state Senate Appropriations Committee after the lawmakers meet again in August after the summer recess.

  Former state Sen. Melissa Melendez (R-Riverside) was among the first to question the legality of Mr. Newsom’s plan.

  “It appears the governor is trying to create the authority to insert himself into [the district’s] business by leaning on the anticipated passing of [Assembly Bill 1078], which is still going through the legislative process,” Ms. Melendez told The Epoch Times before Mr. Thurmond’s response. “Aside from that, no one has explained who will determine compliance, and the governor’s office has yet to cite the legal authority that would give him justification to buy books a district doesn’t want, and then charge them for those books.”

  Some also claim the governor lacks the authority to impose such consequences.

  “The governor does not cite any legal authority for distributing the books to Temecula Valley … students or to allow the state to do so in place of the district,” said the California School Board Association in a statement posted on Twitter, adding that the current law requires the county superintendent to request the state provide textbooks if they are unable to provide such on their own.

  

  In response to Mr. Newsom’s announcement, Temecula Unified board president Joseph Komrosky will call a special meeting for July 21 to consider other options for curriculums that meet state standards.

  “Despite our continuing work and commitment to core values, Governor Newsom has taken unilateral action to intervene in the middle of our work without even contacting the school district first to understand what the school district may be further doing to meet all of the curriculum needs of our students,” Mr. Komrosky told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “What he calls inaction we see as responsible considerations for all of our community’s viewpoints as we come to a final decision and with time left to do so.”

  The board president called Newsom’s announcement fiscally irresponsible.

  “We do not appreciate Governor Newsom’s effort to usurp local control and all that will apparently result from these tactics is a waste of the taxpayers’ money,” he said. “We sincerely hope he has a 14-day return policy with the publisher of the books he just purchased.”

  Mr. Newsom’s announcement comes one day after the school district doubled down on its rejection of a social studies curriculum that the board’s president deemed “inappropriate” due to its inclusion of an adult LGBT activist who reportedly had a sexual relationship with a minor.

  The district has spent the year searching for an updated social studies curriculum as its current social studies curriculum, adopted in 2006, does not comply with updated state educational frameworks or California’s 2011 Fair Education Act, which requires schools to include historical LGBT and minority figures in social studies.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 21:30

• The World's Top 15 Economies Through Time (1980-2075)
  The World’s Top 15 Economies Through Time (1980-2075)

  According to a recent report from Goldman Sachs, the balance of global economic power is projected to shift dramatically in the coming decades.

  In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu has created a bump chart that provides a historical and predictive overview of the world’s top 15 economies at several milestones: 1980, 2000, 2022, and Goldman Sachs projections for 2050 and 2075.

  

  Projections and Highlights for 2050

  The following table shows the projected top economies in the world for 2050. All figures represent real GDP projections, based on 2021 USD.

  

  A major theme of the past several decades has been China and India’s incredible growth. For instance, between 2000 and 2022, India jumped eight spots to become the fifth largest economy, surpassing the UK and France.

  By 2050, Goldman Sachs believes that the weight of global GDP will shift even more towards Asia. While this is partly due to Asia outperforming previous forecasts, it is also due to BRICS nations underperforming.

  Notably, Indonesia will become the fourth biggest economy by 2050, surpassing Brazil and Russia as the largest emerging market. Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic state, and currently has the fourth largest population at 277 million.

  The Top Economies in the World in 2075

  The following table includes the underlying numbers for 2075. Once again, figures represent real GDP projections, based on 2021 USD.

  

  Projecting further to 2075 reveals a drastically different world order, with Nigeria, Pakistan, and Egypt breaking into the top 10. A major consideration in these estimates is rapid population growth, which should result in a massive labor force across all three nations.

  Meanwhile, European economies will continue to slip further down the rankings. Germany, which was once the world’s third largest economy, will sit at ninth behind Brazil.

  It should also be noted that China, India, and the U.S. are expected to have similar GDPs by this time, suggesting somewhat equal economic power. As a result, how these nations choose to engage with one another is likely to shape the global landscape in ways that have far-reaching implications.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 21:00

• Lockheed Martin Predicts Strong Profits As Global Instability Rises
  Lockheed Martin Predicts Strong Profits As Global Instability Rises

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

  Lockheed Martin believes global instability is driving demand and sees an increase in annual profits. Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine has caused an increase in arms spending among NATO members, boosting weapons makers’ stock prices. 

  On Tuesday, Lockheed raised its annual profit and sales outlook on strong demand for military equipment. After making the announcement, the company’s stock price increased by one percent.

  

  Reuters reports, “[Lockheed] expects full-year net sales to be between $66.25 billion and $66.75 billion, up from its earlier forecast of $65 billion to $66 billion.”

  The billions in profit are driven by sales of big-ticket systems like the F-35. However, Lockheed has struggled to produce F-35s that can perform its promised abilities.

  In May, the government found the planes’ engines have a serious problem dealing with heat:

  “The F-35’s engine lacks the ability to properly manage the heat generated by the aircraft’s systems,” POGO reported. “That increases the engine’s wear, and auditors now estimate the extra maintenance will add $38 billion to the program’s life-cycle costs.”

  The arms maker has additionally experienced a boost in demand for smaller systems, like the Javelin anti-tank missile. The White House has shipped thousands of Javelin systems to Kiev since Joe Biden took office. 

  As well as predicting future success, Lockheed announced it beat expectations regarding quarterly sales. According to Reuters, “Quarterly net sales rose 8.1% to $16.69 billion, beating expectations of $15.92 billion.”

  Last year, Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, described the surge in the market for weapons as the highest since the Cold War. “This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” he said. 

  Ukraine war doing wonders for Lockheed. Weekly share price in a strong uptrend https://t.co/Jw0E0WtapJ pic.twitter.com/VyPJIbUfex

  — tradinglikeafox (@tradinglikeafox) July 18, 2023

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

  Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lockheed’s stock price traded below $340 a share, the price increased to over $450 within a few months. On Thursday, Lockheed’s stock was valued at $456 per sale. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 20:30

• Biden Administration Rule Would Ban Nearly All Portable Gas-Powered Generators
  Biden Administration Rule Would Ban Nearly All Portable Gas-Powered Generators

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  After seeking to reduce the use of gas stoves, the Biden administration is pushing a proposal to ban the sale of almost all portable gas generators—which some experts have said would be disastrous for the millions of Americans who rely on such generators during power outages.

  

  The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has proposed a policy (pdf) that would remove nearly all existing portable gas generators from the market. The new rule restricts the amount of carbon monoxide that generators can emit by forcing these generators to switch off when they reach a certain level of emissions.

  Smaller gas generators would have to cut carbon monoxide emissions by 50 percent, and larger generators would have to cut emissions by up to 95 percent. Nearly all models currently available are expected to not be in compliance with the new standard.

  Once the proposed rules come into effect, manufacturers would have to comply with them in just six months, a process that usually takes several years. The rules would also ban manufacturers from stockpiling noncompliant generators before the new standards are enacted.

  Generator Manufacturers Speak Out

  In a June 28 press release, Susan Orenga, executive director of the Portable Generator Manufacturers’ Association, pointed out that CPSC’s proposal will “create a shortage of essential portable generators during regional and national emergencies because it will prevent the sale of portable generators that are currently available on the market.”

  “Furthermore, the timing of the CPSC’s proposed changes are particularly concerning, given repeated warnings that two-thirds of North America is currently facing an energy shortfall this summer during periods of high demand,” she said.

  

  Nearly 5 million households across the United States use gas powered generators during power outages, and they are particularly important during hurricane season, when powerful storms often knock out electric utilities.

  In May, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. warned that two-thirds of North America could face blackouts and brownouts between June and September if there are “wide area” heat waves, wildfires, and droughts, and the agency attributed some blame for the problem to the Biden administration’s push for renewable energy.

  The CPSC proposal came after the Department of Energy unveiled its Energy Policy and Conservation Program in February, which aims to establish new standards on consumer cooking products, including gas stoves. The rules are expected to ban the sale of at least half of U.S. stove models.

  The Department of Energy is also focusing efforts on mandating standards for dishwashers.

  In a bid to improve efficiency and cut energy usage, the agency has proposed new regulations for power and water usage for standard-size and compact dishwashers during their regular cycles.

  “This Administration is using all of the tools at our disposal to save Americans money while promoting innovations that will reduce carbon pollution and combat the climate crisis,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement about the regulations.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 19:30

• "Summer Of Strikes": 650,000 American Workers Threaten To Walk Off Job
  “Summer Of Strikes”: 650,000 American Workers Threaten To Walk Off Job

  Tensions between employees and employers are heating up this summer. Bloomberg reports 650,000 workers threaten to walk off the job and picket in the streets to secure improved benefits, wages, and other conditions amid the worst inflation storm in a generation. 

  So why is 2023 shaping up to be one of the biggest years of strikes in the US since the 1970s? Well, it didn’t happen overnight. Two years of negative real wage growth has crushed the working poor as they drained their savings and maxed out credit cards to make ends meet. 

  Unionized workers have taken advantage of upcoming contract expirations with companies to bargain for better wages and benefits. Many unions say companies can boost wages because profits have been off the charts. 

  This summer might go down in history as the “Summer of Strikes” because 650,000 American workers are threatening to walk off the job imminently (some have already hit the picket lines): 

  • The combined actors and writers strikes in Hollywood are already a once-in-a-generation event. 
  • Unions for United Parcel Service Inc. and Detroit’s Big Three automakers are poised to join them in coming weeks if contract negotiations fall through. 

  A Bank of America analyst warned a United Auto Workers strike is at 90% odds of happening as union contracts with automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis expire in September. Some logistics experts believe Teamsters will reach a deal with UPS, but that deadline (July 31) is quickly approaching. 

  

  Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein, who leads the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, said this summer could “be the biggest moment of striking, really, since the 1970s.” 

  What’s shaping up to be a summer of strikes comes as inflation spiked to levels not seen since the 1970s. The good news is that it has cooled in recent quarters. 

  

  Still, two years of negative real wage growth crushed the working poor — many are in rough financial shape.  

  

  So far, strikes have not had a broad economic impact, but that could change overnight. Increasing labor actions are happening across the Western world, also in Europe, for the same reason in the US, due to a cost-of-living crisis sparked by high inflation. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 19:00

• Yellow Loses Attempt To Stop Strike
  Yellow Loses Attempt To Stop Strike

  By Todd Maiden of Freightwaves

  The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas ruled Friday against less-than-truckload carrier Yellow Corp.’s request for an injunction, which would have kept its Teamsters employees from engaging in a work stoppage.

  

  In her decision, Senior Judge Julie Robinson denied a motion for a temporary restraining order and injunction.

  The decision allows the union to carry through with a planned strike, which could begin as soon as Monday. The final straw prompting the strike was Yellow’s missed benefits contribution payment to Central States Funds last week, which will leave workers without health insurance on Sunday.

  The two parties have been embroiled in a bitter dispute over operational changes for the last nine months. The carrier has maintained that without the changes it wouldn’t survive while the union took the stance that it had given enough in the past in the form of wages, benefits and work rules concessions.

  “The company has two more days to fulfill its obligations or we will strike,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said following the decision. “Teamsters at Yellow are furious and ready to act. They are done with the mistreatment and mismanagement.”

  In its filing seeking an injunction, Yellow said it would likely file for bankruptcy if the court didn’t rule in its favor.

  “Absent injunctive relief, Plaintiffs will suffer immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm from Defendants’ unlawful work stoppage, including being forced into a Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy proceeding.”

  In a news release late Friday, Yellow said it would appeal the court’s decision and continue to pursue its breach of contract lawsuit against the Teamsters.

  “The court, recognizing a strike would likely kill the company, resulting in the loss of 30,000 jobs, cautioned the Union — that while it won today’s battle, it could very well lose the war,” the statement said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 18:30

• Oakland Fails Women As Staggering Crime Surge Goes Unpunished
  Oakland Fails Women As Staggering Crime Surge Goes Unpunished

  Oakland, California has been a cesspool of crime for decades – however a recent report reveals just how much worse things have gotten in the last year alone.

  

  Compared to last year, robberies have surged 22%, while overall crime has risen by a staggering 42% in the first half of 2023.

  Seven women told the San Francisco chronicle their harrowing tales of violent attacks which have been ignored by the police.

  A woman walked briskly, through a busy shopping corridor and past a columbarium in North Oakland, heading toward her car. Dusk was gathering.

  She crossed the street to a tree-lined block of Ramona Avenue, the vehicle now within arm’s reach.

  From behind, the woman recalled in an interview, she heard footsteps. She turned around. Inches away stood a figure in a ski mask, pointing a knife at her stomach. He lunged, grabbed her car’s key fob and clicked it to open the driver’s-side door. The woman frantically fought back.

  Residents heard screams and emerged from their homes just as the attacker punched the woman’s shoulder and shoved her to the ground. He ripped two canvas bags from her arms, one with a laptop, the other filled with personal items. Crouched on the ground, dazed, she tried to call 911, but said she got disconnected.

  The incident, shortly after 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 15, came in a year that has seen a significant increase in robberies in Oakland, with 1,880 reports as of July 16 — up 22% from the same period last year. –SF Chronicle

  Violent attacks on women in particular have increased – with recent data showing a higher level of violence towards female robbery victims, as assailants target individuals who are distracted by cell phones. 

  Oakland Police have admitted that robberies are generally crimes of opportunity in which women are often perceived as easier targets.

  Law enforcement officials, who have been accused of ignoring the problem, say they are overburdened and unable to provide women the support they need, and have pointed to a controversial statement by Oakland Department of Violence Prevention Chief Kentrell Killens, which seemed to sympathize with young robbery suspects rather than victims.

  “These are our babies, these are our children,” said Killens, referring to criminals. “They deserve a chance to get things together. They deserve a chance to have the level of support to help them turn things around.“

  Women in Oakland have since come together to form an online community to apply pressure on city officials to take action. While their initial efforts eventually led to a response, the group revealed that there are only six investigators handling hundreds of reported incidents, building a case, and actually moving forward with them.

  Several victims told the outlet that their attackers remain at large due to insufficient evidence or surveillance footage which can’t be made out.

  In short, Oakland is failing its residents – particularly its most vulnerable.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 18:00

• Kennedy Schools Dems On Free Speech; "Shut Up!!!" They Explained…
  Kennedy Schools Dems On Free Speech; “Shut Up!!!” They Explained…

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

  It was a strange experience watching the House hearing in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was testifying.

  The topic was censorship and how and to what extent federal government agencies under two administrations muscled social media companies to take down posts, ban users and throttle content. The majority made its case.

  What was strange was the minority reaction throughout.

  They tried to shut down RFK. They moved to go to executive session so that the public could not hear the proceedings. The effort failed. Then they shouted over his words when they were questioning him.

  They wildly smeared him and defamed him. They even began with an attempt to block him from speaking at all, and eight Democrats voted to support that.

  

  This was a hearing on censorship and they were trying to censor him. Just think about that for a second.

  It only made the point.

  It’s in the First Amendment for a Reason

  It became so awful that RFK was compelled to give a short tutorial on the importance of free speech as an essential right, without which all other rights and freedoms are in jeopardy. Even those words he could barely speak given the rancor in the room.

  It’s fair to say that free speech, even as a core principle, is in grave trouble. We cannot even get a consensus on the basics.

  It seemed to viewers that RFK was the adult in the room. Put other ways, he was the preacher of fidelity in the brothel, the keeper of memory in a room full of amnesiacs, the practitioner of sanity in the sanatorium, or, as H.L. Mencken might have said, the hurler of a dead cat into the temple.

  It was oddly strange to hear the voice of wise statesmen in that hothouse culture of infantile corruption: It reminded the public just how far things have fallen. Notably, it was he and not the people who wanted him gagged who was citing scientific papers.

  The protests against his statements were shrill and shocking. They moved quickly from “Censorship didn’t happen” to “It was necessary and wonderful” to “We need more of it.”

  Reporting on the spectacle, The New York Times said these are “thorny questions”:

  “Is misinformation protected by the First Amendment? When is it appropriate for the federal government to seek to tamp down the spread of falsehoods?”

  These are not thorny questions.

  The real issue concerns who is to be the arbiter of truth?

  Attacks on Free Speech Aren’t New

  Such attacks on free speech do have precedent in American history. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 led to a complete political upheaval that swept Thomas Jefferson into the White House. There were two additional bouts of censorship folly in the 20th century. Both followed great wars and an explosion in government size and reach.

  The first came with the Red Scare (1917-1920) following the Great War (WWI). The Bolshevik Revolution and political instability in Europe led to a wild bout of political paranoia in the U.S. that the communists, anarchists and labor movement were plotting a takeover of the U.S. government. The result was an imposition of censorship along with strict laws concerning political loyalty.

  The Espionage Act of 1917 was one result. It is still in force and being deployed today, most recently against former President Trump. Many states passed censorship laws. The feds deported many people suspected of sedition and treason. Suspected communists were hauled in front of Congress and grilled.

  The second bout occurred after the Second World War with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Army-McCarthy hearings that led to blacklists and media smears of every sort.

  The result was a chilling of free speech across American industry that hit media particularly hard. That incident later became legendary due to the exaggerations and disregard for the First Amendment.

  COVID Put U.S. on War Footing

  How does the COVID-era censorship fit into this historical context? I’ve compared the wild COVID response to a wartime footing that caused as much trauma on the homeland as previous world wars.

  Three years of research, documents and reporting have established that the lockdowns and all that followed were not directed by public health authorities. They were the veneer for the national security state, which took charge in the month of February 2020 and deployed the full takeover of both government and society in mid-March.

  This is one reason that it’s been so difficult getting information on how and why all of this happened to us: It’s been mostly classified under the guise of national security.

  In other words, this was war and the nation was ruled for a time (and maybe still is) by what amounts to quasi-martial law. Indeed, it felt like that. No one knew for sure who was in charge and who was making all these wild decisions for our lives and work.

  It was never clear what the penalties would be for noncompliance. The rules and edicts seemed arbitrary, having no real connection to the goal; indeed no one really knew what the goal was besides more and more control.

  There was no real exit strategy or endgame.

  “Shut up!” They Explained

  As with the two previous bouts of censorship in the last century, there commenced a closure of public debate. It began almost immediately as the lockdowns edict were issued. They tightened over the months and years.

  Elites sought to plug every leak in the official narrative through every means possible. They invaded every space. Those they could not get to (like Parler) were simply unplugged. Amazon rejected books. YouTube deleted millions of posts. Twitter was brutal, while once-friendly Facebook became the enforcer of regime propaganda.

  The hunt for dissenters took strange forms. Those who held gatherings were shamed. People who did not socially distance were called disease spreaders. Walking outside without a mask one day, a man shouted out to me in anger that “masks are socially recommended.”

  I kept turning that phrase around in my mind because it made no sense. The mask, no matter how obviously ineffective, was imposed as a tactic of humiliation and an exclusionary measure that targeted the incredulous. It was also a symbol: stop talking because your voice does not matter. Your speech will be muffled.

  The vaccine of course came next: deployed as a tool to purge the military, public sector, academia, and the corporate world. The moment the New York Times reported that vaccine uptake was lower in states that supported Trump, the Biden administration had its talking points and agenda. The shot would be deployed to purge.

  Indeed, five cities briefly segregated themselves to exclude the unvaccinated from public spaces. The continued spread of the virus itself was blamed on the noncompliant.

  Those who decried the trajectory could hardly find a voice much less assemble a social network. The idea was to make us all feel isolated even if we might have been the overwhelming majority.

  We just couldn’t tell either way.

  War and Censorship Go Hand in Hand

  War and censorship go together because it is wartime that allows ruling elites to declare that ideas alone are dangerous to the goal of defeating the enemy. “Loose lips sink ships” is a clever phrase but it applies across the board in wartime.

  The goal is always to whip up the public in a frenzy of hate against the foreign enemy (“The Kaiser!”) and ferret out the rebels, the traitors, the subversives, and promoters of unrest. There is a reason that the protestors on January 6 were called “insurrectionists.” It is because it happened in wartime.

  The war, however, was of domestic origin and targeted at Americans themselves. That’s why the precedent of 20th century censorship holds in this case. The war on Covid was in many ways an action of the national security state, something akin to a military operation prompted and administered by intelligence services in close cooperation with the administrative state.

  And they want to make the protocols that governed us over these years permanent. Already, European governments are issuing stay-at-home recommendations for the heat.

  If you had told me that this was the essence of what was happening in 2020 or 2021, I would have rolled my eyes in disbelief. But all evidence I’ve gathered since then has shown exactly that. In this case, the censorship was a predictable part of the mix.

  The Red Scare mutated a century later to become the virus scare in which the real pathogen they tried to kill was your willingness to think for yourself.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 17:30

• Iconic Park Avenue Wine Store Sherry-Lehmann Raided By FBI
  Iconic Park Avenue Wine Store Sherry-Lehmann Raided By FBI

  Iconic wine retailer Sherry-Lehmann was raided by the FBI last week as part of an ongoing criminal investigation by the Justice Department. 

  The 89 year old retailer’s store on Park Avenue was searched by authorities last week as part of an ongoing investigation stemming from “lawsuits from customers for alleged failure to deliver prepaid wine” as well as nearly $3 million in unpaid taxes, Bloomberg reported.

  The company had stated in January that it “expects the delayed wines to be bought and delivered in 2023.” But it appears those ambitions may be too little, too late at this point. 

  The store received a cease-and-desist order from regulators, forcing it to shut down, the report says. The order was for selling liquor without a license. On Tuesday of last week FBI investigators were seen outside the Park Avenue location. 

  

  The New York Times had previously reported that witnesses were asked to show up to a federal grand jury last month. 

  The store has been browsed and visited by a host of celebrities, Bloomberg noted, including Andy Warhol, Greta Garbo, Mick Jagger and Harrison Ford. The store was known for carrying an luxurious selection and is was referred to as making the decision of which brands the city’s “elite” drank.

  The owners also ran a business that allowed people to rent space and store the expensive bottles they had purchased. The New York Times has reported that employees of the company believed it improperly sold stored bottles to other customers. 

  The FBI confirmed that officers were carrying out “an enforcement action”, while owners Shyda Gilmer and Kris Green didn’t return comment to Bloomberg. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 17:00

• Concerns Raised Over Number Of Students Identifying As LGBT
  Concerns Raised Over Number Of Students Identifying As LGBT

  Authored by Doug Lett via The Epoch Times,

  The head of the group Unified Grassroots in Saskatchewan is raising concerns about gender ideology in the classroom.

  

  Nadine Ness said she has been contacted by several parents who are worried about the percentage of students in some classrooms who are identifying as LGBT.

  In one case, she said, a father told her that in his 13-year-old son’s class, 13 out of 30 young people identify as LGBT.

  She was also notified of a principal in a different school telling a parent that some 32 percent of Grade 7 and 8 students are identifying as LGBT.

  Her concern is that the percentages seem very high.

  “I think it sends a clear message that something is happening in the classroom that is leading kids to go that route of either identifying or being confused about gender,” she told The Epoch Times.

  “That 32 percent is not what’s reflected in society.”

  “It just confirms what I’m hearing from parents across the province,” she added. “It’s not every classroom. It seems that they all have a few things in common where the children will have been exposed to teachers or people within the school system that are constantly pushing that ideology.”

  She went on to say that it is probably normal that some children would identify—but not the percentages she is being told.

  “I’m sure there’s some of them that do identify, but that many kids are getting confused—we have to ask ourselves, is this what’s in the best interest of the children that are going into these schools?”

  Ms. Ness said she has been told some of the numbers come from a survey within the Saskatchewan school system, but said she has not been able to find out much about it.

  “And if it’s province wide, I wanted the public to start demanding accountability from the government … I have yet to be able to get a copy of it to know what questions are asked and I actually had some teachers reach out to me, and they told me they don’t even get to see the questions … They’re putting these kids in front of a computer screen to answer the survey, and no teacher gets to actually see what questions are asked.”

  The Epoch Times contacted the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education for more information about the survey, but did not get a response by deadline.

  For Ms. Ness, the issue is why the percentage of young people identifying is so high.

  “I hope it triggers studies and for the Ministry of Education to look into this,” she said.

  “Is it just confusion? Is it indoctrination? Or is this really just where we’re going as a society?” she asked.

  “Is this natural or not natural?”

  Unified Grassroots is a non-profit organization that was started by parents in 2021 over concerns about the effect of COVID-19 policies on children. Ms. Ness said they have thousands of members and followers provincewide.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 16:30

• N.Korea Launches More Cruise Missiles In 'Warning' Over US Nuclear-Armed Sub
  N.Korea Launches More Cruise Missiles In ‘Warning’ Over US Nuclear-Armed Sub

  This week has witnessed what is arguably the most intense rhetoric exchanged between Washington and Pyongyang in years, given it centers on back-and-forth nuclear threats, yet major Western media networks have given it scant attention in terms of feature coverage.

  In the latest incident, North Korea on Saturday fired multiple cruise missiles to the west of the Korean Peninsula, according to South Korean military statements, which appear part of the Kim Jong Un government’s continuing protest over a US nuclear-armed submarine docking at a South Korean port.

  

  It marks at least the second missile launch and “warning” from Pyongyang this week. “North Korea fired several cruise missiles into the Yellow Sea on Saturday,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff [SK JCS] said.

  “South Korean and US intelligence authorities were analyzing the launches, which took place at about 4:00 a.m., to learn more about the type of missiles fired and other details, according to the JCS.” The JCS statement added: “Our military has bolstered surveillance and vigilance while closely cooperating with the United States and maintaining a firm readiness posture.”

  As we highlighted this week, the Ohio-Class USS Kentucky docked in the South Korean port of Busan on Tuesday, marking the first time since 1981 that an American nuclear-armed submarine arrived in the country. It also marked the first time since the US withdrew its tactical nukes from South Korea in 1991 that US nuclear weapons were deployed to the Korean Peninsula.

  Immediately on the heels of the nuclear-armed sub’s arrival, Pyongyang unleashed accusations of nuclear escalation aimed at Seoul and Washington….

  North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun-nam slammed the US and South Korean cooperation on nuclear weapons in a press statement released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.

  Kang said US and South Korean officials held the NCG meeting “to discuss the plan for using nuclear weapons against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea].”

  Nothing says denuclearization like sending nukes

  — Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) July 22, 2023

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

  Discussing North Korea’s nuclear policy, Kang said, “I remind the US military of the fact that the ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law on the nuclear force policy.”

  He said that Pyongyang’s nuclear doctrine “allows the execution of necessary action procedures in case a nuclear attack is launched against it or it is judged that the use of nuclear weapons against it is imminent.”

  After US officials held the NCG meeting, they released a statement that said any nuclear attack from the North will “will result in the end of that regime.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 16:00

• EVs For All? If The Dream Was Met, Would It Help The Environment?
  EVs For All? If The Dream Was Met, Would It Help The Environment?

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  Even if you are 100% convinced in man-made climate change, the idea the EV’s will help reduce CO2 emissions is nonsense…

  

  The Impossible Dream

  Hello climate change advocates, please open your minds and consider the Manhattan Institute report Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream by Mark P. Mills, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow.

  A dozen U.S. states, from California to New York, have joined dozens of countries, from Ireland to Spain, with plans to ban the sale of new cars with an internal combustion engine (ICE), many prohibitions taking effect within a decade. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a feat of regulatory legerdemain, has proposed tailpipe emissions rules that would effectively force automakers to shift to producing mainly electric vehicles (EVs) by 2032.

  To ensure compliance with ICE prohibitions and soften the economic impacts, policymakers are deploying lavish subsidies for manufacturers and consumers. Enthusiasts claim that EVs already have achieved economic and operational parity, if not superiority, with automobiles and trucks fueled by petroleum, so the bans and subsidies merely accelerate what they believe is an inevitable transition.

  It is certainly true that EVs are practical and appealing for many drivers. Even without subsidies or mandates, millions more will be purchased by consumers, if mainly by wealthy ones. But the facts reveal a fatal flaw in the core motives for the prohibitions and mandates.

  Executive Summary Key Points

  • No one knows how much, if at all, CO2 emissions will decline as EV use rises. Every claim for EVs reducing emissions is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, or aspirations. The variables and uncertainties in emissions from energy-intensive mining and processing of minerals used to make EV batteries are a big wild card in the emissions calculus. Those emissions substantially offset reductions from avoiding gasoline and, as the demand for battery minerals explodes, the net reductions will shrink, may vanish, and could even lead to a net increase in emissions. Similar emissions uncertainties are associated with producing the power for EV charging stations.

  • No one knows when or whether EVs will reach economic parity with the cars that most people drive. An EV’s higher price is dominated by the costs of the critical materials that are needed to build it and is thus dependent on guesses about the future of mining and minerals industries, which are mainly in foreign countries. The facts also show that, for the majority of drivers, there’s no visibility for when, if ever, EVs will reach parity in cost and fueling convenience, regardless of subsidies.

  • Ultimately, if implemented, bans on conventionally powered vehicles will lead to draconian impediments to affordable and convenient driving and a massive misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion automotive industry.

  • Rarely has a government, at least the U.S. government, banned specific products or behaviors that are so widely used or undertaken. Indeed, there have been only two comparably far-reaching bans in U.S. history: the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the consumption of alcohol (repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment); and the 1974 law prohibiting driving faster than 55 mph. Neither achieved its goals; both were widely flouted, and the first one engendered unintended consequences, not least of which was criminal behavior.

  EV Emissions: Unclear, and Maybe Unknowable

  In contrast to cars with internal combustion engines, it’s impossible to measure an EV’s CO2 emissions. While, self-evidently, there are no emissions while driving an EV, emissions occur elsewhere—before the first mile is ever driven and when the vehicle is parked to refuel.

  The CO2 emissions directly associated with EVs begin with all the upstream industrial processes needed to acquire materials and fabricate the battery. The received wisdom that EVs will have a “huge impact” on reducing emissions is, whether the claimants know it or not, anchored in assumptions about the quantities and varieties of materials mined, processed, and refined to make the battery.

  The scale of those upstream emissions emerges from the fact that a typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds and replaces a fuel tank holding about 80 pounds of gasoline. That half-ton battery is made from a wide range of minerals, including copper, nickel, aluminum, graphite, cobalt, manganese, and, of course, lithium.

  As researchers at the U.S. Argonne National Labs have pointed out, the relevant emissions data on such materials “remain meager to nonexistent, forcing researchers to resort to engineering calculations or approximations.” The fundamental fact to keep in mind: every claim for EVs reducing emissions is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, or aspirations.

  The critical factor for estimating upstream EV emissions starts with knowing the energy used to access and fabricate battery materials, all of which are more energy-intensive (and more expensive) than the iron and steel that make up 85% of the weight of a conventional vehicle.[36] The energy used to produce a pound of copper, nickel, and aluminum, for example, is two to three times greater than steel. Estimates of the aggregate energy cost to fabricate an EV battery vary threefold but, for context, on average, the energy equivalent of about 300 gallons of oil is used to fabricate a quantity of batteries capable of storing the energy contained in a single gallon of gasoline.

  That so much upstream energy is necessarily used is understandable if one knows that hundreds of thousands of pounds of rock and materials are mined, moved, and processed to create the intermediate and final refined minerals to fabricate a single thousand-pound battery.

  While there are dozens of variations, a typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds and contains about 30 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of cobalt, 130 pounds of nickel, 190 pounds of graphite, 90 pounds of copper,[a] and about 400 pounds of steel, aluminum, and various plastic components.

  Sources of “Hidden” Energy to Mine and Process 500,000 Pounds per EV Battery

  • Lithium brines contain @ ~0.14% lithium, so that entails ~20,000 pounds of brines to yield 30 pounds of pure lithium.

  • Cobalt @ ~0.1% ore grades means ~60,000 pounds of ore dug up per battery

  • Nickel @ ~1.3% grade, means ~10,000 pounds of ore

  • Graphite @ ~10% leads to 2,000 pounds of ore

  • Copper @ ~0.6% yields about 12,000 pounds of ore

  • These five elements total ~100,000 pounds of ore to fabricate one EV battery. To properly account for all the earth moved, there’s also the overburden, the materials first dug up to get to the ore; depending on ore type and location, it averages three to seven tons of overburden removed to access each ton of ore, thus ~500,000 pounds total. 

  • The energy used to obtain a pound of metal depends on the mineral ore grades, the size and nature of a mine, the distances that materials are transported, and the nature of the grids and fuels used at specific mines. For copper, that number can vary at least twofold and for nickel by threefold. Getting accurate information is complicated by the fact that 80%–90% of relevant minerals are mined outside the U.S. and EU.

  Known Unknowns

  

  Location and Other Known Unknowns

  Location: A battery plant in Norway, where dams provide about 90% of electricity, adds very little to upstream emissions from mineral processing and assembly, while a lot is added for the same plant in China, where coal supplies two-thirds of grid power. Notably, half the world’s EVs in 2022 were built in China, and China is rapidly entering global markets, selling EVs across the world.

  Chemistry: There are about a dozen variations in lithium chemistry. While these entail different ratios and types of some minerals, the overall quantity of materials, and thus mining, needed per battery remains roughly the same. The exception is with lower energy-density chemistries. For example, the lithium-iron-phosphate (LPO) chemistry, popular in China and with some automakers because it doesn’t use cobalt or nickel, has a 20% lower energy density. That translates into either a 20% lower driving range or building a bigger, heavier battery requiring more copper, aluminum, polymers, and lithium.

  Electronics: An EV uses about 200% more electronics for power management. Silicon device fabrication is extremely energy-intensive (about 100x more, pound-for-pound, than steel), but, as one analysis put it, energy-use “data for electronics production still needs to become better.” The data available suggest that the uncounted CO2 emissions embodied in each EV’s power electronics roughly equal those from driving an ICE car 3,000 miles.

  Life Span: Most analysts assume that a battery pack will last the EV’s lifetime, but life spans depend on how consumers charge the battery—fast or overnight. As one study put it, using “intensive,” i.e., on-road fast charging, rather than “light” overnight charging, typically cuts a battery’s life in half. Modeling the emissions from an EV fleet requires estimating what share of owners will need two batteries per car life span.

