• Belarusian Forces Conduct Landing & Assault Drills Near Polish Border
  Belarusian Forces Conduct Landing & Assault Drills Near Polish Border

  Via Remix News,

  Belarusian soldiers are engaged in exercises near Brest, including parachute and landing operations…

  

  The Belarusian Ministry of Defense has confirmed that a five-day training exercise for land and assault forces is being conducted in Brest, a city in southwest Belarus on the Polish border.

  It is understood that officers have already practiced parachute landings and embarked on a 15-kilometer march in the region. The training area is just a few kilometers from the Bug River on the border between Poland and Belarus.

  A month ago, the training site near Brest was also used by the Wagner Group mercenaries. This too was acknowledged by the Belarusian defense ministry. 

  

  Source: Telegram/Belarusian Ministry of Defense.

  The Polish authorities are monitoring the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border very closely, and the Polish government announced measures last week to ramp up security in the region.

  The Border Guard is being supported by the army following the incident in which two Belarusian helicopters entered Polish air space.

  “We are increasing the number of our troops on the Polish-Belarusian border; eventually, 10,000 soldiers will defend the Polish border in this sector,” Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told Polish Radio last Thursday.

  Belarus has also announced its intention to engage in joint military exercises with China.

  The Chinese defense minister has been in Minsk for talks on deepening military cooperation between the two countries. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/21/2023 – 02:00

• Escobar: Central Asia Is The Prime Battlefield In The New Great Game
  Escobar: Central Asia Is The Prime Battlefield In The New Great Game

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  So long as Russia and China remain the region’s dominant political and economic powers, the Central Asian heartland will remain a US and EU target for threats, bribes, and color revolutions…

  

  The historical Heartland – or Central Eurasia – already is, and will continue to be, the prime battlefield in the New Great Game, fought between the United States and the China-Russia strategic partnership.  

  The original Great Game pitted the British and Russian empires in the late 19th century, and in fact, never got away: it just metastasized into the US-UK entente versus the USSR, and, subsequently, the US-EU versus Russia. 

  According to the Mackinder-designed geopolitical game conceptualized by imperial Britain back in 1904, The Heartland is the proverbial “pivot of History,” and its re-energized 21st century historical role is as relevant as in centuries ago: a key driver of emerging multipolarity.    

  So it’s no wonder all major powers are at work in the Heartland/Central Eurasia: China, Russia, US, EU, India, Iran, Turkiye, and to a lesser extent, Japan. Four out of five Central Asian “stans” are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. And some, like Kazakhstan, may soon become members of BRICS+.   

  The key direct geopolitical clash for influence across the Heartland pits the US against Russia and China on myriad political, economic, and financial fronts.   

  The imperial modus operandi privileges – what else – threats and ultimatums. Only four months ago, US emissaries from the State Department, Treasury, and Office of Foreign Affairs Control (OFAC) toured the Heartland bearing a whole package of “gifts,” as in blatant or thinly disguised threats. The key message: if you “help” or even trade with Russia in any way, you will be slapped with secondary sanctions. 

  Informal conversations with businesses in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand and Bukhara and contacts in Kazakhstan reveal a pattern: Everyone seems to be aware that the Americans will go no holds barred to hold the Heartland/Central Asia at gunpoint. 

  Kings of the Ancient Silk Roads

  There’s hardly a more relevant place across the Heartland to observe the current power play than Samarkand, the fabled “Rome of the East.” Here we are in the heart of ancient Sogdiana – the historical trade crossroads between China, India, Parthia, and Persia, an immensely important node of East-West cultural trends, Zoroastrianism, and pre/post-Islamic vectors. 

  From the 4th century to the 8th century, it was the Sogdians who monopolized the caravan trade between East Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia, transporting silk, cotton, gold, silver, copper, weaponry, aromas, furs, carpets, clothes, ceramics, glass, porcelain, ornaments, semi-precious stones, mirrors. Wily Sogdian merchants used protection from nomadic dynasties to solidify trade between China and Byzantium. 

  The meritocratic Chinese elite, which reasons in terms of very long historical cycles, is very much aware of all of the above: that’s a key driver behind the New Silk Roads concept, officially known as BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), as announced nearly 10 years ago by President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan. Beijing plans to reconnect with its Western neighbors as the necessary pathway towards increased pan-Eurasian trade and connectivity.         

  Beijing and Moscow have complementary focuses when it comes to relations with the Heartland – always under the principle of strategic cooperation. Both have been engaged in regional security and economic cooperation with Central Asia since 1998. Established in 2001, the SCO is an actual product of the Russia-China common strategy as well as a platform for non-stop dialogue with the Heartland.  

  How different Central Asian “stans” react to it is a multi-level issue.

  • Tajikistan, for instance, economically fragile and heavily dependent on the Russian market as a provider of cheap labor, officially keeps an “open door” policy to every sort of cooperation, including with the west.         

  • Kazakhstan and the US have established a Strategic Partnership Council (their last meeting was late last year).

  • Uzbekistan and the US have a “strategic partnership dialogue,” set up in late 2021. American business presence is very much visible in Tashkent, via an imposing trade center, not to mention Coke and Pepsi in every Uzbek village corner shop. 

  The EU tries to keep up, especially in Kazakhstan, where over 30 percent of foreign trade ($39 billion) and investments ($12.5 billion) come from Europe. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev – extremely popular for opening up the country five years ago – nabbed $9 billion in trade deals when he visited Germany three months ago. 

  Since the inception of the Chinese BRI a decade ago, the EU, by comparison, invested around $120 billion across the Heartland: not too shabby (40 percent of total foreign investment), but still below Chinese commitments.    

  What is Turkiye really up to? 

  The imperial focus in the Heartland is predictably Kazakhstan, because of its vast oil and gas resources. US-Kazakh trade represents 86 percent of all American trade with Central Asia, which was an unimpressive $3.8 billion last year. Compare that figure with only 7 percent of US trade with Uzbekistan. 

  It’s fair to argue that most of these four Central Asian “stans” in the SCO practice “multifaceted diplomacy,” trying not to attract unwanted imperial ire. Kazakhstan, for its part, goes for “balanced diplomacy”: that’s part of its Concept of Foreign Policy 2014-2020. 

  In a sense, Astana’s new motto expresses some continuity with the previous one, “multi-vector diplomacy,” established during the nearly three-decade rein of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan, under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is a member of the SCO, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), and BRI, but at the same time, must be on 24/7 alert to imperial machinations. After all, it was Moscow and prompt intervention by the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that saved Tokayev from a color revolution attempt in early 2022. 

  The Chinese, for their part, invest in a collective approach, solidified, for instance, in high-profile meetings such as the China-Central Asia 5+1 Summit, held only 3 months ago. 

  Then there’s the extremely curious case of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), formerly Turkic Council, which unites Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and three Central Asian “stans,” Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. 

  This OTS’ overarching aim is to “promote comprehensive cooperation among Turkic-speaking states.” Not much in practice is visible across the Heartland, apart from the odd billboard promoting Turkish products. A visit to the secretariat in Istanbul in the spring of 2022 did not exactly yield solid answers, apart from vague references to “projects on economy, culture, education, transport,” and, more significantly, customs. 

  Last November, in Samarkand, the OTS signed an agreement “on the establishment of a simplified customs corridor.” It’s too early to tell whether this would be able to foment a sort of mini-Turkiye Silk Road across the Heartland.  

  Still, it’s enlightening to keep an eye on what they may come up with next. Their charter privileges “developing common positions on foreign policy issues,” “coordinating actions to combat international terrorism, separatism, extremism, and cross-border crimes,” and creating “favorable conditions for trade and investment.”

  Turkmenistan – the idiosyncratic Central Asian “stan” which vehemently insists on its absolute geopolitical neutrality – happens to be an OTS observer state. Also as eye-catching is a Center of Nomadic Civilizations based in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. 

  Solving the Russian-Heartland riddle 

  Western sanctions against Russia have ended up profiting quite a few Heartland players. Because Central Asia’s economies are closely linked to Russia, exports skyrocketed  – as much, by the way, as imports from Europe. 

  Quite a few EU companies resettled in the Heartland after leaving Russia – with the corresponding process of selected Central Asian tycoons buying Russian assets. In parallel, because of the Russian troop mobilization drive, arguably tens of thousands of relatively wealthy Russians moved to the Heartland, while an extra lot of Central Asian workers found new jobs, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  

  Last year, for instance, remittances to Uzbekistan shot up to a hefty $16.9 billion: 85 percent of this (about $14.5 billion) came from workers in Russia. According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, economies across the Heartland will grow by a healthy 5.2 percent in 2023 and 5.4 percent in 2024.

  That economic boost is plainly visible in Samarkand: The city is a giant construction – and restoration – site today. Impeccably new, wide boulevards are springing up everywhere, complete with lush green landscaping, flowers, fountains, and wide sidewalks, all sparkling clean. No vagrants, no homeless, no crackheads. Visitors from decaying western metropolises are absolutely stunned.    

  In Tashkent, the Uzbek government is building a vast, stunning Center of Islamic Civilization, heavily focused on pan-Eurasia business. 

  There’s no question the key geopolitical vector all across the Heartland is the relationship with Russia. Russian remains the lingua franca in every sphere of life. 

  Let’s start with Kazakhstan, which shares an enormous 7,500 km-long border with Russia (yet there are no border disputes). Back in the USSR, the five Central Asian “stans” were, in fact, denominated “Central Asia and Kazakhstan,” because a large part of Kazakhstan lies in the south of West Siberia, and close to Europe. Kazakhstan sees itself as quintessentially Eurasian – it is no wonder that since the Nazarbayev years, Astana privileges Eurasia integration. 

  Last year, at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Tokayev told Russian President Vladimir Putin, in person, that Astana would not recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Kazakh diplomats keep stressing they can’t afford to have the country as a gateway to bypass Western sanctions – although, in the shadows, that’s what happens in many cases. 

  Kyrgyzstan, for its part, canceled the CSTO “Strong Brotherhood-2022” joint military exercises scheduled for October last year – it is worth mentioning that the problem in this case was not Russia, but a border issue with Tajikistan.

  Putin has proposed to establish a Russia-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan gas union. As it stands, nothing has happened, and may not happen. 

  All these must be considered as minor setbacks. Last year, Putin visited all five Central Asian “stans” for the first time in quite a while. Mirroring China, they held a 5+1 summit also for the first time. Russian diplomats and businessmen ply Heartland roads full-time. And let’s not forget that the presidents of all five Central Asian “stans” were themselves present in the Red Square parade in Moscow on Victory Day last May. 

  Russian diplomacy knows everything there is to know about the major imperial obsession to extract the Central Asian “stans” from Russian influence. 

  That goes way beyond the official US Central Asia Strategy 2019-2025 – and it has reached hysteria status after the US humiliation in Afghanistan and the impending NATO humiliation in Ukraine.  

  On the crucial energy front, very few remember today that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, then reduced to TAP (India pulled out), was a priority of the American (italics mine) New Silk Road, concocted at the State Department and sold by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011. 

  Nothing practical happened with that pie in the sky. What the Americans did manage to do, recently, was to scotch the development of a competitor, the Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline, by forcing Islamabad to cancel it, in the wake of the whole lawfare scandal designed to eliminate former Premier Imran Khan from Pakistan’s political life. 

  Still, the TAPI-IP Pipelineistan saga is far from over. With Afghanistan free from US occupation, Russia’s Gazprom, as well as Chinese firms, are very much interested in participating in the construction of TAPI: The pipeline would be a strategic BRI node, linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the crossroads between Central and South Asia. 

  The ‘alien’ collective west

  As much as Russia is – and will continue to be – a known currency all across the Heartland, the Chinese model is unsurpassed as a sustainable development example capable of inspiring an array of indigenous Central Asian solutions.  

  In contrast, what does the Empire have to offer? In a nutshell: Divide and Rule, via its localized terror minions such as ISIS-Khorasan, instrumentalized to foment political destabilization in the weakest Central Asian nodes, from the Ferghana valley to the Afghan-Tajik border, for instance.  

  The multiple challenges facing the Heartland have been discussed in detail in meetings such as the Valdai Central Asian Conference.

   Valdai Club expert Rustam Khaydarov may have coined the most concise appraisal of West-Heartland relations:

  “The collective West is alien to us both in terms of culture and worldview. There is not a single phenomenon or event, or element of modern culture, which could serve as the basis for a relationship and rapprochement between the US and European Union on the one hand and Central Asia on the other. Americans and Europeans have no idea about the culture and mentality or traditions of the peoples of Central Asia, so they could not and will not be able to interact with us. Central Asia does not view economic prosperity in conjunction with the liberal democracy of the West, which is essentially an alien concept to the countries of the region.” 

  Considering this scenario, and in the context of a New Great Game that is becoming increasingly incandescent by the day, it’s no wonder that some Heartland diplomatic circles are very much interested in a closer integration of Central Asia into BRICS+. That’s something bound to be discussed at the BRICS summit in South Africa next week. 

  The strategic formula reads like Russia + Central Asia + South Asia + Africa + Latin America – yet another instance of “Global Globe” (to quote Lukashenko) integration. It may all start with Kazakhstan becoming the first Heartland nation accepted as a member of BRICS+. 

  After that, all the world is a stage for the re-energized Return of the Heartland in transportation, logistics, energy, trade, manufacturing, investment, infotech, culture, and – last but not least, in the spirit of the Silk Roads, old and new – “people to people’s exchanges”. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/21/2023 – 00:00

• China's Shadow Bank Crisis Stokes Fear Of Housing Spillover
  China’s Shadow Bank Crisis Stokes Fear Of Housing Spillover

  By Charlie Zhu, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

  Three things we learned last week:

  1. One of China’s shadow banking giants fell into a liquidity crisis, showing how contagion from the troubled real estate industry is spreading and raising questions of how far the crunch will now go. Trust companies linked to Zhongzhi Enterprise Group Co., which has assets of more than 1 trillion yuan, missed payments on dozens of products, many of which may have been backed by real estate projects real estate projects.

  “Markets still underestimate the aftermath of the significant collapse in China’s property sector,” Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc., wrote in a report. China’s trust wealth management industry is set to face turbulence in coming months, which is likely to cause further headwinds to its already weakening economic momentum, according to the report.

  Zhongzhi’s troubles have already sparked protests, leading the police to clamp down on unhappy clients. It has 270 products totaling 39.5 billion yuan due this year, according to data provider Use Trust.

  While the reported Zhongrong Trust defaults don’t yet appear to be of systemic concern, a disorderly wind-up of any large trust or wealth management company could test near-term financial stability, Zerlina Zeng, CreditSights senior research analyst, wrote in a note.

  

  2. Fallout from Country Garden is spreading to investment-grade names as China’s property downturn deepens. Dollar bonds from units of Gemdale Corp. and Seazen Group Ltd. — developers that were also among those chosen to sell state-guaranteed local notes like Country Garden did — accelerated declines last week. Notes issued by Longfor Group Holdings Ltd. and China Vanke Co., two of the country’s few private-sector investment grade developers, suffered the same fate.

  Country Garden’s delayed payment is likely already exacerbating a loss of confidence and a default would only worsen matters, S&P Global Ratings analysts led by Edward Chan wrote in a report. They said an “L”-shaped national sales recovery seems increasingly likely to shift into a “descending staircase” figure.

  

  3. The central bank stepped up to deliver unexpected rate cuts, and vowed to maintain financial stability. The People’s Bank of China lowered the cost of its one-year and seven-day loans to financial institutions, before the release of data that showed weak consumer spending growth, sliding investment and rising unemployment in July.

  In its second-quarter monetary policy implementation report, the PBOC vowed to “step up macroeconomic policy adjustment” and “resolutely prevent excessive correction in the exchange rate,” as the yuan slid toward its weakest level since 2007.

  It’s an age-old dilemma for central banks faced with a weakening economy — control the interest rate or the currency? Attempting to do both, as Bank of Japan recently tried, frequently fails to sway traders who see an opportunity.

  “If markets are convinced that property sector could be stabilized and the downward spiral is resolutely curbed,” sentiment toward the yuan could improve, said Zhi Xiaojia, head of research at Credit Agricole CIB.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 23:30

• Which Airports Move The Most Cargo Around The World?
  Which Airports Move The Most Cargo Around The World?

  From facilitating crucial international supply chains to ensuring the smooth delivery of personal Amazon packages, cargo shipping is an important part of the global economy.

  Total air cargo shipped measured around 117 million metric tons in 2022.

  In the following map, Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop and Athul Alexander, using data from Airports Council International (ACI), showcase the global airports that move the most goods.

  

  The Busiest Cargo Airports

  The world’s busiest airport in terms of cargo is Hong Kong’s, which has held the number one spot for almost 28 years. Here’s a look at the ranking:

  

  Some of these busy airports are not well-known, and none of them, aside from LAX, rank as highly in terms of passenger traffic. For example, Anchorage ranks in the top 10 in cargo processed because it is cheaper for cargo carriers to stop over and refuel there, rather than flying nonstop from Asia to the United States.

  The Memphis airport handles the most cargo in North America, largely because of FedEx’s significant presence there. FedEx processes over 245,000 documents and 180,000 packages an hour at Memphis’ airport.

  On top of being home to UPS’ Worldport, the world’s biggest fully automated package processing facility, Louisville is also central to other transport routes in the United States. Packages come into this hub and then head out on the many highways and railways, as well as the Ohio River, which connects to the Mississippi River, one of the country’s main waterways for barge transit.

  Cargo Shipment

  Nearly every airport has seen significant increases in the amount of cargo moved year-over-year, with numbers now rising above pre-pandemic benchmarks. Notably, however, Shanghai and Hong Kong have experienced decreases due to geopolitical tensions.

  In Hong Kong, goods movement via air travel is integral to the economy. Around half of the entire region’s external trade went through the airport in 2022.

  Cargo transit is inherently important to the global economy. Around $6 trillion worth of goods move through airports annually, representing approximately 35% of world trade.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 23:00

• US 'Rent-A-Womb' Industry Thrives Due To Demand From Parents In China: Researcher
  US ‘Rent-A-Womb’ Industry Thrives Due To Demand From Parents In China: Researcher

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

  The “rent-a-womb” industry pipelines children born of surrogates in the United States to parents in China, a researcher said. Babies born this way automatically gain U.S. birthright citizenship.

  

  Chinese “rent-a-womb” industry, has been burgeoning in the United States for about a decade, particularly in California, where laws regulating commercial surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) are permissive, said Emma Waters, a research associate for the Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation.

  Surrogacy, a practice where a woman carries a pregnancy and gives birth to a baby for another person or couple, is completely banned in China.

  Therefore Chinese couples use services offered by American fertility clinics that create for them embryos potentially having the biological makeup of the Chinese nationals, and birth the baby in the United States, Ms. Waters said in an interview on Epoch TV’s “Crossroads” program on Aug. 11.