  Fuel Efficiency: When EV emissions are presented as a percentage reduction over an ICE car, one assumes a fuel mileage for the latter. But realistic forecasts would incorporate future trends in combustion engine efficiency. An analysis of engine technology progress finds 30%–50% fuel efficiency gains will be on offer by 2030 and thus an equal reduction in CO2 emissions per mile. Using the performance of a future ICE for comparison with a future EV further closes any gap in estimated emissions savings

  Recycling: Recycling will be irrelevant for a long time, as far as mitigating upstream minerals demands. Since manufacturers claim that EV batteries will last a decade, that means that there won’t be much of anything available to begin recycling until the early 2030s. The best that IEA could come up with is recycled minerals meeting 1%–2% of battery demand by 2030.[70] As for the following decades, enthusiasts’ unrealistic dream of perfect recycling, even were it feasible, would still leave the need for an astronomical rise in overall minerals supplied.

  Alleged Breakthroughs: News stories serially claim a “breakthrough” in battery technology, but there are no commercially viable alternative battery chemistries that significantly change the magnitude of the physical materials needed. To meaningfully reduce primary mineral demands would require a nearly 10-fold leap in underlying electrochemistry efficiency. Such gains aren’t even theoretically feasible. Many processes are already operating near physics limits.

  Heavy Duty Use: Batteries for most heavy equipment are not up to 24×7 performance and industrial-class demands—never mind costs. And as IEA has also pointed out, over half the electricity used in industry is not grid-connected but produced on-site, and much of it with diesel-fueled generators, especially at remote and small mines.

  Temperature: EV mileage is about 30% worse when it’s 20oF outside, versus 80oF, because battery electrochemical reactions are unavoidably slow at lower temperatures.[91] There’s only a 5% drop in fuel efficiency for ICE cars over the same temperature range. On top of that, as road testers and consumers know, using an EV’s heater in winter can lower kWh mileage by as much as 50%.[92] (An ICE car scavenges free waste heat.) Such temperature factors are generally ignored, not only on EV “sticker” ratings but especially so in estimating national emissions impacts from EVs. Those factors matter, since one-third of the U.S. population lives in cold northern latitudes.

  Moore’s Law and the Comic Book View

  Only in comic books does energy tech advance at the pace of information tech, such as in Moore’s Law.

  Similarly central to the inevitability and cheaper-better claims is the assertion that EVs are inherently simpler machines and that the “old” ICE technology is maxed out, with no innovation remaining. 

  

  The reality is otherwise. Yes, conventional cars do have a complex thermo-mechanical system, with the engine and automatic transmission made from hundreds of components, mated with a very simple fuel system, a tank holding a liquid with a one-moving-part pump. EVs, inversely, have a very simple motor made from just a few parts. However, the EV fuel tank is a complex electrochemical system made from hundreds of parts, sometimes thousands, including a cooling system, sensors, and control electronics. In addition, the EV drivetrain requires roughly double the quantity of microcontrollers and power electronics.

  Greater advances are still possible with ICE tech than are with electric motors or batteries. In terms of overall mineral resource requirements, a 1% improvement in combustion efficiency equals a 10% advance in battery-electric tech.

  Projection vs Needs

  

  Where Are the Minerals?

  The overwhelming majority of minerals supply is located outside the U.S. and EU.“None of the raw materials required for battery-cell manufacturing are currently mined in significant quantities in Europe,” a recent German government study noted.

  For energy minerals, China has double the market share that OPEC has with oil. China is busily expanding mining investments in Africa and South America and is on track to raise its share of the refined lithium market from 24% last year to 32% within two years. Other countries are following Indonesia’s new policy (the world’s top nickel producer), wherein exports of raw mineral ore are prohibited, requiring the construction of local refineries. Meanwhile, in South America, where two-thirds of the world’s low-cost lithium resources are known (and one-third of current production), there’s talk of a Lithium cartel. The effect on prices of such market concentrations are well known. Strategies to form “buyers’ clubs” among nations, recently proposed by the U.S. government in collaboration with the EU, run up against their historical failure. Monopolies, cartels, or dominant sellers invariably have more price control.

  Even if the energy-minerals market were to be uniquely free of price manipulation, the basic economics of supply and demand points to dramatic price increases for batteries—as well as other products dependent on these minerals. For many minerals, EV demand is transitioning from a marginal share to the dominant use. Competition for these minerals’ supply, and inevitably price pressures, will begin to have an impact on the cost of building everything from homes and buildings to appliances and computers. Five years ago, EV markets constituted, for example, 15%, 10%, and 2% of all uses for lithium, cobalt, and nickel, respectively; last year, those shares were 60%, 30%, and 10% and rising rapidly.

  Refueling Infrastructure

  So far, 90% of EVs in the U.S. have been purchased as a second or third car by wealthy households with a garage. While only one-third of American households have a garage, the fueling infrastructure challenges begin in those neighborhoods for an all-EV world. If all garage owners use home chargers, it will necessitate massive upgrades to residential electric networks. Otherwise, as one study showed, “more than 95 percent of residential transformers would be overloaded,” meaning that they fail or can blow up.

  “Fast” charging is still far slower than the five to 10 minutes typical for gasoline fueling. Thus, to achieve the same convenience (avoiding waits in lines, etc.), a filling station will require about four chargers to replace each gasoline pump. Quite aside from the land-use implications, this translates into at least a doubling of the overall cost to build the average filling station (counting land, buildings, and other infrastructures as well).

  In addition, installing two dozen or more superchargers at a filling station creates a grid power demand comparable to a small town or a steel mill instead of a convenience-store demand level of today’s filling stations. At the same time, the higher power levels from EV chargers will radically decrease the life span of the existing power transformers on utility poles, coming at a time when costs for new transformers have inflated about fivefold.

  In Europe, where there’s more experience with on-road fast charging, the cost of a fast-charge fill-up is already higher than diesel for the same distances driven. In the U.S., Consumer Reports notes that the cost to fill up with a Tesla supercharger is over triple the (usually assumed) cost of at-home overnight charging.

  Refueling Math

  As for a “big reset” for EV infrastructure based on the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s $7.5 billion in subsidies to fund “thousands” of on-road chargers: consider the math. The all-EV future will need to replace most, if not all, of America’s roughly 1 million gasoline pumps located at the existing 145,000 filling stations.

  The calculus of overall societal costs for an all-EV future also requires including the dramatic expansion of power generation and long-distance transmission. Replacing all the gasoline used in America with electricity would require at least 50% more electricity generation than exists or is planned, along with an even greater increase in electric power distribution. Such power-plant and grid requirements represent multitrillion-dollar levels of spending.

  An analysis from the Boston Consulting Group puts the utility grid improvement costs—never mind power generation—at $1,700–$5,800 per EV put on the market. Do the math: that’s $400 billion to over $1 trillion for an all-EV American car fleet. While those costs would be divorced from car prices, it would constitute “sticker shock” for household electricity or tax bills.

  Conclusion: There’s No Such Thing as a Carbon-Free Lunch

  Imagining a hypothetical all-EV world requires acknowledging the unavoidable fact of a rats’ nest of assumptions, guesses, and ambiguities regarding emissions. Much of the necessary data may never be collectible in any normal regulatory fashion, given the technical uncertainties and the variety and opacity of geographic factors, as well as the proprietary nature of many of the processes. Those uncertainties could lead to havoc if U.S. and European regulators enshrine “green disclosures” in legally binding ways, and it all will be subject to manipulation, if not fraud.

  If implemented, ICE bans will lead to a massive misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion personal mobility industry. It will also lead to draconian constraints on freedoms and unprecedented impediments to affordable and convenient driving. And it will have little to no impact on global CO2 emissions. In fact, the bans and EV mandates are more likely to cause a net increase in emissions.

  Mish Comments

  The report by Mark P. Mills is complete with over 200 footnote citations and 14 charts of which I only discussed a few.

  Mills presents an excellent starting point for understanding why the Biden push for EVs and especially Biden’s timeline cannot and will not happen. More importantly, it’s not even the right goal.

  Also, Biden envisions production of EVs and minerals in the US while his Green administration is hell bent on blocking every mine for environmental reasons.

  The ridiculously-named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) allocates $7.5 billion for infrastructure when a trillion dollars may be insufficient. This does not include the massive underinvest in mines, mostly powered by diesel or coal, and largely controlled by China.

  Solid State Batteries and the Kiss of Death for Gas Powered Cars, Hype or Reality?

  Regarding alleged battery breakthroughs, please consider Solid State Batteries and the Kiss of Death for Gas Powered Cars, Hype or Reality?

  Numerous articles cite an alleged breakthrough by Toyota that will be the kiss of death for the gasoline engine. Some of us are skeptical.

  Please note that Toyota is so convinced of its solid state technology that it continuing research in hybrids, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids, regular batteries, and semi-solid state batteries.

  Mills stated To meaningfully reduce primary mineral demands would require a nearly 10-fold leap in underlying electrochemistry efficiency. Such gains aren’t even theoretically feasible. Many processes are already operating near physics limits.

  Ford to Layoff at Least 1,000 Workers, EV Startup Lordstown Motors Dies

  We have hype over batteries, production, and goals that are not remotely possible.

  Meanwhile, Ford to Layoff at Least 1,000 Workers, EV Startup Lordstown Motors Dies

  EV Irony of the Day

  Biden and the EPA have conspired to force companies to produce more EVs, but they cannot force anyone to buy them.

  Please ponder the EV Irony, Despite Huge Incentives, Supply of EVs on Dealer Lots Soars to 92 Days

   Hello car manufacturers, what are you going to do with all that inventory?

  By the way, According to Florida’s Department of Emergency Management (DEM), nearly 6.8 million Floridians evacuated their homes in the lead up to Hurricane Irma, “beating 2005’s Houston-area Hurricane Rita exit by millions.” 

  Everyone will get 300 miles then their cars will all die.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 15:30

• Google Tests AI Tool To 'Help' Journalists Write News Articles
  Google Tests AI Tool To ‘Help’ Journalists Write News Articles

  Google has reportedly been testing an AI-powered technology that will automate the production of news content, and probably put thousands of NPC journalists out of a job.

  

  Known internally as “Genesis,” the new project aims to collaborate with organizations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and News Corp, according to the NY Times, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

  The Genesis AI tool possesses the capability to assimilate vast amounts of data, including current events and intricate details, and generate comprehensive news articles, the sources revealed. This development has ignited fervent debates over the future of journalism and the role of AI technology in shaping the news landscape.

  Industry insiders who witnessed Google’s Genesis pitch have voiced a sense of unease, particularly over the potential for the tool to disrupt the tireless efforts of journalists in crafting authentic, compelling, and meticulously fact-checked stories.

  Google says Genesis will be a boon for journalists, however, and has framed it as more of a personal assistant that can automate certain tasks, leaving journalists with more time to conduct more in-depth reporting.

  “We’re in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide A.I.-enabled tools to help their journalists with their work. Quite simply, these tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles. Instead, they could provide options for headlines and other writing styles,” said Google spokeswoman, Jenn Crider.

  Some experts aren’t so sure, such as journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, who says that if the technology can deliver factual and reliable information, it could be a valuable resource for journalists, but that it has the potential for misuse – including the fact that certain topics require nuance and cultural understanding that might get lost in translation.

  The use of AI in newsrooms has become a central issue for news organizations worldwide. Many have already embraced the technology, such as the Times, NPR and Insider, all of which have told journalists to explore potential use cases.

  Google Genesis, however, adds another layer of complexity to the debate, as concerns arise over potential misinformation and its impact on the perception of traditionally written news stories.

  Meanwhile, governments worldwide have intensified calls for tech companies like Google to share advertising revenue with news outlets. Google, in response, has forged partnerships with various news organizations in an attempt to address the issue.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 15:00

• Ron DeSantis' Big Mistake
  Ron DeSantis’ Big Mistake

  Authored by Linda Chavez via RealClear Wire,

  Ron DeSantis seems to believe that his best chance of becoming the GOP presidential nominee is to be more extreme than the guy he needs to defeat, Donald Trump. And what better issue to flex his MAGA bona fides than immigration?

  

  Florida’s draconian new immigration restrictions, signed into law by DeSantis two months ago, are now taking effect. They will have a devastating impact on at least two of the state’s major industries: agriculture and construction.

  The new law imposes tough penalties on both undocumented employees and the employers who hire them. A job applicant who presents a false Social Security number or other documentation during the hiring process will be subject to a third-degree felony and could serve five years in jail. The statute also requires employers with more than 25 workers to use the federal E-Verify system, which has a documented history of both rejecting legitimate workers and clearing those who aren’t authorized.  If employers hire unauthorized workers, they could end up losing their business licenses.

  Workers are apparently fleeing the state in response – and not just those who are in the country illegally. Many immigrant families have mixed status: an undocumented parent or spouse and legal immigrants or U.S. citizens in the same household. One 2017 study estimated that more than 900,000 Floridians lived in mixed-status households, and when a family member faces the risk of becoming a felon, they may decide that staying in Florida isn’t worth the risk.

  The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in Miami’s booming construction industry, between 25% and 50% of local construction workers have already disappeared from job sites. The owner of a large farming and packaging company told the WSJ that he’d lost half of his employees because of the law.

  Construction and agriculture depend heavily on unauthorized workers nationally and in Florida. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis estimates that almost 40% of agricultural workers in the state are noncitizen immigrants (most of whom are also undocumented), as are 23% percent of its construction workers. These employees are not easily replaceable – and certainly not with American workers. Florida’s economy will take a dramatic hit because of DeSantis’ efforts to woo the MAGA base with anti-immigrant measures.

  Yet DeSantis has been touting Florida’s economy as a reason Republican voters should support him. And it’s true that Florida is first in a recent ranking that measures which states were most successful in attracting talent. The governor noted in a press release about the rankings, “Florida is leading the nation in net migration and talent attraction. As other states continue to struggle at the hands of poor leadership, people and businesses are flocking to Florida.”

  The governor’s statement also boasts about the 388,000 new residents added to the state between 2016-2020. What he doesn’t say is how many of those new residents were immigrants, legal and illegal. A whopping 21% of Florida’s population is foreign-born, including about 775,000 who are undocumented.  Immigrants are well represented across various occupations in the state, including 32% of service occupations and 23% of management, business, and science occupations. But the state’s tough new law may end up making Florida a much less attractive state in which to work or establish a business – certainly in industries that rely on immigrant workers.

  What is ironic about DeSantis’ move is that Florida’s illegal immigration problem has improved over the years, despite influxes of newcomers from Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America.  According to the Pew Research Center, which provides one of the best historical analyses of immigration trends available, there were more than 1 million undocumented people living in Florida in 2007. 

  DeSantis is struggling to gain support, which won’t happen if he keeps being a poor imitation of the other prominent Florida-based candidate running for president. DeSantis should be trying to convince voters that he’s been a job creator in Florida and he will do the same for the country.

  Making it more difficult to hire people to do essential jobs tarnishes his credentials. He ought to be telling Republicans that we need to make it easier for people whose skills we need to come to the United States legally, and that he’ll push for necessary reform of our immigration laws when he becomes president. He understands that workforce growth means more for everyone, not just individual workers and their families but the communities in which they live and spend their money. DeSantis says the 2024 election is about the future – and he’s right. But the future is not about building walls or driving workers away but welcoming them. It’s not about protecting jobs but creating them.

  Linda Chavez served in the Reagan White House and writes frequently on race, ethnicity and immigration.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 14:30

• Cop Who Kneeled On George Floyd Appeals To US Supreme Court
  Cop Who Kneeled On George Floyd Appeals To US Supreme Court

  Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the kneeling death of George Floyd, will petition the US Supreme Court to review his conviction after the Minnesota state Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.

  

  At least four of the nine justices must vote to grant a petition for it to move forward to the oral argument stage. The USSC is expected to release orders in ongoing cases on July 24, Aug. 21 and Sept. 8, meaning the Court could act on Chauvin’s new case on one of those dates – or it could wait until the new term begins in October.

  Chauvin’s petition was dismissed by the state supreme court on July 18 in a one-sentence order without explanation, denying the former cop an opportunity to overturn his 22.5-year sentence. He asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to take up the case in May after the state Court of Appeals rejected his claim that he received an unfair trial the month before.

  Mr. Chauvin, a white man who was a member of the Minneapolis police department at the time of the incident in March 2020, reportedly kneeled on Mr. Floyd, a black man, for more than nine minutes while he was handcuffed in a prone position after being detained on suspicion of passing a counterfeit 20-dollar bill at a convenience store. A passer-by captured video footage of him complaining while detained that he couldn’t breathe, and the video went viral, leading to protests in the United States and around the world.

  The death of Mr. Floyd led to widespread public revulsion and a violent nationwide backlash against police that continues to affect the nation’s politics, criminal justice system, and culture, as well as riots across the country that resulted in billions of dollars in damages. -Epoch Times

  In 2021, prosecutors asked jurors to dismiss autopsy findings in the Floyd case.

  As Jonathan Turley noted at the time;

  • When called to the scene due to Floyd allegedly passing counterfeit money, Floyd denied using drugs but later said he was “hooping,” or taking drugs.

  • The autopsy did not conclude that Floyd died from asphyxiation (though a family pathologist made that finding). Rather, it found “cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by law enforcement officer(s).” The state’s criminal complaint against Chauvin said the autopsy “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease.” He also was COVID-19 positive.

  • Andrew Baker, Hennepin County’s chief medical examiner, strongly suggested that the primary cause was a huge amount of fentanyl in Floyd’s system: “Fentanyl at 11 ng/ml — this is higher than (a) chronic pain patient. If he were found dead at home alone & no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD (overdose). Deaths have been certified w/levels of 3.” Baker also told investigators that the autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting Floyd died of asphyxiation.

  • The toxicology report on Floyd’s blood also noted that “in fatalities from fentanyl, blood concentrations are variable and have been reported as low as 3 ng/ml.” Floyd had almost four times the level of fentanyl considered potentially lethal.

  • Floyd notably repeatedly said that he could not breathe while sitting in the police cruiser and before he was ever restrained on the ground. That is consistent with the level of fentanyl in his system that can cause “slowed or stopped breathing.”

  • Floyd’s lungs were two to three times the normal size and filled with fluid. “Pulmonary edema is a condition caused by excess fluid in the lungs”  and it is symptomatic of an opioid overdose, according to Mayo Clinic.

  • Finally, the restraint using an officer’s knee on an uncooperative suspect was part of the training of officers, and jurors will watch training videotapes employing the same type of restraint as official policy.

  Will the Supreme Court entertain Chauvin’s request, risking more nationwide riots?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/22/2023 – 14:00

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• Mental Health Round-Ups: The Next Phase Of The Government's War On Thought-Crimes
  Mental Health Round-Ups: The Next Phase Of The Government’s War On Thought-Crimes

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is a dangerous activity.”

  – Hannah Arendt

  Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes: mental health round-ups and involuntary detentions.

  

  Under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.

  If we don’t nip this in the bud, and soon, this will become yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the First and Fourth Amendments at will.

  This is how it begins.

  In communities across the nation, police are being empowered to forcibly detain individuals they believe might be mentally ill, based solely on their own judgment, even if those individuals pose no danger to others.

  In New York City, for example, you could find yourself forcibly hospitalized for suspected mental illness if you carry “firmly held beliefs not congruent with cultural ideas,” exhibit a “willingness to engage in meaningful discussion,” have “excessive fears of specific stimuli,” or refuse “voluntary treatment recommendations.”

  While these programs are ostensibly aimed at getting the homeless off the streets, when combined with advances in mass surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, and mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, they could well signal a tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”

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

  Make no mistake: these are the building blocks for an American gulag no less sinister than that of the gulags of the Cold War-era Soviet Union.

  The word “gulag” refers to a labor or concentration camp where prisoners (oftentimes political prisoners or so-called “enemies of the state,” real or imagined) were imprisoned as punishment for their crimes against the state.

  The gulag, according to historian Anne Applebaum, used as a form of “administrative exile—which required no trial and no sentencing procedure—was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime.”

  Totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union also declared dissidents mentally ill and consigned political prisoners to prisons disguised as psychiatric hospitals, where they could be isolated from the rest of society, their ideas discredited, and subjected to electric shocks, drugs and various medical procedures to break them physically and mentally.

  In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers. Author George Kennan describes a process in which:

  The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is “prejudicial to public order” or “incompatible with public tranquility,” he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years.

  Warrantless seizures, surveillance, indefinite detention, isolation, exile… sound familiar?

  It should.

  The age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by making them disappear—or forcing them to flee—or exiling them literally or figuratively or virtually from their fellow citizens—is happening with increasing frequency in America.

  Now, through the use of red flag laws, behavioral threat assessments, and pre-crime policing prevention programs, the groundwork is being laid that would allow the government to weaponize the label of mental illness as a means of exiling those whistleblowers, dissidents and freedom fighters who refuse to march in lockstep with its dictates.

  That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) its critics is diabolical. With one stroke of a magistrate’s pen, these individuals are declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights.

  These developments are merely the realization of various U.S. government initiatives dating back to 2009, including one dubbed Operation Vigilant Eagle which calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”

  Coupled with the report on “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” issued by the Department of Homeland Security (curiously enough, a Soviet term), which broadly defines rightwing extremists as individuals and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” these tactics bode ill for anyone seen as opposing the government.

  Thus, what began as a blueprint under the Bush administration has since become an operation manual for exiling those who challenge the government’s authority.

  An important point to consider, however, is that the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is locking up individuals trained in military warfare who are voicing feelings of discontent.

  Under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as ticking time bombs in need of intervention.

  For instance, the Justice Department launched a pilot program aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.

  One tactic being used to deal with so-called “mentally ill suspects who also happen to be trained in modern warfare” is through the use of civil commitment laws, found in all states and employed throughout American history to not only silence but cause dissidents to disappear.

  For example, NSA officials attempted to label former employee Russ Tice, who was willing to testify in Congress about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, as “mentally unbalanced” based upon two psychiatric evaluations ordered by his superiors.

  NYPD Officer Adrian Schoolcraft had his home raided, and he was handcuffed to a gurney and taken into emergency custody for an alleged psychiatric episode. It was later discovered by way of an internal investigation that his superiors were retaliating against him for reporting police misconduct. Schoolcraft spent six days in the mental facility, and as a further indignity, was presented with a bill for $7,185 upon his release.

  Marine Brandon Raub—a 9/11 truther—was arrested and detained in a psychiatric ward under Virginia’s civil commitment law based on posts he had made on his Facebook page that were critical of the government.

  Each state has its own set of civil, or involuntary, commitment laws. These laws are extensions of two legal principles: parens patriae Parens patriae (Latin for “parent of the country”), which allows the government to intervene on behalf of citizens who cannot act in their own best interest, and police power, which requires a state to protect the interests of its citizens.

  The fusion of these two principles, coupled with a shift towards a dangerousness standard, has resulted in a Nanny State mindset carried out with the militant force of the Police State.

  The problem, of course, is that the diagnosis of mental illness, while a legitimate concern for some Americans, has over time become a convenient means by which the government and its corporate partners can penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors.

  In fact, in recent years, we have witnessed the pathologizing of individuals who resist authority as suffering from oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), defined as “a pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures.” Under such a definition, every activist of note throughout our history—from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr.—could be classified as suffering from an ODD mental disorder.

  Of course, this is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced, declared unfit for society, labelled dangerous or extremist, or turned into outcasts and exiled.

  Red flag gun laws (which authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others), are a perfect example of this mindset at work and the ramifications of where this could lead.

  As The Washington Post reports, these red flag gun laws “allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.”

  With these red flag gun laws, the stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats.

  While in theory it appears perfectly reasonable to want to disarm individuals who are clearly suicidal and/or pose an “immediate danger” to themselves or others, where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

  Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.

  This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.

  This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.

  This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

  For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

  Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

  Let that sink in a moment.

  Now consider the ramifications of giving police that kind of authority in order to preemptively neutralize a potential threat, and you’ll understand why some might view these mental health round-ups with trepidation.

  No matter how well-meaning the politicians make these encroachments on our rights appear, in the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes.

  Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation.

  The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, the war on COVID-19: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands. For instance, the very same mass surveillance technologies that were supposedly so necessary to fight the spread of COVID-19 are now being used to stifle dissent, persecute activists, harass marginalized communities, and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

  We stand at a crossroads.

  As author Erich Fromm warned, “At this point in history, the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 23:40

• Does "Made In America" Still Matter To Consumers?
  Does “Made In America” Still Matter To Consumers?

  Do American citizens care where their products come from? Well, it depends on who you ask.

  

  Over the past few decades, the importance of “Made in America” – labels on products indicating production was done in the U.S. – has ebbed and flowed.

  As China has grown into the United States’ economic rival and geopolitical adversary, the distinction between American-made and Chinese-made has resurfaced, even as some products have been mislabeled or locally produced but Chinese-owned.

  How do people currently feel? This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop, uses survey responses from May 2023 out of Morning Consult, in which a representative sample of 1,000 U.S. adults were questioned on whether they had favorable views of products from U.S. companies using American or Chinese labor and parts.

  

  Who Prefers American-Made?

  According to the report, companies that choose to move production state-side will experience reputational gains with American consumers.

  In fact, around two-thirds of survey respondents said they regularly sought out products that were “Made in America” during the last year. But there were slight divides in gender (men favored American-made products more) and noticeable divides in generational responses.

  Here’s a look at the data on how different demographic groups valued national goods:

  

  Overall, thee older generations like baby boomers tend to be more patriotic in their purchasing opinions, with Gen Z being the least concerned with Chinese products.

  On the political spectrum, both Democrats and Republicans had the exact same share of respondents who favor American-made products at 76%. Comparatively, only 57% of independents favored American-made products, though they also responded least favorably to Chinese-made products at 22%.

  One other interesting point to come out of the survey: close to 50% of consumers said they would actually be willing to pay more for American-made products.

  The American Goods Market

  Looking at responses from U.S. adults overall, large shares of consumers are leaning towards domestic-made goods. Here are some additional insights worth considering:

  • 65% of U.S. adult consumers claimed to sometimes or always buy “Made in America” products intentionally

  • 43% prioritize purchasing American-made products rather than prioritizing other options like quality, sustainability, or affordability

  • 48% are willing to pay higher amounts for U.S.-based products. 39% responded they would pay between 6%-10% more for said products

  Overall, it appears that “in-house” goods are more desirable to Americans in the current environment. This also explains why regionalization is becoming more important for companies, whether in terms of reshoring (or onshoring) production back to America, or “nearshoring” to Mexico and closer neighbors.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 23:20

• The Navy And Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)
  The Navy And Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

  Authored by Brett Ramsey via RealClearDefense.com,

  The Navy is all in for DEI.

  At the Navy website if one clicks on “who we are,” one of the first things that shows up is “diversity and equity.”  

  It must be important to show up so prominently.

  The Navy Diversity and Equity website page says: “I AM A SAILOR. WE ARE A TEAM. THIS IS OUR NAVY.” 

  “When Sailors feel included, respected and empowered, they will be more ready to win wars, deter aggression and maintain freedom of the seas.”

  – ADM Mike Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations.

  The Navy offers no evidence to support the CNO’s statement. It is not clear how the statement actually relates to diversity or equity.

  It does mention feeling “included” a form of “inclusion” but in a vague sort of way. In my 34 years in uniform, I don’t recall at any time being asked my feelings.

  Must be a new thing.

  I doubt the People’s Republic of China military leaders ask how their people are feeling?

  The Navy I served in stressed toughness, stamina, perseverance, physical fitness, strength, courage, honor, and commitment. 

  My feelings were secondary and that was well understood by me and my shipmates. I have been literally eyeball to eyeball with the Soviets in the North Atlantic tracking a Yankee class submarine.  Rest assured that former enemy had our full attention and our crew devoted no time to feelings. I have no doubt our current adversaries are just as potentially dangerous to our way of life as was the former Soviet Union.

  The Navy ought to focus on our real threats instead of touchy-feelie nonsense like sailors’ feelings.

  The Navy is a combat force whose job it is to break things and kill people when and where called upon to do so. Those whose personality or psyche demand constant attention to “feelings” probably ought to find something else to do.

  

  Let’s look at diversity

  How diverse should the Navy be? It doesn’t say. The fact is, the Navy is already about as diverse as any institution anywhere. The 2021 DOD report on demographics for Navy shows:

  

  Improved Race, Ethnicity Measures Show U.S. is More Multiracial (census.gov)

  DOD’s 2021 demographics shows the Navy has 114,100 enlisted personnel and 13,361 officers that identify as a minority. The Navy is already diverse. 37% of the Navy is from a measured racial demographic group leaving 63% that identify as white which matches the percent reported nationally in the 2020 Census. That is more diversity than the national average. An anomaly hidden from view is the Hispanic segment of the military. You will note that there is no category for Hispanic in the table above. Actually, 17.7% of the active DOD force is Hispanic but you would never know that from the figures above because it is not reported. The US census does not count Hispanics as a minority. Instead, they are considered a different ethnic group. According to Pew Research Center data published in 2021, 58% of

  Hispanics consider themselves to be white with the remainder identifying as some other color.  This unique accounting obfuscates the fact that the US military is even more diverse than appears to the naked eye when viewing DOD’s reports of racial groups. In fact, over 350,000 Hispanics serve in the military and add considerably to the diversity of the total force.

  Other than a slight underrepresentation of black officers, the Navy is at or exceeds the national demographic of racial diversity. This begs the question, what is all the fuss about diversity? The Navy is diverse! There is no need to become even more diverse than the Navy already is. Millions of dollars and precious time are being devoted to a problem that is outside of the Navy’s ability to control. Nay, you say…. what about the shortfall in black officers? What about it? The Navy is devoting a lot of time and effort into trying to recruit blacks to join the Navy to become officers, but the gap remains. One must ask the question, “Why?”  It is not because of discrimination because there are already thousands of black officers so there is obviously no barrier to blacks becoming officers. What is lacking is blacks who want to become naval officers. No amount of incentives or handwringing over a slight under-representation of blacks in the naval officer ranks is going to change a situation that obviously has other causes. Even the small shortfall is actually not the Navy’s fault as is brilliantly and eloquently analyzed and explained in detail by CDR Phil Keuhlen in Task Force One Navy Final Report:  “The Emperor’s New Clothes” Redux.  According to government graduation data there are more than 200,000 black college graduates each year. The problem is that very few of these qualified people have an interest in serving in the Navy. We ought to be curious about why. It is not because of discrimination as DOD’s own internal reports document that fewer than 2% of the 3.4 million that serve in DOD consider racism to be a problem.

  Let’s look at equity

  The Navy DEI webpage goes on to say “Putting on a uniform doesn’t mean sacrificing who you are. America’s Navy values diversity, equality, and inclusivity — striving to build a community of service members who accurately reflect the rich makeup of our country. Our belief is that with hard work and determination, anyone, from anywhere, has the power to be successful in the Navy.”  The Navy uses the word “equity” earlier twice and then in the next paragraph, the word “equality” is used. Which is it? These two things are not the same. Equity means equal outcomes regardless of merit. Equity is a term associated with social justice advocates who want equal outcomes for everyone regardless of merit. Is the Navy really advocating equal outcomes? How does that even work in a military organization with rigid technical requirements that dictate practices for safety reasons and for warfighting effectiveness? Military organizations are rigid, structured top-down organizations whose fixed chains of commands and methods demand uniformity, strict discipline, and consistency in order to function with any kind of efficiency. Adopting equity in a military chain of command is deadly and dangerous and will get people killed. Equality is equal opportunity based on merit, which is and has been the law of the land for a long time. Equality should be the Navy’s mantra, not equity. The Navy’s use of both terms may confuse those who visit their website? Is the Navy using both terms to conflate the two words into meaning the same thing in order to stimulate interest in the Navy?

  Let’s look at inclusion

  What does that even mean? In one section “putting on a uniform” is the first thing said. The word “uniform” is telling! It absolutely proves the Navy strives for uniformity…that’s why you wear a uniform. Everything top to bottom in the Navy is about uniformity. Ships and aircraft are built to uniform specifications. The way things are done is based on time-tested uniform best practices. Individuality is not allowed because that leads to bad outcomes and people dying. Putting on the uniform is absolutely about giving up your individuality while that uniform is on. You absolutely must sacrifice who you are to join the Navy most of the time. On duty you must conform to the Navy’s uniform standards for dress, behavior, operational excellence and a thousand other things. When you are off duty, then you have time to be yourself. While on duty, you belong to the Navy, you are included by wearing a common uniform, the same one at the same time as everyone else does. When you get up in the morning, you look at the Plan of the Day and it tells you what the uniform of the day is. How inclusive is that? We are all exactly on the same page and the uniform reminds you every day that you are part of something bigger, something important. What does the use of the word “inclusion” imply? Are there some fields in the Navy that only white people have? Of course not. The Navy’s use of the word is purely political, and politics should have no place in the Navy. It is used to show that the Navy has gotten with the program and is using the same language as the larger society and as desired or even dictated by the political left. But, how does that make for a better Navy….using politically charged terminology? It doesn’t! It has no place in the Navy and only serves to introduce doubt and dissension and make the Navy a less effective force. A cursory search reveals the popular origin of the use of the word in today’s parlance. Where you find the term used is in colleges and universities where the political philosophies of the left are preached, including in Critical Theory, Critical Legal Theory, and Critical Race Theory.

  “We are about to lose a major war”

  — Rani, Last of The Red Hot Boomers (@ShadesOfRani) July 21, 2023

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  Conclusion

  There is no place in the Navy for the politics of DEI.

  The Navy is already diverse. The data is not in doubt.

  Equity has no place in the Navy. The Navy’s moral and practical foundation is a merit- based organization focused on being able to fight and win the nation’s wars at sea and projecting power ashore. Equity undermines merit. Dilution of merit in favor of equity will get people killed. Anyone telling you anything different is mistaken and should be ignored.

  Inclusion is a phantom and is word play from the political left. When you join the Navy, you are included by the very uniform you wear which is the same for everyone. The UCMJ guides your conduct and demands fair and equal treatment of all. The oath you swear to uphold has as its foundation the Constitution. Equal protection is guaranteed in the 14th Amendment and has been upheld by the Supreme Court many times including recently in the Harvard and UNC cases on college admissions. Nothing more is required.

  DEI adds nothing of value to our Navy. If just wastes resources and causes division within the ranks.