  With birthright citizenship laws in the United States, that child, who may be 100 percent Chinese national in their biology and genetic makeup, actually gains and maintains the full rights of U.S. citizenship, Ms. Waters explained.

  When that child turns 21, even the parents can apply for a green card and eventually get citizenship, “which is a much faster and cheaper process than if they were to apply for citizenship through some of the traditional methods,” she added.

  Threat to National Security

  Giving foreign nationals full access to American citizenship through the wombs of American women poses “a huge national security threat,” Ms. Waters said.

  “If a child is born and raised in China, inculcated in their culture, and very loyal to their lands, when they come to the United States, they’re not being flagged as a foreign national who’s applying for a job or applying to work in a research lab—they are applying as a U.S. citizen.”

  “There’s not a database that’s publicly available or easy to access where these children are being listed. And so should they apply for jobs, employers in government or private sector have no idea of the background that they’re dealing with.”

  The situation was made possible due to the lack of regulation and laws around this, Ms. Waters said.

  Ms. Waters suggested that the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which has been studying Chinese investment in areas such as entertainment, farmland, and media, needs to spend more time investigating Chinese investment in Americans through Chinese children created in America by in-vitro fertilization and commercial surrogacy.

  How Fertility Industry Works

  

  When Chinese nationals connect with a fertility clinic, particularly in California, they have an option to “either create an embryo using their own sperm and egg or they can purchase a sperm or egg,” Ms. Waters explained.

  In many cases, they travel to the United States, but with the current technology, they are technically not required to leave China in order to create an embryo, she continued.

  “A Chinese couple or individual can simply work with a U.S.-based agency to send their reproductive material (sperm, egg, or embryo) to an IVF lab and implant it in a hired surrogate [in the United States] to produce a viable pregnancy,” Ms. Waters wrote for the Heritage Foundation.

  Ms. Waters reviewed recently about 450 fertility clinics, particularly in California, but there is many more outside of that. she said. “Many of these fertility clinics actually have a direct or indirect connection to China.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 22:30

• NYC Wants To Shove Migrants In Shuttered Jeffrey Epstein Jail
  NYC Wants To Shove Migrants In Shuttered Jeffrey Epstein Jail

  A New York jail which was shuttered following Jeffrey Epstein’s death, the Manhattan Correctional Center, may wind up housing illegal immigrants.

  

  A proposal mentioned in an Aug. 9 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul aims to mitigate the impact of some 100,000 migrants estimated to have arrived in the city since last year after crossing the southern US border, AP reports.

  Under NYC rules, officials are legally obligated to obtain shelter for anyone needing it. And with homeless shelters packed to the brim, NYC Mayor Eric Adams (D) has been renting out hotels, shoving cots in recreational centers and school gyms, and creating official tent cities.

  The letter, written by a senior counsel for the city’s law department, identifies several other sites in which migrants could potentially be housed, including the defunct Metropolitan Correctional Center, which closed in 2021.

  That shutdown came after the detention center, whose prisoners have included Mafia don John Gotti, associates of Osama bin Laden and the Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, came under new scrutiny because of squalid conditions and security lapses exposed following Epstein’s death. -AP

  According to the report, lawyers have described the jail as ‘filthy’ and infested with bugs and rodents, as well as plagued by water and sewage leaks which caused structural issues.

  Pro-immigrant groups have denounced the plan.

  “Mayor Adams likes to say that all options are on the table when it comes to housing asylum seekers, but certain places should most definitely be off the table,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, adding: “The Metropolitan Correctional Center was a notoriously decrepit jail, and is not a suitable place to support people trying to build a new life in a new country.”

  Meanwhile, hundreds of NY residents recently turned out to protest against a proposal to turn a former assisted living facility on Staten Island into a migrant shelter.

  Hundreds out in New York protesting against a proposal to turn a Staten Island former assisted living facility into a migrant shelter pic.twitter.com/WNBMtnBaxo

  — Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 20, 2023

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

  While New York State has been accused of being slow to respond to the immigrants, a Hochul attorney pushed back, rejecting allegations that the state failed to deal with the migrant influx in a substantial way.

  “The City has not made timely requests for regulatory changes, has not always promptly shared necessary information with the State, has not implemented programs in a timely manner, and has not consulted the State before taking certain actions,” reads the letter.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 22:00

• Rep. Gaetz Introduces Bill To Censure, Investigate Judge In Trump 2020 Election Case
  Rep. Gaetz Introduces Bill To Censure, Investigate Judge In Trump 2020 Election Case

  Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is introducing a resolution to censure U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan and open an investigation into her “for showing open bias and partisanship in her official duties on the bench.”

  

  Judge Chutkan is overseeing a case against former President Donald Trump, brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for conspiracy in his challenge of the 2020 election results. She has already overseen many other cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protest, which is being investigated by special counsel Jack Smith. About 1,000 people have already been sentenced for crimes related to the day’s events, and Judge Chutkan has been known to hand down harsh prison sentences.

  “Judge Tanya Chutkan’s extreme sentencing of January 6th defendants, while openly supporting the violent Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, showcases a complete disregard for her duty of impartiality and the rule of law,” Mr. Gaetz said.

  He appeared to be referring to remarks the judge made in one Jan. 6-related sentencing.

  “People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man,” she said, referencing violent riots that erupted after the death of George Floyd. “To compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the January 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.”

  Mr. Gaetz’s resolution points to a few other cases of “open partisanship,” including the fact that the Obama-appointed district judge had donated thousands of dollars to his presidential campaign, and that during another Jan. 6-related sentencing she “lamented” that President Trump “remains free to this day.”

  “Such partisan commentary by Judge Chutkan has been ongoing and calls into question her fitness as a judge and … Chutkan’s comments and activities on and off the bench violate all 5 canons of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges,” the resolution reads (pdf).

  The canons are that a judge should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary; avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities; perform the duties of the office fairly, impartially, and diligently; engage in extrajudicial activities that are consistent with the obligations of judicial office, and refrain from political activity.

  “It is deeply concerning that a United States District Court judge would exhibit such blatant political bias from the bench,” he said in a press release. “Justice may be blind, but the American people are not—we see Judge Chutkan for her actions, and we rebuke them in the greatest possible sense.”

  Mr. Gaetz is proposing Judge Chutkan be censured and condemned via the resolution, and to have the House Committee on the Judiciary, on which he sits, launch an investigation seeking evidence showing that she should be removed from office on impeachment or other misdemeanors.

  The Epoch Times reached out to Judge Chutkan’s office for comment.

  Trump on Chutkan

  President Trump has been critical of Judge Chutkan in multiple social media posts given her earlier remarks.

  “She obviously wants me behind bars,” he wrote, describing her as “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair.”

  A day after President Trump pleaded not guilty to the felony charges filed by Mr. Smith, he made a social media post: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” He later posted a campaign ad that claimed election interference on the part of the Biden administration.

  In response, Mr. Smith’s office filed a motion pointing to the initial social media post as evidence a protective order was needed. He requested the judge issue an order barring President Trump from sharing information about the case.

  “Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him,” Mr. Smith wrote in a filing (pdf).

  President Trump responded on social media yet again. “No, I shouldn’t have a protective order placed on me because it would impinge upon my right to free speech,” he wrote.

  His legal team filed an opposing motion arguing public speech was not grounds for a gag order.

  Judge Chutkan ended up issuing a limited protective order, which bars President Trump from releasing information the prosecutors label sensitive, not all information.

  The prosecution has also requested a Jan. 2, 2024, trial date, with jury selection to begin as early as Dec. 11.

  On Thursday, President Trump’s legal team proposed a April 2026 trial date, arguing that the prosecution was rushing the case.

  “The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial,” the lawyers wrote. “The Court should deny the government’s request.”

  They cited a number of reasons an extension was required, including the 11.5 million pages of discovery Mr. Smith’s office has already provided.

  “That is the entirety of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, cover to cover, 78 times a day, every day, from now until jury selection.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 21:30

• Uniparty's Plan To Save "Our Democracy" Unfolds
  Uniparty’s Plan To Save “Our Democracy” Unfolds

  Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

  The fish are plentiful today…

  • There’s Hunter Biden and his various lies: about the sources of his prodigious income, his payment (that is, non-payment) of taxes, drugs, guns, child support, laptops and prostitutes.

  • There’s Joe Biden and his lies, the sources of his prodigious income, and – the latest – his use of pseudonymous email accounts when writing to Hunter and Hunter’s business partners to discuss the weather – or was it the whether and how to siphon 20 million of the crispest into virtually untraceable bank accounts?

  • There’s the seemingly endless series of indictments directed at Donald Trump. The latest news there, if I am up to date, is that he told people to watch election returns on One America News Network. Clearly part of a RICO conspiracy. Someone whose math is sharper than mine calculated that President Trump is potentially on the hook for 450 years in the slammer for . . . well, his torts are mostly in the eye of the beholder.

  This coming week, Fox News, whose leaders have made no secret of their contempt for Trump, are holding the first Republican debate. Problem: as of this writing, it looks as though Trump will not be participating. How rude! And to Fox News, which hates him, and to the RNC, which doesn’t like him very much. How could he do this?

  The really delicious thing is that even if Trump doesn’t show up for the debate, he will upstage everyone. The word at the moment is that he’ll do an interview with Tucker Carlson on Twitter at the same time as the debate. My bookies report that viewership of that interview, should it take place, would be far higher than the viewership for watching Chris Christie throw his, er, weight around. Quick: who is Doug Bergum and does anyone care? Yes, the event will be an opportunity for Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy to shine. It will also be a sort of last bite at the apple for Ron DeSantis and his sputtering campaign.

  But let’s face it, whether Trump shows up or not, he is the star of the show. If he doesn’t show, his performance will be like that of Tallulah Bankhead who, late in her career, was dissed by some pushy ingenue. “I could upstage you dahling,” Tallulah said, “without even being on stage.” She did, too, by the simple expedient of precariously balancing a champagne glass half-on-half-off a table when she made her exit. The ingenue came on for her big scene, but all eyes were glued to the glass: would it or would it not fall off the table? (No one knew that she had put sticket tape on the bottom of the glass).

  I don’t know what is going to happen in this election anymore than you do, Dear Reader.

  But I have been amused by the absolute certitude of the chattering class, which assures us with hands wringing that:

  1) Trump is a very bad man,

  2) That he cannot win the general election,

  but that 3) The clever but insidious Dems will assure that he wins the nomination, thus assuring a Republican defeat come November 2024.

  

  Maybe.

  But maybe the Dems keep indicting Trump because they are terrified that he could win, and then what?

  Wouldn’t it be better to put him in jail, issue a gag order, say that anything he says is an effort to overturn the 2020, or the 2024, election and thereby undermine Our Democracy™?

  I think that is the more likely explanation, but I admit that these are deep waters.

  There are plenty of scenarios by which someone other than Trump becomes the Republican nominee, beginning with various acts of God. One big problem for the Republican aspirants, though, is that if Trump is prevented by chicanery from being the nominee, a critical portion of his millions of voters will stay home, thus depriving any other candidate of victory. If Trump fails to become the nominee because he is suddenly incapacitated or dies, that is a different story. But so far, he seems surprisingly robust.

  What many of these Trump-can’t-win prognostications overlook, I believe, is that he will not be running in a vacuum. What matters is not just the “37%” of voters (or whatever the real number is) who say they like or agree with him. There also is the candidate from the other party: Joe Biden, probably, but possibly Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, or even (some say) Michelle Obama.

  But let’s say it is Joe Biden. I think that the pollster (and former Clinton advisor) Doug Schoen is right. Despite his many legal woes, Trump could win, less because he is broadly popular himself than because Biden is so unpopular.

  “One has to go back to 1980,” Schoen wrote this weekend, “to look at the last time a Democratic incumbent president was in a situation where he was bordering on unelectable, and that was Jimmy Carter who had a 37% approval rating when Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory, taking with him the Senate, and helping Republicans to gain a net 35 seats in the House of Representatives.”

  Biden is currently hovering over that Carter territory, especially on the critical “it’s-the-economy-stupid” issue. Biden’s approval rating there is a mere 38%, a number that when suitably translated spells J-I-M-M-Y C-A-R-T-E-R.

  The point is, though, that Trump will not be running by himself. He will be running against someone. And that someone is likely to have liabilities at least as huge as Trump.

  The real question was posed by Michael Anton in “They Can’t Let Him Back In,” a black-pilled essay he published in Compact last summer.

  “The people who really run the United States of America,” Anton wrote, “have made it clear that they can’t, and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.”

  Who are those people?

  Mostly Democrats, yes, but really, it’s a bipartisan, deep-state consensus, a uniparty assumption that Trump, being an existential threat to their continued existence must be kept from political power by any means necessary. 

  Think the 2020 BLM riots were awful?

  They were, but they will seem like Lake Placid if Trump is reelected.

  I put that down as a secondary reason to hope that Trump does win, but I understand that others disagree.

  It is curious, as Anton also points out, that for all the fury directed at Trump the individual, the real target of deep state animus is not Trump himself but his supporters, his “base.”

  Trump was right when he said “they’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just standing in the way.”

  Anton got to the nub of the issue when he observed that “Anti-Trump hysteria is in the final analysis not about Trump. The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are.”

  I think that is worth bearing in mind.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 20:30

• Progressive Insurance Sued Over 'Patently Unlawful' Racism For $25K Black-Only Business Grants
  Progressive Insurance Sued Over ‘Patently Unlawful’ Racism For $25K Black-Only Business Grants

  Progressive insurance is being sued for “patently unlawful” racism over a program which awards exclusively black-owned businesses $25,000, while allegedly discriminating against businesses owned by white, asian, hispanic and anyone else who isn’t black.

  

  Filed in an Ohio federal court on Wednesday by the conservative group America First Legal (AFL) – which is headed by former senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller – the class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of the owner of Freedom Truck Dispatch, Nathan Roberts, claims that Progressive racially discriminated against non-black small-business owners by offering the grants to 10 “black-owned small businesses to use toward the purchase of a commercial vehicle.”

  The lawsuit claims that on May 24, Roberts – a customer of Progressive – received an email advertising “a grant opportunity for their [Progressive’s] commercial-trucking small-business owners,” but that “Progressive decided that only black-owned businesses would be eligible for these grants,” since “studies have shown how inequities have made it harder for black entrepreneurs to access capital.“

  Progressive is joined by defendant Hello Alice, which it partnered with on the financial award extended to black-owned businesses with 10 or fewer employees and a turnaround below $5 million.

  The insurance company announced its 2023 winners in a Tuesday press release, which stated that “Progressive is stepping in to provide funding to Black entrepreneurs to help navigate their small business journey.”

  According to Roberts’ suit, the entire scheme was nothing more than “racially discriminatory grantmaking” with the “racially discriminatory requirement” to be black in order to qualify.

  AFL lawyer Gene Hamilton told the Daily Mail that the case was part of a larger pushback against big corporations injecting “racial considerations into every aspect of their business operations, employment practices, and so much more.”

  The lawsuit asks that the court declare Progressive’s grants illegal, and to award the plaintiffs “nominal” compensation and legal fees.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 20:00

• EPA Finds Toxic 'Forever Chemicals' In Water Systems Across The US
  EPA Finds Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ In Water Systems Across The US

  Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Environmental Protection Agency discovered toxic, cancer-causing “forever chemicals” in water systems across the country.

  

  The Aug. 17 finding comes after the U.S. Geological Survey found in July that perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl chemicals known as PFAS, were found in 45 percent of water taps in the United States.

  The EPA’s separate findings are the latest evidence that these controversial chemicals are widespread in the environment.

  PFASs are called “forever chemicals” because they build up and accumulate in a person’s body over time instead of breaking down and have been linked to a number of serious illnesses, including cancer and birth defects.

  The chemicals are water resistant and do not break down in the environment and can remain in human bodies for years.

  The EPA reported that the toxins could affect the drinking water of 26 million people, according to an environmental advocacy organization called the Environmental Working Group which analyzed the latest agency data.

  The federal regulator said (pdf) that two of the most dangerous types of forever chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, were also found at unsafe levels in between 7.8 and 8.5 percent of public water systems.

  PFASs are used in hundreds of household items from cleaning supplies to pizza boxes, which broadens the chance of serious health risks, according to the USGS study.

  They were developed in the 1940s with the creation of Teflon, a non-stick coating for cookware, and are now used in everything from clothing, plastic products, cosmetics, and stain removers.

  Forever Chemicals Contamination Common Nationwide

  The EPA said the cities that had the high concentration of these toxic chemicals were Fresno, California, and Dallas, Texas.

  Samples from Fresno had 16 parts per trillion of PFOA and 29 parts per trillion of PFOS, which was 4 and 7.25 times more than the EPA’s proposed regulatory limit and 194.3 parts per trillion for PFAS particles.

  A sample from Dallas found that PFOA and PFOS were above the EPA’s levels, at 4.7 parts per trillion and 5.1 parts per trillion respectively, with a total PFAS concentration of 53.4 parts per trillion.

  The USGS study found no difference in PFAS exposure between samples from private wells, which are not regulated and public supply, which are monitored by the EPA.

  The study was based on samples collected from 716 locations across the country over several years and found that, in contrast to in rural areas, residents in urban areas are at higher risk of exposure to PFAS in drinking water.

  The chemicals were found in about 70 percent of areas that are either urban or have a known history of PFAS contamination, compared to just 8 percent of rural areas.

  PFAS contamination was more common in the Great Plains, Great Lakes, Eastern Seaboard, and in the Central and Southern California regions.

  New EPA Rules to Reduce PFAS Risks

  Scott Faber, senior vice president of Government Affairs at the Environmental Working Group, told The Hill that he was shocked by the test results.

  “Millions of people have been drinking dangerously high levels of PFAS all of their lives and are learning about it today,” said Mr. Faber.

  Exposure to PFAS can disrupt hormones and liver function, and it has been linked to illnesses including kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and high cholesterol, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  The chemicals can also reduce birth weight in infants and compromise the health of pregnant women.

  Finally, after years of public pressure, the EPA proposed the first-ever national drinking water standards for six PFAS in March.

  The new rules would limit them to just 4 parts per trillion, but the new report shows that many water systems in big cities have levels of the chemicals that already exceed that.

  The monitoring of public water systems and disclosure when PFAS levels exceed limits will also be required.

  Meanwhile, the Biden administration allocated almost $10 billion from the recent infrastructure law to help communities reduce PFAS exposure and other chemical contaminants in the nation’s water supply.

  Reuters contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 19:30

• These Are The Dirtiest Cities In America
  These Are The Dirtiest Cities In America

  Baltimore is the dirtiest city in the United States, a new study from HouseFresh has laid out this week. The city received 47,295 complaints over the course of the last 365 days, according to the analysis. 

  The same study found that Milwaukee is the cleanest city in America, with only 309 complaints over the same period of time. Riverside is not far behind, the study noted, with just 1,609 complaints.

  

  The study found that 21213 is the dirtiest individual zip code in Baltimore, with 89,391 complaints about sanitary issues. The cleanest zip code in America is in Houston, 77546, which had just 19 sanitary-related complaints. 

  Houston had 5 of the 6 “fewest complaint” zip codes in the study, while Baltimore had 7 out of the 10 dirtiest.

  The analysis looked at the 12.3 million sanitation-related 311 complaints in a series of U.S. cities as part of its methodology. From there, it “calculated the number of these complaints per 100,000 population, both on a city level and on a zip code level” before ranking the cities based on zip codes and complaint density.

  

  The study looked at 644 categories related to sanitation issues, grouping them with terms like “waste” and “recycling”. Finally, the study crunched the zip codes that each complaint came from. 

  Baltimore was in close company with Sacramento and Charlotte, who received 34,186 and 31,112 complaints about sanitary conditions, respectively. Then came LA, Memphis and Boston, rounding out the top 6 dirtiest cities.

  In New York, Brooklyn was found to be the dirtiest zip code, using the same analysis. Though the city has “a surprisingly low complaint rate of 3,728 per 100k population”, the study notes that 7,664 complaints came from Brooklyn. New York’s sanitation complaints pale in comparison to its west coast counterpart, LA, which had 21,616 complaints per 100,000 population. 

  

  The cleanest zip code in New York was New Hyde Park, 11040, which had only 176 complaints. In LA the neighborhood with the most complaints was found to be Mission Hills and the cleanest, per the data, was found to be Inglewood. 

  West Englewood is home to the dirtiest zip code in Chicago, while Friendswood has that honor in Houston. South Philadelphia took the crown in the city of brotherly love. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 19:00

• FDA 'Clarifies' That Ivermectin Remains Unapproved For COVID-19 But Docs Can Prescribe
  FDA ‘Clarifies’ That Ivermectin Remains Unapproved For COVID-19 But Docs Can Prescribe

  Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Aug. 17 clarified that it had not authorized or approved the use of ivermectin in preventing or treating COVID-19.

  

  Ivermectin is an FDA-approved antiparasitic drug that is used to treat neglected tropical diseases, including parasitic worm infections (helminthiases), onchocerciasis (or river blindness), and scabies.

  The FDA stated that while it had approved ivermectin for certain uses in humans and animals, it had not issued any statement affirming the safety or effectiveness of the drug for treating COVID-19.

  “We’ve seen lots of chatter about ivermectin in the last week. Some of what you’re seeing in videos and social media posts isn’t true,” the FDA stated on X, formerly known as Twitter.

  Doctors in the United States, though, are able to and regularly prescribe approved drugs for purposes for which they are not approved.

  “Health care professionals generally may choose to prescribe an approved human drug for an unapproved use when they judge that the unapproved use is medically appropriate for an individual patient,” the FDA said.

  The FDA pointed cited the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 treatment guidelines, which recommend against using ivermectin for COVID-19 treatment due to a purported lack of evidence supporting its effectiveness. Some studies have found that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19.

  The agency was responding after some people, including Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.), claimed that the FDA has “quietly approved” the use of ivermectin for COVID-19.

  “The doctors I’ve been dealing with and talking to for years now, they believe that probably hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their lives because they were denied early treatment and they were denied because the FDA sabotaged, for example, ivermectin,” Mr. Johnson told FOX News on Aug. 11.

  “We are going down a very dangerous path, but it’s a path that is being laid out and planned by an elite group of people that want to take total control over our lives, and that’s what they’re doing bit by bit,” he added.

  Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, had said during recent oral arguments in a legal case that the FDA “explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID.”

  The government was defending the FDA’s repeated exhortations to people to not take ivermectin for COVID-19, including a post that said “Stop it.”

  The case was brought by three doctors who allege the FDA unlawfully interfered with their practice of medicine with the statements. A federal judge dismissed the case in 2022, prompting an appeal.

  Ms. Honold said the FDA’s statements “don’t prohibit doctors from prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID or for any other purpose.” She said the agency advised people to consult their health care providers and that they could take medicine if the provider prescribed it.

  “FDA is clearly acknowledging that doctors have the authority to prescribe human ivermectin to treat COVID. So they are not interfering with the authority of doctors to prescribe drugs or to practice medicine,” she said.

  Study On Ivermectin’s Effectiveness

  According to a new peer-reviewed ecological study, a natural experiment occurred when the government of Peru authorized ivermectin for use during the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in evidence of the drug’s effectiveness and ability to reduce excess deaths.

  The paper’s results, published Aug. 8 in Cureus, found a 74 percent reduction in excess deaths in 10 states with the most intensive ivermectin use over a 30-day period following peak deaths during the pandemic.

  When analyzing data across 25 states in Peru, researchers found these reductions in excess deaths correlated closely to ivermectin use during four months in 2020.

  When ivermectin was available without restriction, there was a fourteenfold reduction in nationwide excess deaths. Once access to ivermectin was restricted by the government, a thirteenfold increase in excess deaths was observed in the two months following the limitation of its use. The findings align with summary data from the World Health Organization for the same time period in Peru.

  Zachary Stieber and Megan Redshaw contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 18:30

• China Rapidly Building Airstrip On Disputed Island Close To Vietnam
  China Rapidly Building Airstrip On Disputed Island Close To Vietnam

  China is continuing to militarize disputed islands it has long exercised effective control over in the South China Sea, according to new satellite images.

  The images, taken by Planet Labs PBC in early August, show fresh construction on the westernmost island of the Paracel Islands close to Vietnam (and which are claimed by both Vietnam and Taiwan). What has regional and US officials alarmed is the large airstrip which appears to be progressing at rapid pace.

  

  The apparent Chinese military build-up of the island can be seen by comparing these latest satellite images (below) to prior ones.

  The Drive was the first to report on and analyze the images, with the publication writing:

  The sudden development on the Chinese-controlled Triton Island is revealed in satellite imagery. Clearly, work is still at an early stage, but it’s startling just how rapid the progress has been so far. Construction of this airstrip only began a few weeks ago at the most. The War Zone examined imagery from Planet Labs from mid-July showing no such activity.

  The new airstrip appears to be over 2000 feet in length according to analysis of the images.

  The Drive continues, “As well as the airstrip, satellite imagery reveals a huge new work area, including a cement plant. This has all sprung up within the last month.”

  “Previously, this Chinese outpost was home to an observation station with two radomes and some big Chinese flags, but not much more. The island was previously served by a small harbor and a helipad,” the report added. Chinese state-run Global Times has rejected the allegations. 

  #China Is Building A Runway On Its Closest Island Outpost To #Vietnam

  Triton is the westernmost island in the #SouthChinaSea’s strategic Paracel archipelago and added militarization of it has big implications.

  In just the last few weeks, China has begun to build what appears to… pic.twitter.com/VexSjCjlzn

  — Indo-Pacific News – Geo-Politics & Defense News (@IndoPac_Info) August 16, 2023

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

  China has over the past years used both artificial islands as well as expanding military bases on the tiny land masses in the waters to extend its maritime claims, butting up against that of American allies in the region like the Philippines or unrecognized Taiwan.

  The Chinese military has also repeatedly charged that the US Navy has ‘frequently’ deployed warships in the South China Sea to “show off its force and severely infringe upon China’s sovereignty and security interests.”

  The Pentagon response has typically been that it’s conducting peaceful ‘freedom of navigation’ operations to ensure adversaries adhere to international law for open waters.

  

  The US also rejects Chinese claims of ownership over disputed island chain which are now becoming de facto PLA military outposts. Many of the islands have been under Chinese military control since at least the 1970s.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 18:00

• Milei Is Not Argentina's Problem, Socialism Is…
  Milei Is Not Argentina’s Problem, Socialism Is…

  Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

  Argentina’s problem is not Milei.

  The Central Bank of Argentina does not have to devalue the peso due to the victory of Javier Milei in the primaries.

  The Central Bank of Argentina and the Peronist government have been devaluing the peso and sinking the currency for years. It must devalue because the central bank has run out of reserves.

  Argentina is not facing an “anti-system” or “far-right” threat. They already have a far-left and anti-system government.

  

  The extractive and confiscatory monetary and fiscal policies of the XXI Century Socialism championed by Peronist Fernandez de Kirchner.

  The so-called “Inclusive” monetary policy, as Axel Kicilloff, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s ex economy minister, denominated it.

  The Peronist policy of maximum interventionism as well as fiscal and monetary irresponsibility has destroyed Argentina and left the central bank without reserves.

  The peso has lost more than 90% of its value against the US dollar since Alberto Fernández took office, and inflation in Argentina already exceeds 110% annualized, with 39% of the population living in poverty.

  In the years of the “XXI Century Socialism” governments of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Alberto Fernández, a completely uncontrolled increase in the monetary base obliterated the local currency. The center-right Macri government, which took office briefly between Kirchner and Fernandez, made the mistake of thinking that gradual and soft measures could curb the inflationary spiral, especially because he did not consider the evidence of the time bomb left by Fernandez de Kirchner in future monetary issuance commitments via short-term debt at very high rates accumulated at the central bank (the Leliq, Lebac, and Pases). This central bank remunerated debt grew by 22 billion equivalent US dollars during the years of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The Macri government reduced it by $26 billion. These issuances of “remunerated” central bank debt are future monetary base increases and guaranteed inflation.

  The government of Alberto Fernández has left a timebomb of Leliq and Pases that exceed 12% of GDP. Thus, a gigantic devaluation of the peso is guaranteed since the central bank’s liabilities exceed its reserves by several times. This is why the central bank must devalue.

  According to data published by the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic in August 2023, Argentina has carried out the largest monetary experiment in the region, second only to Venezuela. The Monetary Base increased by 46.2% annually, 117.2% in two years, and 172% in three years. However, the monetary base, including deposits and the aforementioned Leliq, has soared by 392.6% in three years. This disaster is the legacy left by the Fernandez government.

  Peronism embraced “XXI century socialism” and implemented the most damaging “exchange clamps” (cepo cambiario) that drain exporting sectors of reserves and force them to convert their dollars at fictitious exchange rates. This is state-sponsored theft that has destroyed the entry of new reserves to the country. Instead of maximizing reserves, this policy stopped export growth.

  With the recent creation of the so-called “soybean dollar” (dólar soja), an artificial rate for agricultural producers to liquidate their foreign currency, in Argentina there are more than ten exchange rates.

  How can a country have ten exchange rates against one currency? The answer is simple. All those exchange rates imposed by the government are forms of expropriation of wealth to confiscate the dollars of exporters and citizens at an unrealistic rate.

  The government expropriates the recipients of US dollars with an exchange against the peso that the government itself would not find in any transaction on the open market.

  This monetary madness finances uncontrolled political spending, as the Argentine state cannot be financed via debt as there is no confidence in its solvency as an issuer since it has defaulted on several occasions.

  There is no real local or global demand for pesos, as investors and citizens know that the government will continue to print currency without control.

  In Argentina, in 57% of the provinces, state employment is greater than private employment. The state increases public spending more than tax receipts and inflation, financing it by printing more pesos, which creates more poverty and higher inflation. Meanwhile, the taxation implemented by the Peronist governments is one of the most confiscatory in the region, reaching 106% of its profits for a Small and Medium Enterprise that pays all its taxes, according to the Doing Business report.

  Thus, the government promises huge subsidies in a currency that is constantly losing value and presents itself as the solution to the problem created by its own fiscal and monetary policies. Peronism “gives away” money that is printed massively and has no value. The result, eighteen million poor citizens.

  Many great Argentine economists have analyzed in detail the importance of dollarizing to end this spiral of perverse incentives that leads the government to make citizens more dependent by issuing a currency without value or demand. From Nicolas Cachanosky to Steve Hanke and many others, they remind us that Ecuador, Panama, or El Salvador successfully dollarized.

  Argentina’s problem is not dollarization, but the evidence that they have an unviable and failed currency. Argentina is already dollarized in large part because citizens are fleeing the local currency.

  Why is the Peso a worthless currency?

  Because the government and the central bank have been implementing their own Modern Monetary Theory under the idea that the country’s problems can be solved by issuing more currency. After years of monetary destruction, global and national demand for the peso is at historical lows.

  The peso is, again in 2023, one of the worst currencies in the world against the US dollar, while the increase in the monetary base of the central bank of Argentina is an insane 46% year-to-date. And some people wonder why inflation is over 100%.

  No, Argentina does not face an abyss if Milei becomes president. Argentina, a rich country with enormous potential, is already in the abyss.

  Just like Chavismo in Venezuela, the Peronist governments have destroyed the currency and the productive fabric to boost political spending and turn the country into an economic wasteland where the salaries and savings of citizens are confiscated via high direct and indirect taxes as well as the inflationary tax.

  Milei wants to end this monetary and fiscal insanity with policies that are not radical but logical. Stop the insane monetization of government spending, end the central bank’s dangerous inflationary measures, dollarize, cut excessive political expenditure, reduce taxes, open the economy, and allow free trade and investment to flow back to Argentina.

  Something is very wrong in the developed world when some consider Milei a dangerous radical and say nothing about the radicalism implemented in the Fernandez-Kirchner years.

  Argentina must implement serious fiscal and monetary policies to reach its enormous potential. Milei’s proposals are not anti-system, they are pro-logic.

  Argentina’s problem is not Milei. The problem is that they have implemented point by point the fiscal and monetary policies that many so-called “progressive” parties demand.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 17:30

• Hilary Pounds Mexico's Baja Coast; Southern California Braces For Impact
  Hilary Pounds Mexico’s Baja Coast; Southern California Braces For Impact

  Hilary weakened from a Category 4 hurricane to a tropical storm, moving northward Sunday along the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. Conditions across Southern California are deteriorating as forecasters warned “catastrophic and life-threatening” flooding is likely. 

  The National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center downgraded Hilary earlier today while indicating the storm made landfall around noon over the northern Baja California peninsula. 

  #Hilary makes landfall in northern Baja California. Tropical storm conditions and heavy rains already affecting portions of the southwestern United States. pic.twitter.com/OS9EYPUM0y

  — NHC Eastern Pacific (@NHC_Pacific) August 20, 2023

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

  Footage from X, formerly known as Twitter, shows major flooding across Santa Rosalía in Mexico’s Baja California Sur. 

  WATCH: Devastating flooding in Baja California brought on by Hurricane #Hilary pic.twitter.com/ONDnSKYiKo

  — PoliticsVerse 🇺🇸 (@PoliticsVerse_) August 20, 2023

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

  Here’s Hilary’s latest track:

  

  With forecasters calling for “life-threatening” flooding across Southern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Saturday. Then the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said Hilary “remains on track to impact much of Southern California with heavy rainfall and possibly strong winds this weekend and into early next week.” 

  

  Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula, Southern California, and southwestern Nevada are expected to receive heavy rainfall through Monday. 

  

  “Expect periods of heavy rain; areas of flooding especially in the mtns and deserts; and strong winds especially in San Diego Co, east Inland Empire, mtns, and deserts,” NWS San Diego posted on X. 

  Hilary has weakened to a Tropical Strom and is expected to make it into SoCal this afternoon. Expect periods of heavy rain; areas of flooding especially in the mtns and deserts; and strong winds especially in San Diego Co, east Inland Empire, mtns, and deserts. Be safe!#CAwx pic.twitter.com/TNXEfzFgV4

  — NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) August 20, 2023

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

  Which means an elevated risk of destructive flash flooding. 

  

  In San Diego, the US Navy is taking no risks and ordered warships and submarines to leave naval bases before the storms arrive. 

  US 3rd Fleet has ordered all Navy ships in San Diego to get underway as Hurricane Hilary approaches. The ships will remain at sea until the storm subsides. Those still in port prepare for heavy wind & rain. Standard East Coast procedure, unusual in SoCal https://t.co/6OoUOT60th pic.twitter.com/sjxUV3B8JE

  — Chris Cavas (@CavasShips) August 19, 2023

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

  NBC News said the tropical storm taking aim at Southern California would be the first time in eight years. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 16:00

• What A Steel: Biden Scrambles To Sell Off Trump's Uninstalled Border Wall Before 'Finish It Act' Passes
  What A Steel: Biden Scrambles To Sell Off Trump’s Uninstalled Border Wall Before ‘Finish It Act’ Passes

  Looking for a good deal on steel fencing material that could otherwise help maintain America’s border (and therefore national security?) Look no further!

  The Biden administration has been hawking sections of Donald Trump’s border wall on a government military surplus website called GovPlanet – where they’ve auctioned off 81 batches of square structural tubing and steel columns since April, the Daily Mail reports.

  

  Meanwhile, illegal border crossings (of future Democrats) hit the second-highest level on record in July.

  Last Tuesday, the Biden administration sold 700 28 ft. long hollow beams in five separate lots for $212 each, netting $154,200 according to the report.

  

  13 more lots are set to be auctioned on Aug. 23 and Aug. 30.

  According to Republicans, up to $300 million of taxpayer-funded wall components have been left to rust since the Biden administration took over.

  To address this, the Democrat-led Senate passed a Republican-sponsored bill last month – the “Finish It Act,” aimed at forcing the administration to extend the wall. The legislation will force the federal government to use the leftover materials on new wall construction – or hand them over to Texas to use for their own border defense inittiatives.

  Instead, the Biden administration is rushing to liquidate the wall leftovers before the GOP-led House can pass a matching version of the bill and make it law, the NY Post reports.

  

  “This sale is a wasteful and ludicrous decision by the Biden administration that only serves as further proof they have no shame,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MI) told the outlet, calling the move “outrageous, behind-the-scenes maneuvering.”

  “Leaving the border open to terrorists while selling border security materials at a loss is Bidenomics in a nutshell,” saic co-sponsor Tom Cotton (R-AR).

  “The pennies made from selling the border wall will not be enough to pay the families who suffer from a criminal act committed by someone who crossed our open borders during the Biden administration,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-OK)

  According to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the move to sell the materials is “reckless.”

  “Our borders continue to be overrun by an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants, turning every district into a border district, and compromising our national security,” she said.

  The GovPlanet auction schedule picked up markedly in May, when Wicker first introduced the Finish It Act, and increased again this month, days after the Senate’s defense bill passed on a bipartisan vote.

  A DOD spokesman identified the tubes, held in an outdoor storage lot in Pima County, Ariz., as “excess border wall materials.” -NY Post

  According to Lt. Col. Devin T. Robinson, who ‘used Defense Department lingo for the process of consigning military surplus items to commercial resellers or the trash heap’ (per the Post), “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers … has already transferred approximately $154 million worth of the roughly $260 million of bollard panels and other materials.”

  One insider told the Daily Upside that GovPlanet has been instructed to keep quiet about the border-wall connection.

  “We are legally not allowed to mention these are the border wall materials, or we could lose our jobs,” said the source.

  And while the lot listings scrupulously avoid identifying the tubes’ original purpose, viewers of the company’s Instagram page weren’t fooled.

  “Good for building a wall,” a user called honest_jake wrote Aug. 3 under a GovPlanet Instagram post touting the sale of “industrial steel tubing” — an entry that was deleted from the social media site Friday.