  *  *  *

  Brent Ramsey is a retired Navy CAPT. He was a military advisor to Congressman Mark Meadows 2016-2020. He is the author of dozens of published articles on national defense.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 23:00

• Twitter Roasts ATF For Posting Image Of Agent Loading Nazi Gun Pointed At Testicles 
  Twitter Roasts ATF For Posting Image Of Agent Loading Nazi Gun Pointed At Testicles 

  Twitter users are roasting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) for an image tweeted by the Houston field office this week of an agent improperly following the basic rules of firearms safety: Always treat every firearm as if it is loaded and always keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction. 

  The ATF agent appears to be at an indoor range in Austin. The agent is on the wrong side of a loading table while he loads a magazine for a Nazi MP 40 submachine gun. You will notice that the sub-gun is pointed at the agent’s testicles. 

  

  Here’s the tweet:

  The ATF Austin Office out on the range today with special guests from our local U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. pic.twitter.com/568GrEEHLG

  — ATF Houston (@ATFHou) July 19, 2023

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  The core firearm safety rules at any gun range are: 

  • Always treat every firearm as if it is loaded. 

  • Always keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction. 

  • Always keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire. 

  • Always keep your firearm on safe until you intend to fire.

  This could be interpreted as visual evidence that some ATF agents under Biden’s administration have no idea about basic firearm safety. Notably, even the agent responsible for social media, who took the photograph, failed to recognize the lapse in gun safety. 

  Twitter users mocked the photo, as some said, “Photographic proof the ATF shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near firearms.” 

  “I’m no highfalutin ATF bureaucrat, but I did receive training many years ago that you NEVER stand in front of the muzzle of any firearm, not even one that you are “certain” is unloaded,” someone else said. 

  Gun blog Truth About Gun said, “Standing in front of the loading table with firearms pointed at your junk is Gun Safety 101 for the distinguished agents of @ATFHQ and @ATFHou in particular. But if an FFL makes even a single typo, he gets his ticket pulled. Your tax dollars at work.” 

  “Reminder ATF is in charge of “policing” things pertaining to firearms. ATF agents don’t even follow one of the most important rules of firearm safety, Treat Every Gun As If It Is Loaded. That includes ones sitting on tables, like the one pointed at that idiot’s dick,” another person explained. 

  Here’s what the Federal Affairs Director of Gun Owners of America had to say about this: 

  The fact that the Houston branch of the ATF not only took, but posted, a photo of an alleged agent blatantly ignoring—or not knowing—basic firearm safety is a reflection of the agency’s ineptness. While ATF may be tasked with enforcing federal gun control, their staff obviously have no understanding or respect for even the basic rules of firearm safety. Gun owners have always known the anti-gun movement knows nothing about the firearms they want to ban—but to post it on Twitter is a new level of stupidity.

  Whenever I go shooting, I too load my magazines while standing down range & with my OPEN BOLT machine guns pointed straight at me. https://t.co/c7ACSpoUqG

  — Aidan Johnston (@RealGunLobbyist) July 20, 2023

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  Not the best look for Biden’s ATF. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 22:40

• Illegal Immigrant Children With Tuberculosis Released Across US
  Illegal Immigrant Children With Tuberculosis Released Across US

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

  Thousands of young illegal immigrants with tuberculosis were released from U.S. government custody across one year, officials have revealed in a new report.

  

  The illegal immigrants, all under 18 years of age, were released to family members or other responsible adults despite having latent tuberculosis infection, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a recent disclosure.

  The dates of each release were not clear. HHS officials notified state officials from June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023, of the tuberculosis-positive youth over a web-based system operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Aurora Miranda-Maese, an HHS official, told a court in the report.

  The CDC, which is part of HHS, declined to comment. HHS did not respond to requests for comment.

  The Washington Times first reported on the report, which runs 35 pages and covers other aspects of managing illegal immigrant youth who are transferred to HHS by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after crossing the border.

  Ms. Miranda-Maese said that each minor must undergo a medical examination within two business days of entering HHS custody. The examination helps officials assess the minors’ health, enables them to administer vaccines, and allows them to detect communicable diseases such as tuberculosis.

  A person with latent tuberculosis infection, or an infection without symptoms, requires three to nine months of treatment to prevent potential progression to active disease, according to HHS officials. Without treatment, 5 to 10 percent of infected people will develop active tuberculosis, or tubercolosis disease, according to the CDC.

  The CDC says that people with the disease are infectious, can transmit the disease to others, and can die if not treated. If tuberculosis becomes active, that is “a threat to both the individual’s and the public’s health,” according to Ms. Miranda-Maese.

  Minors do not typically receive treatment while in HHS custody because most are released before one month elapses, she said, opening up the possibility of problems such as the development of drug-resistant tuberculosis if treatment is initiated and discontinued before completion.

  To that end, HHS developed in 2018 a system that notifies state officials of illegal immigrant minors who have been sent to live in their states.

  Officials in 44 states received more than 2,450 alerts of illegal immigrant minors with tuberculosis in the year ending May 31, 2023, according to HHS.

  Over that same time, 126,069 minors were released by HHS.

  States

  Some states confirmed that they’ve been told of minors with active tuberculosis, in addition to latent cases.

  “The department, in conjunction with local health departments, coordinates care and appropriate follow-up for anyone with active tuberculosis reported through this mechanism,” a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health told The Epoch Times via email.

  And some minors, by the time states are alerted to cases, have already moved elsewhere.

  “Some individuals relocate prior to case interviews,” a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources told The Epoch Times in an email.

  Even if they haven’t, minors can choose not to undergo offered treatment, according to the spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Public Health.

  Critics said President Joe Biden was to blame for the situation.

  “Biden’s broken border policies continue to welcome millions of lawbreakers into our country, including countless thousands with infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) told The Epoch Times via email. “Rather than protecting Americans, the Biden regime is quite literally bringing disease and death to our doorstep.”

  Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said that the releases of children with tuberculosis and other communicable diseases “is another example of the administration prioritizing the quick release of migrants over all other considerations, including public health, public safety, and national security.”

  Placement With Sponsors

  HHS deals with unaccompanied minors or children who arrive at the border without a responsible adult.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 22:20

• Forget Bears… Now Coked-Out Sharks Might Lurk Off Florida Coast
  Forget Bears… Now Coked-Out Sharks Might Lurk Off Florida Coast

  After Americans learned about the 1985 incident of a black bear that went on a coke-fueled, carnivorous blood fest in the comedic horror film “Cocaine Bear” earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before entertainment companies produced content about the possibility of cocaine-fueled sharks off Florida’s coast. 

  Tom “The Blowfish” Hird and the University of Florida environmental scientist Tracy Fanara conducted a series of tests to see whether sharks off Florida’s coast may have ingested bales of cocaine ditched by drug smugglers en route to the US, according to Live Science.

  

  “The deeper story here is the way that chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and illicit drugs are entering our waterways — entering our oceans — and what effect that they then could go on to have on these delicate ocean ecosystems,” Hird said. 

  A recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report showed a spike in global cocaine demand and supply. Major South and Central America to US routes are through the Caribbean Sea. There have been many reports over the decades of drug smugglers ditching bales of cocaine or sinking vessels due to hitting reefs. And it’s not unreasonable to believe marine life has ingested this drug. 

  In one experiment, Hird and Fanara created packages similar in size and appearance to real cocaine bales. They observed sharks heading straight for the bales and taking bites from them.

  To investigate further, Hird and Fanara design three experiments to see how sharks react to bales of “cocaine” dropped in the water. They create packages similar in size and appearance to real cocaine bales. In the first, they set these pseudo-bales next to dummy swans to see what the sharks go to. To their surprise, the sharks head straight for the bales, taking bites from them. One shark even grabs a bale and swims off with it. 

  Next, they make a bait ball of highly concentrated fish powder, which would trigger a dopamine rush as close to a hit of cocaine as the team could feasibly (and ethically) do. The sharks are seen going wild. “I think we have got a potential scenario of what it may look like if you gave sharks cocaine,” Hird said in the film. “We gave them what I think is the next best thing. [It] set [their] brains aflame. It was crazy.”

  Finally, the team drop their fake cocaine bales from an airplane to simulate a real-life drug drop — and multiple shark species, including tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier), move in. 

  Hird said that what they uncovered doesn’t necessarily show that sharks in Florida are consuming cocaine. A multitude of factors could explain the behavior observed during filming, and these experiments would need to be repeated over and over to draw full conclusions. 

  “We have no idea what [cocaine] could do to the shark,” Hird told Live Science, adding that of the limited research that’s been done, different fish appear to react in different ways to the same chemical. “So we can’t even say well this is a baseline and go from here,” he said. –Live Science

  In a separate topic, Hird said it’s not just cocaine but pharmaceutical drugs that are getting into the waterways and affecting marine life. 

  “The other thing we might find is actually this long flow, [this] drip of pharmaceuticals: caffeine, lidocaine, cocaine, amphetamine, antidepressants, birth control — this long slow drift of them from cities into the [ocean] is… starting to hit these animals,” Hird said.

  Bears… Sharks… What’s the next animal? 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 22:00

• Artificial Intelligence: The New Scapegoat
  Artificial Intelligence: The New Scapegoat

  Authored by Robert Aro via The Mises Institute,

  Earlier this week, CNBC expressed concerns regarding artificial intelligence:

  Fed banking regulator warns A.I. could lead to illegal lending practices like excluding minorities

  The 21st century is fast approaching the quarter mark. With the emergence of accessible, increasingly popular A.I. tools, it wouldn’t be the worst wager that the growth, development, and eventual ubiquitousness of A.I. is all but inevitable. It will be fascinating to witness how A.I. affects change in various industries, especially the financial sector and Hollywood.

  

  CNBC’s warning came from a speech given the same day by Vice chair for Supervision at the Fed, Michael S. Barr, titled Furthering the Vision of the Fair Housing Act:

  The digital economy has produced alternative data sources, some of which can provide a window into the creditworthiness of an individual who does not have a standard credit history.

  So far so good. With a relatively low cost, machine learning may find new ways to assist those struggling to find credit. However, he goes on to say:

  While these technologies have enormous potential, they also carry risks of violating fair lending laws and perpetuating the very disparities that they have the potential to address.

  Bad input leading to poor outputs is of concern. Worst yet, fundamental problems can exist in the system itself:

  Use of machine learning or other artificial intelligence may perpetuate or even amplify bias or inaccuracies inherent in the data used to train the system or make incorrect predictions if that data set is incomplete or nonrepresentative.

  He provided an example:

  For instance, digital redlining in marketing—the use of criteria to exclude majority-minority communities or minority applications—is one risk…

  That is certainly possible.

  One would expect that in a credit report, past and current employment and financial history would factor into one’s assessment, not one’s race.

  Ultimately, the use of A.I. should be embraced for its potential to save both time and money.

  While it may be employed to assist loan officers in credit applications, it could lead to redlining practices. Defining these practices and proving their occurrence could prove a costly challenge to federal regulators who likely don’t understand the technology themselves. We’re not yet at the stage where a nefarious A.I. can take blame for our problems. Should that day ever come we’ll have much larger issues at hand! 

  Nonetheless, in a freer world without a Federal Reserve system responsible for the economic booms and busts, there would be fewer impoverished communities and much less economic disparity. As A.I advances, with no taxpayer funded regulator, A.I.’s potential would help entrepreneurs across the socio-economic spectrum bring valuable products to market.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 21:40

• "Bidenomics" Has No Answer For Eviction Crisis… Or Much Else
  “Bidenomics” Has No Answer For Eviction Crisis… Or Much Else

  Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

  The Biden administration continues to insist that the economy is strong and its efforts are improving the situation.

  

  So, what is in its most recent efforts announced on Wednesday? From the White House:

  Today, the President will outline several new, concrete steps in the Administration’s effort to crack down on rental junk fees and lower costs for renters, including:

  • New commitments from major rental housing platforms—Zillow, Apartments.com, and AffordableHousing.com—who have answered the President’s call for transparency and will provide consumers with total, upfront cost information on rental properties, which can be hundreds of dollars on top of the advertised rent;

  • New research from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which provides a blueprint for a nationwide effort to address rental housing junk fees; and

  • Legislative action in states across the country—from Connecticut to California—who are joining the Administration in its effort to crack down on rental housing fees and protect consumers.

  Importantly, while these commitments from rental housing platforms will make renters better informed about the total cost, they do nothing to make housing more affordable. Here is what the platforms are doing:

  • Zillow is today launching a Cost of Renting Summary on its active apartment listings, empowering the 28 million unique monthly users on its rental platform with clear information on the cost of renting. This new tool will enable renters to easily find out the total cost of renting an apartment from the outset, including all monthly costs and one-time costs, like security deposits and application fees.

  • Apartments.com is announcing that this year it will launch a new calculator on its platform that will help renters determine the all-in price of a desired unit. This will include all up-front costs as well as recurring monthly rents and fees. The Apartments.com Network currently lists almost 1.5 million active availabilities across more than 385,000 properties.

  • AffordableHousing.com, the nation’s largest online platform dedicated solely to affordable housing, will require owners to disclose all refundable and non-refundable fees and charges upfront in their listings. It will launch a new “Trusted Owner” badge that protects renters from being charged junk fees by identifying owners who have a history of adhering to best practices, including commitment to reasonable fee limits, no junk fees, and full fee disclosure.

  So a search could now look something more like this:

  

  More from the White House release:

  Today’s announcements build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing efforts to support renters, including through the release of a first-of-its-kind Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights and a Housing Supply Action Plan, focused on boosting the supply of affordable housing—including rental housing. Reducing housing costs is central to Bidenomics, and recent data show that inflation in rental housing is abating. Moreover, experts predict that roughly 1 million new apartments will be built this year, increasing supply that will further increase affordability. The actions announced today will help renters understand these fees and the full price they can expect to pay, and create additional competition housing providers to reduce reliance on hidden fees.

  The problem with these efforts to support renters is that they do nothing to stop the eviction and homelessness crisis now. The Housing Supply Action Plan could maybe help with affordability at some distant date, and a blueprint is just that. Why can other places figure this out, but the US can’t? For example, Ross Barkan writes about Austria:

  Americans are usually shocked to learn that a vast majority of Viennese qualify to live in deeply affordable, high-quality housing. There is no downside to renting there because the rents will always be a small fraction of your annual income. Forty-three percent of all housing is insulated from the market and the government subsidizes affordable units for a wide range of incomes. Decades ago, a great amount of housing supply was built, and unlike in the United States, Vienna never abandoned the cause of public housing.

  It’s obvious to any tenant reading about Vienna that life there, from a standpoint of sheer economics, is better than life in any major American city. Rents, always high in New York and California, surged across the country during the pandemic, fueling a homelessness crisis that will not abate. For those who have housing, existence is only stress-free as long as the job is well-paying. One wrong turn and eviction is around the corner. Certain localities have stronger tenant protections than others. Either way, rent is something many Americans—those who don’t own property, and are nowhere close to buying anything—must think about constantly. It is an economic and psychological burden. To be liberated from it, like the Viennese, would be to enter a utopic state.

  Instead of anything resembling such policies, the Biden administration has been relentlessly hyping the junk fee efforts as a key part of its economic policy. From USA Today:

  The White House is also convinced it’s good politics, particularly as Biden tries to improve his standing with the public on the economy as the U.S. rebounds from 40-year high inflation.

  “Often policy is a way of showing character,” said Celinda Lake, a 2020 Biden campaign pollster who conducts regular focus groups with voters. “When you’re a longtime politician and you’re in office, people think you get out of touch with their lives, you don’t have any commonsense. This shows, ‘Hey, I am in touch. I do have commonsense.’”

  But does it? With the announcement of the administration’s latest efforts, it seems like that plan is running on fumes. With rent increasingly unaffordable for many, will it really make a difference if fees are more transparent? Announcing such voluntary commitments from rental housing platforms without any additional measures to do anything about costs seems like a strange way to go politically, especially as rents continue to rise.

  

  Evictions are also rising. From Quartz:

  Eviction filings are on the rise in some US cities, according to datacollected by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. The lab published the first dataset on eviction filings in the US going back to 2000, which is based on (pdf) tens of millions of public state and county records. Rising costs of living are affecting Americans across the US, while stock of affordable real estate remains low.

  …Landlords in many US cities have completed at least half of their eviction filings since 2020 in the past year.

  New research in California – which has roughly a third of the country’s 582,000 homeless population – shows that the main driver behind homelessness there is simply that Californians were priced out of housing. The study from UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative is one of the deepest dives into the state’s crisis, and it shows how the homeless population is getting older and is often the result of just one bad break.  According to the study, “in the six months prior to homelessness, the median monthly household income was $960. A high proportion had been rent burdened.”

  In a recent YouGov survey, more than 50 percent of Americans thought limits on price increases would probably or definitely be an effective policy, and 61 percent blamed large corporations seeking maximum profit for inflation – the highest recipient of blame in the poll. Americans want more action. From Newsweek:

  Poverty remains a huge issue in the U.S., much more so than in other countries with similar levels of distributed wealth, and it is a cause of concern for a majority of Americans, as shown by the Newsweek/Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll. The poll, conducted among a sample of 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S. on May 31, found that some 53 percent of Americans are “very” concerned about the level of poverty in the country.

  Among Democrats—identified as people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020—the number went up to 58 percent, while among Republicans—identified as people who voted for Donald Trump in 2020—48 percent said they were “very” concerned about poverty in the U.S. Some 21 percent of Americans responding to the poll don’t earn enough money from their primary job to pay bills or maintain their family’s standard of living, while 52 percent are working multiple jobs to tackle the daily cost of living.

  The Biden Administration is betting its junk fee efforts, which have also included concert ticket vendors and others, along with softening inflation will be enough to overcome all the other bad news. So far, it’s not looking very promising. At this point in his term Biden is the second-most-unpopular president in modern U.S. history. Wednesday’s announcement might be part of the reason why as it represents the woefully inadequate response to the economic situation faced by so many.

  Just consider some more of the recent news:

  • With inflation biting, credit card debt in the US has been rising at one of the fastest rates in history and is at record highs.

  • Increasing precariousness has homelessness rising across the country, including up 40 percent in Los Angeles County over the past five years. It’s jumped18 percent this year in New York City.

  Here’s the Federal Reserve Board’s Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2022 report:

  The report indicates that self-reported financial well-being declined in 2022, in part reflecting ongoing concerns about higher prices. In the fourth quarter of 2022, 73 percent of adults reported either doing okay or living comfortably financially, down 5 percentage points from the previous year and among the lowest levels observed since 2016.

  Consistent with these changes in overall financial well-being, fewer adults reported having money left over after paying their expenses. Fifty-four percent of adults said that their budgets had been affected “a lot” by price increases.

  According to a new survey from Bankrate, Americans said they would need to earn, on average, $233,000 a year to feel financially secure. The median earnings for a full-time, year-round worker in 2021 was $56,473, according to the US Census Bureau. Despite all that, the Biden administration continues to express confusion as to why voters aren’t happier with the economy.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 21:20

• FedNow Is Live And The Framework Is In Place For CBDCs
  FedNow Is Live And The Framework Is In Place For CBDCs

  Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

  Yesterday, with a bit of fanfare but not TOO much fanfare, a “wonderful” new product was launched. FedNow is live, and we can all transfer money to our heart’s content via the Federal Reserve.

  Wow, that sounds great, doesn’t it? Of course, that is a spot created by the Federal Reserve and up ton the Federal Reserve YouTube channel.

  FedNow is live at 35 banks.

  Axios reports that 35 banks across the country are participating in the launch.

  By the numbers: So far, 35 banks have signed up as early adopters of FedNow, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, but notably not including Citigroup or Bank of America. That number is rather lower than the Fed led us to believe as recently as recently as June.

  The U.S. Treasury is also signed up as an early adopter of FedNow.

  Some 353 banks and credit unions have signed up for RTP.

  In order to use either service, both the sending and the receiving bank need to be signed up for the system.

  We are now officially on that slippery slope I’ve been talking about. I wrote about exactly this happening in my dystopian fiction, Good Citizens, and discussed how this could evolve to control almost every aspect of our lives.

  Why I’m concerned now that FedNow is live

  A while back, I wrote an article discussing a payment gateway designed by the Federal Reserve called FedNow. This is a way to make instant transfers between accounts, sort of like PayPal or Venmo, but without the users having to move the money from various wallets.

  While it sounds convenient, the concern is that this puts the infrastructure to quickly roll out CBDCs into place. Previously, I wrote about this.

  On March 15th, in the midst of the banking collapses, the Federal Reserve issued a press release detailing a new instant payment system that will be launched in July. That system is called FedNow. Here’s what they said about it.

  The first week of April, the Federal Reserve will begin the formal certification of participants for launch of the service. Early adopters will complete a customer testing and certification program, informed by feedback from the FedNow Pilot Program, to prepare for sending live transactions through the system.

  Certification encompasses a comprehensive testing curriculum with defined expectations for operational readiness and network experience. In June, the Federal Reserve and certified participants will conduct production validation activities to confirm readiness for the July launch.

  “We couldn’t be more excited about the forthcoming FedNow launch, which will enable every participating financial institution, the smallest to the largest and from all corners of the country, to offer a modern instant payment solution,” said Ken Montgomery, first vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and FedNow program executive. “With the launch drawing near, we urge financial institutions and their industry partners to move full steam ahead with preparations to join the FedNow Service.”

  Many early adopters have declared their intent to begin using the service in July, including a diverse mix of financial institutions of all sizes, the largest processors, and the U.S. Treasury.

  This has all the hallmarks of a government strategy. First, they offer it as a “convenience” or a “safety measure.” Lots of people will jump on board in order to take advantage of this.

  Of course, we’ve heard this song before.

  Next, it will be pushed harder, and those who don’t adopt it will be mocked, thought of as backward, and treated with suspicion. After that, it’ll be darn near impossible to do anything without it. Sound familiar?

  The Federal Reserve Banks are developing the FedNow Service to facilitate nationwide reach of instant payment services by financial institutions — regardless of size or geographic location — around the clock, every day of the year. Through financial institutions participating in the FedNow Service, businesses and individuals will be able to send and receive instant payments at any time of day, and recipients will have full access to funds immediately, giving them greater flexibility to manage their money and make time-sensitive payments. Access will be provided through the Federal Reserve’s FedLine® network, which serves more than 10,000 financial institutions directly or through their agents.

  But what truly makes me worried is that since FedNow is live, this is a soft way to move us all over into using a federal money transferring system that could easily, easily be the platform for the implementation of CBDCs, the digital dollar that could end freedom as we know it.

  Please note that what we have with FedNow is NOT a CBDC. It’s just a payment gateway.

  But now, the early infrastructure is in place for CBDCs.

  Changing a nation’s entire currency is not an overnight project. If we were to go completely digital with our money, it would take a while. Several things would need to happen first:

  • A national financial infrastructure would need to be created that links accounts from all the banks to an information highway.

  • They’d need to get people comfortable with using this system and to do that, it would need to be fast and convenient. Who wouldn’t want their money right away? It feels like a win to sell a car and have 20K in your account instantly without waiting for the check to clear.

  • This provides some time to work out any bugs. The folks adopting FedNow would be the guinea pigs. It’s new, but everyone expects new stuff to be glitchy. If you’re getting in on the ground floor, you’re probably willing to be patient with that.

  • Next, they’ll want to get as many people voluntarily using it as possible. Expect generous offers, outrageous convenience, and free or cheap transactions.

  • Once it’s all in place and running smoothly, the final transition from cash money to digital money would just be a matter of the central bank devaluing our cash but allowing people to trade it for digital at full (or at least greater) value.

  If you’ve never listened to me before, please listen to me now. This IS the road we’re on. And once CBDCs are in place, especially if they are the only option, your every transaction will be monitored, data will be mined from your spending, and your choices can be controlled.

  What’s the big deal with CBDCs?

  CBDC stands for Central Bank Digital Currency, and these are digital versions of a country’s currency. A digital currency alongside our current physical currency is voluntary. My concern is when that digital currency becomes the only option. And I do mean when, not if.

  A digital currency could mean such controls as automatic taxation or where and when you’re allowed to make purchases – all at the push of a button. The most likely way this will be rolled out is to “fight inflation” and “fix the economy.” As per the IMF:

  A world with lower inflation (and even zero inflation) and no persistent recessions may sound like a pipe dream, but we argue that it is possible by transitioning to an “electronic money standard.” Such a transition requires eliminating the zero lower bound, which central banks can achieve using readily available tools. Breaking the zero lower bound implies that the optimal rate of inflation will be lower than in the presence of the lower bound. This will empower central banks to quickly restore full employment and, over the medium term, possibly move toward targeting full price stability with zero inflation.

  Obviously, any kind of manipulation like this is false, and while there may be some temporary relief, it won’t solve the underlying problems with our economy.

  Bank for International Settlements wrote a glowing report about the “benefits” of the CBDC system. Here’s what I took away from this:

  • Central bankers can execute policy or modify rates instantaneously, at the push of a button.

  • Private crypto is bad.

  • Central bank digital currency is good.

  • CBDCs are better than crypto because they’re trusted.

  • CBDCs aren’t “subject to the practical limitations of paper money.” (i.e., they can be tracked.)

  • Therefore it protects against “money laundering, proliferation financing, and terrorist financing.”

  • It will increase the pool of data generated on users and transactions, thus “helping” the “proper authorities.”

  • “Multi-CBDC platforms” aids in decentralization. (i.e., a global economy)

  • On a common CBDC platform across multiple central banks, transactions are recorded on one ledger.

  I don’t think it means what they’re trying to tell us it means.

  What can you do?

  I’ve written a lot lately about the need to get your money out of the banks. You need something of value that does not require you to dance to the tune of the government’s fiddle. Imagine if you had a savings account and the “value” of that money changed with the implementation of CBDCs. Imagine it’s worth less, say, by 20 percent.

  Suddenly your $10,000 becomes $8,000. Your $100,000 loses $20K to become $80,000. It would only take a second, with the click of a button in some office up on the Mount Olympus of the Fed.

  If you have savings and you want to protect your money, you need to make at least a portion of it tangible.

  That means investing in:

  • Supplies like food, tools, and other long-term preps

  • Land

  • Precious metals

  I’m not suggesting going out and dealing in only silver dimes if you are in a situation in which you’re living from paycheck to paycheck. If you are in those shoes like so many of us are right now, you don’t have as many options. It isn’t feasible or practical if you’re going to need this money right away for existing expenses.

  But if you are trying to protect existing wealth and this is not money you’ll need to access immediately, I urge you to consider investing it into gold or silver to protect your savings during the economic downturn ahead. At the same time, getting your money out of this currency system that may soon be switched to CBDC is the only way to ensure it remains yours.

  I use ITM Trading, out of Phoenix, AZ, for all of my metals purchases. I know there are plenty of good companies out there, but I prefer ITM because of their focus on education. I’ve learned so much in my consultations (which are free, btw). I’ve been very impressed with the access to curated resources, research, and weekly insights on macroeconomics, central banks, currencies, and the global reset that they provide. To me, there’s really no other option for my purchases.

  If you want to schedule a strategy session with ITM, it’s absolutely free, and there is no pressure whatsoever. Some folks take weeks or months before investing, and others decide it isn’t for them. But what every single person walks away with is a clearer understanding of the monetary system and what investing in precious metals entails. And you get all of it at no charge. To schedule your own appointment, go here or call this number directly: 1-866-517-1257 – I’ll be really interested to know whether you’re as impressed as I am.

  We’re all just one wrongthink away from losing our money.

  Remember in Canada when Trudeau locked down accounts for supporting the trucker strike? We’re all just one wrongthink away from losing access to our money.

  Another recent precedent regarding losing access to the financial system is the case of Nigel Farage. Both he and his relatives have had bank accounts closed and been unable to open other accounts because they’ve been named PEPs: Politically Exposed Persons. Farage, if you recall, was pro-Brexit. He wrote:

  Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Farage, who said several other banks had denied him accounts, claimed he was the victim of over-zealous anti-money laundering regulations.

  “Anti-money laundering rules appear to have been wildly over-interpreted by the compliance departments of banks in the UK,” he wrote in the Brexit-supporting newspaper.

  “Nobody can deny that money laundering is a problem, he said. “Yet a series of agreements, EU directives and UK rules established to confront this menace have almost entirely failed to do so.

  “Banks now live in fear of receiving huge fines. Their default setting seems to be to close down the business and personal accounts of anybody who is deemed to require extra due diligence – be they the owner of a window cleaning firm or a pawnbroker.”

  He added: “Those who are paid in cash are no longer welcome; the compliance costs of servicing these accounts makes them unprofitable.”

  Mr Farage initially claimed that his account with Coutts, which acts on behalf of the royal family, had been closed in an “establishment”-orchestrated revenge mission for Brexit, sparking a free speech row.

  So it’s already happening. People are losing access to the system for having political beliefs that oppose the status quo that the ruling administration has in place.

  I know that these two examples are outside the US, but that doesn’t provide me even a tiny little bit of comfort. I’ve already suffered massive financial abuse at the hands of government-funded censorship groups. Many others have too.

  Is it really a stretch of the imagination that losing banking privileges could happen here in America, the Land of Cancel Culture? What will you do if you can no longer use a bank? How will you get and cash your paycheck? How will you pay your bills now that so many things must be done online?

  When we are no longer free to vociferously disagree, we aren’t free at all.

  You need a backup plan, and you need it now. FedNow is live, and I don’t believe that good things will follow.

  *  *  *

  Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 21:00

• How US Vehicle Production Has Shifted Over 45 Years
  How US Vehicle Production Has Shifted Over 45 Years

  Over the last few decades, vehicle production in the U.S. has dramatically shifted, with SUVs emerging as the indisputable frontrunners.

  Once perceived as vehicles solely for off-road capabilities and adventuring (hence the name sport utility vehicle), SUVs soon became a useful transportation alternative for large families. Shortly after, they became the top-selling models for many automakers.

  In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Bruno Venditti, using on the annual production shares of different vehicle types from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), explore the factors that have led to the surging popularity of SUVs.

  

  U.S. Vehicle Production: The Rise of SUVs

  As SUV production has evolved, they’ve started to blur the line between car and truck classes. The EPA classifies most two-wheel drive SUVs under 6,000 lbs as cars (car SUVs), while those with four-wheel drive or above 6,000 lbs are trucks (truck SUVs).

  In the American market, sedans and wagons dominated production from before the 1970s and well into the 1990s. Combined with smaller car SUVs, cars accounted for more than half of U.S. vehicle production well into the 2010s.

  But the rapid rise of heavier truck SUVs has shifted the landscape. Sedans and wagons dipped below 50% of market production for the first time in 2004. And by 2017, trucks (including truck SUVs, pickups, and minivans) have been the ones accounting for over half of new vehicle production.

  

  The growth of SUVs can be partially linked to all-wheel drive systems that gained momentum in the 1980s, with the Audi Quattro winning three rallies in its rookie season of 1981.

  During that same time, new SUV models started to gain popularity, like the 1984 Jeep Cherokee—considered the first modern SUV with four doors—and Land Rover’s Range Rover, which entered the North American market in 1987.

  By melding the benefits of space, performance, and comfort into one vehicle, SUVs began competing with both vans and station wagons as the quintessential family car. In the 90s, affordable midsize models like the Ford Explorer, Subaru Legacy Outback, and Toyota RAV4 paved the way for more middle-class families to enter the SUV market.

  However, SUV production has been prone to fluctuations. Demand first started dropping as gas prices rose in the lead-up to the 2008 recession, which further strained finances and caused families to opt for cheaper non-SUV models. This significantly hurt the American “Big Three” automotive producers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) at the time, for which trucks and SUVs had become the primary market.

  SUV Fuel Efficiency and Millennials

  Driven by improvements in fuel efficiency and societal trends, SUV demand roared back over the last 10 years.

  Automakers have implemented fuel-saving technologies, such as direct injection and turbocharging, and have used more lightweight materials in construction to further boost engine efficiency.

  While fuel efficiency has improved across all types of vehicles over the last four decades, sedans and wagons climbed far earlier in miles per gallon (MPG) scores, while SUVs have only more recently started catching up.

  

  Since 2000, fuel efficiency for sedans and wagons improved by around 38%, while car SUVs saw a jump of 70% over the same time period, with both sitting at just over 30 MPG for 2021 models. Even larger truck SUVs, seen as the epitome of gas-guzzling vehicles, have become as efficient (in MPG terms) as sedans were in the 2000s.

  Another factor influencing the market is the surprising entry of millennials, who now represent the majority of the population in the United States. Just a few years ago, automakers were fretting over millennials being a childless, car-less, city-dwelling group who cared little about buying cars or homes.

  Fast forward to today—as millennials have aged and their wallets have gotten a little heavier, more of them are buying SUVs to drive to their suburban homes or just to fit their dogs.

  SUVs are also benefiting from the shift to electric vehicles. In 2022, SUVs represented 46% of global car sales, and electric SUVs accounted for over half of global electric car sales.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 20:40

• Plagued By Drought, China Turns To Coal To Keep The Lights On
  Plagued By Drought, China Turns To Coal To Keep The Lights On

  By John Kemp, senior market analyst

  

  China’s reliance on coal-fired power generation increased during the first half of 2023 as continued drought severely reduced hydroelectric power in the southern provinces.Total generation from all sources increased by +205 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the first six months of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022 (“Output of energy products, National Bureau of Statistics, July 20″).

  

  The increase was +5.2%, which implies the government is probably on track to meet its declared target of around 5% for growth in gross domestic product this year.

  

  

  But hydro generation slumped by -132 billion kWh (-23%) to its lowest level for eight years as the protracted drought hit reservoir levels.

  

  The two southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan accounted for almost half (48%) of the country’s hydropower in 2020; adding the neighbouring areas of Guizhou and Guangxi takes the share to almost three-fifths (58%).

  

  But the region experienced much lower than average precipitation over the last 12 months, forcing sharp reductions in power production.

  

  Precipitation at the city of Yibin on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan totalled 626 millimetres in the 12 months ending in June 2023. Rainfall was just half the average over the previous eight years and down by almost 60% compared with the previous 12-month period.

  

  Some of the deficit caused by hydro generation was covered by increased generation from wind farms (+82 billion kWh) and solar power (+25 billion kWh).