  “Why don’t you put that up instead of selling it,” added Brian Prewitt. “This is why tax payers are just about done paying taxes.” -NY Post

  “The federal government needs to be utilizing every tool in the toolbox to secure our border,” said Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), who slammed Biden for his “refusal to act.”

  

  “Instead of putting these materials to their intended use, they have been squandered, first collecting dust in the desert and now being auctioned off.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 16:00

• Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics
  Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

  As we navigate through a month of partially staffed trading desks, it is more difficult than usual (and it is always difficult) to tell whether narratives are pushing markets or markets are pulling along the narratives.

  Are bond yields rising because there are so many bearish views being expressed (with the data to back up those views)? Or was the data already there and when bonds started to sell-off, those headlines (and the bears) just gained prominence? Ditto for the recent shift in articles away from the “soft landing” scenario. A soft landing seemed like a “certainty” a few weeks ago, but now it seems to be losing a little bit of steam. Did that cause stocks to sell off (about 2% last week and almost 5% for the S&P 500 this month), or did the sell-off just highlight the risks (that had gotten buried on the back pages) to the forefront?

  Making it even more confusing is how easy it is right now to pick and choose data to spin almost any narrative you want.
  For this weekend’s report, after a great week in our San Diego office (where Bloomberg TV interviewed us primarily on China), we wanted to focus on some statistics that have caught our eye and can also be used to spin a variety of narratives.

  China

  You had me at China. If there is a country whose data fits the lies, damned lies, and statistics theme it is China. However, if Bitcoin was a country, it too might qualify, but it isn’t a country so it gets a pass for now.

  We will come back to China, but I just wanted to use the line “you had me at China” before you got bored of reading the report, or it got buried below a bunch of charts.

  The Consumer is Tapped Out

  Despite retail sales (reported on Tuesday) crushing it (a 1% increase for the control group in July after a 0.5% increase in June), there is a narrative that the consumer is getting tapped out.

  Fastest Ever Rate of Increase in Credit Card Debt!!

  

  Credit card debt has been rising at what seems like an alarming rate.

  Credit Card Delinquencies Gapping Higher!

  

  This chart seems almost scary because it shows a rapid rise in delinquencies. While not quite “parabolic” it has increased by almost 50% in a little over a year! However, 0.8% to 1.15% seems a lot less scary than saying it has increased by 50% (which is why I tune out whenever anyone talks about credit spread moves in percentage terms).

  Not only is credit card debt rising at an alarming rate, it is also coming just as delinquencies spike higher!

  The Consumer is Normalizing

  Let’s revisit the prior two charts but use a different time horizon.

  Credit Card Debt Remains Below Trend

  

  Credit card debt rose at a steady pace from 2013 until late 2019. Then COVID, stimulus, work from home, and supply chain issues all seemed to coalesce into an amazing drop in credit card debt. While we can question whether credit card debt should have been rising at the rate that it was before COVID (and whether it was sustainable or not), we should just accept that it was. Maybe population growth has changed (or it was some other factor), but if you “strip out” the COVID phenomenon, we are basically back to trend. I do think that credit card balances are an issue, but it is an issue that we seem to have dealt with in the past.

  On credit cards, I completely ignore any impact from Fed hikes because credit card interest rates have always been very high relative to any other rate. What drives credit card balances doesn’t seem to be a thoughtful analysis of rates. It has always been (at least to some degree) about instant gratification.

  Bottom line is that while the trend may not be sustainable, the recent rise just brings us back to trend, which takes some of the sting out of the fact that the consumer is in dire trouble.

  Delinquencies are Below the 5 and 10-Year Averages!

  

  So, delinquencies aren’t even back to pre-COVID levels. This data series averaged 1.5% for the 5 years prior to April 2020, and was 2.1% for the 10-year period before COVID (and let’s not even think about where it was post GFC).

  I’m not all warm and fuzzy about the consumer, but I’m not alarmed either.

  Auto Loans

  Auto loans are a bit trickier. From the consumer’s point of view, they tend to be at a fixed rate and many were entered into when rates were low. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, the average maturity of auto loans extended in recent years allowing consumers to lock in low rates for longer (hopefully the lenders hedged their rate exposure on those auto loans).

  Used Auto Prices are Receding

  

  Used car prices are declining from record highs. That may pose problems to lenders who calculated too much residual value on loans and leases to consumers who thought that we were in a brave new world where even used cars went up in value.

  Having said that, the prices for used cars remain robust and my understanding is that it is still extremely difficult to buy the most popular new models (and they often fetch a premium to NAV). Nothing like in the heyday of the supply chain issues, but something that should “normalize” over time.

  Auto dealers benefited from a lack of inventory, and I will be curious to see if they can retain their sales with low levels of inventory and (ultimately) pass some of those efficiencies through to the consumer.

  With autos being such an important part of the economy, it is something that I watch, but much like the story we heard in credit cards, a lot of the negatives that I’m reading about are simply a “normalization” which may be healthy for generating not just a soft landing, but a sustainable soft landing. However, the “slowing” is something to think about.

  The Excess Savings Lie

  I will spare you the agony of going through bank deposit charts on a short-term and long-term basis and just jump straight to the long-term chart. I used purple and orange arrows because I generally reserve green for good and red for bad and I’m not sure that these are “good” or “bad” deviations from trend.

  Bank Deposits are Falling! But to Levels Still Around Trend.

  

  I have argued that the “excess” in bank savings was never going to be put into the stock market (one of the bull cases, which may even still be floating around). I also think that there is a lot more than meets the eye about why there is so much in “excess” savings. Sure, without a doubt, COVID boosted savings. One thing that I “forgot” to mention earlier (or maybe I saved it on purpose) about the good things that happened to consumers during COVID is that there were many moratoriums placed on various types of debt service (i.e., student loans).

  We can all agree that some amount of cash stayed in savings accounts because while savings accounts earned 0%, so did everything else. As people realized that they could earn more on their money market funds, some amount was going to be taken out of savings accounts paying little interest. Though, I do have to say that I was at the local bank branch a few weeks ago taking out money from the ATM and someone before me had left a receipt showing $99k in their bank account. I immediately thought “who does that?”, but there are obviously people who want bank accounts up to the FDIC limit.

  My view has been (and will continue to be) that many people “earmarked” money that they would have to pay in the future and set it aside in a savings account. If you know moratoriums will end (and let’s not forget, these loans typically accrued interest during these periods), then it would be prudent to set aside some money for when those payments got turned back on.

  If my theory is correct, you should see bank deposits decline faster as these moratoriums end and the money that was “earmarked” for certain payments is withdrawn to make those payments. Please see American Ingenuity.
  Not great for the economy or spending, but is “normalization” really bad?

  Generative AI

  My intention is to use generative AI to help me do a report on “outliers”. This would include warning signs or positive things that the market may or may not be missing. After about an hour or so of brutally failed attempts this weekend, I gave up. I try to write these T-Reports with an estimate of how long it will take and how long the report will be but had absolutely zero clarity on whether the ChatGPT process would work. Hopefully I can make some interesting progress on the report early this week or I will declare it a failure. In any case, was Google trends (using generative AI) all you needed to buy or sell stocks successfully this year?

  

  No one really cared about AI until February of this year. Yes, there were some searches, but very few. The Nasdaq 100 bounced in January, stagnated for a bit, and then started to do well from April until late July. It has sold off steadily since then. While not matching the trends in “generative AI” search, it might have been the best tool to use. The searches have stabilized and what will be interesting to see is if they peaked or if they increase as we end the summer and people are back at work fulltime across the board.

  We will be focusing more on AI as Academy’s Advisory Board has grown the number of advisors with significant experience in the area and who are active today in the ongoing development of cyber and AI.

  China

  I promised that we’d get back to China, but for now I only want to highlight one chart. And, ironically, it is not a lie. It is the truth, and it is logical.

  China’s Holdings of U.S. Treasuries

  

  I highlight three periods.

  • Post GFC. When the U.S. economy was in tatters and much of the world was struggling, China was able to (or was willing to) accumulate more and more Treasuries. There is a lot of chatter about the decoupling of our economy from China’s right now, which is logical and will continue (the friction is real between the two nations and not getting better). I did, however, find it interesting that China accumulated so many Treasuries in the aftermath of the GFC. Prior to the GFC, the trend seemed obvious (U.S. was growing and buying stuff from China).
  • The tariffs sparked some discussion of potential retaliation from China, including the possibility that they would dump Treasuries. There was some decline in their holdings, but that could just as easily have been COVID related.
  • Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the decision to freeze Russia’s dollar holdings, there has been a steady decline in China’s Treasury holdings.
    • Some of the decline is due to the weakness in China’s economy and their potential need to prop up the property market (and maybe even those overly exposed to the “shadow banking system”).
    • Not only did we freeze Russia’s holdings (which tells me that we can do it again), but we have also been going after China on a myriad of fronts (most notably high tech, but increasingly for rare earths and critical minerals).
    • Our own debt ceiling issues and ratings may not help, but I’d be shocked if that entered into China’s calculus.
    • What I cannot tell from this chart is if it is an indication that China is successfully generating trade globally in yuan and has less need for dollars. That would fit my “shifting from made in China to made by China” view to a tee, but I’d be lying if I said that I could support that on this chart! Maybe generative AI will help me find evidence supporting that theory in places that I haven’t thought to look.

  One thing that I think supports Treasury market bears is that there will be less of a global interest in holding Treasuries (with China leading the way).

  Jobs

  So much to do here and with or without AI, I will add more charts related to jobs later this week.

  We have covered some of these areas in the past such as discrepancies in JOLTS between job openings and hires and the Establishment versus Household gaps. The fact that all these reports come in with declining response rates is another issue. It is difficult (mathematically) to accept the continuity of a data series when the response rate is declining without a serious investigation into why the response rate might be declining.

  While we haven’t discussed it recently, the annual revisions always seem to dramatically reduce the published data for the prior year (but weirdly it doesn’t seem to have a market impact).

  Today, I just bring up one chart because I find it fascinating in the lies, damned lies, and statistics theme.

  The “Almost” Unbelievable Pattern of New Company Formation

  

  The birth/death model is an estimate of jobs created or lost as new companies are formed or go out of business (or at least close enough for our purposes).

  I challenge you to find any other jobs data that looks this “perfect”. It is a beautiful sawtooth pattern that looks almost uninterrupted! For most jobs data, the COVID period makes long-term charts almost impossible to review. The job losses and subsequent job gains are so large relative to any prior periods (or current periods) that these charts look like straight lines on either side of COVID.

  Yet this chart seems almost perfect. This is a symmetrical “beauty”, but it is just a “plug”. It is something that clearly relies heavily on seasonality and I find it almost impossible to believe that this is so “predictable” (which makes me wonder how many other “plugs” or adjustments might be meaningless after the COVID shock). Meaningless, but this data is still used to determine policy and drive markets.

  Inflation

  I couldn’t be bothered. Sure, I will dig into this more, but I really don’t think that despite some Fed jawboning, anything (other than a large/sustained change in inflation) will do much to the Fed’s decision (which means that it will do little for bond markets). I am prepared to be wrong on this and will delve into it this week (with help hopefully from friends at ChatGPT), but inflation is low on my radar screen. However, there is one exception – will companies be able to grow earnings in the current inflation environment where it seems to be more difficult to push through final product price increases while input costs remain elevated?

  Bottom Line

  Seems like we are back to an “inflection” point where the debate between soft landing and “something less fun” is back on the table. The lag effect is regaining credibility (it always should have).

  There are cases to be made for a variety of economic outcomes as we head into September and that is exciting from my seat!

  I do think that we are in a period where price action drives what narratives we see: continued downward pressure on stocks will bring out more and more negative reports. One more short squeeze and suddenly AI, soft landing, and praise for Powell is all that we will see.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 15:30

• "Pathetic, …Pessimistic": Non-White Focus Group Hammers Biden On Economy, Crime, Border
  “Pathetic, …Pessimistic”: Non-White Focus Group Hammers Biden On Economy, Crime, Border

  “Pathetic.” “Discouraged.” “Pessimistic.”

  Those are some of the sentiments shared by non-whites who were recently asked to share their feelings about the economy under President Biden, Politico reports. 

  Liberal polling firm HIT Strategies hosted a focus group of eight non-white voters last week, and found them uniformly unimpressed with President Biden’s handling of the economy. HIT uses “research and data to understand and communicate with hard-to-reach and underrepresented voters.”

  

  A new Quinnipiac University poll found 58% of all Americans give Biden a thumbs-down on the economy. In a worrisome stat for Democratic Party officials gearing up for the 2024 election, 35% of blacks give him a failing grade, as do 50% of Hispanics. The latest Emerson poll has a nationwide Biden-Trump contest as a dead heat, with Biden at 44.4% and Trump at 44.0%. 

  Some in the “people of color” focus group said they preferred the economy under Trump. “Our economy is the lowest it’s been in God knows how long,” said a Hispanic from New Jersey. “We keep [sending] money to Ukraine and other countries rather than helping ourselves.”

  “We don’t know what’s going to happen,” said an Asian American or Pacific Islander participant. “They’re kind of like saying that there possibly is going to be a soft landing, but they’re also expecting a recession of some sorts. It’s kind of a mixed message.”

  

  Some long for an alternative beyond Trump and Biden. “I’m definitely not happy with where America was when Trump was president,” said a black man from Cleveland who’s a registered Democrat. “And I’m not happy with where America is, now that Biden’s president. We’ve already had years of both of them being president and with no kind of good results. So I’m hoping there’s some other you know, candidate or alternative besides these two.”

  While members of the focus group said their economy was their number-one concern, they also hammered Biden on crime and management of the border. 

  Beyond individual candidates, focus group participants also expressed exasperation with America’s two principal parties. “I don’t feel like Democrats really have my back … or Republicans, you know?” said a Los Angeles black-and-Latino man. He gave Trump credit on the economy, however. “Trump got in there and he changed stuff.”

  Asked about indictments against Trump and accusations that he fosters white nationalism, the black-and-Latino man shrugged it off: “If you’re getting the job done, I can’t really hate on that.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 15:00

• Original Snow White Director's Son Slams Disney's 2024 Remake, 'Insulting,' 'Disgrace'
  Original Snow White Director’s Son Slams Disney’s 2024 Remake, ‘Insulting,’ ‘Disgrace’

  Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  While the release of the new Snow White movie is still a year away, the son of the man who animated and directed the original version has called the new concept a “disgrace” and labeled the “woke things” they’ve made up as “insulting.”

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

  

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

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

  “Their thoughts are just so radical now,” he said, noting how the Disney of today feels compelled to “change the stories” and “change the thought process of the characters.”

  Disney’s live-version remake of the animated film, “The Little Mermaid,” cast a black actress named Halle Bailey in the role of Ariel—originally portrayed as a white redhead became another box office flop that cost Disney $1 billion.

  “They’re making up new woke things, and I’m just not into any of that. I find it quite frankly a bit insulting,” he added, suggesting that what Disney has done “with some of these classic films” provides evidence that there is “no respect” for what Walt’s Disney and people like his father envisioned and created.

  “I think Walt and he would be turning in their graves,” Mr. Hand said.

  The original film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” was released in 1937. It was Disney’s first full-length feature film. Along with “Pinocchio,” which was released in 1940, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is heralded as Disney’s greatest film achievement.

  

  The Original Snow White

  The original film was hailed as a masterpiece, drawing worldwide acclaim and winning several awards from both the New York Film Critics Circle and The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

  The budget for the movie, initially set at $250 thousand, exploded to $1.5 million due to various delays. The film, which included over 2 million sketches and 250,000 drawings, took about three years to produce.

  Ward Kimball, another animator, nearly quit after two of his main sequences were cut.

  Certain of the film’s demise, critics gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the nickname “Walt Disney’s Folly.”

  In 1989, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was among the first 25 featured films to be preserved in the National Film Registry with the Library of Congress. In 2008, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was named the Greatest Animated Film of All Time by the American Film Institute.

  The Story of Snow White

  The storyline of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is loosely based on the famous fairy tale, which had been passed down orally long before it was set to paper by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 under the German title “Schneewittchen” or “Little Snow White.”

  The plot of the story is set into motion when the heroine’s stepmother—a vain, wicked queen—consults her magical mirror. For many years, the mirror tells the wicked queen that she is “the fairest in the land,” until one day, the mirror tells her that Snow White now bears the title.

  Hearing this, the wicked queen becomes angry. She calls upon a woodsman and orders him to kill Snow White. For proof, the queen ordered the woodsman to bring back her heart. But the woodsman is unable to commit the murder. Instead, he helps the princess escape by taking her deep into the forest where the wicked queen would never find her. To fool the queen, the woodsman returns with the heart of a pig.

  Safe in the forest, Snow White discovers a cottage inhabited by seven dwarfs—Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, and Sleepy—who earn their living as miners. After she offers to earn her keep by cleaning their home and cooking for them, the dwarfs offer her to stay.

  The queen, however, learns that Snow White lives.

  Assuming the guise of an old hag, the queen tricks her stepdaughter into taking a bite of a poisoned apple. Snow White then falls into a deep, death-like sleep. It is a spell which can only be broken by a kiss of true love.

  When the dwarfs return from the mine they discover Snow White. Believing she is dead, they are heartbroken. They find the queen, who was attempting to flee back to her castle. They chase her to a cliff, where she falls to her death. To honor Snow White, they create a case to keep her body, standing guard over her. One day, a handsome prince comes upon Snow White and instantly falls in love. With a kiss of true love, he restored her to life and they lived “happily ever after.”

  The New Version

  While the new version isn’t expected to be released until March 2024, its plot and the actress cast to portray the new princess have already become sources of hot debate on social media.

  One obvious difference between the new live-action version of Snow White film and its hand-drawn, animated predecessor is apparent in the title itself, which eliminates “the seven dwarfs.” Moreover, those seven diminutive, white male characters—which have themselves become beloved, worldwide icons—have been replaced by a set of what Disney bills as “magical creatures” of varied colors, sizes, shapes, and genders.

  Prince Charming is cast as a “bumbling idiot.”

  The new Snow White is no longer white. She’s Cuban, played by Rachel Zegler, who also starred in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story,” which was a massive flop.

  Ms. Zegler has been publicly critical of the original version.

  In a video on social media, Ms. Zegler dismissed the storyline of the classic version as old-fashioned, saying, “The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so.”

  “There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her,” Ms. Zegler said. “Weird! Weird. So, we didn’t do that this time.”

  Instead, Ms. Zegler explained that the more progressive version took “a different approach to what a lot of people will, I’m sure, assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude.”

  Also gone is the romance between the pair. In fact, the prince has all but been eliminated from the story.

  “It’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful,” Ms. Zegler shared. “And whether or not she finds love along the way is anybody’s guess until 2024. All of Andrew’s scenes could get cut, who knows? It’s Hollywood, baby.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 08/20/2023 – 14:30

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• Rare Earth Elements And National Security: Reclaiming US Control Amid China's Monopoly
  Rare Earth Elements And National Security: Reclaiming US Control Amid China’s Monopoly

  Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times,

  The Center for Strategic and International Studies on July 18 identified China’s control over gallium (a rare earth element) as a national security threat.