  

  

  But the rest of the deficit and all the consumption growth was covered by a massive increase in thermal generation (+218 billion kWh) mostly from coal-fired units.

  

  Thermal generation increased by +8% compared with the same period in 2022 and accounted for 71% of all electrical output, up from 69% in the previous year.

  China’s coal fleet kept the lights on, air conditioning working and industry operating in the drought-stricken south and more recently in the north in an unprecedented heat wave.

  In response to government directives to ensure sufficient fuel stocks for generators, the country’s coal mines produced a record volume in the first six months.

  

  Domestic coal production climbed by +107 million tonnes (+5%) between January and June compared with the same period in 2022.

  At the same time, coal imports also surged by +107 million tonnes (+92%) as power generators and steelmakers built up inventories.

  

  In the first half of the year, wind and solar farms produced more electricity (560 billion kWh) combined than the country’s hydroelectric dams (450 billion kWh) for the first time.

  China’s energy transition is real and is proceeding rapidly…. But coal-fired generation and production is still likely to increase for at least the next several years because of the country’s inherited reliance on coal-fired units and the need to meet rapid load growth.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 20:20

• North Korea Issues Nuclear Warning Over US Nuke-Armed Submarine Off Peninsula
  North Korea Issues Nuclear Warning Over US Nuke-Armed Submarine Off Peninsula

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  North Korea on Thursday issued a warning over the US deployment of a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea, saying the provocation could potentially justify Pyongyang using its nuclear weapons.

  The Ohio-Class USS Kentucky docked in the South Korean port of Busan on Tuesday, marking the first time since 1981 that an American nuclear-armed submarine arrived in the country. It also marked the first time since the US withdrew its tactical nukes from South Korea in 1991 that US nuclear weapons were deployed to the Korean Peninsula.

  

  The provocation coincided with the first meeting of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), which was established by the US and South Korea to increase cooperation related to US nuclear weapons.

  North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun-nam slammed the US and South Korean cooperation on nuclear weapons in a press statement released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.

  Kang said US and South Korean officials held the NCG meeting “to discuss the plan for using nuclear weapons against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea].”

  Discussing North Korea’s nuclear policy, Kang said, “I remind the US military of the fact that the ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law on the nuclear force policy.”

  He said that Pyongyang’s nuclear doctrine “allows the execution of necessary action procedures in case a nuclear attack is launched against it or it is judged that the use of nuclear weapons against it is imminent.”

  After US officials held the NCG meeting, they released a statement that said any nuclear attack from the North will “will result in the end of that regime.”

  

  South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday boarded the nuclear-armed USS Kentucky and repeated the “end of the regime” threat.

  The US nuclear deployment in South Korea provoked more North Korean missile tests as the two sides continue tit-for-tat escalations. The Biden administration has shown no interest in easing tensions and has vowed to continue deploying strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 20:00

• IRS Issues Important Notice To Storm Victims In 4 States About Paying Taxes Owed
  IRS Issues Important Notice To Storm Victims In 4 States About Paying Taxes Owed

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

  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a notice to taxpayers in parts of four disaster-stricken states that they must file their federal income tax returns and pay any taxes owed by the end of the month or face consequences.

  

  This year, most taxpayers were required to file by April 18, which was also the deadline for paying any taxes owed to the IRS.

  However, the agency granted special relief to taxpayers affected by federally declared disasters in various regions in the form of filing and payment due date extensions.

  The extended deadlines varied by region. Some disaster-area taxpayers—including in most of California, as well as parts of Alabama and Georgia—were granted an extension until Oct. 16 to file their tax returns and make tax payments. For others, that deadline falls sooner.

  In a reminder issued earlier this week, the IRS said that taxpayers in storm-impacted parts of Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, have until July 31 to file their tax returns and pay any amounts due.

  “As long as their address of record is in a disaster-area locality, individual and business taxpayers automatically get the extra time without having to ask for it,” the agency said in a statement.

  The July 31 deadline applies to taxpayers affected by four different disaster declarations resulting from severe storms, tornadoes, and straight-line winds during late March and early April of this year.

  The following affected areas are included in the latest IRS reminder:

  Three counties in Arkansas: Cross, Lonoke, and Pulaski counties, were impacted by storms and tornadoes on March 31.

  Thirteen counties in Indiana: Allen, Benton, Brown, Clinton, Grant, Howard, Johnson, Lake, Monroe, Morgan, Owen, Sullivan, and White counties, affected by storms, straight-line winds, and tornadoes from March 31 to April 1.

  Seven counties in Mississippi: Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe, Montgomery, Panola, Sharkey, and Washington counties, were hit by severe storms, straight-line winds, and tornadoes from March 24 to 25.

  Thirteen counties in Tennessee: Cannon, Giles, Hardeman, Hardin, Haywood, Johnson, Lewis, Macon, McNairy, Morgan, Rutherford, Tipton, and Wayne counties, were impacted by severe storms, straight-line winds, and tornadoes from March 31 to April 1.

  Taxpayers who fall into the above categories and need an extension beyond July 31 can apply for extensions, but they must be submitted in paper format using Form 4868, the IRS said.

  The reason is that electronic filing options are not available for extension requests that fall after the original April 18 filing deadline.

  Taxpayers who owe the IRS money but miss their respective deadlines to file a tax return face a failure to file a penalty amounting to 5 percent of the unpaid tax due for each month that they’re late with the payment.

  This is also the case for unpaid amounts owed beyond a given deadline, in which case the IRS charges a failure to pay penalty of 0.5 percent of the tax owed per month.

  If both a failure to file and a failure to pay penalty are charged for a given month, then the failure to file penalty is reduced by the amount of the failure to pay penalty. This means that the combined penalty for a given month will never exceed 5 percent for each month or part of a month that the return was late.

  The penalties jointly max out at 25 percent of the unpaid tax owed.

  Special Notice

  The latest reminder follows a recent special mailing the IRS sent to taxpayers in disaster-affected areas as a follow-up clarification after an earlier message wrongly told them they had 21 days to pay taxes owed.

  “Although the initial notice indicated a payment deadline of 21 days, taxpayers in these disaster-declared regions actually have until a later date this year to make their payments within the designated timeframe,” the IRS said in a June 28 statement.

  In late May and June, taxpayers with balances due who live in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee that fell under disaster declarations received a CP14 notice from the IRS.

  Many of the CP14 notices incorrectly said the affected taxpayers had three weeks to pay outstanding balances.

  “We know our initial mailing caused confusion for taxpayers and tax professionals, and we worked quickly to send a follow-up reminder to help reassure people,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.

  “This mailing reflects how we’re trying to be more taxpayer-focused given the additional resources that we’ve been given under the Inflation Reduction Act.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 19:40

• Ukraine To Receive F-16s By End Of Year, Kirby Says
  Ukraine To Receive F-16s By End Of Year, Kirby Says

  Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council John Kirby suggested in a Fox News interview Thursday that Ukraine could received US F-16 fighter jets way ahead of schedule. 

  “Most likely, the F-16s will arrive in Ukraine before the end of the year. However, we do not believe that F-16s alone can alter the situation on the battlefield,” Kirby said.

  

  Very likely, training for Ukrainian pilots—which hasn’t even begun yet (at least officially) given NATO press statements have indicated the Denmark-bases training program is set to begin in August—won’t be complete by then.

  Top Zelensky officials, including the Ukrainian president himself, have pleaded for more advanced weaponry to arrive on the battlefield sooner. Amid what’s increasingly acknowledged in mainstream press as a failing counteroffensive, Ukraine’s military leaders have urged ‘superiority of the skies’. 

  But it’s clear that Kirby has downplayed that even Western fighter jets will be a major game-changer. He also emphasized in the interview that the most immediate need remains greater amounts of artillery ammunition, given especially the superior supplies which the Russians possess.

  Kirby listed out what he called the “four A’s”… as “artillery, ammunition, air defense and armor—tanks.”

  Ukrainian media too has begun to acknowledge that Western fighters may have little impact on the overall negative course of the counteroffensive:

  A week ago, Lieutenant General Douglas Sims said that conditions for a transfer of F-16s are not “ideal.” He stressed that Russians still have air defense capability, hinting that the number of jets that can arrive will not change the course of the counteroffensive.

  President Putin and Kremlin officials have said West-supplied jets will “burn” just like other foreign equipment. They’ve also warned that NATO is “playing with fire” in approving them for the Ukrainians.

  “The US may transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine already this year. But we believe that the F-16 alone will not be able to turn the tide,” John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications said. pic.twitter.com/2gdtG2Cc0V

  — NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) July 21, 2023

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

  Initially, F-16s are expected to be sent “likely from European countries that have excess F-16 supplies” – according to the prior words of Jake Sullivan from the NATO summit in Vilnius last week.

  Russian foreign minister Lavrov has in the meantime underscored that the F-16s are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, and so will be treated by Russian forces as such.

  “We have informed the nuclear powers – the US, UK and France – that Russia can’t ignore the ability of these aircraft to carry nuclear weapons,” the foreign minister said earlier this month. “No assurances [by the West] will help here,” he warned. In the midst of fighting, the Russian military isn’t going to investigate whether any specific jet is equipped to deliver nuclear weapons or not,” he added.

  Lavrov said yesterday that U.S.-built F-16 fighter jets can “accommodate” nuclear weapons and warned that supplying Kyiv with them will escalate the conflict further.

  John Kirby also had a message for Lavrov: “If you’re worried about Ukrainian military capabilities, then you… pic.twitter.com/CzNYcJf6Fe

  — Yasmina (@yasminalombaert) June 6, 2023

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

  “The very fact of the appearance of such systems within the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be considered by us as a threat from the West in the nuclear domain,” Lavrov warned. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 19:20

• Food Giant Helps Get Child Trafficking Movie 'Sound Of Freedom' To The Big Screen
  Food Giant Helps Get Child Trafficking Movie ‘Sound Of Freedom’ To The Big Screen

  Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Angel Studios’ anti-people trafficking movie, “Sound of Freedom,” has earned nearly seven times its original budget after only two weeks at the box office.

  

  Shedding a light on a dark, shadowy world—especially child sex trafficking—the film’s commercial success comes years after its production, surviving a corporate merger, the COVID-19 pandemic, and reports of several screenings gone awry.

  The picture owes a lot to two men who wanted everyone to see it—the producer and co-star Eduardo Verastagui and president of Goya Foods, Bob Unanue.

  Opening on July 4, “Sound of Freedom” just surpassed $100 million at the box office, $85 million of which came from domestic theaters. It was made on a $14.5 million budget.

  

  Starring Jim Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ”) as former Homeland Security Agent and Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard, the movie is a call-to-action that tells the true story of how hundreds of people were rescued from human trafficking.

  It saw an increase of more than 30 percent in audience attendance in its second week, and more than 10,000 verified audience members have contributed to its 100 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

  It also continues to compete with mainstream movies with much lighter and more entertainment-focused subject matters and much higher budgets.

  But this successful movie might not have ever seen the inside of a theater without the help of food giant Goya Foods.

  “Sound of Freedom” had originally been ordered by 20th Century Fox with Mr. Verastagui already on as its producer and supporting role.

  But the movie became one of the many Fox projects shelved after the merger with The Walt Disney Company.

  “We helped him buy [“Sound of Freedom”] from Disney [and] became executive producers on that,” Mr. Unanue told The Epoch Times in a phone interview. “It just so happened that several years later trying to get it distributed that Angel Studios appeared on the scene.”

  Goya did not disclose the amount of money it contributed to the project.

  The film was completed before the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite Disney releasing the rights, that theater-closing event would require its producers to wait a little bit longer.

  Angel Studios acquired the distribution rights in 2023. He said Angel Studios was “a godsend” in turning around the movie for theatrical release in “just a few months.” Now, he said, they are in talks with Mel Gibson to do a series on human trafficking.

  Caring About Victims

  Tied to the completion and distribution of “Sound of Freedom” is the creation of Goya Cares, Mr. Unanue’s own program, which provides support to several nonprofits fighting child and human trafficking.

  Working primarily on the homefront, it supports several charities already entrenched in the fight to end trafficking and provide safe houses for victims, such as Catholic Charities and the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC).

  It also works with the Monique Burr Foundation to provide lesson plans and educational awareness in schools.

  “At the center of Goya Cares is a heart, and our heart reaches out to these victims of child trafficking and children who are suffering from mental illness so that they may have hope to live in a world where their life is valued, their freedom is a reality and their mind is at peace,” Mr. Unanue’s mission statement for the program states.

  “They need to be reminded that they are precious gifts from God.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 19:00

• CRE Storm: Over $800 Billion In Office Space In Nine Cities Could Become Obsolete By 2030
  CRE Storm: Over $800 Billion In Office Space In Nine Cities Could Become Obsolete By 2030

  During the regional bank failures in March, we directed our readership to focus on the next potential crisis: “CRE Nuke Goes Off With Small Banks Accounting For 70% Of Commercial Real Estate Loans.” By late March, Morgan Stanley warned clients of an upcoming maturity wall in commercial real estate, which amounts to $500 billion of loans in 2024, and a total of $2.5 trillion in debt that comes due over the next five years. 

  In a recent Bloomberg interview, Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group warned that the CRE space is in a “Category 5 hurricane.” He said, “It’s sort of a blackout hovering over the entire industry until we get some relief or some understanding of what the Fed’s going to do over the longer term.”

  

  The current downturn in CRE could persist for years, if not through the end of this decade. Jan Mischke, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, along with Olivia White, a senior partner at McKinsey, and Aditya Sanghvi, a senior partner and leader of McKinsey’s real estate special initiative, published a note in Fortune, warning “$800 billion of office space in just nine cities could become obsolete by 2030.” 

  The authors of the report blame the CRE downturn on the “shift to remote and hybrid work prompted two further shifts in people’s behavior”: 

  First, many residents, untethered from their offices and therefore less fearful of long commutes, moved away from urban cores. New York City’s urban core (that is, the dozen densest counties in the metropolitan area) lost 5% of its population from mid-2020 to mid-2022. San Francisco’s urban core (San Francisco County, Alameda County, and San Mateo County) lost 6%.

  Second, consumers began shopping less at brick-and-mortar stores–and far less at stores in urban cores, where people were now less likely either to work or to live. Foot traffic near stores in metropolitan areas remains 10 to 20% below pre-pandemic levels, but the differences between urban and suburban traffic recovery are substantial. For example, in late 2022, foot traffic near New York’s suburban stores was 16% lower than it had been in January 2020, while foot traffic near stores in the urban core was 36% lower.

  As fewer employees work in the office, demand for office space will fall. By 2030, such demand will be as much as 20% lower, depending on the city–even in a moderate scenario in which office attendance goes up but remains lower than it was before the pandemic.

  And as fewer consumers shop at brick-and-mortar stores, demand for retail space will fall as well, according to our model. In the urban core of London, the hardest-hit city, demand for retail space will be 22% lower in 2030 than it was in 2019 in a moderate scenario.

  Some of the most significant declines in office and retail space demand through 2030 will be in major US cities such as San Francisco and New York City.

  

  The authors note that the demand for “residential space will suffer less”… Well, according to their forecasting model. 

  

  “The reduced demand will have major impacts on urban stakeholders. For example, in just nine cities that we studied especially closely, $800 billion of office space could become obsolete by 2030. And macroeconomic complications could make matters even worse,” the authors continued. Without office workers in downtown areas, economic recoveries in major cities will be a “U” shape or, in some cases, an “L.” 

  The unraveling of downtowns is already underway. We shared a video this week of scenes of San Francisco’s downtown transformed into a ‘ghost town.’ Building owners in the crime-ridden metro area are already giving up and defaulting as vacancies rise, crime surges, and refinancing is near impossible in today’s climate as the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates sky-high to tame the worst inflation in a generation. 

  We shift our attention to Baltimore City, where office towers are being dumped in an apparent firesale. 

  • Beginning Of CRE Firesale? Baltimore Office Tower Dumped At 63% Discount
  • CRE Panic Hits Baltimore As Second Office Tower Dumped At 69% Discount

  The authors failed to report that the sliding demand for office towers isn’t just because of “remote and hybrid work” but also due to an exodus of companies fleeing crime-ridden progressive cities that fail to enforce law and order. 

  If McKinsey’s predictions are correct, certain segments of the CRE market are expected to experience prolonged turmoil for years. Some US mayors have proposed an immediate solution to convert office towers into multi-family units. However, this transformation could take years due to the time-consuming processes of obtaining permits and construction.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 18:40

• Vast Majority Of Americans Say Illegal Immigration Is Either "Crisis" Or "Major Problem"
  Vast Majority Of Americans Say Illegal Immigration Is Either “Crisis” Or “Major Problem”

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

  Amid a historic wave of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully, an overwhelming majority of Americans polled say that illegal immigration is a crisis or—at best—a “major problem.”

  

  A recent poll by Gallup found that 39 percent of Americans believe the border situation is a full-blown “crisis.” Another 33 percent think it’s a “major problem,” meaning that a whopping 72 percent believe the situation on the border is bad enough to be considered seriously problematic.

  Views on illegal immigration held by Republicans – who have long opposed open borders – have remained mostly unchanged from 2019, when a similar poll was conducted by Gallup during the administration of then President Donald Trump.

  The relatively stable share (88 percent in 2019 vs. 91 percent in 2023) of Republican respondents saying illegal immigration is at least a “major problem” suggests that porous borders are less of a partisan issue than a matter of deep conviction for those aligned with the GOP.

  Democrats, on the other hand, have sharply raised their tolerance for illegal immigration between the Trump-era days and those of the administration of President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat.

  In 2019, 68 percent of Democrats said it was a crisis or major problem, with that dropping to just 56 percent at the present time, suggesting Democrat views on the issue shift based on politics.

  Republicans in Congress have blamed the Biden administration for policies they say encourage people to undertake the perilous trek north and cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

  The Biden administration has blamed factors outside its control—like crime, corruption, and poverty in countries of origin—while blaming Mr. Trump for undermining the country’s asylum system, which the current administration says it’s trying to fix.

  

  Illegal immigrants wait to be taken by Border Patrol to a processing facility to begin their asylum-seeking process in Eagle Pass, Texas, on June 25, 2023. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)

  June Numbers

  Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported this week that 144,607 encounters happened in June along the Southwest border, the lowest number since February 2021.

  CBP officials credited the decline in part to the Biden administration’s expansion of legal pathways and processes for entry into the United States.

  “Our sustained efforts to enforce consequences under our longstanding Title 8 authorities, combined with expanding access to lawful pathways and processes, have driven the number of migrant encounters along the Southwest border to their lowest levels in more than two years. We will remain vigilant,” Troy A. Miler, CBP Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner, said in a statement.

  June marked the first full month since Title 42 restrictions expired on May 11 and were replaced with a new policy that, in many ways, resembled the one that ended.

  Title 42 was a regulation designed to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases in the United States. The rule was issued by the Trump administration in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and was used over 2.5 million times to block asylum claims.

  When Title 42 ended, the Biden administration rolled out a new rule (pdf), which essentially reinstates a Trump-era travel policy, stipulating that illegal immigrants would be disqualified from applying for asylum in the United States if they didn’t first seek protection in countries that they traveled through on their way to the United States, with limited exceptions.

  The regulation is meant to decrease human smuggling activities at the southern border by encouraging asylum-seekers to use “lawful, safe, and orderly” pathways, such as seeking refuge in a country that they’ve passed through.

  

  Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas (2nd-L) speaks at a press conference on May 5, 2023, in Brownsville, Texas. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)

  Hours before Title 42 was set to expire, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that smugglers had been spreading the word that the border would be open after Title 42 expired.

  “I want to be very clear: our borders are not open,” he said at the time. “People who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain will be promptly processed and removed.”

  Issuing a warning to those considering making the trek to the border, he stressed:

  “Smugglers care only about profits, not people. Do not risk your life and life savings only to be removed from the United States if and when you arrive here.”

  Since Mr. Biden took office, over 5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border into the United States.

  Scheduled Arrivals

  Meanwhile, DHS said at the end of June that more would-be illegal immigrants would be able to schedule their entry into the United States.

  The department’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will allow up to 1,450 appointments per day, an increase of 200 from the current number and 450 from the number available in May.

  “CBP is expanding the number of available appointments at ports of entry for the second time in less than two months, through scheduling enhancements and operational efficiencies,” Troy Miller, the top CBP official, said in a statement.

  The appointments, made through an application called CBP One, are “providing for safe and efficient processes at ports of entry,” he added.

  The would-be immigrants can schedule an appointment at a port of entry, or an official border crossing, through the application.

  The appointment scheduling was part of a January Biden administration announcement on steps that would be taken to deal with the spike in illegal immigration that has occurred since Mr. Biden took office.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 18:20

• Barbie Movie Applauded As A “Feminist Epic” While Depicting Men As Bumbling Villains
  Barbie Movie Applauded As A “Feminist Epic” While Depicting Men As Bumbling Villains

  The underlying and undeniable trend of modern day Hollywood is the making of movies that hate their own subject matter, specifically when that subject matter stems from traditional cultural norms.  The goal is “deconstruction.” Everything must be deconstructed, broken down, burned down, erased from the public consciousness and replaced with the “new” woke ideal.  Well, it was only a matter of time before they went after Barbie and the results are embarrassing.

  Produced by star Margot Robbie and directed by Greta Gerwig, Hollywood critics love Barbie, but their applause doesn’t revolve around the overall quality of the story.  Rather, it revolves around the messaging which is aggressively woke.  

  The Verge calls the movie a:

  “Bold vision built around the idea of deconstructing some of the more complex realities of what Barbie represents in order to tell a truly modern, feminist story.”

  The Wrap declares:

  “Once an equal parts fascinating and controversial Mattel toy, both loved and hate – a tiny-waisted, vacuously smiling, slender doll designed like a straight-male fantasy – is now a complicated feminist symbol of empowerment…”

  NBC News notes:

  “As Barbie makes her way in the real world, she must grapple with the overwhelming emotion and discomfort of being human, as well as a patriarchal system that would make her a secondary character in her own world.”

  The core plot of Barbie plays on the common feminist notion of “reversed roles” along with a predictable hatred of men and masculinity; starting in a place where women run everything and men are simply objects with “no agency.”  Ken is a dunce that Barbie controls while he is also simultaneously cruel, a classic woke depiction of “toxic masculinity.”  

  But when Barbie is transported to the real world (our world as viewed by feminism) she encounters a cartoonish level of male chauvinism and sexism, while Ken learns to love the patriarchy and tries to transport it back to Barbie’s world.  IndieWire asserts that Ken is the villain of the story as he destroys the feminist utopia of Barbieland:

  “It’s been hugely altered by the full force of a returning (and, dare we say it, red-pilled) Ken, who uses all his newfound male rage and patriarchal power to upend what was once a lady-powered idyll.”

  In fact, the film’s script uses the word “patriarchy” at least 10 times.  Obviously, the premise as a metaphor is faulty because the dynamic depicted in the flick doesn’t exist for women, at least not in western society.  Gender roles exist because of biology, not because of conspiracy.  But then, the ultimate childish fantasy is not Barbie’s dreamland, it’s the feminist ideal.   

  

  The surface story involves the realm of Barbie as a parallel universe to our own, but real life issues and fears start to invade Barbie’s thoughts and she begins to challenge the structures of the world she lives in while disrupting everyone’s blissful ignorance (This is how woke activists see themselves; as messiahs shocking people out of an illusion controlled by evil white men).

  Not surprisingly, the movie also ignores the essential reasons why Barbie as a toy is so popular.

  For decades Barbie has been a primary target of the feminist movement.  Their accusation is that the toy is a negative image reinforcement for young girls and a “tool for the patriarchy” for molding women into unattainable beauty standards as well as social standards.  In reality, Barbie is vastly successful because she’s a blank slate – Girls and women tend to project their personalities onto fictional characters (and many other things), and Barbie has no defined personality to get in the way.  Little girls make Barbie into whatever they want her to be, which is usually them.  This is the reason why we often hear feminists argue that everyone needs to “feel represented” in entertainment – They cannot relate unless they can project.   

  But as a blank slate there can be no “manipulation” or male domination with a toy like Barbie. So, feminist claims fall apart.  They simply ignore what the toy means to children and think only of what it means to them.

  By extension, there is no romance in the Barbie movie, no love story for Barbie and Ken, no playing house or taking care of babies.  All the things that little girls do with the toy are deliberately erased from the film.  Beyond the colorful set design, the movie is distinctly hostile to the idea that it should appeal to kids.  It is only made for one very narrow group of people:  Far left ideologues.

  Robbie sold the concept to Mattel as a movie that “loves Barbie” but also “doesn’t shy away from the problematic issues surrounding Barbie.”  It would be interesting to get an honest opinion from Mattel now that the movie has hit theaters – Was this really what they intended?  A complete deconstruction of their brand?  The movie even depicts the CEO of Mattel (played by Will Farrell) as an angry capitalist trying to force Barbie “back into her box.”

  In the middle of the film, a teenage girl shouts at Margot Robbie’s Barbie in a California high school cafeteria:

  “You represent everything wrong with our culture. You destroyed the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism…you fascist!”

  This is not a display of love for the toy, it’s a group of woke fanatics doing what they always do – It’s not enough that they hate the product and what it stands for, everyone else has to hate it too.  Feminists are not happy in their own crazed beliefs; they are only satiated when others are pressured to affirm those beliefs, often through propaganda.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 18:00

• Woe, The Humanity: How AI Fits Into Broadly Rising Anti-Humanism
  Woe, The Humanity: How AI Fits Into Broadly Rising Anti-Humanism

  Authored by Joel Kotkin & Samuel J. Abrams via RealClear Wire,

  The future of humanity is becoming ever less human. The astounding capabilities of ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence have triggered fears about the coming age of machines leaving little place for human creativity or employment. Even the architects of this brave new world are sounding the alarm. Sam Altman, chairman and CEO of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, recently warned that artificial intelligence poses an “existential risk” to humanity and warned Congress that artificial intelligence “can go quite wrong.”

  

  While history is littered with apocalyptic predictions, the new alarms are different because they are taking place amid broad cultural forces that suggest human beings have lost faith in themselves and connections with humanity in general.  

  The new worldview might best be described as anti-humanism. This notion rejects the idea that human beings are perennially ingenious, socially connected creatures capable of wondrous creations – religious scripture, the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Beethoven, the science of Einstein. Instead, it casts people, society, and human life itself as a problem. Instead of seeing society as a tool to help people to build and flourish, it stresses the need to limit the damage humanity might do.     

  Many climate change activists, for example, argue that humanity’s extinction could be a net plus for planet earth. State-sanctioned euthanasia, which just a few years ago was considered a radical assault on the sanctity of life, is becoming common practice in many Western countries – available not just to the terminally ill but those who are just tired of living. 

  All this is taking place as social science research reveals that people are increasingly cutting themselves off from one another. The traditional pillars of community and connection – family, friends, children, church, neighborhood – have been withering, fostering an everyday existence defined for many people by loneliness. The larger notion of human beings as constituting a larger, collective project with some sense of common goal is being replaced by a solipsistic individualism, which negates the classical liberal values of self-determination and personal freedoms in a worldview that nullifies the societies they built.

  These trends, which have been studied largely in isolation, could be amplified by the ascendance of artificial intelligence. As humanity wrestles with powerful new technologies, a growing body of research suggests that a more fundamental question may be whether human beings are willing to shape their own legacy in the new world order. 

  God as Gaia  

  Anti-humanism has a long history – it can be traced back at least to Thomas Malthus, who warned in 1789 that overpopulation was the greatest threat to human prosperity. Although the British economist and cleric was not hostile to humanity and his dark predictions never came true, his claim that people are the problem has provided the cri de coeur for the modern environmental movement. In 1968, the biologist Paul Ehrlich’s best-seller “The Population Bomb,” which expressed horror at the proliferation of people, prophesied that continued surges in population would lead to mass starvation. Ehrlich and his acolytes urged extreme measures to stave off disaster, including adding sterilant to the water supply to prevent human reproduction.  

  These views have not gone away. The big business-funded Club of Rome report, issued in 1972, embraced an agenda of austerity and retrenchment to stave off population-driven mass starvation and social chaos. Humanity’s ancient effort to create safety and comfort – its commitment to progress and prosperity – was cast as a lethal threat.  

  Others were less politic in their embrace of anti-human memes. In 1991, the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau said that “in order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.” Today, this mindset informs many climate change activists, who as the writer Austin Williams has noted, believe human beings represent “the biggest problem on the planet” as opposed to the “creators of a better future.” More than 11,000 scientists signed an emergency declaration in 2019 that said having fewer people should be a priority.  

  In a May New Yorker article about “The Earth Transformed,” a new book by Oxford University professor Peter Frankopan, Harvard professor Jill Lepore notes: “In his not at all cheerful conclusion, looking to a possibly not too distant future in which humans fail to address climate change and become extinct, Frankopan writes, ‘Our loss will be the gain of other animals and plants.’” Lepore then quips, “An upside!” 

  Manifestos such as Frankopan’s, whose writing on the history of climate change is quite nuanced, reflect how the climate agenda tends toward apocalypticism, and a highly toxic view of humanity. Already more than half of young people around the world believe the planet is doomed. Although few prioritize climate as their main concern, concerns about warming underpins a profoundly anti-human agenda based on the impoverishment of much of the population. Many corporate interests, as well as their allies among green activists, have embraced the notion of “degrowth,” embracing a weird form of autarkic feudalism in which people live in small places, eat a meager diet, and surrender any chance of upward mobility. The “tiny house” movement is a small example. It is hard to overstate what a radical departure this is from long-held beliefs tying progress to rising standards of living, much less creating offspring. 

  Such an approach seems to require a quasi-religious commitment which, if it does not claim justification from God, acts as the right hand of Gaia and of supposedly sanctified science. Two environmentalists, writing in Time magazine this April, argued that Earth Day should be designated a “religious holiday” just like Easter and Passover.  

  The Fading Family   

  Unlike traditional religious holidays, sacralized Earth Day festivities likely will not celebrate the family or human fecundity. Around the world, the ties between parents, children and extended family are clearly weakening and thus undermining the bonds that have held human society together from the earliest times.  

  Increasingly the very idea of family is under assault, particularly from universities and media that openly criticize monogamy and the nuclear family while extolling a wide array of alternatives including polyamory and some form of collectivized childrearing. Columnist David Brooks of the New York Times, who last week fretted that “human beings are soon going to be eclipsed” by AI, also argued in The Atlantic in 2020 that “the nuclear family was a mistake.” Brooks, no woke zealot, oddly echoed the group Black Lives Matter, which made opposition to the nuclear family a part of its basic original platform, even though family breakdown has hurt African American boys most of all. One prominent feminist, Sophie Lewis, advocates “full surrogacy” as a replacement for the traditional family.  

  To be sure, many children are being brought up without two parents. The number of children living in single parent households has more than doubled in the last 50 years. In the United States, the rate of single parenthood has grown from 10% in 1960 to over 40% today. 

  Rather than a nation of families, the United States is becoming a collection of autonomous human beings and childless households. The impacts of a weaker family, as Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reeves and others have noted, are felt most among poorer people, and particularly their offspring. “This is probably the best documented fact in sociology in America that no one wants to admit,” observed demographer Mary Eberstadt. 

  The links between family dysfunction and crime have been clear since at least the 1970s. This breakdown has worsened as city leaders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, New York and other urban centers now accept homelessness, open drug markets, and petty crime. This can be viewed as another aspect of anti-humanism, rejecting the notion that people are capable of productive and fulfilling lives. Instead of seeing people as members of a community with obligations to one another, it reflects a kind of live-and-let-die individualism that leads to isolation, despair, and anger. 

  The Friendless American  

  Family decline reflects just one aspect of an increasingly dehumanized social order. The U.S. Census Bureau has found that 28% of American households had just one person in 2020. In 1940, this number was just 8%. In a recent survey conducted by Cigna, researchers found that almost 80% of adults from the ages of 18 to 24 reported feeling lonely. In 2018, even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one study showed that 54% of Americans felt like no one in their life knew them well. The “atomization” of America, first examined 20 years ago by Robert Putnam in books such as “Bowling Alone,” has been simply “speeding out in the wrong direction,” warns journalist Jennifer Senior. 

  As the pandemic wound down in the spring of 2022 and many were looking to resume their lives as normally as possible, a survey of American adults revealed that many people found it harder to form relationships now, and one-fourth of adults felt anxious about socializing. The biggest source of anxiety, shared by 29% of respondents, was “not knowing what to say or how to interact.” As social commentator Arthur Brooks notes, “Many of us have simply forgotten how to be friends.” 

  But it’s young people who bear the brunt of the loneliness wave. Data from the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey on Community and Society indicate that younger Americans are, in fact, considerably more lonely and isolated than older Americans. For instance, 44% of 18 to 29-year-olds report feeling completely alone at least sometimes, compared with just 19% of 60 to 70-year-olds. Perhaps most troubling, 22% of younger Americans stated that they “rarely” or “never” have someone they can turn to when in need. For older Americans, this number was just 5%.  

  So, what replaces human connections? The solution is increasingly expressed as self-love — the notion that the individual, however flawed, needs to be celebrated above all other human connections. According to one recent survey, 44% of people believe self-love is an essential aspect of mental health. For some, like pop singer Lizzo, self-love means accepting even traits such as obesity, which are clear threats to basic health.  

  In this tech-dominant future, even the most pleasurable direct human contact is being supplanted by artificial stimulus.  Many younger people are falling into what researchers have characterized as a “sex recession.” There has been a significant rise in artificial sex and numerous reports have found that pornography consumption can negatively impact marital intimacy and reduce relationship satisfaction. Younger generations are having sex less often and experiencing far more relationship instability, leading to fewer marriages and more atomization. In Japan, the harbinger of modern Asian demographics, roughly a third of men enter their 30s as virgins and a quarter of men over 50 never marry. Nearly a third of Japanese in their 30s have never had sex.  

  Psychologist Maytal Eyal, writing in Time, quotes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggesting that that loving yourself is “the one foundation of everything.” She also quotes Nicole LaPera, a clinical psychologist with 6.4 million followers, who claims “Self-love is our natural state,” citing Miley Cyrus, whose recent hit “Flowers” proclaims, “I can love me better than you can.”  

  Life, Death, and Changing Attitudes 

  As reflected in “self-love,” anti-humanism rests on a belief system that substitutes the sanctity of human life with a new ideology centered on the autonomous individual’s wants and desires. This extends to changing views on the most basic events of human existence, birth and death.  

  Attitudes towards euthanasia are increasingly permissive and expansive. Today a majority of Americans (54%), according to Gallup, think that doctor-assisted suicide is morally acceptable. Ten states now provide euthanasia. Several others, including Massachusetts and Vermont, also want to expand the use of “end of life” procedures.  

  The United States is behind the curve on this issue. In Canada, euthanasia is being made available even to those not terminally ill. Some apply to be killed due to homelessness or depression; since the new euthanasia law went into effect in 2016, the numbers using it have grown ten-fold. Canadian medical professionals have been reported to urge terminally ill patients to end their lives earlier, in part to defray hospital expenses. There are even government plans to consider allowing assisted suicide for minors without parental consent. 

  These trends can be seen as well in some European nations, such as Switzerland, where people not terminally ill can orchestrate their own extermination. In Spain, one convicted murderer opted for suicide even before sentencing. Belgium allowed the assisted suicide of a 23-year-old woman with depression, something that has sparked considerable controversy. In Japan, it is widely discussed whether that rapidly aging population should institute euthanasia for the elderly, even those who are not sick or dying. Last year the country experienced twice as many deaths as births. 

  The shifts here and abroad reveal a diminishing value placed on human life. A Connecticut civil rights lawyer, a former strong supporter of liberalized euthanasia laws, reports how physicians advocated assisted suicide for patients with disabilities, even those able to live longer and thrive.  

  Similar attitudes toward life define the ever more contentious abortion debate. When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, his platform was that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Today, the nation’s most prominent abortion advocates – like their opposite number in the pro-life movement – leave no room for compromise. Pro-choice leaders often view abortion as an unchallengeable “human right.” Just as the idea of limiting abortions for rape and incest, and placing very strict time limits, seems extreme to most Americans, the alternative view that has taken hold is that abortion idea is no longer something to be regretted, but celebrated. And this attitude has only intensified after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

  The Fading of Religion  

  The growing atomization of society has accompanied the historic decline of organized religion. Survey data show that two groups saw their rate of unhappiness rise more significantly than the others: single people, and those who did not regularly attend a religious service. The fading of religion, particularly among the young, intensifies isolation; the most recent AEI survey reveals, in contrast, that being faithful and part of a religious community deeply impacts feels of connectedness and isolation.  

  The decline of religion is a fundamental reality in most Western countries. In Europe, over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any religion. America, once considered an exception to the global secularizing trend, is also now rapidly “unchurching.” Younger Americans may still embrace of the notion of spiritual power but are leaving religious institutions at a rate four times that of their counterparts three decades ago. Almost 40% of people ages 18-29 have no religious affiliation.  

  The decline in faith among America’s youngest cohorts certainly threatens the trajectory of family formation; the fertility of women attending at least weekly religious services is about half-again higher than that of the secular. Globally, research shows that the higher the level of faith, the higher a country’s fertility will be, suggesting one way how traditional religion is at odds with the anti-human perspective of many in the climate movement.   

  A strong commitment to faith also correlates with community connectivity and engagement. For instance, just 10% of the religiously observant say they have no close friends; the number nearly doubles for those who have no faith.  

  This pattern extends to the younger generation. Religious younger Americans are more than twice as likely to do community work as their nonreligious Gen Z counterparts. Data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 2,000 young adults ages 18-25 coordinated by Neighborly Faith reveals that half of religious Gen Zers report volunteering in the community often or very often, compared to 30% of slightly religious Gen Zers and just 21% of non-religious Gen Zers. Despite narratives of insularity and social disconnect among religious Americans, it is primarily the religiously detached who are isolated and not connecting to others.  

  Tech and De-Humanization 

  Having moved away from family, community, and friendships, people increasingly seek salvation through technology – with some highly negative results. By empowering individuals, PCs, smart phones, and the rest have seemed to reduce the need for human connection. Increasingly, people are coming to see each other the same way machines see us – as data points to be fed into algorithms. “Science per se,” the late British chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, “has no space for empathy or fellow feeling.”  

  With the growth of artificial intelligence, the prospect of replacing humans by machines seems increasingly imminent. In Japan, where labor shortages are particularly intense, robots are being developed to care for their aging population and provide companionship for the increasingly rare young, as in Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian science fiction novel “Klara and the Sun.” Increasingly, even sex work could conceivably be dominated by artificial life forms.  

  As people hand over even their most intimate relations to machines, the designers of the new anti-human reality espouse the notion that, over time, most humans will be economically redundant and unnecessary. Researcher Gregory Ferenstein, who interviewed 147 tech company founders, found that most believe an “increasingly greater share of economic wealth will be generated by a smaller slice of very talented or original people. Everyone else will come to subsist on some combination of part-time entrepreneurial ‘gig work’ and government aid.”  

  Rather than see most humans as assets to society and the economy, many tech leaders, including AI pioneers like Sam Altman, envision offering the masses what Karl Marx would call “a proletarian alms bag,” a guaranteed income leaving them unstressed but marginally engaged in how society operates. This view is endorsed by many other tech oligarchs – Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick (former head of Uber), as well as Altman. 

  Yet recent experience suggests clear dangers in what virtual reality guru Rony Abovitz calls “computational autocracy.” When you look at Americans born after 1995,” notes New York University professor Jonathan Haidt, “what you find is that they have extraordinarily high rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and fragility.” Since 2010 , he notes, teenage girls have seen their rates of depression rise by 145%, while that for men has jumped 161%. Similar patterns, including hospitalizations for suicide, have risen across Western society.  

  The disturbing work of Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has revealed in detail the depressive symptoms among students K-12 over the past two decades. Today, half of U.S. students (50%) state that “they can’t do anything right” and that they “do not enjoy life” (49%). Sadly, 44% assert that their “life is not useful,” and this matches many attitudes on college and university campuses around the United States. According to Rebecca Rialon Berry, a professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University, “the intense sounds, colors and rapid movement of digital content can make it much more immersive and entrancing than the real world – and therefore much more difficult to disengage from.”

  Rise of a Post-Human World Order 

  For some, technology could also provide, as religion once did, the mechanism to reinvent the human race. Masayoshi Son, founder of the influential Softbank venture fund, recently suggested that artificial intelligence would lay the foundation for the creation of the “superhuman.” Scientists for a half century have harbored similar dreams and some no doubt welcome the Biden administration’s support for a vast project “to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers.” But cautionary tales about trying to create “the better human” are abundant: Consider the scientific promoters of early 20th century American eugenics as well as the examples of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. 

  The ultimate goal of the tech elite increasingly will be to meld people with machines. “Transhumanism” is based on the idea, espoused by former Google chief scientist Ray Kurzweil, that we can “transcend the limitations of our biological bodies and brains,” gaining control of “our fates” as well as our mortality. The new tech religion treats mortality not as a normal part of life, but as a “bug” to be corrected by technology. 

  Although it sounds like a cult, transhumanism has gained devotees from Silicon Valley including Sergei Brin, Larry Page, and Ray Kurzweil (of Google), to Peter Thiel and AI guru Sam Altman, whose Y Combinator is developing a technology for uploading one’s brain and preserving it digitally. The aim is to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.”  

  This new religion is a step toward creating a scientifically ordered society detached from family, religion, and the broad sense of community. Philosopher Yuval Noah Harari envisions a future where “a small and privileged elite of upgraded humans” will use genetic engineering to cement the superior status of their offspring – a small, God-like caste of what he calls Homo deus who can lord over the less cognitively gifted Homo sapiens.  

  “You want to know how super-intelligent cyborgs might treat ordinary flesh-and-blood humans?” Harari asks. “Better start by investigating how humans treat their less intelligent animal cousins.” 

  Joel Kotkin is Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. 
  Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 17:40

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• These Are The World's Most Valuable Football Club Brands
  These Are The World’s Most Valuable Football Club Brands

  When the oldest national football competition—the FA Cup—was first played in 1872, the players didn’t get paid, clubs were local associations, and there were no such things as football brands.

  Skip ahead a century and a half and many football clubs have comparable levels of global recognition to well-known consumer brands like Apple or Coca-Cola, while simultaneously commanding immense loyalty from fans from all walks of life.

  These characteristics have immense financial worth. Today, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details which clubs, aside from competing on the pitch, also compete as football brands. Brand Finance, a brand valuation and strategy consultancy, has compiled a list of the world’s 50 most valuable football club brands.

  

  ℹ️ Brand value refers to the present value of earnings specifically related to a football team’s brand reputation. This is separate and distinct from market value, or the value of an organization as a whole (i.e. what it would cost to buy a team)

  Which Football Club Has the Most Valuable Brand?

  Prized at $1.56 billion in 2023, Manchester City FC of England’s Premier League takes the top spot as the most valuable football brand.

  The club’s brand value grew 13.5% in the last year, a testament to the club’s recent and sustained success on the domestic and international fronts. It has won the Premier league seven times since 2011, and in 2023 the club completed a historic “treble”—winning the Premier League, Champions League, and FA Cup, all in one season.

  Here’s a look at the world’s top 50 most valued football club brands, listed in USD millions.

  Rank	Brand	Country	Brand Value (USD millions)	Value Change (2022-2023)
  1	Manchester City FC	🇬🇧 UK	$1,562	+13.50%
  2	Real Madrid CF	🇪🇸 Spain	$1,513	-14.40%
  3	FC Barcelona	🇪🇸 Spain	$1,425	-7.20%
  4	Manchester United FC	🇬🇧 UK	$1,412	-2.60%
  5	Liverpool FC	🇬🇧 UK	$1,411	-4.40%
  6	Paris Saint-Germain	🇫🇷 France	$1,174	-1.40%
  7	FC Bayern Munich	🇩🇪 Germany	$1,140	-11.30%
  8	Arsenal FC	🇬🇧 UK	$940	+0.02%
  9	Tottenham Hotspur FC	🇬🇧 UK	$931	-8.00%
  10	Chelsea FC	🇬🇧 UK	$893	-9.90%
  11	Juventus FC	🇮🇹 Italy	$655	-19.90%
  12	Club Atletico de Madrid	🇪🇸 Spain	$570	-15.10%
  13	Borussia Dortmund	🇩🇪 Germany	$562	-6.30%
  14	FC Internazionale Milano	🇮🇹 Italy	$528	-8.00%
  15	AC Milan	🇮🇹 Italy	$371	+0.19%
  16	West Ham United FC	🇬🇧 UK	$320	-6.40%
  17	Newcastle United FC	🇬🇧 UK	$259	+0.17%
  18	SSC Napoli	🇮🇹 Italy	$249	+0.18%
  19	RasenBallsport Leipzig	🇩🇪 Germany	$231	-18.40%
  20	Aston Villa FC	🇬🇧 UK	$222	+0.04%
  21	AS Roma	🇮🇹 Italy	$212	+0.01%
  22	Eintracht Frankfurt	🇩🇪 Germany	$210	-5.40%
  23	Everton FC	🇬🇧 UK	$205	-13.60%
  24	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	🇩🇪 Germany	$202	-8.00%
  25	Sevilla FC	🇪🇸 Spain	$196	-5.10%
  26	Brighton & Hove Albion FC	🇬🇧 UK	$189	-3.00%
  27	Leicester City	🇬🇧 UK	$187	-40.70%
  28	Olympique De Marseille	🇫🇷 France	$179	+0.07%
  29	Crystal Palace	🇬🇧 UK	$174	-1.70%
  30	AFC Ajax	🇳🇱 Netherlands	$172	-18.90%
  31	Olympique Lyonnais	🇫🇷 France	$166	-6.90%
  32	Wolverhampton Wanderers FC	🇬🇧 UK	$166	-29.80%
  33	Leeds United	🇬🇧 UK	$160	-25.60%
  34	Real Betis	🇪🇸 Spain	$159	+0.17%
  35	Borussia Monchengladbach	🇩🇪 Germany	$157	-18.80%
  36	Villarreal CF	🇪🇸 Spain	$143	-6.30%
  37	Real Sociedad	🇪🇸 Spain	$139	N/A
  38	VfL Wolfsburg	🇩🇪 Germany	$128	-34.90%
  39	1.FC Koln	🇩🇪 Germany	$125	-3.30%
  40	SC Freiburg	🇩🇪 Germany	$125	N/A
  41	SL Benfica	🇵🇹 Portugal	$123	+0.05%
  42	Celtic FC	🇬🇧 UK	$118	-9.70%
  43	Brentford FC	🇬🇧 UK	$118	N/A
  44	Athletic de Bilbao	🇪🇸 Spain	$117	-23.50%
  45	SS Lazio SpA	🇮🇹 Italy	$116	N/A
  46	1.FC Union Berlin	🇩🇪 Germany	$112	N/A
  47	Valencia CF	🇪🇸 Spain	$112	-38.70%
  48	FC Porto	🇵🇹 Portugal	$105	N/A
  49	Fulham FC	🇬🇧 UK	$104	N/A
  50	CR Flamengo	🇧🇷 Brazil	$102	-8.80%

  Close on City’s heels, Spain’s Real Madrid CF brand is also valued slightly above $1.5 billion, but is down 14% in the last year. The club lost their hold on both their domestic league and European championship titles this season, contributing to their decrease in brand worth in 2023.

  On the Catalonian side of Spain, FC Barcelona’s brand remains ranked in third place, valued at $1.4 billion. The two Spanish giants have a near duopoly over La Liga, Spain’s domestic league, with one of them having won the title 62 times in the 94 years since the league was founded.

  The rivalry gained another edge in the 2000s, hosting one each of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo—two of the most-followed celebrities in the world and often regarded as some of the greatest players to play the game.

  And while both Messi and Ronaldo left in the last five years, Barcelona and Real Madrid’s brands have stayed resilient. Both clubs have consistently ranked in the top five most valuable football club brands since 2013.

  Four more club brands have been valued above $1 billion:

  • Manchester United FC, England, ($1.41 billion)

  • Liverpool FC, England ($1.41 billion)

  • Paris Saint-Germain, France ($1.17 billion)

  • FC Bayern Munich, Germany ($1.14 billion)

  Countries with the Most Valuable Football Brands

  From a regional perspective, the UK is home to the most high-worth football club brands (18), all of them in England with the sole exception of Scotland’s Celtic FC.

  Country	Clubs	Brand Value (USD millions)
  🇬🇧 UK	18	$9,371
  🇩🇪 Germany	10	$2,992
  🇪🇸 Spain	9	$4,374
  🇮🇹 Italy	6	$2,131
  🇫🇷 France	3	$1,519
  🇵🇹 Portugal	2	$228
  🇳🇱 Netherlands	1	$172
  🇧🇷 Brazil	1	$102
  Total	50	$20,889

  The UK is followed by Germany (10) and Spain (9) with the most high-valued brands. Together, the top three countries account for almost three quarters of the most valued football club brands in the world.

  With an even broader-picture gaze, Europe is home to 49 of the 50 listed clubs, a testament to the strength of the European football market. The only non-European team to make the list was CR Flamengo from Brazil.

  What’s in a Brand?

  While the value of a football club brand is not the same as the club value itself, a strong brand can do wonders for a club’s financial performance, and eventual value.

  Just look at Manchester United, which hasn’t quite regained its stellar performances on field since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013, but nevertheless continues to be a commercial juggernaut—it had the fourth highest jersey sales in 2021.

  A similar story can be seen with Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr when it signed Cristiano Ronaldo, which drove visits to its merchandise store up 300%.

  With the new football season around the corner, it will be fascinating to see how the rankings of most valuable football brands change next year.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 02:45

• The Future Of AI Is War… And Human Extinction As Collateral Damage
  The Future Of AI Is War… And Human Extinction As Collateral Damage

  Authored by Michael T Klare via TomDispatch.com,

  A world in which machines governed by artificial intelligence (AI) systematically replace human beings in most business, industrial, and professional functions is horrifying to imagine. After all, as prominent computer scientists have been warning us, AI-governed systems are prone to critical errors and inexplicable “hallucinations,” resulting in potentially catastrophic outcomes.

  But there’s an even more dangerous scenario imaginable from the proliferation of super-intelligent machines: the possibility that those nonhuman entities could end up fighting one another, obliterating all human life in the process.

  

  The notion that super-intelligent computers might run amok and slaughter humans has, of course, long been a staple of popular culture. In the prophetic 1983 film “WarGames,” a supercomputer known as WOPR (for War Operation Plan Response and, not surprisingly, pronounced “whopper”) nearly provokes a catastrophic nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union before being disabled by a teenage hacker (played by Matthew Broderick). The “Terminator” movie franchise, beginning with the original 1984 film, similarly envisioned a self-aware supercomputer called “Skynet” that, like WOPR, was designed to control U.S. nuclear weapons but chooses instead to wipe out humanity, viewing us as a threat to its existence.

  Though once confined to the realm of science fiction, the concept of supercomputers killing humans has now become a distinct possibility in the very real world of the near future. In addition to developing a wide variety of “autonomous,” or robotic combat devices, the major military powers are also rushing to create automated battlefield decision-making systems, or what might be called “robot generals.” In wars in the not-too-distant future, such AI-powered systems could be deployed to deliver combat orders to American soldiers, dictating where, when, and how they kill enemy troops or take fire from their opponents. In some scenarios, robot decision-makers could even end up exercising control over America’s atomic weapons, potentially allowing them to ignite a nuclear war resulting in humanity’s demise.

  Now, take a breath for a moment. The installation of an AI-powered command-and-control (C2) system like this may seem a distant possibility. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Defense is working hard to develop the required hardware and software in a systematic, increasingly rapid fashion. In its budget submission for 2023, for example, the Air Force requested $231 million to develop the Advanced Battlefield Management System (ABMS), a complex network of sensors and AI-enabled computers designed to collect and interpret data on enemy operations and provide pilots and ground forces with a menu of optimal attack options. As the technology advances, the system will be capable of sending “fire” instructions directly to “shooters,” largely bypassing human control.

  “A machine-to-machine data exchange tool that provides options for deterrence, or for on-ramp [a military show-of-force] or early engagement,” was how Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics, described the ABMS system in a 2020 interview. Suggesting that “we do need to change the name” as the system evolves, Roper added, “I think Skynet is out, as much as I would love doing that as a sci-fi thing. I just don’t think we can go there.”

  And while he can’t go there, that’s just where the rest of us may, indeed, be going.

  Mind you, that’s only the start. In fact, the Air Force’s ABMS is intended to constitute the nucleus of a larger constellation of sensors and computers that will connect all U.S. combat forces, the Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control System (JADC2, pronounced “Jad-C-two”). “JADC2 intends to enable commanders to make better decisions by collecting data from numerous sensors, processing the data using artificial intelligence algorithms to identify targets, then recommending the optimal weapon… to engage the target,” the Congressional Research Service reported in 2022.

  AI and the Nuclear Trigger

  Initially, JADC2 will be designed to coordinate combat operations among “conventional” or non-nuclear American forces. Eventually, however, it is expected to link up with the Pentagon’s nuclear command-control-and-communications systems (NC3), potentially giving computers significant control over the use of the American nuclear arsenal. “JADC2 and NC3 are intertwined,” General John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated in a 2020 interview. As a result, he added in typical Pentagonese, “NC3 has to inform JADC2 and JADC2 has to inform NC3.”

  It doesn’t require great imagination to picture a time in the not-too-distant future when a crisis of some sort — say a U.S.-China military clash in the South China Sea or near Taiwan — prompts ever more intense fighting between opposing air and naval forces. Imagine then the JADC2 ordering the intense bombardment of enemy bases and command systems in China itself, triggering reciprocal attacks on U.S. facilities and a lightning decision by JADC2 to retaliate with tactical nuclear weapons, igniting a long-feared nuclear holocaust.

  The possibility that nightmare scenarios of this sort could result in the accidental or unintended onset of nuclear war has long troubled analysts in the arms control community. But the growing automation of military C2 systems has generated anxiety not just among them but among senior national security officials as well.

  As early as 2019, when I questioned Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, then director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, about such a risky possibility, he responded, “You will find no stronger proponent of integration of AI capabilities writ large into the Department of Defense, but there is one area where I pause, and it has to do with nuclear command and control.” This “is the ultimate human decision that needs to be made” and so “we have to be very careful.” Given the technology’s “immaturity,” he added, we need “a lot of time to test and evaluate [before applying AI to NC3].”

  In the years since, despite such warnings, the Pentagon has been racing ahead with the development of automated C2 systems. In its budget submission for 2024, the Department of Defense requested $1.4 billion for the JADC2 in order “to transform warfighting capability by delivering information advantage at the speed of relevance across all domains and partners.” Uh-oh! And then, it requested another $1.8 billion for other kinds of military-related AI research.

  Pentagon officials acknowledge that it will be some time before robot generals will be commanding vast numbers of U.S. troops (and autonomous weapons) in battle, but they have already launched several projects intended to test and perfect just such linkages. One example is the Army’s Project Convergence, involving a series of field exercises designed to validate ABMS and JADC2 component systems. In a test held in August 2020 at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, for example, the Army used a variety of air- and ground-based sensors to track simulated enemy forces and then process that data using AI-enabled computers at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state. Those computers, in turn, issued fire instructions to ground-based artillery at Yuma. “This entire sequence was supposedly accomplished within 20 seconds,” the Congressional Research Service later reported.

  Less is known about the Navy’s AI equivalent, “Project Overmatch,” as many aspects of its programming have been kept secret. According to Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, Overmatch is intended “to enable a Navy that swarms the sea, delivering synchronized lethal and nonlethal effects from near-and-far, every axis, and every domain.” Little else has been revealed about the project.

  “Flash Wars” and Human Extinction

  Despite all the secrecy surrounding these projects, you can think of ABMS, JADC2, Convergence, and Overmatch as building blocks for a future Skynet-like mega-network of super-computers designed to command all U.S. forces, including its nuclear ones, in armed combat. The more the Pentagon moves in that direction, the closer we’ll come to a time when AI possesses life-or-death power over all American soldiers along with opposing forces and any civilians caught in the crossfire.

  Such a prospect should be ample cause for concern. To start with, consider the risk of errors and miscalculations by the algorithms at the heart of such systems. As top computer scientists have warned us, those algorithms are capable of remarkably inexplicable mistakes and, to use the AI term of the moment, “hallucinations” — that is, seemingly reasonable results that are entirely illusionary. Under the circumstances, it’s not hard to imagine such computers “hallucinating” an imminent enemy attack and launching a war that might otherwise have been avoided.

  And that’s not the worst of the dangers to consider. After all, there’s the obvious likelihood that America’s adversaries will similarly equip their forces with robot generals. In other words, future wars are likely to be fought by one set of AI systems against another, both linked to nuclear weaponry, with entirely unpredictable — but potentially catastrophic — results.

  Not much is known (from public sources at least) about Russian and Chinese efforts to automate their military command-and-control systems, but both countries are thought to be developing networks comparable to the Pentagon’s JADC2. As early as 2014, in fact, Russia inaugurated a National Defense Control Center (NDCC) in Moscow, a centralized command post for assessing global threats and initiating whatever military action is deemed necessary, whether of a non-nuclear or nuclear nature. Like JADC2, the NDCC is designed to collect information on enemy moves from multiple sources and provide senior officers with guidance on possible responses.

  China is said to be pursuing an even more elaborate, if similar, enterprise under the rubric of “Multi-Domain Precision Warfare” (MDPW). According to the Pentagon’s 2022 report on Chinese military developments, its military, the People’s Liberation Army, is being trained and equipped to use AI-enabled sensors and computer networks to “rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the U.S. operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities.”

  Picture, then, a future war between the U.S. and Russia or China (or both) in which the JADC2 commands all U.S. forces, while Russia’s NDCC and China’s MDPW command those countries’ forces. Consider, as well, that all three systems are likely to experience errors and hallucinations. How safe will humans be when robot generals decide that it’s time to “win” the war by nuking their enemies?

  If this strikes you as an outlandish scenario, think again, at least according to the leadership of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a congressionally mandated enterprise that was chaired by Eric Schmidt, former head of Google, and Robert Work, former deputy secretary of defense. “While the Commission believes that properly designed, tested, and utilized AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems will bring substantial military and even humanitarian benefit, the unchecked global use of such systems potentially risks unintended conflict escalation and crisis instability,” it affirmed in its Final Report. Such dangers could arise, it stated, “because of challenging and untested complexities of interaction between AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems on the battlefield” — when, that is, AI fights AI.

  Though this may seem an extreme scenario, it’s entirely possible that opposing AI systems could trigger a catastrophic “flash war” — the military equivalent of a “flash crash” on Wall Street, when huge transactions by super-sophisticated trading algorithms spark panic selling before human operators can restore order. In the infamous “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010, computer-driven trading precipitated a 10% fall in the stock market’s value. According to Paul Scharre of the Center for a New American Security, who first studied the phenomenon, “the military equivalent of such crises” on Wall Street would arise when the automated command systems of opposing forces “become trapped in a cascade of escalating engagements.” In such a situation, he noted, “autonomous weapons could lead to accidental death and destruction at catastrophic scales in an instant.”

  At present, there are virtually no measures in place to prevent a future catastrophe of this sort or even talks among the major powers to devise such measures. Yet, as the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence noted, such crisis-control measures are urgently needed to integrate “automated escalation tripwires” into such systems “that would prevent the automated escalation of conflict.” Otherwise, some catastrophic version of World War III seems all too possible. Given the dangerous immaturity of such technology and the reluctance of Beijing, Moscow, and Washington to impose any restraints on the weaponization of AI, the day when machines could choose to annihilate us might arrive far sooner than we imagine and the extinction of humanity could be the collateral damage of such a future war.

  *  *  *

  Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands (the final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, and Ann Jones’s They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars: The Untold Story.

  Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 02:00

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Biden Family Caricatures
  Victor Davis Hanson: The Biden Family Caricatures

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  The Biden first family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior – to the point of dysfunctionality…

  

  During the 2020 campaign at least eight women alleged that then presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed or grabbed them.

  One, Tara Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.

  Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.”

  He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.

  But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

  Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Biden’s own daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle, have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.

  On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

  His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.

  On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance—enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway…”

  As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.

  He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children—if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.”

  And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop—regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.

  Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland airport.

  In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.

  She recoiled.

  No matter—Biden continued at her shoulder.

  Again, she flinched.

  Biden then reverted to form, and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

  Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would likely have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media.

  Not in Biden’s case.

  The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.

  Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness—newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.

  Also, during the President’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House.

  All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden—despite being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict.

  Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.

  Then the official narrative went through several contortions, as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found.

  The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance.

  Requests for clarity were understandable not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction.

  He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use.

  Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop that contained evidence of his own felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.

  In sum, the President and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too public bad habits.

  Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.

  White House handlers should keep Joe Biden from even getting near small children and young women.

  And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House.

  Sadly they can do neither.

  These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.

  The result is the caricature of a first family: one that is utterly dysfunctional—and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 23:40

• Relocating To Austin Can Save High-Income New Yorkers $250,000
  Relocating To Austin Can Save High-Income New Yorkers $250,000

  New York City’s high-income earners face a soaring cost of living crisis and some of the highest tax rates in the country.

  Compounding their financial struggles is an out-of-control crime wave, as Democratic leadership in City Hall struggles to maintain law and order. The strategy some have had to protect wealth and stretch salaries further is to move South. 

  We have explained to readers that “Moving To ‘Wall Street South’ From NYC Can Save You Up To $200k.” 

  If New Yorkers considered moving to Austin, Texas, they could save even more.

  The Finance website SmartAsset compared NYC’s cost of living and tax rates to Austin’s to determine how much New Yorkers could save.

  The results were stunning.

  Someone earning $650,000 in the Big Apple saves $258,212 in Austin. Even someone making $150,000 in NYC could benefit from the move.  

  

  In a post-Covid era, young professionals and families have fled high-taxed and crime-ridden Democrat metro areas for southern states, such as Texas. One of the most significant advantages of Texas is no corporate or personal income tax … and the state has one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation. 

  But it’s not just all about taxes. The cost of living is cheaper overall. Plus, people are friendlier. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 23:20

• Looking To China For The Next Leg Higher Carries Risks
  Looking To China For The Next Leg Higher Carries Risks

  By Michael Msika, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

  Investors are counting on China to shake European equities out of a lull, but strategists warn that officials’ measures to bolster the world’s second-biggest economy may fall short of expectations.

  Most of the Stoxx 600’s gains this year came in the first quarter, with the benchmark mostly moving sideways since then as investors priced in shifting monetary-policy expectations. Given European stocks’ strong reliance on China, all eyes are on the Politburo meeting later this month after officials vowed on Wednesday to boost the private economy.

  “Slowing growth in China has taken some wind out of the sails for European equities in recent months,” says HSBC strategist Max Kettner, who maintains a cautious stance on Europe. While some easing has helped markets, policymakers are more cautious than before, “so a return to the post-2008 stimulus mix is unlikely,” he adds.

  

  The latest reports out of China, showing weaker-than-expected economic growth and a contraction in real estate, have weighed on for European sectors particularly exposed to the economy — cyclicals like miners, industrials and autos, as well as luxury stocks.

  Kettner says any Chinese stimulus news will likely boost the broader consumer discretionary sector in Europe, but warns that cyclicals on aggregate have already rallied strongly. “In terms of what is priced in currently, there’s already quite some hope for a growth recovery in the price.”

  Miners have borne the brunt of China’s disappointing reopening. They are the worst performers in Europe this year, down 12%. The sector suffered another blow this week after Rio Tinto, the biggest constituent on the Stoxx 600 basic resources gauge, warned that the country’s faltering recovery continues to weigh on demand for metals.

  

  “Structural downtrends” in the Chinese property sector, a major consumer of metals, are likely to continue weighing on European mining stocks, say JPMorgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka. Moreover, potential steel production cuts in China would be bearish for iron ore demand, meaning “lower metal prices could keep the sector’s earnings under pressure,” they add.

  The strategists are negative on European stocks generally, seeing cyclical shares losing momentum in the second half, a trend that could worsen if expectations on China disappoint. They recommend investors “keep fading stimulus news,” adding that the region is sliding back into deflation and the property market will likely need “a much more aggressive policy support to rebound sustainably.”

  

  For luxury stocks, which have been a strong driver of gains in Europe this year,  a continued recovery in China will be necessary to support their strong performance. The sector has diverged from Chinese stocks, which have been dragged by disappointing data.

  “It’s definitely more mixed than it was at the start of the year,” says Karim Chedid, head of EMEA iShares investment strategy, pointing out that the first leg of the China reopening has already played out, while domestic demand has been more sluggish than expected. As Chinese tourists start to travel again, there is a possibility for another tailwind for the sector, he says.

  

  “As it stands, we believe that a brighter outlook for global growth is required for the euro to move sustainably higher and European equities to outperform again,” says Barclays strategist Emmanuel Cau. “And a lot has to do with China, which doesn’t look good at the moment.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 23:00

• Deny, Deflect, Defend: The Censors' Strategy On Display
  Deny, Deflect, Defend: The Censors’ Strategy On Display

  Via The Brownstone Institute,

  Despite the uproar surrounding the case, Judge Terry Doughty’s order in Missouri v. Biden was straightforward. It prohibited government actors from colluding with social media companies to censor “content containing protected free speech.” 

  In other words, the defendants – including the White House, the CDC, and the Department of Justice – must obey the Constitution they swore to uphold by adhering to the First Amendment. The censorship regime responded with familiar doublethink: denying the censorship exists while arguing that it must continue. 

  On Tuesday, the court held a hearing to consider whether Judge Doughty’s order should be reinstated. The oral arguments revealed the government’s three-part strategy: deny, deflect, and defend. Its lawyers denied the established facts, deflected from the controversy, and defended its actions through outlandish justifications. 

  In doing so, they demonstrated the censorship apparatus’s lack of remorse for stripping Americans of their constitutional liberties. Even worse, they insist that the totalitarian operations must continue. 

  

  1. Deny: Blame the Facts

  At the hearing, government defendants maintained that plaintiffs have manufactured the case. Like their allies in the media, they argued that allegations of censorship were nothing more than “an assortment of out-of-context quotes and select portions of documents that distort the record to build a narrative that the bare facts simply do not support.” 

  The censorship is nonexistent, they insist. It is a “thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory,” in the words of Larry Tribe.

  Unlike issues of legal interpretation, this is a factual matter. Either government actors colluded with Big Tech to suppress Americans’ free speech rights or they did not. Discovery revealed extensive documentation proving that they did, and the defendants make no effort to explain how Judge Doughty’s 155-page order detailing dozens of violations of the First Amendment is merely “an assortment of out-of-context quotes.” 

  Journalists including Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Berenson have detailed the “censorship industrial complex,” the entangled web of government agencies, NGOs, and private-public partnerships that seek to control the free flow of information. But reviewing that series of connections and collusions is unnecessary – the defendants’ recorded statements contradict their denial. 

  “Thank you for the ongoing collaboration,” one bureaucrat wrote after a US Government “industry meeting” with Big Tech companies in October 2020.

  White House Advisor Rob Flaherty took a different tack in his demands to Twitter: “Please remove this account immediately.” The company complied within an hour. “Are you guys fucking serious?” he wrote to company officials after they failed to censor critics of the Covid vaccine. “I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.” His boss was similarly direct regarding posts from RFK, Jr. “Hey Folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”

  There is no need to recreate Judge Doughty’s 155-page opinion, but the denial of the censorship regime is facially absurd. Alex Berenson’s case, the revelations of the Twitter files, and the undisputed facts of Missouri v. Biden refute the defendant’s premise.

  2. Deflect: Blame the Russians

  Rather than address the case’s inconvenient facts, government lawyers quickly pivoted to their second tactic: deflection. They avoided the case and Judge Doughty’s ruling in favor of a hypothetical narrative.

  At one point, they defended government agencies’ right to issue health advisories that say “the vaccines work or smoking is dangerous.” They argued, “There’s nothing unlawful about the government’s use of the bully pulpit.” That reasoning was uncontroversial, but it was not responsive to Judge Doughty’s order.