  

  Rare earth elements (REEs) are crucial to the U.S. military, but China holds the key. China possesses 36 percent of the world’s known rare earth reserves and controls 70 percent of the world’s extractive capacity and an astonishing 90 percent of the processing capacity. This dominance in extraction and processing gives China a commanding position in the global REE market, raising concerns about resource security and international dependency.

  REEs are critical to defense technology as modern weapons can’t be built, repaired, or maintained without them. Everything from F-35 fighter aircraft to cellphones depends on rare earths, as do critical space technologies, electronics, and semiconductors. Of the 50 minerals designated as critical by the U.S. Geological Survey, 17 are considered rare earths. Although the supply of REEs is sufficient to meet defense needs, extracting a small amount of rare earths requires mining a large quantity of waste materials.

  In February 2022, the Biden White House issued a statement acknowledging how critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to U.S. national security and economic prosperity. The statement went on to outline steps that the administration was taking to secure the U.S. supply chain. However, the problem remains unresolved.

  One of the reasons why the United States and Western nations can’t compete with China in rare earth mining is environmental regulations. The necessity for permits and achieving environmental standards make mining REEs extremely difficult and expensive. The United States only has one REE mine, which is located in Mountain Pass, California.

  In 2022, the White House granted $35 million to MP Materials to process REEs from Mountain Pass, but the company still sends its REE feedstock to China for advanced processing. Similarly, the United States provided funding to Australia’s Lynas Corporation for REE mining, but Lynas continues to outsource processing to China.

  An apparent contradiction in the environmental regulations on mining REEs is that the same amount of pollution is being added to the Earth’s atmosphere, whether the REEs are mined and processed in the United States or China. Furthermore, green technologies are heavily dependent on REEs. Wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicle motors require REEs. Unless the United States and other nations dramatically increase their REE mining and processing, the world can never achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate change goals.

  To meet emission reduction targets set by President Joe Biden, the United States will have to increase its electricity generation by 60 percent by 2030.

  With the growing sales of electric cars and wind turbines, Boston Consulting Group estimates that demand for REE will increase to 466 kilotons by 2035 from 170 kilotons in 2022.

  Given the size of the average REE project, 30 new projects would have to be put into operation by 2035. A shortfall will result in electricity outages and a reduction in the standard of living for most Americans.

  It could take years for the United States to build sufficient REE mining and refining operations.

  Under current regulations, it takes an average of 16 years for a permit to be awarded. Once greenlighted, REE projects are capital-intensive and take a great deal of time to turn a profit. Due to these difficulties and the uncertainty of earning a positive return, most established mining companies have steered away from the REE business. Boston Consulting Group estimates that keeping up with increasing demand would require an investment of $100 billion per year for the next 12 years.

  Environmentalists suggest recycling REEs already above ground as a partial solution. The Heritage Foundation recommends that private industry and the U.S. Department of Defense should stockpile processed and semi-processed REEs. To rebuild the U.S. capacity to mine and process REEs, Congress must reduce the environmental restrictions. Federal and state agencies must also follow suit. Federal land where mining is prohibited should be reviewed and potentially reopened.

  Furthermore, the United States should collaborate with its defense partners in Europe, Australia, North America, and Asia to establish mining and processing operations so allies could mitigate dependence on China. Finally, the Development Finance Corporation should be empowered to provide financing to U.S. corporations and those of friendly nations to establish mining and processing operations.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 23:30

• These Are The World's Largest Cities By Population
  These Are The World’s Largest Cities By Population

  The world has experienced rapid urbanization over the last century.

  Today, more than 4.3 billion people live in urban settings, or 55% of the world’s population.

  But what is the world’s largest city?

  Answers to that question will vary greatly depending on which lines are being used to demarcate city boundaries and measure their populations.

  In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Bhabna Banerjee and Bruno Venditti use data taken from the latest official censuses and projections to rank the top cities based on the three most common metrics…

  

  The Largest Cities by City Proper

  Our first metric is based on the city proper, meaning the administrative boundaries.

  According to the United Nations, a city proper is “the single political jurisdiction which contains the historical city center.”

  The Chinese city of Chongqing leads the ranks by this metric and has an administrative boundary the size of Austria, with an urban population of 32.1 million.

  The city’s monorail system holds records for being the world’s longest and busiest, boasting 70 stations. Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, is among the world’s top 50 busiest airports. Additionally, the city ranks among the globe’s top 50 hubs for scientific research.

  Other Chinese cities dominate the ranking by this metric:

  

  The first non-Chinese city, Delhi, has been experiencing one of the fastest urban expansions in the world.

  The United Nations projects India will add over 400 million urban dwellers by 2050, compared to 250 million people in China and 190 million in Nigeria.

  The Largest Cities by Urban Area

  This measurement largely ignores territorial boundaries and considers a city a contiguous, connected built-up area.

  Demographia describes urban areas as functioning as an integrated economic unit, linked by commuting flows, social, and economic interactions.

  By this metric, Tokyo leads the ranking:

  

  The city proper houses about 10% of Japan’s population. If the greater Tokyo metro area is considered, including cities like Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba, then Tokyo’s total population surpasses 37 million—about 30% of the country total.

  Consequently, even with one of the world’s largest railway systems, trains in Tokyo are incredibly crowded, with a boarding rate of 200% during peak time in the most overcrowded areas. The city is also famous for its Shibuya Crossing, the busiest intersection on the planet.

  The Largest Cities by Metropolitan Area

  Tokyo also leads by our final metric, metropolitan area.

  This measurement is similar to urban area, but is generally defined by official organizations, either for statistical purposes or governance.

  In the United States, this takes the form of metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), such as Chicago-Naperville-Elgin or Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler.

  

  As the global urban population continues to rise, new cities, especially in Africa and Asia, are expected to vie for the “largest” tag soon.

  The UN projects that by 2050, 68% of the world will live in urban areas.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 23:00

• Understanding The Parasitic Cooperation Between Globalists And Leftists
  Understanding The Parasitic Cooperation Between Globalists And Leftists

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  I have to admit that in my efforts to analyze and dissect far-left/globalist ideologies and agendas I have come to a point where I am just as fascinated as I am horrified. Consider for a moment the progressive “intersectional” narrative which we often refer to as “woke”: It’s not an activist movement because they already have equal rights under the law. It’s partially a political movement but their goals go far beyond putting candidates in government – A large part of the government is already on their side.

  They claim to stand against “capitalism” and corporate power, yet their movement is primarily funded by the very money elites they say they despise.

  

  No, this movement is something different – It’s a system of blind belief and the invasion of a cult that worships itself, that worships power and seeks to undermine the truth whenever possible as a means to an end. We are witnessing history in the making; the birth of a monstrous religion of moral relativism.

  To understand the political left and their tactics you have to understand their relationship with the globalists. Woke groups are a creation of the corporate/globalist regime. For decades think-tanks like the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation have been grooming universities to produce a steady supply of cult members, all of them indoctrinated into a carefully crafted narrative that clings to socialism and uses victim status as a currency.

  They abhor meritocracy and have delusions of equity. They demand an impossible Utopia that guarantees equal outcomes. They see self sufficiency as criminality; an attempt to escape from collective oversight. And they are more than willing to rationalize dishonesty, disinformation, deconstruction, chaos and murder as a means to get what they want.

  As I’ve noted in the past, it’s difficult to combat a movement with no morals and no shame. If your purpose is to convince them to stop what they are doing using logic, data, common sense and appeals to conscience, you will fail. They don’t care about any of these things. The leftist obsession with power is absolute – It’s all they talk about. It’s the root of every one of their arguments.

  That said, their concept of power is rather limited and childish.

  For the woke, power is in cancel culture. Power is in the mob. Power is in displays of collective destruction and control.

  They ask themselves “What can we take from others, and how can we instill fear?” They believe the more they can take, the more power they have.

  Globalists view power in a similar manner to leftists, but they expand on the manifesto with the question “How can we convince others to give us control willingly?”

  Woke useful idiots see power as something that must be stolen through intimidation or force. Globalists see power as something that is handed to them by useful idiots. In order to get that power, globalists spend the vast majority of their energy and wealth on the manufacturing of consent. It’s not enough to control the population, you have to make them believe that your oligarchy is THEIR IDEA. That way, they never try to fight back.

  While woke activists are running around like monkeys with matches trying to burn down the world, globalists are looking at the activists and saying “How can I make those monkeys burn down the things I want them to burn down?”

  Manufacturing consent from half the population of a nation requires a massive disinfo apparatus. I doubt that most leftists even realize their entire philosophy was funded and fabricated by corporate interests. And if you educate them on the fact that they are now allied with the same ultra-rich corporate vampires they say they hate, you’ll soon discover they don’t mind. They’ll happily embrace the devil’s contract because they see it as a means of “winning.” In this way political leftists and the globalists are indelibly intertwined.

  This is why I don’t take arguments over the “false left/right paradigm” very seriously anymore. Sure, there are still Neo-Cons in the Republican Party that claim to be conservative when they are actually globalists and leftists. That’s not the point. The point is, millions upon millions of regular people on the left have willfully chosen to side with the globalists and have specifically targeted conservative and patriot culture for destruction.

  They are the enemy, just as much as the globalists are the enemy. Without the leftist mob the globalists have no power. It’s time to accept this reality instead of falling back on the same old lazy argument: “But both sides are the problem…” No, only one side is the problem. They have always been the problem regardless of the political masks they wear.

  If you look at the pyramid from the bottom-up, there is no such thing as the “false left/right paradigm” anymore. There is a VERY REAL left/right paradigm. The division is a fact of life. The lines have been drawn by the establishment; either you’re with them or you’re against them. There is no in-between.

  In the film ‘The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari’ an elite member of society turns a man into a monster through hypnosis, sending him to stalk the countryside to kill people the elite wants out of his way.  The globalists have also used mesmerism to summon their own leftist monster whenever they need some dirty work done.  There are two key pillars that they want leftists to tear down – People’s perceptions of freedom and people’s perceptions of objective fact.

  For example, look at the recent covid “crisis” and the draconian response that the majority of leftists supported. Also look at the hysterical climate change narratives and the calls for carbon restrictions that would inevitably lead to mass depopulation; once again largely supported by the political left.

  Both agendas rely on the notion of an existential threat that requires people to sacrifice their freedoms on a micro-level. Yet, covid mandates suggest that we need to save the population from death while climate change mandates suggest that we need to kill most of the population to protect the environment. It doesn’t make sense unless you understand that diminishing freedom is the ultimate point. Covid was never about saving lives and climate controls have nothing to do with saving the planet.

  As for perceptions of objective fact, one need only look at the transgender movement to see that the very foundations of truth are under siege. If biology is subjective, if identity is subjective, if the genetic details we use to define and categorize our species are “social constructs” instead of facts, then almost any truth could be targeted. I believe that this attempt to make biological truth a matter of prerogative is done with the intent of making moral truth mutable.

  If civilization is convinced to accept the surgical/chemical mutilation and sterilization of our youth, if we can be convinced to accept the sexualization of children from an early age, then we can easily be convinced to accept just about anything else. Pedophilia? Slavery? Murder? All in the name of hedonism posing as freedom.

  By extension, the abandonment of universal truths will invariably lead to the rebuke of freedom itself. What is freedom really? Is it a legitimate concern for the future? We “live in a society” after all, and according to leftists everything we do “affects everyone else.” Therefore, freedom can be dangerous; it might hurt or upset others. It might ruin the planet. Best to get rid of it entirely for the good of the collective…

  It is an eternal dichotomy – Without truth there can be no freedom – Without freedom there can be no truth. On the dark side of that coin is the globalist/leftist dichotomy – Without the globalists there is no leftist mob, without the leftist mob the globalists will be erased.

  Globalists are seeking to subjugate the world, and to do that they need to undermine the basic tenets of human interaction and understanding. They have allied with the political left in order to blitz the populace with chaos, keeping people distracted and off balance while the powers-that-be wrap their tentacles around every last vestige of private liberty.

  Our greatest hope is for the citizenry to adopt a hostile posture and refuse to compromise another inch. We have to start calling the political left out for what they really are – The striking hand of the globalist cabal. There can be no give-and-take when it comes to our core principles. No more tolerance of deconstruction, no more slack given to saboteurs. If a subversive group is trying to tear down the moral fabric that makes the west functional and free, if they desire to eradicate the heritage that our founders fought to establish, then we must do as the founders did and remove the threat.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 22:30

• The 'Brrr' Is Coming Back
  The ‘Brrr’ Is Coming Back

  Summer in the Northern Hemisphere has peaked and will soon give way to the cold season. The latest extended weather forecast for the winter 2023-24 season reveals cold temperatures, snow, and damp conditions across the Lower 48. 

  “After a weird and warm winter season last year, this winter should make cold weather fans rejoice—especially those in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and northern New England areas,” Peter Geiger, editor of the Farmer’s Almanac, wrote in a statement.

  Geiger added, “The ‘brrr’ is coming back! We expect more snow and low temperatures nationwide.”

  

  For winter, the Farmer’s Almanac factors in a strengthening of El Niño, which should result in more moisture and storms across the southern US.

  Last year’s weather prediction forecasted a chilly and snowy winter for the East and arid conditions for the West. However, that only partially panned out. 

  Farmers’ Almanac’s method of forecasting weather is the same as it was two centuries ago:

  “The Almanac first started in 1818, so back in that time period, our editor wanted to predict the weather for farmers. So, he developed a mathematical formula that gets applied to sunspot activity, planet position, the effect the moon has on the Earth, and all of those things. The formula allows us to do our weather two years in advance. There are times when there’s a very strong El Niño, or La Niña that’s very strong, that could make things a little different than what we’re calling for, but basically, we have a good track record.”

  Summer in the Northern Hemisphere has peaked. 

  

  Others are forecasting cold weather. 

  We put our first winter forecast out on Weatherbell. Here is the temperature and snow forecast. You can read it on our premium site. Just so happens the latest CFSV2 CONTROL run went nuts pic.twitter.com/dWva8PVH8T

  — The American Storm (@BigJoeBastardi) August 18, 2023

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

  If the Farmers’ Almanac’s winter predictions prove accurate, brace yourselves for another wave of the very same climate alarmists who warned of a melting Earth this summer due to cow farts and gas-powered cars. They will likely pivot and claim cold weather is yet another sign of ‘climate change’ induced by humans. Has anyone told these hopeless, fearmongering folks there are seasons?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 22:00

• Brace Yourselves, Because What They Have Planned Is Going To Absolutely Devastate The US Economy
  Brace Yourselves, Because What They Have Planned Is Going To Absolutely Devastate The US Economy

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  Do you remember what happened in 2008?  Many people believe that another historic financial disaster is coming and that it will absolutely devastate the U.S. economy.  Earlier this week, I wrote about an investor named Michael Burry that has actually bet 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash.  He made all the right moves in 2008, and he fully intends to be proven right once again in 2023.  Of course current conditions definitely resemble 2008 in so many ways.  The residential housing market is so dead right now, and commercial real estate prices are plummeting at a very frightening pace.  Unfortunately, officials at the Federal Reserve are making it quite clear that they are not done strangling the economy.

  

  This week, mortgage rates jumped above the 7 percent mark to the highest level that we have seen in more than 20 years…

  Mortgage rates surpassed 7% this week, hitting the highest level in more than two decades.

  The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage increased to 7.09% this week, up from 6.96% the week prior, according to Freddie Mac’s release on Thursday. That’s the highest point since the first week of April 2002 and marks just the third time rates have exceeded 7% since then. The last times were in October and November of last year, when the rate reached 7.08%.

  Needless to say, high mortgage rates have been crippling the housing market in recent months.

  At the midpoint of this year, existing home sales were down a whopping 18.9 percent from the same time in 2022…

  Total existing-home sales1 – completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – receded 3.3% from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.16 million in June. Year-over-year, sales fell 18.9% (down from 5.13 million in June 2022).

  There are certainly lots of people out there that would like to buy homes, but thanks to how high mortgage rates have become they simply cannot afford to do so.

  Housing has become extremely unaffordable in this country.  According to Redfin, the percentage of teachers that can afford to buy a home close to the school where they work has fallen to just 12 percent…

  The number of teachers who can afford a reasonably priced home in their school district nationwide has collapsed to just 12%, down from 17% last summer and 30% in 2019, amid the worst housing affordability crisis in a generation, according to data from Redfin.

  Redfin’s analysis of median teacher salaries for 2022 across 50 major cities for over 70,000 PreK-12 public and private schools revealed no teacher in San Jose and San Diego could afford homes within “commuting distances” to their respective school, which means home and work are 20 minutes during typical rush hour conditions.

  So much damage has already been done.

  But apparently officials at the Federal Reserve believe that even more carnage is necessary, because they are indicating that more rate hikes are on the table…

  Most Federal Reserve officials signaled during their July policy-setting meeting that high inflation still poses an ongoing threat that could necessitate additional interest rate hikes this year.

  Minutes from the U.S. central bank’s July 25-26 meeting released Wednesday showed that central bank officials observed that inflation remains well above the Fed’s 2% target — and that policymakers need to see “further signs that aggregate demand and aggregate supply were moving into better balance to be confident that inflation pressures were abating.”

  No.

  Don’t do it.

  Even if rates stay at current levels, we are headed for extreme pain.

  Raising rates even higher would just be suicidal.

  But it looks like they are going to do it anyway, and that could push mortgage rates up to the 8 percent level…

  Economists have predicted mortgage rates could go above 8 percent if the economy continues to show signs of strength and the US Federal Reserve decides to raise interest rates again.

  Mortgage Rates have not hit such levels since 2000, according to data compiled by Freddie Mac.

  Do officials at the Fed actually believe that our system can handle such high rates?

  Unless the Fed changes course, the housing market is going to absolutely implode.

  And of course the commercial real estate market is already imploding.

  The chaos that is already transpiring is putting an enormous amount of strain on our financial institutions, and Fitch is warning that we could soon see sweeping rating downgrades in the banking industry…

  A Fitch Ratings analyst warned that the U.S. banking industry has inched closer to another source of turbulence — the risk of sweeping rating downgrades on dozens of U.S. banks that could even include the likes of JPMorgan Chase
  .
  The ratings agency cut its assessment of the industry’s health in June, a move that analyst Chris Wolfe said went largely unnoticed because it didn’t trigger downgrades on banks.

  In many ways, I feel like I am watching a repeat of 2008.

  Officials at the Fed can clearly see everything that is happening, but they just keep insisting on making things even worse.

  So I hope that you have been preparing for turbulent times, because things are going to get crazy.

  Sadly, the truth is that most Americans are not prepared for tougher times.  In fact, one recent survey discovered that 72 percent of Americans are not financially secure…

  For many Americans, payday can’t come soon enough. As of June, 61% of adults are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a LendingClub report. In other words, they rely on those regular paychecks to meet essential living expenses, with little to no money left over.