  Under Doughty’s ruling, the White House can denounce journalists, deliver press briefings, publish on social media, enjoy the bully pulpit, and take advantage of the friendly media environment; it just can’t encourage private companies to censor constitutionally protected speech. 

  The defense conflates free speech with control over information to deflect attention from the censorship at issue. The tactic is not limited to the government’s powers under the order.

  During the hearing, the judge asked the defense attorneys whether saying “the COVID vaccine does not work” is constitutionally protected free speech. “That speech itself could be protected,” the attorney responded at one point. After repeatedly refusing to concede that the First Amendment protects political opinions that deviate from President Biden’s agenda, he resorted to Russian fear-mongering. 

  “Let’s say it was spoken by a covert Russian operative, that would not be protected by free speech,” he told the judge. Like the issue of the government’s “use of the bully pulpit,” restricting Russian operatives’ speech is unrelated to Judge Doughty’s order. 

  The attorney’s refusal to defend basic First Amendment liberties was telling. The defense instinctively changed the issue from free speech to national security, relying on an oft-used fear tactic to subvert the First Amendment.  

  These deflections deliberately obfuscated the purpose of the hearings. Defendants implied the plaintiffs sought to ban anti-smoking PSAs and fund Kremlin media campaigns. Like their strategy of denial, the goal was to avoid discussion of their extensive censorship operations. 

  3. Defend: Blame the Virus

  When the government was forced to address the case, it resorted to claiming that Covid justified the abolition of constitutional liberties. The pandemic-made-us-censor argument continued the pervasive Doublethink. Eradicating democratic norms was necessary to protect democracy, they reasoned. Previously, the Biden Administration told the court that reversing the order was necessary “to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.” 

  Defendants argued that the evidence of the case vindicates the government actors. The attorneys said “It shows, in the face of urgent crises, a once-in-a-generation pandemic and bipartisan findings of foreign interference with U.S. elections, the government responsibly exercised its prerogative to speak on matters of public concern.” 

  They continued, “It promoted accurate information to protect the public and our democracy from these threats. And it used the bully pulpit to call on various sectors of society, including social media companies, to make efforts to reduce the spread of misinformation.”

  Demonstrating no remorse, they remain proud of their efforts to usurp the First Amendment because of their self-professed noble aims. They expect this defense to evade judicial scrutiny.

  When confronted with past censorship – including CISA’s “switchboarding” leading up to the 2020 election – defendants reasoned that prior conduct was not pertinent to the case because plaintiffs could not prove it will happen again.

  They described the Department of Homeland Security’s unconstitutional censorship campaigns as “occurring long in the past.” They argued that health officials’ emails working to silence opponents should be disregarded because they were sent “more than two and a half years ago.” 

  The censorship apparatus is asking the courts to trust them to act responsibly despite repeatedly demonstrating its indifference, or perhaps disdain, toward the First Amendment.

  While the government’s denials and deflections are insulting to the citizens they purport to represent, we must remain focused on their aim: they appealed Doughty’s order because they oppose constitutional restraints on their control of information. 

  We would hope that requiring the government to obey the Constitution would be uncontroversial; now, it may signify whether the rule of law still stands in the United States. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 22:40

• Experts Warn Renewable Energy Creates 'New Opportunities' For Chinese Grid Attacks
  Experts Warn Renewable Energy Creates ‘New Opportunities’ For Chinese Grid Attacks

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

  America’s increasing reliance on intermittent power sources and batteries is creating novel risks, according to grid specialists who testified before Congress on July 18.

  

  Many of the greatest among them emanate from a key geopolitical rival, China.

  That’s partly because the new technologies frequently use inverters. When solar panels, wind turbines, and battery systems generate or store direct current electricity, inverters turn it into the alternating current electricity that flows through the grid.

  Paul N. Stockton, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, opened what he called a “rabbit hole” in response to a question on inverters during the House Energy & Commerce hearing.

  “Do we have a satisfactory supply of inverters for all of the renewable energy that’s being brought into the grid?” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) asked Mr. Stockton, who also holds positions on subcommittees in the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

  “Manufacturers in China are important producers of inverters being deployed nationwide, across the United States,” Mr. Stockton responded.

  He explained that the country’s reliance on Chinese inverters could jeopardize grid security.

  “Sure, we’ve got inverters. Some of them are made in China. Others may be manufactured for final assembly in friendly nations, but they might have components—hardware, software, and firmware—that could provide attack vectors. And the constant updating of firmware from the cloud and by service providers—who’s on top of that for maintaining adequate security? Congressman, that’s an opportunity for progress,” Mr. Stockton said.

  Solar Panels With Parts From China

  The United States’ use of solar panels with parts from China that are assembled in Southeast Asia has been a source of controversy in this Congress. President Joe Biden vetoed a bill that would have ended his temporary pause on tariffs affecting those panels.

  In his written testimony, Mr. Stockton elaborated on the ways inverter-based resources “provide China with new opportunities to disrupt the grid.”

  He referred to a 2022 report from the Department of Energy outlining the cybersecurity risks associated with the changes to America’s grid.

  “I propose that we prioritize our efforts to prevent Chinese leaders from accomplishing their goals in attacking the grid,” Mr. Stockton wrote.

  He noted that inverter-based resources have some advantages, testifying in writing that they “have provided reliable, much-needed power during the 2023 heat domes and other extreme events.”

  “Yet, they are also prone to catastrophic failures that can put the grid at risk.”

  Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) also asked Mr. Stockton about inverter-related vulnerabilities facing the United States.

  Mr. Stockton offered a central recommendation to the lawmakers in attendance:

  “Above all, ensuring that at the level of the devices, we hold manufacturers’ feet to the fire and ensure the adoption of safe and secure inverters, instead of relying on individual utilities or energy aggregators or other entities within the larger electric system to do their own homework.”

  Bruce J. Walker of the Alliance for Critical Infrastructure Security voiced similar concerns about the threat from China, citing the U.S. intelligence community’s 2023 threat assessment.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 22:20

• Russia, China Kick Off Joint Naval Drills Flexing Muscle In Sea Of Japan
  Russia, China Kick Off Joint Naval Drills Flexing Muscle In Sea Of Japan

  China and Russia have kicked off their anticipated joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan on Thursday. Chinese state television has described the purpose as ensuring security of “strategic passage at sea”.

  Bloomberg noted of regional reporting that China and Russia are “testing their joint combat capability via the exercise” – but there’s been no specification of how long the exercise is expected to last, which involves land, air, and sea military assets. In reality, China and Russia are ‘answering’ recent US-Japan drills with provocative military exercises of their own in regional waters, at a moment Beijing has warned Japan over its deepening cooperation with NATO.

  

  China’s defense ministry over the weekend confirmed that PLA naval vessels had set sail in preparation for new exercises with Russia. 

  This included Beijing sending five Chinese warships, among them a guided-missile destroyer, to participate – but without specifying an exact location within the Sea of Japan. 

  Last month both countries conducted joint air patrol over the Seas of Japan and East China, demonstrating their deepened ties, also amid the war in Ukraine which Beijing has yet to outright condemn, to the frustration of the West.

  China has considered itself ‘neutral’ concerning the Ukraine conflict while at the same time highlighting the dangers of NATO expansion east. For this reason Washington has accused it of quietly supporting Moscow.

  Bloomberg has meanwhile cited US sanctions and punitive measures aimed at both Beijing and Moscow as a chief motivator to grow militarily closer. 

  PLA Navy Ships Underway off Japan

  

  “China and the armed forces of Russian President Vladimir Putin conducted six joint military exercises together last year, the most in data going back two decades,” the publication notes.

  “That accounted for two-thirds of all of China’s drills with foreign militaries in 2022, according to data compiled by the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the U.S. National Defense University (NDU).”

  But Russia and China have conducted naval drills in other global hotspots as well, in the last months holding naval exercises with Iran in the Persian Gulf region.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 22:00

• Doubts And Questions About Biden Will Only Grow
  Doubts And Questions About Biden Will Only Grow

  Authored by A.B. Stoddard via RealClear Wire,

  Wow, big news broke Tuesday – President Biden’s campaign is officially going to be headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. For months nervous Democrats have wondered why Biden only had four full-time staffers devoted to his reelection effort and why the campaign wasn’t yet located anywhere.

  

  This development will do absolutely nothing, however, to stop the panic within the party that Biden is too old to run for reelection and could easily lose to former President Donald Trump. Sorry, Team Biden, these fears will not be put to rest; they are going to persist and grow.

  Though the White House and the Democratic National Committee may be trying to ignore it, there is suddenly a constant stream of stories in the media about doubts that Biden can make it across the finish line 16 months from now. Though Frank Bruni noted it’s probably too late, he encouraged Democrats in a New York Times column to talk about Hunter Biden, and suggested Biden should step aside: “It might be best, for him and for continued Democratic control of the White House, if he let Democrats choose a different 2024 nominee.”

  And CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere’s reporting last week went there – top Democrats and donors continue to “reach out to those seen as possible replacement presidential candidates. Get ready, they urge…” Democrats, Dovere wrote, worry about Biden’s weak small-dollar fundraising – which shows diminished energy from the grassroots – as well as his light schedule, which they believe will only exacerbate the perception that he is too old to campaign or be president. A Democrat who had a senior role in Biden’s 2020 campaign is quoted saying “If Trump wins next November and everyone says, ‘How did that happen,’ one of the questions will be: what was the Biden campaign doing in the summer of 2023?”

  In a recent New York Times report about how impressive Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s polling and campaign war chest is, and what that says about Biden’s weakness as an incumbent, Julian Castro, the former housing secretary, said “It’s clear there is a softness that perhaps is born out of a worry about electability in 2024.”

  Biden’s polling is not soft, it’s terrible and has worsened over time. The age liability and concerns about Biden’s mental sharpness loom large across all surveys and voter groups. In some general election surveys, he loses to Trump. It’s hard to imagine next year, when he is older, that his standing will improve.

  It’s not just that critical parts of the Democratic coalition are disappointed and apathetic and may not turn out to vote – but data shows some Asian, Hispanic, and black voters are beginning to support Republicans instead. John Della Volpe, polling director at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics and an expert on youth voting, recently wrote that young voters are increasingly identifying as independents, not Democrats, and are becoming disillusioned with politics as a means to create change. “Nearly every sign that made me confident in historic levels of youth participation in 2018, 2020 and 2022 – is now flashing red,” he wrote.

  Biden also appears to have forgotten that, in an election he only won by fewer than 44,000 votes in three states, the support of Never Trump Republicans was critical. Recent reporting by NBC News shows the Biden White House has ignored many of those Republicans who stepped up to endorse him (except for Cindy McCain and former Sen. Jeff Flake who both became ambassadors in his administration) and that they aren’t interested in supporting him again next year.

  The Biden inner circle seems to be confident his age is a smaller political problem than the many ones Trump has. They also seem to be in denial that some of the Hunter Biden business dealings revelations are really bad, and that his father refusing to acknowledge his love child is terrible.

  The campaign will remain focused mostly on the economy – there are plans for the president to embark on an “investing in America” tour this summer to tout the historic investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, and jobs that his administration has secured.

  But it may be too late for Biden to toot his horn.

  Pennsylvania’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Austin Davis was recently quoted by the New York Times, talking about how poorly the administration has communicated its accomplishments to the public. “They’ve done a pretty bad job of telling the American people and Pennsylvanians what they have done,” he said.

  No good economic news – there is much of it and more could materialize – seems able to eclipse the sting of inflation and sink in with voters when 74% of Americans believe we are on the wrong track. Voters give Biden poor ratings on the economy despite record job growth and – as David Brooks recently noted in the New York Times – a lower misery index (inflation rate added to unemployment rate) than Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama had when they were reelected.

  And it’s clear that Republicans will pummel Biden over his unpopular vice president throughout next year’s campaign. “I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you are really counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something I think is likely,” Nikki Haley said, which is only the beginning of this refrain.

  Dismissing Harris’ abysmally low approval rating, which makes clear she is a liability to an 80-year-old Biden running to be president until he is 86 years old, as racist and misogynistic won’t help make her more popular or help Biden win the electoral college.

  The Biden campaign can raise a lot of money and hold lots of ribbon cuttings at factories and try to rehabilitate Harris – but nothing will calm the jitters building in the party about the increasing likelihood of a second Trump term.

  A.B. Stoddard is associate editor and columnist at RealClearPolitics and a guest host on Sirius XM’s POTUS Channel.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 21:40

• "Go Somewhere That Understands Your Worth" – Los Angeles Police Union Boss Tells Cops Leaving City
  “Go Somewhere That Understands Your Worth” – Los Angeles Police Union Boss Tells Cops Leaving City

  Who in their right mind would want to be a police officer in a city run by Democrats or silly progressives who seemingly lack any understanding of how to protect law-abiding, tax-paying citizens from thieves, lunatics, and thugs?

  You know things are bad when the police union leader in Los Angeles vents on Facebook in a post about hostile City Council members, advising departing members of the police force to find jobs in communities where the political leadership “understands your worth.”

  “Go somewhere that respects the work you do and you don’t have to beg for a great contract,” Los Angeles Police Protective League’s vice president, Jerretta Sandoz, wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post. 

  

  Sandoz said, “Go somewhere that has a city council or city manager that openly acknowledges the great work you do, go somewhere that doesn’t have Two or more City Council members who hate you (no exaggeration).”

  Sandoz represents approximately 9,000 police officers. Since 2019, the metro area has seen a surge in crime and homelessness and has lost over 1,000 officers. 

  Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore has blamed the officer exodus on “anti-police sentiments that grew after the law enforcement killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans in recent years,” according to Los Angeles Times. 

  Sandoz’s displeasure with the progressive city leadership comes as the union continues to discuss a new labor contract for officers. 

  An emerging trend is progressive cities that demonize police are finding out the hard way that officers are leaving in droves. This sparks a doom loop of fewer patrols and a continued rise in crime. 

  Demonizing and defunding police has consequences. Perhaps it’s time to hold progressive politicians accountable for failed ‘defund the police’ movements that have transformed some metro areas nationwide into crime-ridden ‘hellholes.’ 

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 21:20

• "No Limit" On Number Of Ukrainian Refugees To Be Allowed Into Canada: Federal Memo
  “No Limit” On Number Of Ukrainian Refugees To Be Allowed Into Canada: Federal Memo

  Authored by Peter Wilson via The Epoch Times,

  With 230,000 Ukrainians having already emigrated to Canada to flee the war, a recently disclosed internal memo from the Immigration Department says there is “no limit” on the number of Ukrainian war refugees that can be allowed into Canada.

  

  The government closed applications on July 15 for Ukrainian refugees looking to obtain temporary emergency visas and free flights to Canada, but about 1.1 million Ukrainians applied for visas prior to the deadline—of which about 800,000 had been approved as of the beginning of July.

  “There is no limit,” said a Department of Immigration memo sent to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs and obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.

  The memo, titled “Information On Ukrainian Nationals Coming To Canada,” also elaborated on Ottawa’s recently announced plan to facilitate permanent residence status for any Ukrainian nationals and their family members already in Canada.

  The new policy, which Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced on July 15, is set to come into effect this October.

  The new plan will provide permanent residence status to Ukrainian nationals who have fled the war and want to stay in Canada. To qualify, Ukrainian refugees must be in Canada with temporary resident status and have at least one family member in the country.

  The memo said that the new policy will benefit Ukrainians coming into Canada “from anywhere in the world,” regardless of whether they were fleeing Russian aggression, so long as they applied for temporary visas through the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel program prior to July 15.

  Ukrainian Refugees

  The plan fixed a quota of permitting entry to 365,000 Ukrainian immigrants in 2023, 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025.

  “As this measure offers a temporary safe haven, those who come to Canada on Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel are not included in the Immigration Levels Plan, which is a projection of the number of permanent residents Canada plans to admit,” said the memo.

  “Although a temporary measure, settlement services are available to Emergency Travel holders and their family members after they arrive so they can fully participate in Canadian communities while they are here.”

  Canada’s temporary emergency visa program for Ukrainians was originally set to expire in March, but Mr. Fraser extended the program until July 15.

  Only about 21 percent of Ukrainians who have been granted temporary visas have actually come to Canada, but they will have until the end of March 2024 to do so.

  Refugees who obtained temporary visas and came to Canada will also have until the end of March 2024 to either apply to extend or change their temporary status in Canada.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 21:00

• Pushback Forces Major Retailer To Shelve Graphic Book On Sex Aimed At 10 To 15 Year Olds
  Pushback Forces Major Retailer To Shelve Graphic Book On Sex Aimed At 10 To 15 Year Olds

  Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Major Australian retailer Big W has pulled the children’s book “Welcome to Sex” from its shelves after it was lambasted for its graphic content.

  

  Aimed at children aged 10 to 15, the book features detailed illustrations and instructions on how to engage in both heterosexual and homosexual intercourse, as well as information on masturbation, male and female genitalia, and gender identity (including transgenderism) while downplaying virginity.

  “Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out” is stocked in major Australian retailer Big W, bookseller Dymocks, and Target, and is authored by Dr. Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, who hosts the ABC Radio podcast “Ladies, We Need to Talk.”

  It is the fourth book in their “Welcome to” series, which has covered topics such as sexual consent and puberty.

  

  Yet Rachael Wong, CEO of Women’s Forum Australia, was critical of the latest edition being made available to children.

  “Why is @BIGW selling this graphic sex guide for kids in Australia which includes how-tos for anal/oral sex, masturbation and heavily pushes gender ideology?” she wrote online.

  In another Twitter post, she uploaded a video showing that the book was available in the children’s section of retailer Dymocks, despite claims the title was only available to parents.

  Victorian Senator Ralph Babet called the book “sickening.”

  “If you don’t think there is a war on for the souls and minds of your children, well, you have not been paying attention,” he wrote on Twitter.

  “It’s important that we push back against this type of garbage content. Otherwise, it will never end!”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 20:40

• Robert Malone: You Are The Population They Want To Control
  Robert Malone: You Are The Population They Want To Control

  Authored by Robert Malone via The Brownstone Institute,

  Worldwide birthrate per 1,000 people follows a very predictable trend.

  In “developed” and/or wealthy nations, the birthrate is low and in nations at the lower end of the economic development scale, the birthrate is high.

  Nothing new there.

  Many countries, including the US, have birthrates that either are too low to sustain current population levels or are stable. Since 1970, the population of people born in the US has been stable at below 300 million. In fact, some estimates show a decline in population. All of the population growth in the US during this time period has been due to immigration. That is why the USA has grown to 336 million people in 50 years. This trend has only increased in recent years.

  There were a record 44.8 million immigrants living in the US in 2018, making up 13.7 percent of the nation’s population. This represents a more than fourfold increase since 1960, when 9.7 million immigrants lived in the US, accounting for 5.4 percent of the total US population.

  For Jill and I growing up in a blue state, we were indoctrinated at an early age by the public school system that having two children was the responsible thing to do to save the planet from overpopulation. That careers were more important than having a large family. That women would find more fulfillment in a education and career, as opposed to staying at home. That women should defer motherhood until college and a career were firmed established. That this was the responsible path to take. Today, young women receive the same messaging from our government, our schools systems, and mainstream corporate media. 

  This messaging by the US government is still as strident as when I was in my youth 50 to 60 years ago.

  The truth is that UN’s Agenda 2030 asserts that migration is a human right.

  What this means in practicality is that persons born in countries with high birthrates have a right to migrate into wealthy countries with low birth rates. 

  

  To begin – migration is not a “human right.”

  Property laws and nation states exist for a reason. To assert otherwise is to assert that there is a one-world government which is in control of migration. Another usurpation of authority by the UN and the WEF. 

  This nation’s rules and regulations, our very Constitution do not apply to non-citizens. This is by design. Let’s abide by our Constitution and Bill or Rights, not UN agreements, such as Agenda 2030, which was signed by a US president and never ratified by the Senate.

  Our country has done a fine job of convincing the American populace that large family size hurts families and individuals in aggregate. We were told that the reward of that, for better or worse, would be a stabilized population over time and preservation of the American way of life, environment, cultural heritage and associated economic opportunities for US citizens. And yet still they persist. This week, Kamala Harris specifically stated that a reduced population was key to children being able to breath and drink clean water. This is not the first time she has asserted this false narrative.

  “When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breath clean air and drink clean water.”

  – Kamala Harris

  Yet, the Biden border crisis grows ever more urgent and the rate of illegal immigration continues to surge. It is a no brainer to think that an option to reduce population might be as simple as reducing immigration, if that was their true intent. 

  The truth is that the US has a vibrant and amazing culture. A heritage built on independence, free speech, shared values, and strong work ethic. This heritage can easily be diluted by too much immigration. Just look what is happening France right now. Open migration policies have worked to cause a vast instability within the nation. France literally can no longer integrate so many people, with such different sets of cultural norms into their core national culture. This is not progress. 

  Under globalism, the heterogeneous cultures throughout the world are being weaponized as a way to destroy diversity; a path towards enabling a single, globalized government controlled by the UN and the WEF. Which is precisely what open borders, the immigration policies of the UN and even Kamala Harris’ statements seem to be working towards. It is time to end this nonsense and get back to a closed and orderly immigration system.

  There are over 8 billion people in the world. The US can not take all those that wish to immigrate. To think otherwise is foolish.

  America has to be an independent and free nation. We need to rely on Americans for our goods and services. A strong economy is one that meets its own needs internally. Whereby goods, services, medical care, and energy are produced domestically. A strong nation doesn’t need to import low-wage earners to do its dirty work. The bizarre directive of reducing the naturally born population while importing new immigrants serves no functional purpose except to further globalize the USA.

  By accepting large numbers of immigrants while reducing our own American population, we further regress as a nation, and we will continue to accelerate economic devastation of both middle class and urban poor citizens. A new world order where migration is a right, borders are open and the UN controls the ebb and flow of populations is ceding American nationalism and will destroy the American experiment in self-governance. 

  Our government needs to stay out of the business of enforcing population measures.

  Which brings me to the mRNA genetic shots. People worry that the mRNA jabs have some sequence or component, such as the lipid nano-particle or genetic code, which are causing sterility. And that these were intentionally designed to cause a decrease in fertility worldwide. This is not a completely unrealistic fear.

  For years, there have been rumors of abortion vaccines and anti-fertility vaccines being developed in India and Africa. With evidence being presented for and against these rumors. But we do know for sure that China used forced sterilizations and forced abortions on its own citizens. Now, China worries that their population levels are crumbling rapidly. Government controls on family choices are immoral. The idea of a vaccine to control population is repugnant.

  Which brings me to a newly published Nature paper that shows that using adeno-associated viral vectored techniques, cats can be permanently sterilized.

  In this essay, I don’t want to get into the science behind this (let’s defer that to a later essay) but I do want to discuss the ethics of developing “gene therapy” techniques that rely on viral vectors for sterilization.

  To begin with, such a fertility gene therapy technique using adeno-associated virus (AAV) “gene therapy” vectors could be accidentally or purposefully modified to be infectious. This requires a recombination event (rescue) of another related adenovirus, which could be a wild type. Once that happens, the viral vector could be replication competent: ergo infectious. Although AAV “gene therapy” vectors are not a full replicating virus; the truth is that in a research setting, using the full virus to create infectious products is relatively simple. It could be as simple as missing a purification step or a recombination event. If such a product were to escape or be released into the general cat population, it would be a disaster. If such a vector had a rescue event in an injected animal, it could literally create a new virus. What happens if it were to infect on other feline species, such as cheetahs, big cats, cougars or bobcats? There is a scenario whereby it could decimate the population of an endangered species or all the cats . Furthermore, there is a possibility that such a virus could jump species – even into humans. Adeno-associated viruses are respiratory viruses, so can spread easily. What happens then? 

  Not to mention, we already know that NGOs and governments are willing to consider reducing population via vaccination or forced sterilization. Who is to say whether an organization, perhaps even one with the “best of intentions” in mind (or believing that “the ends justify the means”), would be willing to go there. After what we have experienced over the past three years, I would consider it in the realm of possibility. Kamala Harris, Bill Gates and the WEF and UN all have made their positions crystal clear. Population reduction is imperative. 

  There must be more regulatory controls on biological research for both animals and humans. 

  But in the meantime, we have to consider that the government doesn’t really care about population control.

  You can know them by their actions, not their words. Their words endorse low birthrate as a pathway to population stabilization, but their actions enable rampant population growth due to immigration. The DATA indicate that what they really are striving for is a New World Order, whereby the UN becomes the dominant force of the world, with nation states nestled under their organizational structure. One in which out-migration combined with regional population control via government-enabled birth control (via both pharmaceuticals and deployed propaganda) is designed to augment that process of enabling populations born in economically disadvantaged regions to gain control of more economically advanced nations and infrastructure while destroying the cultures and politico/economic structures which have historically enabled the economic development of these more advanced regions.

  *  *  *

  Republished from Substack

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 20:20

• Video Of Deserted Mall And Streets In Downtown San Fran Reveals Democrats Destroyed City
  Video Of Deserted Mall And Streets In Downtown San Fran Reveals Democrats Destroyed City

  A recent poll commissioned by Probolsky Research found 60% of voters in San Francisco “disapprove” of Mayor London Breed’s performance, and only 22% believe she deserves re-election. There’s plunging confidence among the business community that progressive leadership in the crime-ridden metro can revive the poop-infested downtown area. Businesses are closing up shops in droves, while some building owners have stopped payments on malls and hotels as the city’s economic recovery appears bleak. 

  San Francisco Chamber of Commerce CEO Rodney Fong recently drew a dire historical parallel of the faltering metro area to the 1906 earthquake: “We have a lot of work to do as residents are more pessimistic than ever.”

  Marc Benioff, the chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, warned this week that the metro area is in trouble. 

  Benioff offered this grim outlook: The downtown area is “never going back to the way it was” in pre-Covid times when workers commuted to offices daily.

  “We need to rebalance downtown,” Benioff said, adding Breed needs to initiate a program to convert dormant office space into housing and hire additional law enforcement to restore law and order. 

  San Francisco’s demise is much more than just the remote or hybrid work narrative, and a record 30% of office space is vacant. Remember, without office workers, local shops can’t thrive.

  This leaves us with Youtuber METAL LEO, who walked the downtown area, revealing empty streets and closed-up stores.

  He wrote in the description of the video, “Embarcadero Center is a commercial complex of five office towers, two hotels, a shopping center with more than 125 stores but only two remain open on three levels located in San Francisco, California.”

  The video is an eye-opener of the economic collapse of the downtown area as it has transformed into a “ghost town” overnight. The exodus of companies and people is a vote of confidence that Breed’s progressive administration has failed. There are attempts to rebuild the downtown district, but that could take many years, meaning the city’s economic recovery won’t happen anytime soon. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 20:00

• China's Digital Yuan Nears $250 Billion Transaction Volume; Central Bank Governor
  China’s Digital Yuan Nears $250 Billion Transaction Volume; Central Bank Governor

  Authored by Brayden Lindrea via CoinTelegraph.com,

  Nearly $250 billion worth of transactions have taken place using China’s digital yuan in the one-and-a-half years since the start of its pilot, the country’s central bank governor has claimed.

  

  On July 19, People’s Bank of China governor Yi Gang told a conference in Singapore that its central bank digital currency transacted 1.8 trillion yuan as of the end of June.

  Yi added there have been around 950 million transactions from roughly 120 million wallets since the digital yuan’s initial January 2022 rollout, leading to an average transaction amount of about $260.

  MAS is honoured to have Dr Yi Gang, President of China Society for Finance and Banking as the speaker for the MAS Lecture 2023. Dr Yi spoke on “CBDC from China’s perspective”.

  Find out more here: https://t.co/UbikjgQhRn pic.twitter.com/UuQwOQe8n0

  — MAS (@MAS_sg) July 19, 2023

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

  He claimed around $2.3 billion, or 16.5 billion digital yuan, was in circulation at the end of June, which only represents 0.16% of China’s monetary supply, according to a July 19 Reuters report.

  The digital yuan’s adoption is still minimal relative to China’s 1.4 billion strong population, so far mostly being used for domestic retail payments aside from a few trials in Hong Kong.

  On July 18, the South China Morning Post reported that the Bank of China Hong Kong began trialing another cross-border payment scheme for Bank of China customers at select retail stores in Hong Kong.

  The trial was rolled out in a bid to further promote the cross-border applications of digital yuan and is the third cross-border trial of the CBDC in Hong Kong, according to the SCMP.

  In a trial last year the BOCHK launched a program that encouraged customers to set up a BOC e-CNY wallet to receive $14 (100 yuan) to be used at the Hong Kong supermarket chain U Select.

  In January, the central bank integrated smart contract functionality into the digital yuan to expand upon its use cases.

  The $250 billion in digital yuan transactions is an over 70% increase from the number the bank cited in August 2022.

  The amount is still, however, far off the amount of value processed by some of the largest public blockchains in the world.

  Bitcoin, for example, processed $8.2 trillion in 2022, according to various reports.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 19:40

• Chinese Hackers Access Email Of US Ambassador, Compromise "Hundreds Of Thousands" Of US Government Emails
  Chinese Hackers Access Email Of US Ambassador, Compromise “Hundreds Of Thousands” Of US Government Emails

  There go all the latest attempts by the Biden admin at a detente with China.

  The WSJ reports that hackers “linked to Beijing” have accessed the email account of the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, in an attack that reportedly has “compromised at least hundreds of thousands of individual U.S. government emails.” Daniel Kritenbrink, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, was also hacked in the cyber-espionage attack. While it remains unconfirmed, the two diplomats are believed to be the two most senior officials at the State Department targeted in the alleged spying campaign disclosed last week.

  Unlike previous so-called “Russian hacking” campaigns which dominated the news between 2016 and 2022 and which were fabricated by the FBI to cover up the FBI’s own criminal activity, and where everything about the perps was known instantaneously, the “contours” of the Chinese hacking campaign aren’t fully known. According to the Journal, while the infiltration was limited to unclassified emails, “the inboxes of Burns and Kritenbrink could have allowed the hackers to glean insights into U.S. planning for a recent string of visits to China by senior Biden administration officials, as well as internal conversations about U.S. policies toward its rival amid a period of delicate diplomacy that has been challenged repeatedly in recent months.”

  Burns and Kritenbrink are the second and third senior Biden administration officials to be identified in news reports as having their emails hacked. U.S. Secretary Gina Raimondo’s email was also compromised in the breach, U.S. officials have said, who also stated that the email of top US State official Antony Blinken, wasn’t directly infiltrated in the hack, nor were those in his circle of top advisers. Instead, the hackers appeared to focus on a small number of senior officials responsible for managing the U.S.-China relationship. That said, since this appears to be another planted deep state narrative which will change over time as the deep state’s needs also change, the WSJ was quick to caveat that “the estimate of individual emails accessed is rough and could also grow, the people said.”

  “For security reasons, we will not be sharing additional information on the nature and scope of this cybersecurity incident at this time,” a State Department spokesman said. “The Department continuously monitors and responds to activity of concern on our networks. Our investigation is ongoing, and we cannot provide further details at this time.”

  Kritenbrink accompanied Blinken on his trip to China a month ago, and Kritenbrink, Burns and Blinken all attended meetings with senior Chinese officials and with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Before the high-level talks in Beijing, Kritenbrink led a trip of less senior officials to lay the groundwork.

  Last week the State Department led the Biden administration’s effort to restart diplomatic communications with China and notch progress in select areas including climate change and synthetic opioid trade. However, deep-seated disagreements over Taiwan, spying and other issues have led to a deterioration in relations, with broad U.S. political concerns about China have “prevented any reversal of the trend.”

  According to the report, the hack was pulled off with the help of a flaw in Microsoft’s cloud-computing environment and has since been fixed; more than two dozen organizations globally were also affected. Fewer than 10 organizations were compromised in the U.S. and each of those appeared to have a small number of individual email accounts directly accessed by the hackers, a senior American cybersecurity official said last week. It isn’t known whether any federal agencies beyond the State and Commerce departments were targeted although we are confident that if they were then Hillary Clinton would gladly donate her version of BleachBit and a few hammers.

  Microsoft hasn’t publicly disclosed how the breach began and has said it is continuing to investigate the incident.

  Hilariously, the Administration of Joe “10 for the big guy” Biden, whose son is deep in China’s pockets, has keep radiosilent about the hack, which U.S. officials have described as surgical in nature “something that targeted a small number of specifically chosen high-value victims… and have sought to play down its overall impact, likening it to routine digital espionage that is constantly going on between adversarial nations.”

  Right, because other nations routinely hack the email accounts of the most important US politicians.

  Not surprisingly, Joe Bidem hasn’t formally blamed China for the hack, but senior Biden administration officials said they have no reason to doubt Microsoft’s assessment linking it to a Chinese hacking group. Meanwhile, China has denied the allegations and accused the U.S. of engaging in rampant cyber-enabled espionage around the world.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 19:20

• Lab-Grown Artificial 'Meat' May Actually Be Worse For The Environment
  Lab-Grown Artificial ‘Meat’ May Actually Be Worse For The Environment

  Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

  Lab grown “meat” may be potentially worse for the environment than actual beef and may have an even larger carbon footprint, according to a recent study.

  

  This follows the USDA’s approval of the FDA’s decision on June 21 to greenlight the sale of lab-grown meat to American consumers.

  GOOD Meat, a company that grows cell-based meat in its labs, announced in June the USDA’s approval to sell its products.

  Advocates of lab grown meat, which is cultured from animal cells, has been lauded by activists of being more environmentally friendly than beef, as it uses less land, water, and produces no greenhouse gases, compared to raising cattle.

  The United States joins Singapore as the only country approving “cell-cultured” meat for human consumption

  Only chicken has passed the official government approval process for now, with a “no questions” letter that grants permission for distribution, but pork and beef will have to wait.

  However, a pre-print study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that the environmental impacts of lab-grown or “cultivated” meat, are likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than its natural counterpart, based on current and near-term production methods.

  Fake Meat May Actually Require More Energy Than Organic Meat

  Amy Quinton from UC Davis Department of Food Science announced preliminary results from the study on the environmental impact of lab grown meat in a May 22 report.

  The researchers assessed the amount of energy needed and the greenhouse gases emitted to create artificial beef and compared it with traditional organic meat production.

  It was found that scaling up production using current lab methods was highly energy intensive.