  Almost three-quarters, 72%, of Americans say they aren’t financially secure given their current financial standing, and more than a quarter said they will likely never be financially secure, according to a survey by Bankrate.

  Many of those people will lose their jobs during this new economic crisis, and because they don’t have any sort of a financial cushion to fall back on many of them will also end up losing their homes.

  Delinquency rates are already starting to move higher, and that should deeply alarm all of us.

  But what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

  So brace yourselves for what is ahead, because this ride is only going to get bumpier from here.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 21:30

• Visualizing $156 Trillion In US Assets, By Generation
  Visualizing $156 Trillion In US Assets, By Generation

  The distribution of wealth is an important measure of the economic power of each generation.

  In the U.S., for example, baby boomers own half of the nation’s $156 trillion in assets despite making up 21% of the country’s population.

  To learn more about U.S. wealth by generation, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Joyce Ma created two visualizations using Q4 2022 data from the Federal Reserve that break down both the assets and liabilities held by each American generation.

  

  Assets by Generation

  Assets by generation are listed in the table below. All figures are as of Q4 2022 and in USD trillions.

  

  Baby boomers’ biggest category of assets is Equities & Mutual Funds, where they own 56% of the national total. Millennials, on the other hand, represent just 2%.

  Where millennials do have more wealth is Real Estate, with 12% of the national total. This suggests that millennials have, for the most part, foregone investing in financial assets in order to purchase a home.

  Liabilities by Generation

  The following charts show a breakdown of liabilities by generation. Not surprisingly, Mortgages make up the largest component of liabilities for all generations.

  

  Something to highlight is that millennials are carrying the largest amount of Consumer Credit, at $2 trillion (representing about 43% of total consumer credit). As of 2022, millennials accounted for 22% of the U.S. population.

  U.S. Wealth by Generation

  Finally, we subtract liabilities from assets to arrive at total wealth by generation in the United States. Figures again are USD and in trillions.

  

  As a final note, it’s worth highlighting that Gen Z is still too young to be included as a separate demographic in datasets like these. Born between 1997 and 2012, these individuals are currently between 11 and 26 years old. Interestingly, the Federal Reserve currently considers all U.S. adults born after 1981 as millennials.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 21:00

• Is There Meat Glue In Your Food?
  Is There Meat Glue In Your Food?

  Via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Editor’s Note:

  Ever gone out to an inexpensive buffet and marveled at the vast display of freshly prepared, hot food just waiting to be devoured? You choose the perfectly fried tempura shrimp—that unbeknownst to you—may have been mixed with a binding enzyme called transglutaminase—otherwise known as meat glue. This is not an unlikely scenario as meat glue—though banned in the European Union—is classified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as “generally recognized as safe.”

  In the book, “A Consumer’s Guide to Toxic Food Additives” authors Bill and Linda Bonvie reveal the many additives lurking in our everyday food and outline ways we can identify and eliminate them from our diets. Following on the heels of our excerpt about the health implications of carrageenan, this one is sure to “stick” in your mind.

  

  Meat Glue—Pink Slime’s Far More Sickening Sibling

  Back in 2012, an ABC news lead story about Pink Slime (called in the industry by the more appetizing name, “finely textured beef”) struck a chord of disgust in the meat-eating public.

  Petitions were formed to get the product out of the school lunch program, and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver conducted pink slime demos where he put beef scraps in a washing machine and then soaked them in ammonia and water.

  Right before the slime hit the fan, however, ABC news affiliates spilled the beans about another underground meat practice. It was the use of an enzyme called transglutaminase, or, as it’s more commonly referred to, meat glue.

  Now, even though meat glue has the potential to be a lot more hazardous to your health than pink slime, for some reason, the public couldn’t quite seem to wrap its head around it in the same way.

  While some stories appeared in the press at the time, there were no petitions or consumers calling on the FDA or USDA to do something about it. In fact, some big-name chefs even came out in praise of meat glue.

  For example, Wylie Dufresne, who was both chef and owner of the super-pricy Manhattan eatery wd~50 (which closed in 2014), was quoted in Meat Paper as saying he had “concocted all manner of playful and bizarre food products with meat glue, including shrimp spaghetti, which he made by mixing salt, cayenne, deveined shrimp, and meat glue in a blender.”

  “Meat glue,” Dufresne declared, “makes us better chefs.”

  However, even if you’re dining at an elegant establishment like wd~50, you may want to think twice about eating “glued” food. That’s one of the problems with this stuff—the appearance of food in which it has been used can definitely be deceiving.

  How to Fake a Steak (or Eggs)

  Since 2016, a certain restaurant chain has been using the catchy slogan “You can’t fake steak” in its TV commercials. While we can’t say whether or not that particular chain’s steaks are the real McCoy, the fact is that the slogan is wrong: You can indeed fake steak—by simply using a little meat glue.

  At one time, transglutaminase was manufactured entirely from the clotting agent extracted from pig or cow’s blood. Now, it’s typically made by cultivating bacteria to do the job. Most of the meat glue supplied to the food industry comes from none other than Ajinomoto—the company that brought MSG to America.

  Like MSG, Ajinomoto claims that transglutaminase is “ubiquitous in nature … typically found in various plants and animals.” Where MSG is concerned, that premise really doesn’t hold much water, as “bound” glutamic acid found in things such as meat, mushrooms, or tomatoes is quite different than the free glutamic acid added to food. Now, new research has found that this might also apply to transglutaminase sprinkled on meat or seafood.

  What meat glue does is to allow restaurants and manufacturers to get away with one of the most devious forms of food fakery. Even the meat industry, when it defends transglutaminase, has to acknowledge that it can be used to fool diners. Meat glue is used much more often to “fake a steak” than to make gourmet shrimp noodles, as chef Dufresne did. By sprinkling the enzyme on various scrap pieces of meat, chicken, or seafood, and then binding it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerating it for several hours, you can turn out a picture-perfect filet mignon, solid piece of chicken, or a top-dollar-looking filet of fish.

  Even experts can’t tell the difference.

  If you’ve ever attended a banquet or a convention, or maybe even dined in a restaurant, and were served an expensive-looking steak or sushi at a bargain price, you may have wondered how that came to be. The answer is either that the restaurant owner is losing money with each meal or, more likely, that there’s a bag of meat glue in the kitchen.

  The fake food industry has also found use for meat glue in a product bizarrely called “JUST Egg,” something that contains no trace of eggs. But along with brain-damaging amino acids, you will find transglutaminase listed on the JUST Egg label—yet another excellent reason to read food ingredients carefully no matter what brand names the products are given.

  A Pathway for Pathogens to Get Inside Your Dinner

  Fakery aside, meat glue could be contributing to the growing epidemic of food poisoning that hits millions (the CDC puts the number at 1 in 6 Americans or around 48 million every year).

  That’s because pathogens, like Escherichia coli, Listeria, and Salmonella (with many strains now antibiotic resistant) mostly appear on the surface of meat. When the outer surface is seared, even if the meat is eaten medium rare or rare, that bacteria have most likely been killed.

  When multiple pieces of meat are combined, however, those pathogens could be lurking in the center. Surfaces of the meat that once were on the outside are now in the middle. If you haven’t cooked that meat thoroughly inside and out, you could be in for big trouble.

  On an Australian TV exposé of meat glue several years ago, an expert in microbiology commented that “the amount of bacteria on a steak that’s been put together with meat glue is hundreds of times higher” than your average piece of unglued meat. The same is true for chicken and fish.

  Now, if you ask the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration], USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture], and certainly Ajinomoto, you’re going to hear that meat glue is perfectly safe. Sure, there’s that little problem of bacterial contamination, but these US consumer protection agencies appear to be quite confident that restaurants know that glued meat needs to be cooked thoroughly.

  The USDA calls it TG enzyme, and gives instructions for cooking stuck-together meat that sounds exactly the same as what it would tell you about cooking all types of raw meat. As far as the FDA is concerned, there’s really no problem with Ajinomoto making its own determination that transglutaminase is generally recognized as safe, or GRAS.

  Back in the late 1990s, the USDA received several petitions from both Ajinomoto and another company called AMPC about expanding the use of TG enzyme and attempting to get the consumer labeling (in the supermarket) to be as innocuous as possible.

  Both companies got just about everything they wanted. Meat glue can now be used in meat products across the board—both the kind the USDA calls “standardized” and “non-standardized.” (This refers to what’s called a “standard of identity”—a legal description of what it takes for certain foods to be able to use a name such as hot dogs, milk, cheese, bread, etc. For example, if you want to sell something called “Salisbury steak,” it must contain at least 65 percent meat, among other requirements.)

  In the case of meat glue, the agency had to change the standard of identity for numerous items like breakfast sausages, frankfurters, and bologna in order to allow for the use of the enzyme. Additionally, it was also approved to be used as a “binder” (something added to food to thicken or improve texture) for “certain meat and poultry products.”

  As a result, it’s quite possible that manufacturers are putting it to uses way beyond faking expensive cuts of meat.

  Perhaps one of the most important reasons you need to go out of your way to avoid this badditive has to do with a more recent discovery—one that might help explain the explosion of gut and digestive troubles that are plaguing so many these days.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 20:30

• "Quiet" Thrusters For 'Flying Cars' Comes Out Of Stealth Development
  “Quiet” Thrusters For ‘Flying Cars’ Comes Out Of Stealth Development

  Coming out of stealth development is an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft by Applied eVTOL Concepts. The new eVTOL has thruster technology developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration via a multi-million dollar grant from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 

  Applied eVTOL Concepts revealed the “Epiphany Transporter” last week, described as a “new mode of personal mobility.”

  

  The company released specs on the new aircraft, indicating it’s capable of 160 mph with a 300-plus mile range but generates less than 55 decibels of noise at 50 feet.

  

  For some context, a normal conversation with background music is around 50 decibels. 

  

  “The Epiphany Transporter can accommodate two people, their luggage, plus golf clubs! Intended to be simple and safe to operate, and about the size of a Tesla Model ‘S’ automobile, it fits into a standard one-car garage with its thrusters folded up, Applied eVTOL Concepts said. 

  The company said the thruster technology has been in development for a quarter-century:

  Originally developed under a $5.1 million DARPA grant, the NASA-proven ducted thrusters have undergone over a quarter-century of refinement through full-scale flight testing in wind tunnels and several prototype manned vehicles.

  The news of the “exceptionally quiet” and “neighbor-friendly” eVTOL comes as the Federal Aviation Administration has published the Advanced Air Mobility Implementation Plan to ensure safe skies for flying taxis operations by 2028. 

  

  Last month, the FAA granted SpaceX-backed mobility firm Alef Aeronautics a Special Airworthiness Certification that will allow “limited” flight operations. 

  

  We suspect those who want to be in command of an eVTOL will likely need to obtain a private pilot’s license and get rated for the aircraft to operate in controlled airspace. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 20:00

• These Are The Most Dangerous Cities In The US
  These Are The Most Dangerous Cities In The US

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  NeighborhoodScout does an annual report on the most dangerous cities US per capita. Let’s see what cities are on the list for 2023.

  

  Data from the NeighborhoodScout, image from the Visual Capitalist

  Please consider NeighborhoodScout’s Most Dangerous Cities – 2023

  Our research reveals the 100 most dangerous cities in America with 25,000 or more people, based on the number of violent crimes per 1,000 residents.  Violent crimes include rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault.  The data used for this research are the number of violent crimes reported to have occurred in each city, and the population of each city.  Based on the latest national data available at the time of publication, representing calendar year 2021 and released in October 2022, this report reveals interesting patterns about safety from crime in America.

  This year, Monroe, LA was replaced by Bessemer, AL, dropping from its two-year ranking as the number one most violent city in America to the ranking of third.  Bessemer has 33.18 violent crimes per 1,000 population, and the chance of being a violent crime victim is 1 in 30.

  Many of the dangerous cities on the list this year have appeared on past lists.  For those who live in these cities, NeighborhoodScout can help you find the safest neighborhoods nearby any city using our Create feature.  For example, by searching for the lowest crime rate within 15 miles of the number one most dangerous city, Bessemer, AL you can find the neighborhood of New Hope in Birmingham, AL is safer than 99% of neighborhoods nationwide. 

  Top 22

  1. Bessemer, AL
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 33.1
     Your chance of being a victim: 1 in 30

  2. Mobile, AL
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 27.9
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 35

  3. Monroe, LA
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 26.3
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 38

  4. Saginaw, MI
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 25.1
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 39

  5. Memphis, TN
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 25.1
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 39

  6. Detroit, MI
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 23.0
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 43

  7. Birmingham, AL
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 20.6
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 49

  8. Pine Bluff, AR
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 20.5
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 48

  9. Little Rock, AR
     Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 20.2
     Chance of being a victim: 1 in 49

  10. Alexandria, LA
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 18.8
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 53

  11. Cleveland, OH
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 17.1
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 58

  12. Kalamazoo, MI
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 16.8
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 59

  13. Milwaukee, WI
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 16.6
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 59

  14. Albany, GA
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 16.1
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 61

  15. Gadsden, AL
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.8
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 63

  16. Danville, IL
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.8
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 63

  17. Lansing, MI
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.7
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 63

  18. Baltimore, MD
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.6
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 63

  19. Springfield, MO
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.6
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 64

  20. Spartanburg, SC
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.2
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 65

  21. Rockford, IL
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.0
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 66

  22. Wilmington, DE
      Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.0
      Chance of being a victim: 1 in 66

  Hello Danville

  I grew up in Danville, Illinois. It chimes in at # 16 with a 1 in 63 chance of being a victim of a violent crime.

  The top 100 ranges from a 1 in 30 chance for Bessemer, AL, to 1 in 107 for Rocky Mount, NC, in spot #100.

  I grew up in Danville, Illinois, the home of Chuckles (the candy), Hyster (lift forks), Lauhoff (the world’s largest grain elevator), Petersen Puritan (one of the world’s largest aerosol bottling plants, think deodorant sprays), a GM foundry in adjacent Tilton, and many other industries.

  All of those industries but Hyster are gone or sold to other companies. Hyster remains but production of forklifts doesn’t. Lauhoff is now the Bunge corporation. Inquiring minds may be interested in the History of Chuckles, no longer made in Danville.

  Dick Van Dyke, Jerry Van Dyke, Bobby Short, Gene Hackman, Irving Azoff, Hellen Morgan, are some of the celebrities who were born or raised in Danville.

  I graduated from Danville Schlarman, a Catholic high school, in 1971, and from the University of Illinois in 1976. My goal was to escape the area, and I did.

  The population of Danville was 44,000+ when I was in high school. It’s now 28,472 according to US Census Data as of 2022.

  When industry left, Danville had nothing else going for it.

  Number of US Cities by Population

  

  Stats as of 2019 from Statista

  Number 16 out of 1,521 is an impressive achievement of sorts.

  Roughly 99 percent of the country is better than Danville, Illinois when it comes to violent crime.

  Test Scores at Danville School District 118

  • 18% of elementary students tested at or above the proficient level for reading and 19% tested at or above that level for math.

  • 20% of middle school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 15% tested at or above that level for math.

  • 15% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 9% tested at or above that level for math.

  • The high school college readiness is 20.3% and the high school graduation rate is 70.2%.

  The test score stats are from US News.

  Only 9 percent of those in high school are proficient in math. Wow.

  What a sorry, sorry situation.

  More tax hikes and progressive policies will not help Danville or the entire state. I have written about the state on numerous occassions.

  • Escape Illinois: Get The Hell Out Now, We Are

  • It Takes 3 Weeks to Escape Illinois

  • The Great Escape From California, New York, and Illinois Accelerates

  Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 19:30

• SpaceX Starship Launch Nears After Coast Guard Warns Of "Rocket Activity"
  SpaceX Starship Launch Nears After Coast Guard Warns Of “Rocket Activity”

  SpaceX’s next launch of the Starship spaceship and Super Heavy booster from South Texas could be as early as the end of August, according to a new US Coast Guard notice. 

  “On Aug. 31, 2023, mariners operating offshore in waters east of Brownsville, Texas, are advised of rocket launching activities and associated hazardous areas which may impact navigation interests,” USCG stated.

  The agency continued, “Navigational hazards from rocket launching activity may include, free falling debris and/or descending vehicles or vehicle components, under various means of control. Mariners should avoid all waters within rocket flight trajectories originating from launch sites in the vicinity of Boca Chica Beach and Brownsville, Texas.”

  Boca Chica is home to the SpaceX Starbase, located on the east coast of Texas near South Padre Island’s beaches.

  The massive size of Starship!!🚀

  pic.twitter.com/vkbNqzMvT6

  — Alvin Foo (@alvinfoo) August 18, 2023

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

  On Aug. 4, Elon Musk posted on “X,” formerly known as Twitter, “Preparing for next Starship flight! This time, I think we have ~50% probability of reaching orbital velocity, however even getting to stage separation would be a win.”

  Preparing for next Starship flight! This time, I think we have ~50% probability of reaching orbital velocity, however even getting to stage separation would be a win. https://t.co/MUS8EZtyYy

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2023

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

  Musk tweeted Friday evening, “Interstage extension for hot gas venting added to enable Starship to turn on its engines while booster engines still firing!” 

  Interstage extension for hot gas venting added to enable Starship to turn on its engines while booster engines still firing! https://t.co/NqPLddl603

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023

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

  Meanwhile, SpaceX recently submitted its final report on the Starship launch on Apr. 20, which ended with the rocket exploding four minutes after liftoff. 

  “SpaceX has submitted its final mishap investigation report to the FAA for review. That review is ongoing,” FAA officials said in an emailed statement to Space.com.

  “When a final mishap report is approved, it will identify the corrective actions SpaceX must make,” the statement added. “Separately, SpaceX must modify its license to incorporate those actions before receiving authorization to launch again.”

  Jim Free, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration associate administrator of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, told Fox News that officials from his agency visited Starbase to discuss Starship’s next launch. 

  “They need to launch multiple times, not just for us but for them. And then they need to launch multiple times for us. So we really want to see them find the success in their launches, including the next one,” Free said.

  “While we wouldn’t expect a launch by Aug. 31, SpaceX is closer to launching Starship again than not. The fast-paced progress definitely can’t be ignored, and a launch attempt by the end of 2023 is certainly quite possible,” Tesla blog Teslarti wrote. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 19:00

• Transgender Powerlifter Smashes Women's World Record By More Than 440 Pounds
  Transgender Powerlifter Smashes Women’s World Record By More Than 440 Pounds

  Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A male powerlifter who identifies as a woman just set a new world record—in women’s powerlifting.

  In the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s (CPU) championships from Aug. 10 to Aug. 17, Anne Andres lifted 597.5 kilograms or 1317 pounds, according to advanced results.

  This weight was at least 440 pounds more than the top-performing woman, SuJan Gill, lifted.

  

  Mr. Andres, a 40-year-old, gender transitioned at 20 years old, after going through male puberty, according to an Instagram post.

  “[I] didn’t touch a barbell in my entire life until seven years ago,” he said in the post. “In theory, I will be representing Canada at IPF Masters Worlds in October 2024. Unless I get hurt, I will win by a good margin.”

  Mr. Andres attributes his record-breaking lifts to a strong training ethic, not strong hormones. He has always had deficient testosterone, he said in another post.

  “My test [testosterone] is lower than almost every human on this planet,” he said. “It was low during puberty, it is non-existent now. These are the first tests you run as a transwoman to find out how much you need to suppress. Didn’t take much. So, not exactly valid.”

  He added that he has gone through “menopause” three times.

  

  Women’s Sports Gives Support

  For the most part, women in Canadian powerlifting have supported his participation in the sport, he told The Epoch Times in an Instagram message.

  At the North American Powerlifting Federation, women wore transgender flag socks to support him, Mr. Andres said.

  “I highly recommend ignoring me entirely and focus on the women who I have been allowed to share the platform with,” Mr. Andres said. “My opinion is worthless. The women who want me there are the ones who matter.”

  Ms. Gill, who got second place, agreed.

  “My view is that everyone is forgetting that Anne Andres is a human being with emotions, and a desire to be accepted, as we all are,” she told The Epoch Times in an Instagram message. “As a fellow human being, I chose to support her, as she chooses to support me and all of our fellow lifters.”

  

  Qualifying the statement, Ms. Gill added that she doesn’t know “the science behind transgender athletes and if they have biological advantages.”

  She declined comment on any potential physical advantage Mr. Andres may have.

  Scientific studies show male biology provides powerful athletic advantages.

  Government studies found that men outperformed women by about 36.8 percent in their separate Olympic weightlifting events.

  Studies also show that men have significantly more skeletal muscle mass than women, especially in the upper body.

  Male puberty gives boys such a physical advantage that high school boys often outcompete female Olympians in many sports.

  “I train very, very, stupidly hard,” Mr. Andres said in an Instagram post.

  Gender Gains

  Some women have expressed outrage that transgender-identifying men now compete in women’s sports.

  Canadian women’s sports coach Dr. Linda Blade condemned Canadian sports groups for failing to preserve women’s sports in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

  “Dear Sports Federations in Canada. It’s not hard to have two sports categories and be 100 percent inclusive,” she said.

  The CPU’s policy on transgender powerlifters allows any man who says he is a woman to participate without getting surgery, hormone therapy, or a history of transgender identification.

  “Individuals participating in development and recreational sport should be able to participate in the gender with which they identify and not be subject to requirements for disclosure of personal information beyond those required of cisgender athletes,” the group’s site reads.

  In March of 2023, male powerlifting coach Avi Silverberg identified as a woman and broke the women’s world record for powerlifting.

  Mr. Silverberg hasn’t commented on his action. He has no record of identifying as transgender.

  While male biological advantage may be extremely visible in powerlifting, it’s present in other sports too.

  Former world champion tennis player Martina Navratilova condemned the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) for opening the sport to transgender-identifying men.

  “Women’s tennis is not for failed male athletes—whatever age,” Ms. Navratilova said. “This is not right and it is not fair. Would this be allowed at the U.S. Open this month? Just with self-ID? I don’t think so.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 18:30

• "Towns Could Get Cut Off": Hurricane Hilary Threatening "Catastrophic" Flooding Across California
  “Towns Could Get Cut Off”: Hurricane Hilary Threatening “Catastrophic” Flooding Across California

  As Hurricane Hilary churns 235 miles south of the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, moving northwest at 16 mph, the National Hurricane Center warned of “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” across the Southwestern United States. 

  “Heavy rainfall in association with Hilary is expected across the Southwestern United States, peaking on Sunday,” NHC wrote in an advisory, forecasting total rainfall amounts between 3 to 6 inches, with some areas expected to receive as much as 10 inches of rain. Those areas are portions of Southern California and Southern Nevada. 

  On Saturday morning, Hilary weakened from a very dangerous Category 4 with winds of 130 mph to Category 3 status, with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph. 

  National Weather Service posted tropical storm warnings across Southern California, affecting 42 million people — for the first time since Nora in 1997. 

  

  Ahead of the storm’s arrival, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo called up the National Guard. 

  “These Guardsmen will be put in place to provide support to southern counties, which may be significantly impacted by flooding.

   “As the state takes the necessary steps to prepare for flooding and severe weather, I strongly urge all Nevadans to do the same,” Lombardo said in a written statement.

  NHC’s latest trajectory and warnings about the storm:

  

  A newly updated forecast of the “catastrophic flooding impacts are expected late tonight through early Monday” for Southern California and Nevada. 

  

  The Weather Prediction Center warned entire “Towns could get cut off” due to mudslides and landslides: 

  The heavy rainfall combined with high winds expected at elevation could lead to mudslides and landslides, which would be exacerbated where trees uproot within saturating soils. Debris flows and rock slides are a given considering the volume of rainfall expected. The overall combination of effects could block and undermine roads, particularly sensitive areas such as sections of U.S. 50 in NV. Towns could get cut off. Given the overall uniqueness of this event and expected impacts, the High Risk for areas of southern CA remains justified. The main change was the joining of the two separate High Risk areas and some slight westward shift of the risk areas in CA, NV, UT, and AZ and some northward stretching of the threat areas to account for the slightly accelerated guidance.

  Stefanie Sullivan, a forecaster with NWS, said a tropical storm to come off the ocean and make landfall in California is “exceedingly rare.” The last time this happened was in 1939. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 17:45

• "America Is Under Attack": Georgia Senator Demands Special Session To Investigate, Possibly Impeach Fani Willis
  “America Is Under Attack”: Georgia Senator Demands Special Session To Investigate, Possibly Impeach Fani Willis

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

  Georgia Republican state Sen. Colton Moore is demanding a special emergency legislative session to investigate the actions of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with regard to former President Donald Trump, in a move that Mr. Moore said could lead to Ms. Willis’s impeachment.

  

  This week, Ms. Willis charged President Trump and 18 others with a litany of alleged crimes in connection with their efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

  Ms. Willis charged each defendant under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a law drafted to fight organized crime, with the indictment alleging that President Trump and his co-conspirators did “constitute a criminal organization,” which has provoked controversy.

  President Trump and his co-defendants have denied any wrongdoing, with the former president accusing Ms. Willis of corruption.

  “So, the Witch Hunt continues! 19 people indicated tonight, including the former President of the United States, me, by an out of control and very corrupt District Attorney,” President Trump posted on social media platform Truth Social.

  And now, Mr. Moore has accused Ms. Willis of corruption and of weaponizing the justice system to pursue a political prosecution, while calling for a special emergency legislative session to investigate her actions and possibly recommend impeachment.

  ‘Weaponization of Our Justice System’

  Mr. Moore said he has urged Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to call a special session to investigate the actions of the Fulton County district attorney.

  “As a Georgia State Senator, I am officially calling for an emergency session to review the actions of Fani Willis,” Mr. Moore said in a statement obtained by The Epoch Times.

  “America is under attack. I’m not going to sit back and watch as radical left prosecutors politically target political opponents,” he added, echoing rhetoric expressed by numerous critics of Ms. Willis’s decision to charge President Trump, namely that it amounts to interference in the 2024 presidential election.

  Mr. Moore elaborated in a statement that accompanied an online petition demanding the investigation of Ms. Willis, this time explicitly mentioning the prospect of impeachment.

  “Corrupt District Attorney Fani Willis is potentially abusing her position of power by pursuing former President Donald J. Trump, and I am calling on my colleagues in the Georgia legislature to join me in calling for an emergency session to investigate and review her actions and determine if they warrant impeachment,” Mr. Moore wrote.

  The Republican lawmaker also called for Ms. Willis’s office to be defunded until the investigation runs its course.

  “The politically motivated weaponization of our justice system at the expense of taxpayers will not be tolerated. I am demanding that we defund her office until we find out what the hell is going on. We cannot stand idly by as corrupt prosecutors choose to target their political opposition,” Mr. Moore wrote.

  In a letter to Mr. Kemp that was obtained by The Epoch Times, the Republican lawmaker said that, in his opinion, “an emergency exists in the affairs of the state, requiring a special session to be convened” under Georgia law “for all purposes, to include, without limitation, the review and response to the actions of Fani Willis.”

  In Georgia, a special legislative session can be called by the governor or if three-fifths of both legislative chambers sign a letter—such as the one written by Mr. Moore—demanding that an emergency session be convened.

  Ms. Willis’s office declined to comment.

  Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Mr. Kemp referred to remarks made earlier in the day by Cody Hall, one of the governor’s senior advisers, who dismissed calls for a special session as pointless.

  Reactions

  Kandiss Taylor, former Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate and current Georgia GOP district chair, expressed her support for an emergency session to investigate Ms. Willis.

  “State Senator calls for a special session to secure GA elections!” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “[Colton Moore] you are amazing! Thank you for not bending the knee. Thank you for representing GA voters. We see you. We stand with you.”

  Conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley, widely known by his X handle DC Draino, hailed Mr. Moore’s announcement, even suggesting that the Republican lawmaker is governor material.

  “A rare example of political courage in the GOP,” Mr. O’Handley wrote on X.

  “State Sen. [Colton Moore] is calling for an emergency session to review & possibly impeach Fani Willis after she indicted Pres. Trump & his team. Bravery like this is what makes future Governors.”

  Ms. Willis has asked for a March 4, 2024, trial date for President Trump and his co-defendants, a proposal that would put the former president—the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination—on trial just one day before the “Super Tuesday” primary contests.

  Besides President Trump, the defendants are his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis; attorneys Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Ray Smith III, and Robert Cheeley; former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark; GOP strategist Michael Roman; Georgia alternate electors Shawn Still, Cathleen Latham, and former head of the Georgia Republican Party David Shafer; Illinois pastor Stephen Lee; Harrison Floyd, vice president for the Black Conservative Federation, who is also involved in Black Voices for Trump; Trevian Kutti, former publicist for Kanye West; Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman and Fulton County Republican poll watcher; and Misty Hampton, also known as Misty Emily Hayes, former Coffee County elections supervisor.

  Arrest warrants have been issued for the defendants, and Ms. Willis said at a press conference that they have until noon on Aug. 25 to voluntarily surrender.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 17:30

• DeSantis Devastated, Now Tied With Ramaswamy For 2nd In GOP Primary
  DeSantis Devastated, Now Tied With Ramaswamy For 2nd In GOP Primary

  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is now tied for 2nd place in the Republican presidential field with conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, after an Emerson College poll showed the two tied at 10% each.

  

  Former President Donald Trump leads the pack at 56%, according to the same poll.

  DeSantis, meanwhile, dropped from 21% in June, while Ramaswamy rose from just 2% to tie DeSantis over the same period.

  

  The poll’s release coincides with a leaked memo from a DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, which urged the Florida governor to “take a sledgehammer” to Ramaswamy – who’s been quickly closing in on Ron.

  “Another boring, establishment attack from Super PAC-creation ‘Robot Ron’ who is literally taking lame, pre-programmed attack lines against me for next week’s debate. ‘Hammer Ramaswamy,’ Ramaswamy wrote on X in response.

  Another boring, establishment attack from Super PAC-creation “Robot Ron” who is literally taking lame, pre-programmed attack lines against me for next week’s debate. “Hammer Ramaswamy.” 😂 pic.twitter.com/u8puIW88jS

  — Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 17, 2023

  Ramaswamy, in particular, has been improving his support with voters who have postgraduate degrees – who support him by 17%, and 16% of voters younger than 35. DeSantis has been losing support over the same period – dropping among postgraduate voters from 38% in June to just 14% now. Just 15% of those under 35 support the Florida governor, according to The Hill.

  The release states that DeSantis’s drop is similar to that of Emerson’s New Hampshire poll that showed former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) surpassing DeSantis by 1 point for second place in the state, a statistical tie. 

  Pollsters also found somewhat more shaky support among DeSantis supporters than among those for Ramaswamy. Almost half of Ramaswamy backers said they will definitely vote for him, while only a third of DeSantis supporters said the same. 

  Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of Trump supporters said they will definitely vote for the former president.

  DeSantis, Ramaswamy and several other GOP candidates, none of whom are likely to win the primary, will duke it out next week during the first Republican primary debate.

  Trump, meanwhile, is skipping out for an interview with Tucker Carlson.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 17:00

• "Leave Neutrality Behind": Soros-Backed UT Austin Initiative Embraces Advocacy Journalism
  “Leave Neutrality Behind”: Soros-Backed UT Austin Initiative Embraces Advocacy Journalism

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  We have discussed the rise of advocacy journalism where objectivity and neutrality are discarded in favor of social justice. Despite public trust (and profits) crashing in the media, faculty members are plowing ahead with the new model of journalism to the peril of their profession. The latest such example is found in the “Solidarity Journalism Initiative” at the University of Texas at Austin.According to its website, the new initiative is being financed by tech companies and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations to help “journalists, journalism educators, and journalism students improve coverage of marginalized communities.”The College Fix reports that the program was brought over from Santa Clara University after UT hired Professor Anita Varma.

  The school is pushing students to use their “lived expertise” and to “leave[] neutrality behind.” Instead, of neutrality, they are pushing “solidarity [as] ‘a commitment to social justice that translates into action.’”

  

  In 2021, Varma wrote an article titled, “Solidarity Eclipses Objectivity as Journalism’s Dominant Ideal” in which she explained:

  “objectivity as an aspirational ideal ends up encouraging journalists to avoid addressing what matters…

  In coverage of issues like immigration, Covid-19, police brutality, and housing instability, the idea that observations will objectively speak for themselves is quickly off the table.”

  That view has been in vogue within the mainstream media for years. We have often discussed the increasing bias and advocacy in major media in the United States.

  What is most striking about this universal shift toward advocacy journalism (including at journalism schools) is that there is no evidence that it is a sustainable approach for the media as an industry. While outfits like NPR allow reporters to actually participate in protests and the New York Times sheds conservative opinions, the new polling shows a sharp and worrisome division in trust in the media. Not surprisingly, given the heavy slant of American media, Democrats are largely happy with and trusting of the media. Conversely, Republicans and independents are not. The question is whether the mainstream media can survive and flourish by writing off over half of the country.

  A 2021 study from the non-partisan Pew Research Center showed a massive decline in trust among Republicans. Five years ago, 70 percent of Republicans said they had at least some trust in national news organizations. In 2021, that trust was down to just 35 percent. Conversely, and not surprisingly, 78 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the media. When you just ask liberal Democrats, it jumps to 83 percent.

  This latest polling shows that the problem is only getting more acute for the media. Yet, publishers and editors are still pandering to the mob in calling for more advocacy and less objectivity.

  For example, we previously discussed the release of the results of interviews with over 75 media leaders by former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”

  Saying that “Objectivity has got to go” is, of course, liberating. You can dispense with the necessities of neutrality and balance. You can cater to your “base” like columnists and opinion writers. Sharing the opposing view is now dismissed as “bothsidesism.” Done. No need to give credence to opposing views. It is a familiar reality for those of us in higher education, which has been increasingly intolerant of opposing or dissenting views.

  Downie recounted how news leaders today

  “believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”

  There was a time when all journalists shared a common “identity” as professionals who were able to separate their own bias and values from the reporting of the news.

  Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press declared “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.”

  In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”  Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

  Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.” 

  Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.

  Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.” Her 1619 Project has been challenged as deeply flawed and she has a long record as a journalist of intolerance, controversial positions on rioting, and fostering conspiracy theories. Hannah-Jones would later help lead the effort at the Times to get rid of an editor and apologize for publishing a column from Sen. Tom Cotton as inaccurate and inflammatory.

  All of these voices show a complete disconnect from readers and viewers who do not want advocacy journalism and no longer trust what they are reading in the media. Yet, these calls remain personally popular for writers and editors alike. It is reminiscent of how executives at companies like Disney have pursued woke policies to the detriment of their shareholders and the alienation of many of their customers. The same is true for the push for censorship on social media despite the clear preference of users for more free speech and fewer speech controls.

  As with brands like BudLight, the abandonment of actual consumers will not deter media executive in pushing this “new journalism.” As Downie explained “objectivity” is “keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”

  So they will do their jobs even when viewers and readers no longer are interested in their work.

  While this type of vanity press can count on subsidies from billionaires like Jeff Bezos and George Soros, the public may balk at a media that is increasingly writing for itself.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 16:30

• Ukraine Drone Attack Deep Inside Russia Damages Parked Warplane
  Ukraine Drone Attack Deep Inside Russia Damages Parked Warplane

  For the first time in a year-and-a-half of war, Ukraine has launched an attack on a military airfield deep inside Russia located in the northwestern Novgorod region.

  What is being dubbed a ‘terrorist attack’ by Russian authorities was reportedly thwarted on Saturday. “Today, at around 10:00 am Moscow time, the Kyiv regime carried out a terrorist attack using a copter-type drone on a military airfield in the Novgorod region,” the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) said. But it also admitted damage on the ground.

  ⚡️Fire at the Soltsy airfield in the Novgorod region (Russia), after it was struck by a Ukrainian drone.

  This airbase is mostly home to the Tu-22 bomber and the Russian MoD confirmed that one aircraft was “damaged”, but didn’t specify the type. pic.twitter.com/oXm7fQRctc

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) August 19, 2023

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

  The MoD further described that the attacking drone was shot down by “by small arms” — but noted that at least one Russian warplane was damaged. The airfield is remote, and near the town of Soltsy between Moscow and St. Petersberg.

  “As a result of the terrorist attack on the territory of the airfield, a fire broke out in the parking lot of aircraft, which was quickly eliminated by fire fighters. One aircraft was damaged,” the MoD statement continued. Eyewitnesses described a plume of smoke rising from the base in the aftermath of the attack.

  Ukraine may have been seeking to degrade Russia’s fleet of long-range bombers in targeting the base, as Newsweek explains:

  Strategic Russian Tu-22M3 bombers carrying X-22 missiles are believed to be based at the airfield. Russia deployed the Tupolev Tu-22M3 during its bombing of the Donetsk city of Mariupol in 2022.

  …However, the Telegram channel Ateo Breaking said that two aircraft rather than one had been damaged. Images shared on social media, taken some distance from the air base, show smoke billowing into the air from behind buildings.

  Monitoring groups have said there were about 10 Tu-22M3 units at the airfield, which is located over 410 miles from the border of Ukraine. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian defense ministry for comment.

  Russia’s clear air superiority has been devastating for the Ukrainian side. President Zelensky and his officials have begged Western allies to help tip the scales by quickly supplying F-16s, but these won’t be operational until next year, possibly by summer 2024.

  

  Meanwhile, Russia again bombarded the northern city of Chernihiv on Saturday, with BBC citing official Ukraine government statements to report, “Seven people, including a six-year-old child, were killed when a Russian missile struck a theatre in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, officials say.”