  Lab-grown meat is produced through the use of highly refined or purified growth media, which are the ingredients used to make animal cells multiply and is similar to how biotechnology firms make their drugs.

  The UC Davis team found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using this process, is four to twenty-five times greater than the average for retail beef.

  “If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” stated UC Davis doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, the study’s lead author.

  “If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production,” he added.

  Researchers Hope to Make Artificial Meat Production More Energy Efficient

  The UC Davis Cultivated Meat Consortium, which led the study, are a group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and educators researching lab grown meat.

  The artificial meat industry plans on creating lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures, that use less energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes in the future.

  They hope that improvements in developing the technology, through “pharma to food,” will perfect the production of artificial meat products.

  Other goals include the establishment and evaluation of cell lines that could be used to grow meat and to improve the structure in cultured meat.

  Me. Risner stated, that if lab-based meat failed to create a more climate-friendly burger, there is still valuable science to be learned from the attempt.

  “It may not lead to environmentally friendly commodity meat, but it could lead to less expensive pharmaceuticals, for example,” he added.

  “My concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment.”

  US Production Has Begun

  Only a few places will be producing cell-cultured meat for public use for now.

  Upside Foods and Good Meat, of California, will first be distributing their product at Bar Crenn in San Francisco and celebrity chef José Andrés’ restaurant, China Chilcano, in Washington, D.C.

  China Chilcano will first serve Good Meat’s “Anticuchos de Pollo” on the week of July 31 as part of an exclusive tasting menu at $70 per person, by reservation only and then only available in very limited quantities.

  Upside Foods COO Amy Chen told Scientific American that their product will display the regular round-shaped USDA inspection label.

  Artificial meat will have the words “cell-cultured” written on the tag.

  The two firms say that their artificial chicken meat will emit 92 percent fewer carbon emissions and use 95 percent less land during production.

  Meanwhile, a Good Meat spokesperson told Townhall that the production process is still currently expensive.

  “Bioreactors and the supporting infrastructure required to produce cultivated meat are not inexpensive to design, build and operate,” said the spokesperson, comparing the technology to the electronics industry where “costs will drop over time.”

  Good Meat said a few more steps need to be made before that prices will drop.

  The spokesperson said their lab was focused on improving the process to increase cell density, design larger-scale containers to grow meat, and creating more affordable and efficient nutrients to feed the cells.

  Risner told Townhall that the lab meat industry would benefit from the creation of a supply chain for amino acids that could expand current manufacturing volumes.

  “It will take a significant amount of time to reach mass commercial production,” the spokesperson continued.

  Once cell-cultured meat hits mass production, Good Meat believes that sales will pick up as the public becomes more aware of the product.

  The spokesperson said that the dishes sold in Singapore have already received universally high marks from diners, after gaining regulatory approval in the island nation in late 2020.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 19:00

• FBI Official Admits Under Oath They Knew Hunter Biden Laptop Was Real
  FBI Official Admits Under Oath They Knew Hunter Biden Laptop Was Real

  Via The Politics Brief,

  During a transcribed interview with the House Judiciary Committee, an FBI official revealed that at least one senior agent, along with potentially others, who had alerted social media companies about a potential “hack and dump” operation before the 2020 election, were aware of the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

  

  As the House Judiciary Committee’s official Twitter account noted, “Testimony reveals the FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic, but when asked by a social media company about the laptop’s authenticity the FBI said ‘no further comment’.”

  The FBI official, Laura Dehmlow, participated in discussions between the FBI and Facebook prior to the social media platform’s decision to censor the story related to Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election. Furthermore, The Intercept has indicated that Dehmlow was also involved in the Biden administration’s endeavors to suppress and censor content on social media platforms in relation to misinformation.

  Massive. The perpetrators of this gigantic fraud must be investigated, prosecuted, and brought to justice.https://t.co/6ca4EO8TpP

  — Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 20, 2023

   Dehmlow, the head of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), acknowledged that her former colleague Brad Benavides was certainly aware of the laptop’s legitimacy, as per excerpts of her testimony.

  When asked by the committee about other individuals within FITF who knew about the laptop, Dehmlow replied that she did not have exact information, but she presumed that Brad Benavides, then-FITF Section Chief, was aware.

  “Do you know who else at FITF knew that the laptop was real?” the committee asked, according to the transcript.

  “I don’t actually. I would assume both my – yes, I would certainly say that [then-FITF Section Chief] Brad Benavides was aware,” Dehmlow replied.

  “What about the individuals on the Russia unit?” the committee asked.

  “I would assume the [Russia] unit chief was also aware. I’m pretty certain of that fact,” Dehmlow replied.

  Dehmlow was accompanied by an attorney with the Department of Justice during the interview. The transcript excerpts note that the attorney jumped in to clarify if Dehmlow knew with “certainty” or if she was merely “making deductions.”

  “I’m pretty certain they were aware,” Dehmlow said.

  These transcript excerpts were included in a letter from Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) to FBI Director Christopher Wray. In his letter, Jordan requested names and records related to those within the bureau who were aware of the laptop’s existence and had been communicating with social media companies before the 2020 presidential election.

  The laptop gained significant attention when the New York Post published a story on October 14, 2020, revealing details about then-candidate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings based on the laptop’s contents. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook limited the story’s reach to their vast user bases.

  Simultaneously, behind the scenes, FITF and other federal government entities were engaging in routine meetings with social media companies, repeatedly cautioning them about a potential “hack and dump” operation. This information was highlighted in a recent court ruling from Louisiana, which addressed government censorship.

  According to Jordan’s letter, after the FBI had convinced social media companies that the laptop was connected to a hack-and-dump operation, the bureau ceased sharing information, leading the companies to conclude that the New York Post’s story was part of Russian disinformation.

  Dehmlow further stated during her testimony that she recollected a meeting or hearing about a meeting in which someone from Twitter asked about the laptop’s authenticity. One of the FBI participants on the call confirmed that it was indeed genuine before another participant interjected with “no further comment.”

  Dehmlow’s testimony supports the claims made by IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapely, who testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in May. Shapely revealed that the FBI had become aware of the laptop’s existence in October 2019, stating, “The FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime.”

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 18:40

• No Sanctuary: NYC Shoos Migrants Away, Warns "No Guarantee" Of Shelter, Services
  No Sanctuary: NYC Shoos Migrants Away, Warns “No Guarantee” Of Shelter, Services

  New York City will ‘immediately’ begin discouraging asylum seekers from seeking refuge in the self-proclaimed sanctuary city, warning migrants coming from the southern border that there’s “no guarantee” they’ll receive shelter or services, Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday.

  

  “We have no more room in the city,” Adams said during a news conference at City Hall, in what the NY Times describes as a “somewhat unexpected departure from its long-held status as a sanctuary city, and as a place that guarantees a right to shelter.”

  As part of the city’s shift in strategy, it will now require single adult migrants to reapply for shelter after 60 days, a move that the mayor said was designed to make room for families with children. Mr. Adams said the city would intensify efforts to help the migrants connect with family, friends or outside networks in order to find alternative housing arrangements.

  If alternative housing arrangements are not available, single adult asylum seekers will have to return to the intake center and reapply for housing. It is unclear what would happen if there is not housing available at the intake centers. -NY Times

  Pro-migrant activists aren’t happy.

  “I have worked with thousands of people over the years whose lives were saved because of the right to shelter,” said Craig Hughes, a social worker with Mobilization for Justice, a nonprofit legal services group, in a statement to the Times. “The idea that there’s some imaginary place that people are going to go off to besides city streets is just false.”

  NYC has seen an influx of more than 90,000 migrants since the spring of 2022, of which close to 55,000 are still under the care of the city. When combined with the city’s homeless population, New York is caring for a record 105,800 people across more than 188 sites, including 18 humanitarian relief centers.

  Between July 10-16, there were 2,800 migrants who entered the city, according to the deputy mayor for health and human services, Anne Williams-Isom.

  “Our compassion is infinite,” said a senior VP at NYC Health, Dr. Ted Long, adding “our space is not.”

  The city has distributed flyers warning migrants there’s ‘no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services.’

  “Please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the U.S.,” the flier concludes.

  

  Unfortunately for New York, the city remains under a decades-old court order requiring it to provide shelter to anyone who needs a bed.

  City comptroller Brad Lander said the announcement undermines the city’s right to shelter, and “the defining role of New York as a beacon of promise inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.”

  Housing advocates have called on NYC officials to make room in the shelter system by moving homeless people to permanent housing.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 18:20

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• The Media And Ukraine War Coverage: Where Truth Takes A Holiday
  The Media And Ukraine War Coverage: Where Truth Takes A Holiday

  Authored by Connor O’Keefe via The Mises Institute,

  As Ukrainian forces continue their much-hyped counteroffensive to take back contested territories in the country’s eastern and southern regions, we’re faced with conflicting coverage of the campaign.

  Many reports say Ukraine’s forces are struggling to break through the minefields fortifying Russia’s lines. And many admit that even the sudden and dramatic Wagner Group mutiny did not appear to hand Ukraine much of an advantage on the front.

  Days ago, in a move that looks like damage control, Ukraine’s defense secretary even announced that Kyiv would no longer measure success in recaptured territory but would instead just aim to destroy as much Russian military infrastructure as possible.

  

  Still, according to some Western journalists, this is all part of Ukraine’s plan.

  They’re just testing Russian resistance to find weak spots so they can better allocate resources during the next phase of the counteroffensive. And that’s when the big gains will take place. Maybe that’s true, but still, other coverage about Ukraine’s losses would have you think the counteroffensive has been a horrific disaster.

  Much like the wider war, how you see this counteroffensive playing out depends almost entirely on where you get your news. That is not an accident. As citizens of the wealthiest country whose government controls the most military hardware in the world, it’s important to remember that all coverage of this war ought to be viewed with some baseline degree of skepticism. This is because numerous parties—in both governments and the media outlets themselves—are working hard to bend the American public’s perception of the war to their benefit.

  That is, of course, nothing new. In 1941—the last time a European war threatened to go global—the British sent an intelligence officer named William Stephenson to the United States and tasked him with running an information operation to turn American public opinion away from noninterventionism.

  The main approach Stephenson’s stories team used was secretly planting carefully crafted—and sometimes outright fake—stories in the biggest American newspapers and magazines. These stories were specifically designed to portray British forces as having more than enough courage to take on the Germans but lacking sufficient resources, regardless of how accurate that depiction was at any given time.

  It was a specific tone that the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) believed had the best chance of convincing the American public to support joining the fight. Since then, every group that the American political establishment wants to support militarily gets presented to the American people in a similar fashion—from the Mujahideen to the Syrian Kurds to the current Ukrainian regime.

  Though we may not know about the prevalence of covert information operations for some time, a pair of stories published last month offer a window into some more overt efforts to shape our perception of the war in Ukraine. First, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, a Ukraine correspondent for the New York Times, wrote a viral story detailing how Ukrainian press officers and some Western journalists have tried to downplay, justify, or cover up the use of Nazi symbols by Ukrainian soldiers.

  One specific passage tells of Western photojournalists asking their subjects to remove patches with Nazi emblems before taking photos. By doing so, these journalists crossed the line from documenting their subjects to staging them.

  On the same day, former New York Times media columnist Ben Smith published an article reporting that many Western journalists have grown frustrated with how the Ukrainian government uses access and accreditation to shape war coverage. For example, the Ukrainian military threatened to revoke a photojournalist’s credentials after he took pictures of conscripted soldiers in a trench without the presence or permission of a military press officer.

  In another example, an NBC News crew traveled to Crimea to interview residents about the war. After reporting that most people they talked to preferred that Crimea belonged to Russia, the Ukrainian government revoked NBC’s credentials and confined their in-country crew to a hotel.

  Smith even brings up Thomas Gibbons-Neff from above, who had his access and credentials revoked after reporting on Ukraine’s use of banned cluster munitions. There’s no question that, at least to some extent, the continual threat of a loss of access affects everyone reporting over there in an official capacity.

  This is not a new or unusual technique. The US government used similar tactics to help shape the narrative of its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most professional journalists struggle endlessly to find sources. So, by granting extensive access that can always be revoked, governments can run an effective carrot-and-stick ploy to control media coverage.

  Our views of war are warped by design. Sure, the Russian regime is mounting a similar effort to control how the Russian people view the war, but it would be absurd to say that the Kremlin holds an influence over the American public that’s even comparable to the US or Ukrainian governments.

  Despite what the media, the government, or your middle school civics teacher wants you to think, you don’t need to frantically keep up with the hourly developments in Eastern Europe to be a good citizen. But if you choose to follow this war, understand which parties have a hand in delivering whatever information you’re consuming because not everyone is trying to tell you the truth.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/20/2023 – 02:00

• Journalists Attacking The Film ‘Sound Of Freedom’ Should Have Their Hard Drives Investigated
  Journalists Attacking The Film ‘Sound Of Freedom’ Should Have Their Hard Drives Investigated

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

  I recently went to see the movie Sound Of Freedom with the expectation of a moderate level of political commentary or religious pontificating, given the rabid and widespread attacks on the film by the leftist media. All I knew going in was that the indie production was about child trafficking and that the mainstream media HATES IT. After the film was over, my first thought was that it was an excellent story about a very dark and difficult issue. My second thought was – “What the hell was all the fuss about? There’s not a single political moment in the entire movie!”

  The media war on the low budget flick is so bizarre given this fact that I am immediately suspicious of their intentions. Not one political message, not one momentary critique of the political left, not one moment where MAGA or Trump or “Q-Anon” is mentioned, not one “conspiracy theory.” So why all the hate?

  Before reading this review any further I highly recommend you check out some of the hatchet job articles published about Sound Of Freedom to get a sense of what I’m talking about – examples are here, here, here and here.

  The first thing you’ll probably notice is that the majority of these vitriolic diatribes use the exact same talking points – They suggest that The Sound Of Freedom is based in conspiracy theory, far-right extremism and that it is funded by a subversive network of “Q-Anon adjacent” conservatives. Some journalists have even attacked the veracity of the film’s true story – the career of DHS agent Tim Ballard, who operated covertly to take down child sex traffickers in Central America.

  The Guardian asserts:

  “Caviezel stars as special agent Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security Investigations operative who really did work for the state busting up child-trafficking rings for more a decade. (Or so he claims – the DHS can neither confirm nor deny the real Ballard’s employment history.) Even if he did not literally have the face of Christ, Ballard would still exude an angelic aura as he gently hoists dirty-faced moppets out of peril with the gravely uttered catchphrase: “God’s children are not for sale.”

  Rolling Stone fumes:

  “Ballard, Caviezel, and others of their ilk had primed the public to accept Sound of Freedom as a documentary rather than delusion by fomenting moral panic for years over this grossly exaggerated “epidemic” of child sex-trafficking, much of it funneling people into conspiracist rabbit holes and QAnon communities. In short, I was at the movies with people who were there to see their worst fears confirmed.”

  Perhaps Rolling Stone has never heard of Epstein’s Island? Why are they pretending like this global criminal enterprise is not a thing?

  These reviews are dripping with venom, though a simple investigation into Tim Ballard reveals endless evidence that he did in fact quit his job at DHS to operate in Central America to stop child trafficking rings. And the sting that is the core of the film on an island Ballard set up as a trap to capture an entire network of pedophiles as well as save 120 kids? Yeah, that was real, too.

  In fact, there’s a documentary about Tim Ballard’s successful sting called ‘Triple Take’ and the Sound Of Freedom movie includes real life arrest footage from that event. There is no question that almost every detail in Sound Of Freedom is real. Any media outlet that says otherwise is lying, and the fact that they are attempting to sow seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of Tim Ballard based on politics is villainous.

  

  One interesting part of the the film that is NOT accurate was the depiction of a Latin billionaire funding Tim Ballard’s efforts. In reality, Ballard says that it was primarily conservative host Glenn Beck that raised money for his operations that led to the rescue of hundreds of children. Why Glenn Beck was not mentioned in the final cut of the film is hard to say, but Ballard’s connection to Beck might partly explain the media’s fury over the movie. How DARE these conservative men save children from sex slavery, right? It makes conservatives look like (GASP!) good guys.

  But there’s something more going on here than mere envy on the part of leftist journalists. The campaign against the movie is far too coordinated and far too expansive (global). It is as if these people are interconnected and they all agreed together to try to subvert the film, or they were all ORDERED to subvert the film.

  This kind of behavior suggests a personal stake in creating conditions for failure; it makes it seem like these journalists want to sabotage the movie because of its premise and message. Why would someone want to sabotage a movie which exposes child trafficking and pedophiles? Could it be that we need to check the hard drives of some of these establishment media writers and producers?

  I think it’s important to note that such people have been criminally prosecuted for child sex abuse in the past. For example, long time CNN producer John Griffin was recently arrested and convicted of child rape, using online apps to connect with mothers willing to sell their children to him for thousands of dollars so he could abuse them at his Vermont vacation home.

  Last year the FBI raided the home of renowned ABC News producer James Gordon Meek and arrested him on charges of transporting child pornography. Rolling Stone Magazine was later accused of trying to cover up the reason for the arrest with selective editing and omission. Rolling Stone is now one of the main outlets attacking Sound Of Freedom.

  Maybe the movie makes these journalists angry because it exposes one of their favorite hobbies?

  I’m a long time film buff and I can say with some authority that as a movie, Sound Of Freedom is well made and well executed. The overall acting is effective including Jim Caviezel’s portrayal of Tim Ballard, the child performances are amazing, the editing is excellent and the cinematography is top notch. The film is good all around; it reminds me of one my favorite movies of all time, a criminal procedural directed by Akira Kurosawa called ‘High And Low’ (also known as ‘Heaven And Hell’ in Japan) about police investigating a child kidnapping.

  My only complaint is that I felt they should have shown Tim Ballard with his family a little more, so that when he makes the decision to go to Columbia and risk his life, the choice carries more weight.  Other than that, Sound Of Freedom is one of the best dramas I have seen in a long time, and at no point did I feel “preached at.” I can’t say the same for most Hollywood films the past several years, which are replete with non-stop leftist propaganda.

  The depiction of the process of child trafficking is very uncomfortable, but it’s meant to be. I rarely squirm in my chair with discomfort or get angry at characters on a screen, but every time there was a scene with a pedophile all I could think was “That guy needs to go in a wood chipper.” That’s good film making.

  So again, there are few if any valid criticisms to make about the production itself and the story is largely accurate. Why are leftist journalists raging against this movie? I think because it sheds light on the fact that pedophilia is not only about isolated cases of loners stalking school playgrounds, it’s an international industry worth billions upon billions of dollars, and there are very rich and powerful people involved in that industry (including people in mainstream journalism).

  They don’t want people to consider the pervasive nature of this criminal underworld. They want people passive and unaware. For some reason, they want people to assume that child slavery is a conspiracy theory.

  Another issue to consider is that the political left has been aggressively targeting children with sexualization for the past several years, primarily through the imposition of trans ideology. They are turning the sexualization of minors into an activist movement. Children as young as kindergarten are being indoctrinated with “gender identity” propaganda and HIGHLY pornographic books (with pornographic images) posing as educational LGBT content are being planted in public schools. We all know what the end game of this movement is – The normalization of pedophilia.

  Leftists may be consciously or unconsciously hostile to Sound Of Freedom because when they see the organized networks of child groomers on the big screen, they see themselves.

  To conclude: Go see this movie. The media attacks are clearly designed to dissuade people from watching it based on political bias. Check it out and you’ll realize quickly that all their claims are false. Furthermore, you’ll start to wonder aloud why they hate the film? The saying “Methinks thou dost protest too much…” comes to mind, as such journalists reveal their propensity for evil.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 23:55

• DC Awards Convicted Felon With Contract For 'Bogus' EV Tech
  DC Awards Convicted Felon With Contract For ‘Bogus’ EV Tech

  Self-described inventor (and convicted felon) Lawrence Hardge received a $680,000 contract from the District of Columbia for a small device that he claims increases the range of electric vehicles. 

  Local media outlet WUSA9 was the first to shine the spotlight on the shady EV deal DC’s Department of Public Works recently made with Hardge to outfit 40 Chevrolet Bolt EVs with the Energy Management Module (EEM) device. 

  

  Hardge claims the device can increase any EV battery’s driving range and efficiency by more than 60%. Electrical engineers from the University of Maryland say that’s ‘practically impossible.’ 

  “There’s not technologies that I’m aware of that can really boost that same battery pack to significantly more than 200-mile range,” said Paul Albertus, an associate director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute.

  Albertus said, “There’s a variety of limitations just from basic chemical theory. There’s only so much energy you can store for the materials that you put into a battery.”

  WUSA contacted General Motors, maker of the Bolts, and asked if they knew of the EEM device. 

  “We have not been involved in this project and are not aware of this specific technology,” General Motors wrote in a statement. 

  DC awarded Hardge a $680,000 contract for the device that UMD experts say is ‘bogus.’ 

  

  Hardge was convicted of selling unregistered securities from his home state of Mississippi two decades ago. He served five years in prison and tried to expunge his criminal record in 2021. 

  According to a Jackson Advocate article in 2022, Hardge claimed that he “had been notified by the University of Michigan, which is located only 35 miles from Hardge Global Manufacturing offices in Farmington Hills, Michigan, that he is being prepped for a possible Nobel Prize nomination by the university.”

  “I interviewed with the University of Michigan last year,” he said in the article. “I spent about eight hours with them. They wanted to nominate me for a Nobel Prize. They thought I was the perfect candidate.”

  WUSA spoke with a University of Michigan spokesperson who said, “We’ve checked with colleagues who would be most likely to be familiar with Mr. Hardge (Office of Research, College of Engineering, Communications) and no one is familiar with him.”

  Depending on how this plays out, this could be a future episode on CNBC’s American Greed. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 23:35

• Former FBI Special Agent 'Confirmed' Key Parts Of Hunter Biden IRS Whistleblower Testimony: Comer
  Former FBI Special Agent ‘Confirmed’ Key Parts Of Hunter Biden IRS Whistleblower Testimony: Comer

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

  A former FBI supervisory special agent has allegedly confirmed key portions of an IRS whistleblower’s testimony that President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, received preferential treatment during an investigation into felony tax crimes, according to the House Oversight Committee.

  “Today, a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation confirmed key portions of the IRS whistleblower’s testimony,” committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a July 17 statement.

  

  Mr. Comer did not reveal the identity of the former FBI agent.

  He further claimed that the night before the interview of Hunter Biden, “both Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off about the planned interview.”

  “On the day of the Hunter Biden interview, federal agents were told to stand by and could not approach Hunter Biden—they had to wait for his call. As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation,” he continued.

  The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.

  Mr. Biden’s son has been under federal investigation for alleged tax fraud since 2018. According to prosecutors, he received more than $1.5 million in taxable income in 2017 and more than $1.5 million more in 2018 and was required by law to pay more than $100,000 in income tax for his earnings each of those years but failed to pay the tax.

  

  ‘Obvious Conflicts of Interest’

  Mr. Comer’s statement comes after Gary Shapley, an IRS supervisory special agent, earlier this year claimed that the Department of Justice and the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office interfered in the investigation into the younger Mr. Biden in an attempt to delay the probe.

  According to Mr. Shapley, the DOJ provided the younger Mr. Biden with preferential treatment, “slow-walked the investigation,” and “did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation.”

  The former IRS agent additionally told prosecutors that the case into Hunter Biden had been “handled differently than any investigation” he’d ever been part of in his 14 years of service to the IRS and that some aspects of the case appeared to be influenced by politics.

  Another whistleblower, a criminal investigator with the IRS identified only as Whistleblower X, has made similar claims.

  The DOJ has denied any interference in the investigation into Hunter Biden.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Biden has denied any wrongdoing on behalf of his family or himself.

  Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax in a deal with the U.S. government in June, according to a letter from U.S. Attorney David Weiss to the U.S. court in Delaware.

  The agreement to plead guilty meant he avoided prosecution on a separate gun charge. He is set to appear in court on July 26.

  According to Mr. Comer, who cited a transcribed interview with the former FBI supervisory special agent, multiple witness interviews were planned for Dec. 8, 2020, and Mr. Shapley and the former FBI agent were assigned to interview the president’s son.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 23:15

• Do The Actor And Writer Strikes Actually Help Woke Hollywood Cover Up Its Failures?
  Do The Actor And Writer Strikes Actually Help Woke Hollywood Cover Up Its Failures?

  Hollywood is in deep trouble, but not for the reasons we are hearing from entertainment journalists. 

  With WGA and SAG strikes now underway production in Tinsel Town has all but disappeared.  Talk among insiders is that the strikes could very well destroy the industry for years to come.  But what if this scenario is exactly what flailing media companies needed?    

  The implosion of the mainstream movie business gestated long before the strikes; it started with the injection of woke politics and propaganda into the western pop culture space.  Since 2016 (a year marking the “coming out party” for extreme intersectional feminism, critical race theory and trans ideology in movies) movie ticket sales have plummeted by around 40%. 

  Box office revenues have collapsed to levels not seen since 2001, and keep in mind that the stats get much worse once they are adjusted for inflation.  

  

  Initially, film studios tried to use the covid lockdowns and fear of the virus as the reason for their declining numbers.  However, hit films like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick proved that the covid rationale was nonsense.  People were more than willing to go to the theaters by the millions, but only for non-woke movies.  Nobody cared about covid.

  It’s now 2023 and the pandemic excuse is dead.  Hollywood is left with no scapegoat to blame their problems on and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that if you “Get Woke” you will in fact “Go Broke.” 

  Almost every major film production containing far-left propaganda or common woke tropes such as race swapped characters, gender swapped characters, feminism, trans ideology, CRT, climate change cultism, “girl boss” propaganda and deconstructed male heroes is now tanking at the theaters to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in losses per film.

  The problem is that production companies continue to double down and refuse to admit the real reason they are collapsing.  Disney, for example, is now openly discussing a fire sale on pieces of the company in order to shore up their finances.  This is after they fired 7000 employees.  Yet, the political nature of their downfall is rarely if ever broached. 

  This behavior suggests that the woke cult is more important to Hollywood than making a profit or even saving their businesses.  The bottom line?  Americans and most of the world are tired of far-left concepts being forced into entertainment, but Hollywood would rather go down with the ship than build a life raft by acknowledging that woke is sinking them.  It’s truly insane; a perfect expression of mental illness.      

  And make no mistake, these companies are going down.  They might be hoping for a bailout in the future, but it’s not coming.  Not in time to save the industry as it exists today.  The ESG establishment has far more important things to worry about than keeping companies like Disney afloat.

  But, if the goal is to avoid admitting at all costs that woke ideology is a massive failure among the majority of the population, then studios now have an excellent scapegoat in the form of the WGA and SAG strikes.  In a year’s time they can claim that it was the strikes that killed the movie business, not political zealotry.  And let’s not forget that a large number of writers and actors have been participants in the leftist destruction of media, so they don’t really deserve any sympathy either.  

  This all rests, of course, on the strikes lasting longer than a couple months.  If they don’t, then the Hollywood establishment will be right back where they started.  They’ll be force to fire their woke staff and start making good films again, or, they’ll burn as the public dances on the ashes.   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 22:55

• Trump Could Face 'Seditious Conspiracy' Charge In Jan. 6 Probe, Previous Trials Suggest
  Trump Could Face ‘Seditious Conspiracy’ Charge In Jan. 6 Probe, Previous Trials Suggest

  Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  With former President Donald Trump saying that he’s been notified that a Washington-based grand jury is investigating him in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol protest and breach, a commentator who’s been closely following Jan. 6-related trials is pointing to seditious conspiracy as a charge Mr. Trump likely will face.

  

  Mr. Trump said he was informed of being the target late on July 16 through a letter from the office of Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Mr. Trump’s involvement in the January 6 incident as well as his retention of documents from his time in the White House.

  “This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total political weaponization of law enforcement!” Mr. Trump commented in a July 18 post on Truth Social, his social media platform.

  He said he has been given four days to show up before the grand jury; it isn’t clear whether he is being invited to testify voluntarily or subpoenaed.

  ‘Tactical Move’

  Prosecutors should first ask for a voluntary appearance before subpoenaing the target of a criminal investigation, according to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Justice Manual.

  Also, lawyers usually discourage their clients from going before a grand jury if they are the target of the investigation—it can be avoided by invoking the right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, says Marc Ruskin, a former FBI agent and assistant U.S. attorney.

  However, that may be Mr. Smith’s goal, according to Mr. Ruskin.

  He noted that Mr. Trump is already facing indictments in New York and Florida and pleading the Fifth in Washington gives another talking point to his opponents.

  “It could be a tactical and procedural move just to make him look bad,” he said.

  “You have Trump, a former president who is running to be president again, pleading the Fifth. I guess from their point of view, it’s going to help make him less attractive as a candidate.”

  If the target is not asked to testify, “the prosecutor, in appropriate cases, is encouraged to notify such person a reasonable time before seeking an indictment in order to afford him or her an opportunity to testify before the grand jury,” the manual says.

  Mr. Trump indicated he believes charges against himself are imminent, saying that being told to report to the grand jury, “almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”

  Some commentators have long predicted Mr. Trump will face charges in the probe, including Julie Kelly, an independent journalist who had closely followed the trials of Jan. 6 participants.

  “I’ve warned of this for over a year. I take no pride in being right,” she commented in a July 18 tweet.

  “Only question now is what charges Smith will bring (strong possibility he’ll seek indictment on seditious conspiracy) and who is charged with him. (Any conspiracy charge requires at least one conspirator).”

  In April, she highlighted several members of the pro-Trump Proud Boys group who were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Ms. Kelly believes the DOJ approached the Proud Boys trial in a way that seemed to lay the groundwork for bringing the same charge against Mr. Trump.

  During the closing arguments, it seemed to her that prosecutors tried to tie Proud Boys to Mr. Trump, particularly regarding a comment by Mr. Trump during a 2020 presidential debate that the Proud Boys should “stand down and stand by.”

  She pointed to a comment by one of the prosecutors that “defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what.”

  “Convictions of 4 members of the Proud Boys set the stage for Smith to pursue a seditious conspiracy indictment against Trump because DOJ made the former president an unindicted co-conspirator of sorts during the trial,” Ms. Kelly told The Epoch Times via text.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 22:35

• In-N-Out Bans Employee Masking In Five States
  In-N-Out Bans Employee Masking In Five States

  The In-N-Out burger chain will prohibit employees in five states from wearing masks unless they’ve got a note from their doctor, according to internal company emails leaked to social media, Bloomberg reports.

  

  Workers in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Utah are advised in the memo of “the importance of customer service and the ability to show our Associates’ smiles and other facial features while considering the health and well-being of all individuals.”

  The policy, which will go into effect August 14, will apply to all In-N-Out employees in those states, unless their job duties require masks or other protective gear. If they fail to comply, employees could face disciplinary action, up to and including being fired.

  As Bloomberg notes, California and Oregon – not on the list, have laws which prevent employers from banning masks.

  

  And of course, pro-maskers, who can’t cite peer-reviewed studies proving their efficacy – are having a conniption.

  “Requiring a doctor’s note is also a burden in terms of time and money. Many people don’t have a primary care physician or one who is readily available,” wrote infections disease specialist Dr. Judy Stone in Forbes. “And requiring proof of a disability might be considered a violation of the Americans with Disability Act, depending on how one interprets masking as a request for accommodation.”

  Stone also pointed to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which notes that 6 in 10 adults have a chronic disease, increasing their risk for severe COVID-19.

  In-N-Out workers in California and Oregon also have new mask guidelines set to go into effect August 14, according to a separate leaked company memo. But in contrast to the other states, California and Oregon employees will still be able to choose to wear a mask in stores. -Bloomberg

  The new masking guidelines are also subject to local health regulations.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 22:15

• Chris Rufo Exposes The History Of America's Cultural Revolution
  Chris Rufo Exposes The History Of America’s Cultural Revolution

  Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

  “The ambition of this book is to reveal the inner history of America’s cultural revolution, tracing the arc of its development from its origin point to the present day.”

  – Christopher Rufo, America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.

  

  Christopher Rufo may have been setting out the ambition of his new book, America’s Cultural Revolution, but there is no mistake that this work itself is ambitious, given the scale of material (the cultural revolution and pre-revolutionary ideas, and the creation and progression of that movement, for starters) and the connection from leftist thought leaders of the mid-20^th century to the absurdities and very real cultural and political dangers we see today.

  But his task is also necessary, as the proper answer to the question of “where we are” – one of disagreement even among conservatives, some of whom deny we are in a revolutionary age – requires an exploration of how we got here and the ideas that led us to this point. The revolutionary lineage from the 1960s (and before) carries on to this day – albeit in an arguably stronger form. What was radical is now the orthodoxy. Those calling for sexual liberation in 1955, for example, would no doubt be shocked – and proud – at the evolution and success of that idea. We add that political liberation and sexual liberation are indeed intertwined, as they both can lead to spiritual bondage.

  Rufo, to his credit, achieves that ambitious goal. America’s Cultural Revolution is divided into four parts: Revolution, Race, Education, and Power, with each including a biography of the prophets of the cultural revolution. There is an exacting focus on the prophets’ writings (supported by hundreds of footnotes) concerning “liberation”, political violence, anti-racism, and the destruction of institutions – many of which we see regurgitated, exercised, and acted upon to this day.

  Your humble author is especially thankful for Rufo’s deep dive into the history of the revolutionaries, which helps to give a biography of the movement. We often see the ridiculous (the shop teacher with z-cups) and the concerning (statues toppled) and the evil (public school teacher-led gender transitions), but we’re left without an understanding of where all this originated and how it came to be.

  The words of the left’s prophets, as Rufo demonstrates, became the blueprint for societal change, for violent upheavals, and leftist control of institutions that will take a revolution to undo. In the first few chapters, for example, he goes into great detail discussing the demands and views of Herbert Marcuse, a German-born philosopher dubbed “the father of the revolution” who argued:

  “modern capitalist society had created the perfect means of repression, anesthetizing the working class with material comforts, manufactured desires, and welfare programs, which stabilized the system and allowed for the creation of external scapegoats.”

  The solution to this problem was nothing short of unrest and dissolution, through violence if necessary. It would require “the revolt of the affluent white intelligentsia, the radicalization of the black ‘ghetto population,’ the capture of public institutions, and the cultural repression of the opposition.”

  Rufo observes that “all of these objectives have been realized to some degree.” It’s hard to disagree with that assessment – especially considering how Rufo dedicates later chapters solidifying that point through discussions of the liberal domination of academia, the use of race as a means to target the American system as a whole, the far left’s long march (which can also be called a historically short march) through the institutions (including universities, local schools, business, and federal bureaucracies), and the increasingly accepted and forceful censorship and repression regimes, both public and private. In doing so, Rufo effectively makes the argument that for even those paying close attention, things might be worse than we thought, that the revolution we face is stronger than reported.

  His exposition on the evolution of revolutionary ideas is particularly compelling. By the time Rufo gets to discussing Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the later chapters, we have a better understanding of the originators, history, and vulnerabilities of basic elements to CRT. And Rufo provides necessary context, both in historical criticisms of CRT and his own accurate assessment of the movement:

  The elements of critical race theory are, in fact, a near-perfect transposition of race onto the basic structures of Marxist theory. “White supremacy” replaces “capitalism” as the totalizing system. “White and black” replaces “bourgeoisie and proletariat” as the “oppressor and oppressed.” “Abolition” replaces “revolution” as the method of “liberation.” This is not a mere metaphor or post hoc comparison. The critical race theorists appeal directly to Marxist theoreticians and the Marxist-Leninist figures of the black liberation movement.

  With this knowledge, Rufo is by all means qualified to discuss where the movement goes from here. He warns:

  This movement seeks to establish itself in every layer of the public and private administration, which will be refitted to advance the substitute morality of critical race theory and replace governance by the Constitution with governance by the bureaucracy. 

  He makes that warning with the understanding of what the movement wants, the answer to which is “found in the original literature of critical race theory”: the abandonment of equal justice under the law, the redistribution of wealth along racial lines, and the prohibition of speech that is considered harmful or hateful. But we think he makes that warning not just based on their words, but because he understands and respects their zealotry, their dedication, their patience, their resentment (another word for hatred), and the lengths they will go to accomplish their desires.

  As I read this book, I couldn’t help but ask whether this was always going to be the end result of liberalism or whether this is liberalism hijacked by its more radical elements. That’s not really a focus of the book (there are only so many pages), but it’s worthy to explore whether liberal democracy is authoritarian by its very nature and susceptible or predestined to adopting forms of fundamentalism to achieve its ends. Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed and Ryszard Legutko’s The Demon in Democracy are good places to start, if you’re interested in looking into those questions further.

  If there is a revolution, then consider this book to be part of the counter-revolution. In conclusion, Rufo concentrates on the response to the revolutionaries and the necessary elements of the opposition: hope, a fight against collectivism and racial reductionism, a fight for natural rights and the Constitution and individual dignity. The counter-revolution he proposes goes much further than vanquishing the far left and retaking the institutions. It requires decentralization, local control, self-governance, a system of government that protects the rights of the individual while scaling back its own authority. It’s not just an improvement. It’s a return.

  That seems ambitious in 2023. But so too were the revolutionary ideas of 1968.

  America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything is available for purchase through Amazon.

  Subscribe here to the reactionary.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 21:55

• Credit Scores Abruptly Plunge As Americans Stop Paying Down Debt; Synchrony Financial Warns
  Credit Scores Abruptly Plunge As Americans Stop Paying Down Debt; Synchrony Financial Warns

  Over the past few years, tens of millions of consumers witnessed a remarkable increase in their credit scores, primarily due to helicopter money dished out by the federal government, rock-bottom interest rates, and a pause on student-loan payments. However, the party has come to an abrupt end as credit scores plunge. 

  Bloomberg reports Synchrony Financial is closing inactive accounts and capping card limits for a number of clients as macroeconomic headwinds mount. 

  “What we are seeing is people who are doing significant score migration — a 680 or a 690 going to a 620,” Synchrony Financial CFO Brian Wenzel said in an interview. 

  Wenzel said, “Folks who had paid down debt, their scores had gone up, and now they’re reverting back to more normal performance.”

  

  The Stamford, Connecticut-based consumer financial services company hasn’t tightened underwriting standards for new accounts but is beginning to notice consumer stress 16 months into the Federal Reserve’s interest rate tightening cycle.

  Two years of an inflation storm has sent real wage growth to negative levels, forcing many consumers to drain personal savings and overutilize credit cards to make ends meet. We noted this in “Credit Card Debt Explodes At 2nd Fastest Pace On Record Just As Rates Hit All-Time High” and “Credit Card Debt Keeps Surging Even As Interest Rates Hit Record High.”

  Consumers have racked up record amounts of credit card debt while interest rates on these cards have surged to the highest level ever of around 21% on average. Surging debt loads and high rates make paying off outstanding balances even harder for some consumers. 

  A lower credit score means consumers will have increasing trouble qualifying for new credit lines, thus cutting off their lifelines. Perhaps that’s why we’ve seen a surge in Google searches for “pawn shop near me” as consumers pawn off items for quick loans. 

  Just wait until student-loan payments restart … this will crush consumers even more as millions must divert even more income into debt servicing payments. Maybe consumers are heading into a period of a balance sheet recession. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 21:35

• The Collapse Of The "Risk-Free" Delusion: Implications For The $133 Trillion Bond Market
  The Collapse Of The “Risk-Free” Delusion: Implications For The $133 Trillion Bond Market

  Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

  Did you know that 2022 was the WORST year for US Treasuries in American history?

  The benchmark 10-year Treasury fell nearly 18%, and the 30-year Treasury collapsed over 39%. Many other bonds did even worse.

  Even if you go back 250 years, you can’t find a worse year for Treasuries, the foundation of the colossal global bond market.

  It should forever end the ridiculous—yet pervasive—delusion that Treasuries are “risk-free.”

  Many people and almost every financial institution have long thoughtlessly accepted this trope.

  As a result, bonds in general—and Treasuries in particular—became the store-of-value asset of choice and the de facto savings account for savers and investors worldwide.

  Today, the global bond market has grown to be worth more than an estimated $133 trillion as the masses parked their savings there because conventional wisdom said it was the “safe” thing to do.

  By contrast, all the mined gold in the world is worth about $12.7 trillion, less than 10% of the bond market.

  It may be tempting to think the worst is over for bonds—it’s not. As you’ll see, the pain for bondholders is just starting.

  

  Although most don’t realize it yet, bonds will become a graveyard for capital. They will no longer be the “go-to” savings vehicle because they will no longer be a reliable store-of-value asset.

  I believe the opposite will be true; bonds will become a guaranteed way to lose value. Investors will flee them in droves.

  The implications of that are profound.

  If not bonds, where will people, companies, and nation states park their savings?

  Much of the value stored in the $133 trillion global bond market will move elsewhere—voluntarily to superior store-of-value assets or involuntarily to bankrupt governments and their cronies as they accelerate the largest wealth transfer in history.

  That is the Big Picture reality that most people don’t understand… yet.

  Until recently, bonds had been in a bull market that lasted more than 40 years. Therefore, it’s not surprising that complacency is ingrained and widespread.

  The Big Picture

  In the post-WWII era, Treasuries were a stable foundation for the global bond market as the US dollar reigned supreme as the world’s premier reserve currency.

  However, that foundation has rotted. It is on the path to collapse as the petrodollar system falls apart and a multipolar world order emerges.

  In short, the supply of Treasuries is increasing at an accelerating rate while there’s a shrinking number of suckers (i.e., buyers).

  The inevitable is imminent as the US government can no longer delay or disguise its impending bankruptcy.

  The US federal government has the biggest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace.

  Today, the US federal debt has gone parabolic and is over $32.5 TRILLION.

  To put that in perspective, if you earned $1 a second 24/7/365—about $31 million per year—it would take you over 1,029,860 YEARS to pay off the US federal debt.

  And that’s with the unrealistic assumption that it would stop growing.

  Observation #1: The US government can’t repay its debt. Default is inevitable.

  This isn’t exactly a revelation, but it’s important to remember.

  Therefore, the question is not whether the US government will default but how.

  When faced with a choice, politicians always choose the most expedient option. In this case, that means issuing more debt rather than making tough budget decisions or explicitly defaulting.

  Consider the recent debt ceiling farce, which raised the debt ceiling for the 105th time since 1944 to avoid an explicit default.

  Observation #2: It will not be an explicit default.

  In reality, there is no meaningful limit on the debt and spending.

  Congress is racing towards ever-increasing spending and debt now that they’ve normalized multitrillion-dollar deficits.

  Below is a chart of the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit projections for the next decade. These estimates will almost certainly be too rosy, as they often are.

  Even by the CBO’s optimistic projections, the US government will have a cumulative deficit of over $20 TRILLION for the next ten years that will have to be financed by issuing more Treasuries.

  

  Observation #3: The debt will continue to grow at an accelerating pace.

  Historically, there has been a vast foreign appetite for Treasuries, but not anymore.

  In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government has launched its most aggressive sanctions campaign ever.

  As part of this, the US government seized the Russian central bank’s reserves—the nation’s accumulated savings.

  It was a stunning illustration of the political risk associated with the US dollar and Treasuries. It showed that the US government could seize another sovereign country’s reserves at the flip of a switch.

  In short, the US dollar—and Treasuries—have become weaponized in a way they had not been before.

  In addition to being terrible investments, Treasuries are now clearly political tools for Washington to coerce others.

  There could even soon be “woke sanctions”…

  For example, the US government recently threatened to sanction Uganda over its LGBT policies, which means that countries’ domestic policies may make them targets of US sanctions.

  The rising political risk attached to Treasuries has made them even less attractive as a store of value. Many countries are undoubtedly wondering if the US government will seize their savings if they run afoul with Washington in even the most trivial ways.

  China is one of the largest holders of US Treasuries, and it indeed took note of what is happening. There’s little doubt that this is the reason China continues to dump Treasuries.

  Beijing has sold about 25% of its Treasuries since 2021, an enormous change in such a short period.

  Even US allies, like Japan, have cut their Treasury holdings.

  There are numerous other examples. The bottom line is that it’s clear the world isn’t hungry for US debt right now, at the moment when supply is exploding higher.

  

  Observation #4: Foreigners are not buying as many Treasuries.

  In the bond market, when demand for a bond falls, the interest rate rises to entice buyers and holders.

  However, it is worth noting that the amount of federal debt is so extreme that even a return of interest rates to their historical average would mean paying an interest expense that would consume more than half of tax revenues. Interest expense would eclipse Social Security and defense spending and become the largest item in the federal budget.

  In short, allowing interest rates to rise high enough to entice natural buyers would bankrupt the US government because of the higher interest costs.

  Observation #5: The US government cannot allow interest rates to rise much further.

  So, if higher interest rates cannot entice more buyers, who will finance these growing multi-trillion dollar budget deficits?

  The only entity capable is the Federal Reserve, which buys Treasuries with dollars it creates out of thin air.

  Observation #6: The Federal Reserve is the only significant buyer of Treasuries stepping up, which means currency debasement.

  Here’s the bottom line.

  The US government can’t pay off its debt.

  They won’t explicitly default.

  They can’t entice a meaningful amount of new Treasury buyers by allowing interest rates to rise much higher.

  Then what can they do?

  Financial repression is their only practical option… and it will devastate bondholders.

  It could all go down soon… and it won’t be pretty.

  It will result in an enormous wealth transfer from savers to the parasitical class—politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them.

  Countless millions throughout history were wiped out financially—or worse—during periods of profound change because they failed to see the correct Big Picture and take appropriate action.

  Don’t be one of them.

  That’s exactly why I just released an urgent new report with all the details, including what you must do to prepare. It’s called, The Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years… the Top 3 Strategies You Need Right Now. Click here to download the PDF now.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 21:15

• 'No Way To Escape Haze': Canadian Wildfire Smoke Pours Into North Florida While African Dust Approaches From South
  ‘No Way To Escape Haze’: Canadian Wildfire Smoke Pours Into North Florida While African Dust Approaches From South

  On Wednesday, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted down to North Florida, coinciding with Saharan dust approaching South Florida. 

  Mike Boylan of Mike’s Weather Page first pointed this out as “there’s no escape from the haze” for Flordia. 

  “Crazy weather today, Wednesday… especially for Florida. Canadian wildfire smoke has made it south. And African dust has made it west. Both can be seen on AM satellite here,” Boylan tweeted. 

  

  Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel once called Mike’s Weather Page a “one-stop shop” for the latest tropical updates. Data on the site shows the National Hurricane Center predicts a 20% chance of cyclone formation in the next seven days in the Atlantic Basin. 

  

  Other tropical activity shows Tropical Storm Don swirling in the Atlantic and expected to remain at tropical-storm strength through the weekend as it approaches the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. 

  

  In the Central Pacific, Gov. Josh Green declared a state of emergency as Tropical Storm Calvin battered Hawaii’s Big Island. 

  

  In the Lower 48, an unrelenting heat dome roasts tens of millions of people from California to Florida. 

  

  The good news is that 5,10,30-year average temperatures for the Lower 48 plateau on a seasonal basis. However, forecasts show average temperatures across the US could rise to as high as 85 degrees Fahrenheit by next Friday, with the possibility of cooler temps into early August. 

  

  Rather than blaming global warming solely on human activities, like billionaires flying around on private jets and sailing on mega yachts, readers must consider the El Nino weather pattern is a significant contributor to the warm spell gripping the planet. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 20:55

• The Django Syndrome: What The Latest Racist Attacks On Clarence Thomas Say About Our Rage Politics
  The Django Syndrome: What The Latest Racist Attacks On Clarence Thomas Say About Our Rage Politics

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  In July 1991, Clarence Thomas, a relatively unknown D.C. Circuit judge, was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall on the United States Supreme Court.

  Thomas soon found out that the only thing more perilous than replacing a historical icon on the Court is replacing a liberal with a conservative.

  Thomas would become an icon in his own right for conservatives: an unyielding defender of textualism and conservative jurisprudence. Yet, liberals seem more preoccupied by his race than his rigidity. This week, a leading Democrat, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison unleashed another openly racist attack on Thomas and neither the media nor the political establishment condemned the remarks.

  

  Ellison condemned Thomas as a house slave working for white people, analogizing him to the vile character “Stephen,” played by Samuel L. Jackson in the film “Django Unchained.” (Jackson himself called Thomas “Uncle Clarence” after the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade). Ellison added that, because he disagreed with Thomas’ conservative opinions, the justice is “illegitimate” and “needs to be impeached.”

  That is, of course, nonsensical from a constitutional standpoint. However, what was most striking is the response to statements. The racist attack from the top lawyer in the state of Minnesota was not condemned by a single democrat.

  Not Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who previously falsely declared that hate speech is not constitutionally protected under the First Amendment and declared himself a champion against bigotry and racist rhetoric.

  Not from senior Senator Amy Klubuchar, who has repeatedly denounced racist tropes and rhetoric of Republicans.

  Not from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who rightfully condemned the comments of Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville on white nationalism but made no comment on a racist attack of Thomas in the same week.

  Not from President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly denounced racial rhetoric and “codes” by Republicans.

  Indeed, the day that Ellison’s comments were being aired nationally, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went to the press room to denounce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at length for his statements suggesting that Covid-19 may have been engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people. Jean-Pierre declared that “it is important that we essentially speak out” when such racist or anti-Semitic comments are made, but then made no mention of the racist attack on Thomas as nothing more than a house slave.

  Thomas knew that being a conservative black jurist would not be easy when he was nominated for the bench. Thomas replaced Robert Bork on the D.C. Circuit. Bork was also savagely attacked when he was nominated for the Court. Indeed, “borked” is now a term of art for destroying nominees in the confirmation process.

  Thomas’ confirmation became a battle royale after Anita Hill accused him of of sexual harassment. What followed was famously described by Thomas as “a high tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas.”

  The attacks on Thomas would never end. His very presence on the Court seemed to disgust liberals who made continual reference to his race. One Democratic legislator on the Georgia Senate floor called him an  “Uncle Tom” who “sold his soul to the slave master.”

  The Smithsonian’s African American museum even skipped over Thomas in its selection of great African Americans at its opening despite being the second African-American appointed to the highest court.

  (His Senate confirmation-hearing accuser, Anita Hill, did make the cut.)

  It was only after a public outcry that the Smithsonian relented to include Thomas.

  The media has been unrelenting in its hostile and one-sided coverage of Thomas. While running gushing pieces heralding the backgrounds of liberal justices, there has been a virtual news blackout on Thomas’ amazing life story, one of the truly most inspirational accounts of overcoming every possible obstacle in life.

  Thomas was born on the Georgia coast in Pin Point, Georgia and grew up speaking Gullah, the creole dialect. He was raised in a one-room shack with dirt floors, no plumbing, and no Dad.  When he was eventually sent to a Catholic school, he had to learn to read and write in English. He overcame segregation and prejudice to eventually go to Holy Cross and then was offered admission to Yale, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools. He would become the chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1982, a federal appellate judge, and the second African American to join the Court.

  Few of these critics could have walked the path of this man from Pin Point to Capitol Hill. He did so by being his own man — relying on his faith and his intellect to face seemingly insurmountable barriers before him.

  Some 32 years ago, Thomas objected to the treatment of an “uppity black” jurist who thinks for himself. Others have made the case for him. For years, commentators have singled out Thomas for his race among the conservative majority. Now, in the face of yet another raw and racist attacks, the political and media establishment is again silent.

  Ironically, the thing that made Stephen hate Django in the movie was that he would not yield to the demands of the white owners. Django defiantly admitted that he was “that one [black man] in ten thousand.” For the liberal establishment, Thomas was a threat because others might emulate him. That is why other black leaders like Sen. Tim Scott from South Carolina have faced continual racist tropes from the left, including a Maryland Delegate Gabriel Acevero stating that “Tim Scott isn’t naive, he’s cooning” to please white people.

  The bitter irony is that Thomas is the antithesis of the Stephen character. He has always refused to yield to the demands of others on how he should think as a jurist due to his race.

  The attacks are meant to chill others from even considering conservative or libertarian views. Ellison has long valued intimidation as a political weapon. He previously praised the ultra-violent group Antifa as useful to “strike fear in the heart” of Trump and Republicans.

  Of course, Django is all about righteous rage as a license for the most extreme actions.

  That is why Ellison may have had the right movie, but the wrong character. Call it the Django syndrome. When you are “one in ten thousand” who refuses to yield, you become not simply an annoyance but an obsession.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 20:35

• "Like A Bomb Went Off": Pfizer Plant In North Carolina Destroyed By Tornado
  “Like A Bomb Went Off”: Pfizer Plant In North Carolina Destroyed By Tornado

  Dramatic footage posted on Twitter shows the aftermath of a tornado that ripped through a massive Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina on Wednesday, scattering “50,000 pallets of medicine” across the property.

  Pfizer told local media outlet ABC 11 that a twister damaged its Rocky Mount manufacturing space that sits on 250 acres in Eastern North Carolina. 

  “We are assessing the situation to determine the impact on production.

  “Our thoughts are with our colleagues, our patients, and the community as we rebuild from this weather incident,” the company said.

  According to the company’s website, the Rocky Mount plant is “one of the largest sterile injectable facilities in the world.” Here’s a list of medical devices produced at the plant: 

  At this facility, a wide range of products are produced, including anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives and neuromuscular blockers. These products are available in small volume presentations, such as ampules, vials and syringes, and large volume presentations, such as IV bags and semi-rigid bottles.

  One Pfizer employee told ABC 11 that the twister wreaked havoc on the facility for 60 to 90 seconds. He said the tornado sounded “like a bomb went off.” 

  Footage of the damaged plant was posted on Twitter. 

  Pfizer building destroyed by a tornado in North Carolina. 50,000 pallets of medicines destroyed.😳

  🔊

  pic.twitter.com/HP5KSLdEpq

  — Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) July 19, 2023

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

  There’s no word if products related to sterile injectables will be in short supply.

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 20:15

• Bumps Appear In Surfing's Gender Equality Wave
  Bumps Appear In Surfing’s Gender Equality Wave

  Authored by Nicole James via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Feminist surfer Lucy Small has just won a battle in her fight for equality. She has announced that the Kirra Longboard Klassic event now added a women’s division with equal prize money after initially erasing the division.

  

  Ms. Small is continuing to have to battle for equality in surf competitions. The fight to surf is becoming increasingly difficult as seen after the open women’s division was dumped from The Kirra Longboard Klassic starting on July 29 on the Gold Coast.

  After being told that the prize pool of $5,500 (US$3,700) could not be split, Ms. Small hijacked the competition by organising for 15 of the 16 spots to be filled by women. She then persuaded the last entry to show solidarity with the girls and give up his spot.

  Her efforts were successful in the recreation of the women’s event even though the director of the Kirra Longboard Klassic, Sean McKeown told the ABC, “The girls are not particularly good. There’s only a few of them in Australia that are really good at high performance.”

  He went on to say, “I don’t think it’ll be quite as good a spectacle.”

  Surf competitions make their money often via the number of people they attract and thus with the heightened hype around this division, the spectacle may be particularly worth watching and thus generate larger crowds than in previous years.

  Steve Del Rosso, the sponsor of the open division, gave his opinion on social media about this attention.

  “If I thought or knew this was going to happen, I would not of been any part of it, Lucy. It was never in my intention to have anything like this happen. Or to have this reaction as all I was trying to do was honour an old mate,” he said. “I definitely won’t be sponsoring any more events now. As this was the last thing I needed.”

  Series of Steps

  Ms. Small is no stranger to publicity. After winning the Curly Mal Jam Pro Longboard competition in April 2021, she received $1,500 compared to the male prize of $4,000.

  Ms. Small’s victory speech went viral. She said winning was bittersweet because her performance was worth less than half of her male counterpart. She gained a lot of support after this speech with Global Surf Industries to pay the difference in prize money.

  Yet the battle had just begun.

  Ms. Small submitted a petition to the New South Wales (NSW) parliament calling for gender equality in sports to be enshrined in law as it is in the U.S., who had introduced an “equal pay for equal play” law in 2019. It is now illegal to pay men and women a different amount in Californian athletic events.

  The World Surf League also mandated equal prize money in 2020 at top-level competitions.

  In Australia, local government motions have now been passed in regards to “equal pay for equal play”, and in Victoria, local councils must show equal access to government funding applications for sporting facilities.

  The publicity Ms. Small has created has seen Surfing NSW make it mandatory for affiliated clubs to offer women equal prize money.

  The Surfing Australia 2023 rule book also now states, “In surfing competitions where there is prize money allocated, we require equal prize money and investment for both Women and Men’s surfing divisions.”

  Although in May this year, the equal pay mandate was broken by the Noosa Malibu Club, with the male open division winner receiving $718 and the women’s open division winner receiving $505. This resulted in Surfing Australia issuing the club with a “first and final warning.”

  Ms. Small’s campaigning has been recognised by a nomination at the Australian Surfing Awards.

  While not winning this award, Ms. Small has garnered a support base across a number of sports, including surfing’s Mick Fanning and Stephanie Gilmore, Chloe (AFLW), Alicia Eva (AFLW), Kalindi Commerford (Hockey), Matilda McDonell (netball), and Brandon Jack (AFL).

  Ms. Small is continuing her campaigning for female surfers and their conditions with her recently made film, Yama.

  The documentary offers a view of Ghana’s flourishing surf and skate scene and the conditions under which West African women practice.

  Yama dates are coming soon to Australia. For an update visit https://www.yama-film.com/watch

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 19:55

• US General Mark Milley Claims Ukraine Counter Offensive 'Far From Failure'
  US General Mark Milley Claims Ukraine Counter Offensive ‘Far From Failure’

  It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Ukraine is nothing more than a sacrificial proxy pawn in a global game of chess, with NATO consistently misrepresenting the ongoing collapse of the Ukrainian military’s defensive posture.  The government bombardment of the American public with war propaganda is far more impressive than any bombardment that Ukraine has engaged in the past few weeks.   

  On Tuesday the Washington Post reported that US officials are piling the pressure on Ukraine to make a breakthrough against Russian forces, following weeks of bleak headlines.  At the same time, US General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the media that the Ukraine counter offensive was ‘far from failure’ but will be ‘long and bloody.’  

  It is hard to tell if this rhetoric is for the benefit of the American populace or if it is designed to give false optimism to Ukrainians, but the counter-offensive is now officially a month old and NATO backed forces have gained a mere 35 square miles of ground along a massive 930 mile front line.  By every measure of military doctrine, this constitutes a scrapped offensive. 

  Vladimir Putin argued this exact point this week, with Russia looking far less unstable than the western media has been suggesting.  Putin also commented on the US shipments of cluster bomb munitions to Ukraine which he says would force Russia to escalate to the use of similar weapons.

  To look at the situation in Ukraine from a purely strategic perspective outside of political goggles, there is no longer any momentum for NATO efforts in the region.  Any suggestion otherwise is simply disinformation.  In the meantime, Russia can continue to hold the ground it has already gained while preparing for further incursion (if that is their intent).  The US and European population has shown minimal interest in engaging in a ground war with Russia, which leaves only monetary support and weapons support.  Without an influx of new troops, Ukraine will lose.

  It may be time for NATO to accept this inevitability and shift to a diplomatic solution.  Further escalation only draws the world closer to a catastrophic outcome.      

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 19:35

• Taiwan Says It Detected A Record 16 Chinese Warships Around Island
  Taiwan Says It Detected A Record 16 Chinese Warships Around Island

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  China sent a record number of warships around Taiwan in a single day last week, topping a previous high set when the Chinese military responded to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in August 2022, The South China Morning Post reported.

  The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said that it detected 16 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ships operating around Taiwan on Friday, although it’s not clear how close they came to the island. After Pelosi’s visit, the PLA sent 14 vessels around the island for drills that simulated a blockade.

  

  In April, when Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with the current House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, China also conducted large-scale exercises around Taiwan and sent 12 PLA warships to the area.

  Major Chinese military exercises around Taiwan are typically done in response to actions the US takes with respect to Taiwan, and Washington has continued to boost ties with Taipei despite Beijing’s position.

  It’s not clear if there was a single event that sparked the PLA’s decision to send 16 warships around the island.

  Global Times, a Chinese state media outlet, mentioned that the PLA warship activity came as the House passed its version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes provisions to boost military ties with Taiwan, and after NATO issued a communiqué at its summit in Vilnius that took aim at China.

  China is war gaming an amphibious assault on Taiwan.

  – Ongoing, unannounced major military exercises
  – 16 warships encircled Taiwan, a single day record, & 100+ in July
  – Northern & Southern Theater forces participate
  – 250 sorties with fighter jets & bombers

  Latest updates 👇 pic.twitter.com/grBHqB5XUI

  — Ian Ellis (@ianellisjones) July 16, 2023

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

  Taiwanese media said the record number of Chinese warships came after a few days of steady PLA activity around Taiwan.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 19:15

• Wheat Prices Soar As Russia Considers Ships Heading To Ukraine As "Carriers Of Military Cargo"
  Wheat Prices Soar As Russia Considers Ships Heading To Ukraine As “Carriers Of Military Cargo”

  Wheat futures jumped Wednesday morning after Russia’s defense ministry released a memo on Telegram indicating all vessels sailing to Ukraine ports in the waters of the Black Sea will be “regarded as potential carriers of military cargo” beginning on Thursday. 

  “In connection with the cessation of the functioning of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the сlosing of the maritime humanitarian corridor, from 00.00 Moscow time on 20 July 2023, all vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo,” the defense ministry said. 

  The ministry continued: 

  • Accordingly, the countries of such vessels will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kiev regime.

  • In addition, a number of sea areas in the north-western and south-eastern parts of the international waters of the Black Sea have been declared temporarily dangerous for navigation. Corresponding information warnings on the withdrawal of safety guarantees to mariners have been issued in accordance with the established procedure.

  Following the defense ministry’s new warning, coupled with the termination of the Black Sea Grain deal earlier this week, wheat futures in Chicago soared 9% on Wednesday morning in Chicago. 

  

  Terminating the grain deal will only bring higher food costs and shortages for countries that import agricultural products from Ukraine. 

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 18:55

• Shrinkflation: You're Paying More And Getting Less
  Shrinkflation: You’re Paying More And Getting Less

  Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

  We are all keenly aware of price inflation. We notice those rising prices every time we go into a store. But the inflation boogeyman is hitting you even harder than you realize.

  Not only are you paying more for pretty much everything you buy, you’re getting less.

  

  Literally.

  It’s called shrinkflation.

  Rising prices don’t just hit consumers. In fact, they impact producers first. As the cost of materials, labor and equipment goes up, companies feel the pinch. Eventually, they pass those costs on to their customers.

  But raising prices is bad for business, so sometimes, companies find other ways to cut costs. They shrink packages or simply put less stuff in the same size box. While the price stays the same, you get less product.

  Shrinkflation doesn’t show up in the CPI and consumers often don’t even notice, but the effect is the same as rising prices. You ultimately end up with less stuff. It is ninja inflation.

  “Downsizing is really a sneaky price increase,”  former Massachusetts assistant attorney general Greg Dworsky told NPR during an interview.

  “Consumers tend to be price-conscious. But they’re not net-weight conscious. They can tell instantly if they’re used to paying $2.99 for a carton of orange juice and that goes up to $3.19. But if the orange juice container goes from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, they’re probably not going to notice.”

  MousePrint.org chronicles shrinkflation. Here are some recent examples.

  • Double rolls of Bounty paper towels have shrunk from 98 select-a-size sheets to just 90. Triple rolls were downsized from 147 select-a-size sheets per roll to 135.

  • The standard 92-ounce bottle of Gain detergent is now 88 ounces.

  • A family-size bags of Double Stuf Oreos now have four fewer cookies in each bag. (Did the family shrink?)

  • The 19.4-ounce bottle was downsized to 18 ounces.

  • A package of Sara Lee blueberry bagels was reduced from five to four bagels as the package weight dropped by 3.3 ounces.

  • Green Giant frozen broccoli and cheese sauce packages were reduced from 10.0 oz. to 8.0 oz. with no change in the advertised number of servings per package.

  • Ice cream companies have generally dropped the standard 56-ounce container to 48 ounces.

  • A tube of Crest Detoxify toothpaste dropped from 4.1 ounces to 3.7 ounces.

  • Kettle potato chips switched from 8.5-oz. bags to 7.5-oz. bags.

  • A package of Ortega taco shells dropped from 5.8 ounces to 4.9 ounces.

  We also see shrinkflation in services. Remember full-service gas stations? Now, we pump our own gas, bag our own groceries and manage our own investment portfolios.

  Misplaced Blame

  Consumers often don’t notice shrinkflation, but when they do, they get angry, and they usually direct their anger at the “greedy” corporations who are charging them the same amount of money for less product. But there is another culprit who generally slinks around unnoticed.

  The Federal Reserve.

  Price inflation is a symptom of monetary inflation. As the central bank creates money out of thin air and injects it into the economy, prices generally rise. Economist Murray Rothbard noted that since governments have deemed “paper tickets” and computer digits money, “then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this ‘inflation’ of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.”

  Companies are merely responding to their own cost problem when they shrink package sizes. If they didn’t, they would have to raise the price. And that would make you mad too!

  When it’s all said and done, you end up paying more and getting less.

  Ron Paul summed it up this way.

  Congress should also restore a sound monetary policy by auditing, then ending, the Fed, as well as by repealing both legal tender laws and capital gains taxes on precious metals and cryptocurrencies. Ending the era of the welfare-warfare state and fiat currency can lead to a transition to a new era of liberty, peace, prosperity — and full bags of Doritos.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 18:35

• Scandal-Plagued Stanford President Resigns After Review Finds 'Significant Flaws' In Studies He Ran
  Scandal-Plagued Stanford President Resigns After Review Finds ‘Significant Flaws’ In Studies He Ran

  The president of Stanford University has resigned after an independent review of his prior research found ‘significant flaws’ in studies he supervised going back decades.

  

  Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced on Wednesday that he would resign as president of Stanford after the review, conducted by an outside panel of scientists, found that an important 2009 Alzheimer’s study contained “multiple problems,” and “fell below customary standards of scientific rigor and process,” but that it did not include falsified data which Tessier-Lavigne then covered up.

  The panel concluded that the claims, published in February by The Stanford Daily, the campus newspaper, “appear to be mistaken” and that there was no evidence of falsified data or that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had otherwise engaged in fraud.

  As a result of the review, Dr. Tessier-Lavigne said he would retract a 1999 paper that appeared in the journal Cell and two others that appeared in Science in 2001. Two other papers published in Nature, including the 2009 Alzheimer’s study, would also undergo what was described as comprehensive correction. –NY Times

  Following the Stanford Daily’s initial report about manipulated studies last November, the college’s board formed a special committee, led by former federal prosecutor Carol Lam, to review the claims. The committee then engaged former Illinois federal judge Mark Filip, and his law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, to conduct the review.

  “I expect there may be ongoing discussion about the report and its conclusions, at least in the near term, which could lead to debate about my ability to lead the university into the new academic year,” said Tessier-Lavigne in a statement describing his reasons for resigning.

  The university has named Richard Saller – a professor of European studies, as interim president, effective Sept. 1.

  The panel’s report, which is 89-pages long, was based on more than 50 interviews and a review of more than 50,000 documents which concluded that members of Tessier-Lavigne’s labs engaged in inappropriate manipulation of research data or deficient scientific practices which resulted in significant flaws in five papers which listed Tessier-Lavigne as the lead author, the Times reports.

  The panel found that in many instances, he took insufficient steps to correct mistakes, including the 2009 Alzheimer’s paper after subsequent studies revealed that its key finding was incorrect.

  The accusations had first surfaced years ago on PubPeer, an online crowdsourcing site for publishing and discussing scientific work. But they resurfaced after the student newspaper, The Stanford Daily, published a series of articles questioning the accuracy and honesty of work produced in laboratories overseen by Dr. Tessier-Lavigne.

  The newspaper first reported claims last November that images were manipulated in published papers listing Dr. Tessier-Lavigne as either lead author or co-author.

  In February, the campus newspaper published an article with more serious claims of fraud involving the 2009 paper that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne published while a senior scientist at Genentech. -NY Times

  The panel found that claims by the Stanford Daily that “Genentech had conducted a fraud investigation and made a finding of fraud,” was “mistaken,” and that no such investigation had been conducted.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/19/2023 – 18:15