  “Fifteen children were among 129 people wounded, the interior ministry said. At least 25 people were in hospital,” the report continued. The acting mayor of the city, Oleksandr Lomako, said he believed Russia was targeting a military event, but that the area was teeming with civilians.

  Another video of the moment of today’s Russian missile attack on Chernihiv. pic.twitter.com/Ldb0q9Wgg7

  — UNITED24media (@United24media) August 19, 2023

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

  “The theatre was hosting a gathering of drone manufacturers, the acting mayor of Chernihiv told the BBC.”

  Lomako said, “I understand that their aim was a military event taking place in the building of the drama theatre and that it was their target.”

  No more drone expos in theaters probably. pic.twitter.com/gZRNBPUqzo

  — ayden (@squatsons) August 19, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 16:00

• These Are America's Most Affordable States To Live In This Year
  These Are America’s Most Affordable States To Live In This Year

  Authored by Mary Prenon viaThe Epoch Times,

  When it comes to housing, living expenses, taxes, insurance, and even grocery costs, South Dakota is the winner for the most affordable place to live in the United States. In its “Cheapest States to Live in 2023” report, Scholaroo, a college scholarship search platform, analyzed all 50 states using 31 metrics, which also included cable, internet, utility, medical, transportation, and even haircut and manicure costs.

  Indiana came in second, followed by Arkansas, Mississippi, and Nebraska.

  

  Scholaroo spokesperson Abigail Da Costa told The Epoch Times that this is the first time the platform has conducted the analysis on the average cost of living in all 50 states.

  “While individual preferences and economic circumstances will inevitably influence personal costs, the primary aim of this report is to serve as a comprehensive guide on the estimated expenses of living in each state,” Ms. Da Costa said. “Prospective homebuyers can also benefit from this study, as it provides valuable insights into the most suitable locations to purchase property based on their financial situation.”

  Amy Stockberger, broker and owner of Amy Stockberger Real Estate in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, wasn’t surprised that her state was named the most affordable in the nation.

  

  (Courtesy of Scholaroo)

  “We’re a little hidden gem and everything from groceries to utilities and gas prices is reasonable, plus in Sioux Falls, job wages are comparable to other larger metro areas,” Ms. Stockberger told The Epoch Times.

  With a median single-family home price of $312,000 inside Sioux Falls, the area has been attracting buyers from California, Minnesota, and the Northeast. In 2022, the state’s largest city saw an influx of about 7,000 people.

  “We do get a strong population of people who want to retire here,” she said. “We have a low crime rate, a lower cost of living, and no pollution. In fact, for the first time in my 23-year career, I’ve seen siblings and relatives of relocating families also following them to move here.”

  Another incentive to move to South Dakota, Ms. Stockberger said, is the fact that it has no state income tax. “It’s a great place to start a business as well,” she said.

  With four seasons, the state offers attractive outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, and sledding. Sioux Falls alone has more than 80 parks and 30 miles of bike trails.

  “We’ve been listed many times as one of the best places to raise a family,” Ms. Stockberger said.

  While South Dakota scored the overall best location for affordability, the Scholaroo report names West Virginia the leader in affordable homebuying options, with the average monthly mortgage cost for a single-family home at $879, followed by Arkansas at $947, and Alabama at $970. On the other end, the average mortgage payments for California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Hawaii are all above $2,000. California had the highest cost with an average of $2,402.

  Joshua McGrath, CEO of BHG Real Estate Central in Charleston, West Virginia, has been selling residential real estate for almost 25 years.

  “Since the pandemic, I’ve seen more and more people relocating to West Virginia,” Mr. McGrath told The Epoch Times. “In addition to affordability, people are looking for more spacious land. They don’t want a tight community with no yard.”

  

  A three-bedroom home, listed at $289,000, sits on three acres in Scott Depot, W.Va. (Courtesy of BHG Real Estate Central in Charleston, W.V.)

  He said that he’s currently working with a couple from Colorado who’ve decided to move back to their West Virginia roots. “They can sell their home there, relocate here, reduce costs by about 50 percent, and still have a comparable house,” Mr. McGrath said.

  One of his recent listings for a three-bedroom, two-bath home on three acres had 26 showings and six offers in just 48 hours. “We’re still seeing bidding wars here, and the accepted offer was well over the $289,000 asking price,” he said.

  Low taxes are another reason that West Virginia scores high on the affordability charts—the average taxes on a single-family home are less than $2,000 a year. Outdoor activities such as hiking, zip lining, and white-water rafting are other draws to the area.

  While Charleston is the state’s capital and is considered a smaller city, it’s just a few hours away from major metropolitan areas such as Lexington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati.

  In terms of median home value, Scholaroo reports that Mississippi has the lowest in the nation, followed closely by West Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky. Conversely, Washington state came in with the highest home value, followed by Massachusetts, New York, California, and Hawaii.

  Maryland takes the lead for the highest annual median household income at $91,431, followed closely by New Jersey at $89,703, and Massachusetts at $89,026. Mississippi holds the No. 1 spot for the lowest annual median income at just $49,111. West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and New Mexico are also included on the list of annual household median incomes under $60,000.

  

  A three-bedroom home, listed at $315,000, in Sioux Falls, S.D. (Courtesy of Amy Stockberger Real Estate in Sioux Falls, S.D.)

  For apartment dwellers, West Virginia ranked first in terms of the least expensive state. The median rental rate for a one-bedroom apartment is $732 per month. Arkansas is a close second with a monthly rental rate of $760, followed by South Dakota at $761. Kentucky at $783 and Mississippi at $789 close out the top five most affordable apartment rental locations.

  Meanwhile, Hawaii takes the lead for the most expensive rents, with an average of $1,651 monthly. California comes in second with an average rent of $1,586, and Maryland is third with $1,415. Rounding out the top five most expensive rental states are New Jersey and Washington state, both with rents above $1,300.

  “The reality is that there were no surprises here,” Ms. Da Costa said. “It was expected that the states located in the Midwest region would be the most affordable, and the states located on the coasts, such as California, New York, or Hawaii, the most expensive.”

  Realtor.com’s newly released June Rental Report shows rental prices dropping nationwide by 1 percent year-over-year, but the median asking rent in the 50 largest metro areas increased by $7 from the previous month to $1,745. However, that number represents a $31 drop from its peak in July 2022.

  “The downward trend in rent prices continued in June, providing a much-needed respite for renters and an opportunity to regain some control over their housing expenses,” said Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist. “With our midyear forecast update calling for slowing inflation, better-than-expected labor market performance, and an increase in multi-family supply, we’re seeing some encouraging signs for renters’ budgets as we enter the second half of the year.”

  The report indicates that rent in Western metros is declining faster than in other parts of the country, with a 3.8 percent decline year-over-year. San Jose, the last large Western metro to show a slide in rental prices, saw its first year-over-year rent drop in nearly two years. In contrast, rents in Northeastern hubs such as New York City and Boston continued to escalate. Rents in the Midwest are still climbing, as well.

  Half of the top 10 metros experiencing the most rent growth are located in the Midwest. Only in the South have rent costs declined compared to a year ago. Oklahoma City’s median monthly rental of $1,025 makes it the country’s most affordable city in which to lease an apartment. Cincinnati offers monthly rents at $1,188, followed by Louisville/Jefferson County in Kentucky and Indiana at $1,210, and Columbus, Ohio, at $1,211. The fifth place goes to another Ohio locale—Cleveland/Elyria—at $1,236 per month.

  Three of California’s metro regions topped the chart with a median monthly rental cost of $3,301 in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, followed by San Diego-Carlsbad at $3,029, and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward at $2,960. New York City’s metro area median rental cost ranked fourth at $2,899, and the Washington metro area completed the list of the top five most expensive rents in the country with a median rent of $2,232. Realtor.com used a compilation of rents from studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 15:30

• "Trump Was Right": Jake Tapper Admits Biden Lied About Hunter 'Making Fortune In Ukraine, China, Moscow'
  “Trump Was Right”: Jake Tapper Admits Biden Lied About Hunter ‘Making Fortune In Ukraine, China, Moscow’

  In an odd change in tone, CNN‘s Jake Tapper finally admitted that former President Donald Trump was right and Joe Biden was wrong during the 2020 presidential debates when Trump said that Hunter Biden “made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow.”

  

  Citing a fact check from the Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler (!?), Tapper noted that “Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies,” and that “Hunter Biden reported nearly 2.4 million income in 2017 and 2.2 million income in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests. But this — and this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump,” Tapper said.

  Watch:

  CNN’s Jake Tapper: “Trump was right.. Biden was wrong.” pic.twitter.com/IYaa2NPVT2

  — Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) August 18, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsFormer Democratic Rep. Andy Levin of Michigan then dove in to provide cover for Joe Biden, claiming “Well, I think dads sometimes and parents sometimes have blind spots about their kids, for sure, and the President may be no exception. But nothing has tied the President to any of Hunter Biden’s dealings. There’s no whiff of him being involved or him being implicated in it.“

  Which Tapper let him get away with, as opposed to mentioning:

  • “Can You Ring Your Dad?” Joe Biden Spoke Directly To Hunter’s Business Partners Dozens Of Times
  • Tucker’s Explosive Devon Archer Interview, Admits Joe ‘Knew That Business Associates’ Were On Call
  • House Republicans Release Bank Records Showing Over $20 Million In Payments To Biden Family, Associates
  • A Decade Of ‘Deals’: The Definitive Timeline Of The Bidens’ Influence-Peddling

  Then there’s former Biden business associate, Tony Bobulinski – who flipped on the Bidens, confirmed that the “Big Guy” (of ‘10% for the Big Guy’ fame) is Joe Biden, and that he met with Joe Biden twice in LA 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.

  Then again, this is CNN we’re talking about. Just admitting that Trump was right is a huge baby-step in the right direction.

  Corporate Media claimed:

  1) Russia-Collusion real
  2) Steele Dossier credible
  3) Trump a Putin puppet
  4) Hunter Laptop was Russian disinfo
  5) FBI acted fairly
  6) Censorship by Govt a myth
  7) Covid didn’t come from lab
  8) Biden wasn’t involved w/Hunter

  Leftists: Still trust media https://t.co/VAHyA7UOWe

  — Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) August 19, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 15:00

• Most Intensive Ivermectin Use Had 74% Reduction In Excess Deaths In Peru: New Study
  Most Intensive Ivermectin Use Had 74% Reduction In Excess Deaths In Peru: New Study

  Authored by Megan Redshaw, JD via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  According to a new peer-reviewed ecological study, a natural experiment occurred when the government of Peru authorized ivermectin for use during the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in evidence of the drug’s effectiveness and ability to reduce excess deaths.

  

  The paper’s results, published August 8 in Cureus, found a 74 percent reduction in excess deaths in 10 states with the most intensive ivermectin use over a 30-day period following peak deaths during the pandemic. When analyzing data across 25 states in Peru, researchers found these reductions in excess deaths correlated closely to ivermectin use during four months in 2020.

  When ivermectin was available without restriction, there was a fourteenfold reduction in nationwide excess deaths. Once access to ivermectin was restricted by the government, a thirteenfold increase in excess deaths was observed in the two months following the limitation of its use. The findings align with summary data from the World Health Organization for the same time period in Peru.

  Ivermectin is a widely-known and inexpensive treatment against parasitic diseases. Scientists believe the drug can also bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, limiting its morbidity and infectivity.

  Peru Promoted Then Restricted Access to Ivermectin

  Before Peru implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the country relied on mitigation strategies such as lockdowns and therapeutics to control the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, as did many other nations.

  The Peruvian Ministry of Health, on May 8, 2020, approved ivermectin widely for use prompting 25 states in Peru to implement inpatient and outpatient treatments with ivermectin to different extents and in different time frames. Additionally, through the Mega-Operación Tayta (MOT)—a national program led by the Ministry of Defense—Peru’s government began distributing ivermectin on a wide scale.

  Through a partnership with 11 other government agencies, MOT aimed to reach every targeted region with rapid response teams to detect COVID-19 cases, administer ivermectin, and provide food to encourage people to isolate for 15 days. Shortly thereafter, MOT began distributing the therapeutic to everyone identified as high-risk, regardless of whether they tested positive or were symptomatic for COVID-19.

  The government of Peru independently tracked daily COVID-19 deaths and all-cause deaths through numerous Peruvian national health databases, allowing researchers to calculate excess deaths. Additionally, they extensively tracked data for deaths and other public health parameters allowing analysis of the potential efficacy of interventions such as ivermectin during the pandemic.

  When President Francisco Sagasti took office on Nov. 17, 2020, the government stopped distributing ivermectin and made it available only by prescription. This made the drug significantly more difficult for people to obtain and allowed researchers to see nationwide changes in daily excess all-cause deaths before and after restrictions went into place.

  Impact of Ivermectin on Excess Deaths

  Excess all-cause deaths were calculated from the total deaths recorded for January through February 2020. During this period, monthly all-cause deaths fluctuated with a mean value of 5.2 percent and a standard deviation of 3.8 percent. By May 2020, total deaths fluctuated by more than double the baseline value calculated in January through February.

  An analysis of excess all-cause deaths was performed state-by-state for those aged 60 years and older to establish the date of peak excess deaths during the pandemic’s first wave. Decreases in excess deaths from the peak date of death to 30 and 45 days afterward were tracked. The 25 states were then grouped by the extent of ivermectin distribution: maximal distribution—occurring through operation MOT, medium, and minimal.

  Results showed that the 10 MOT states had a sharp decrease in excess deaths after reaching peak values—with a 74 percent drop at 30 days and an 86 percent drop at 45 days after the date of peak deaths. For 14 states that locally administered ivermectin, excess deaths dropped by 53 percent at 30 days and 70 percent at 45 days.

  In Lima, where ivermectin treatments were delayed until August—four months after its initial pandemic surge in April—excess deaths only dropped by 25 percent at 30 days and 25 percent at 45 days after peak deaths on May 30.

  According to the study, mean reductions in excess deaths 30 days after peak deaths were 74 percent, 53 percent, and 25 percent, respectively, for the maximal, medium, and minimal states that distributed ivermectin. Forty-five days after peak deaths, mean reductions were 86 percent, 70 percent, and 25 percent.

  The researchers noted that ivermectin distribution may have yielded such positive numbers due to the drug’s ability to both prevent and treat COVID-19 when distributed to an at-risk population on a greater scale.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/19/2023 – 14:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• These Are The World's Ten Busiest Airports
  These Are The World’s Ten Busiest Airports

  Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, U.S., was the world’s busiest airport in 2022, with an annual footfall of some 93.7 million passengers.

  The figure is 24 percent higher than in 2021, but 15 percent lower than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

  It is followed by Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, with 73.4 million travelers, and Denver Airport, with 69.3 million, according to data released by Airports Council International (ACI).

  After 22 years leading the charge as the number one airport for passenger volume, Atlanta’s airport was pushed to second place in 2020 by Canton Baiyun International Airport, China.

  However, the Chinese airport fell to eighth place a year later and the U.S. airport once again topped the list.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following infographic, five of the top ten airports with the highest passenger traffic last year were in the United States.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  ACI highlights that all ten, representing 10 percent of global traffic, have a significant share of domestic traffic – the segment that has led the global recovery.

  The total number of passengers worldwide in 2022 was estimated to hit nearly 7 billion, representing an increase of nearly 54 percent over 2021.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 23:20

• "The End Is Nearing" – Seymour Hersh Slams The White House's "Wishful Approach" To Ukraine War
  “The End Is Nearing” – Seymour Hersh Slams The White House’s “Wishful Approach” To Ukraine War

  Authored by Seymour Hersh via Substack

  It’s been weeks since we looked into the adventures of the Biden administration’s foreign policy cluster, led by Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland. How has the trio of war hawks spent the summer?

  Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The summit was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, who in June announced a merger between his state-backed golf tour and the PGA. Four years earlier MBS was accused of ordering the assassination and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for perceived disloyalty to the state.

  

  As unlikely as it sounds, there was such a peace summit and its stars did include MBS, Sullivan, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. What was missing was a representative of Russia, which was not invited to the summit. It included just a handful of heads of state from the fewer than fifty nations that sent delegates. The conference lasted two days, and attracted what could only be described as little international attention. 

  Reuters reported that Zelensky’s goal was to get international support for “the principles” that that he will consider as a basis for the settlement of the war, including “the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory.” Russia’s formal response to the non-event came not from President Vladimir Putin but from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov. He called the summit “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilize the Global South behind Zelensky. 

  India and China both sent delegations to the session, perhaps drawn to Saudi Arabia for its immense oil reserves. One Indian academic observer dismissed the event as achieving little more than “good advertising for MBS’s convening power within the Global South; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meeting with . . . Jake Sullivan in the same room.” 

  Meanwhile, far away on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia continued to thwart Zelensky’s ongoing counteroffensive. I asked an American intelligence official why it was Sullivan who emerged from the Biden administration’s foreign policy circle to preside over the inconsequential conference in Saudi Arabia.

  “Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby,” the official said. “He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a Nuremberg type trial at the world court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting? Forty nations showed up, all but six looking for free food after the Odessa shutdown”—a reference to Putin’s curtailing of Ukrainian wheat shipments in response to Zelensky’s renewed attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland. 

  

  Enough about Sullivan. Let us now turn to Victoria Nuland, an architect of the 2014 overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine, one of the American moves that led us to where we are, though it was Putin who initiated the horrid current war. The ultra-hawkish Nuland was promoted early this summer by Biden, over the heated objections of many in the State Department, to be the acting deputy secretary of state. She has not been formally nominated as the deputy for fear that her nomination would lead to a hellish fight in the Senate. 

  It was Nuland who was sent last week to see what could be salvaged after a coup led to the overthrow of a pro-Western government in Niger, one of a group of former French colonies in West Africa that have remained in the French sphere of influence. President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected, was tossed out of office by a junta led by the head of his presidential guard, General Abdourahmane Tchiani. The general suspended the constitution and jailed potential political opponents. Five other military officers were named to his cabinet. All of this generated enormous public support on the streets in Niamey, Niger’s capital—enough support to discourage outside Western intervention.

  There were grim reports in the Western press that initially viewed the upheaval in East-West terms: some of the supporters of the coup were carrying Russian flags as they marched in the streets. The New York Times saw the coup as a blow to the main US ally in the region, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who controls vast oil and gas reserves. Tinubu threatened the new government in Niger with military action unless they returned power to Bazoum. He set a deadline that passed without any outside intervention. The revolution in Niger was not seen by those living in the region in east-west terms but as a long needed rejection of long-standing French economic and political control. It is a scenario that may be repeated again and again throughout the French-dominated Sahel nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

  …

  So the White House’s wishful approach to the war, when it comes to realistic talk to the American people, will continue apace. But the end is nearing, even if the assessments supplied by Biden to the public are out of a comic strip.

  Read the full post at Seymour Hersh’s Substack and subscribe to it here.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 23:00

• Athletes Vs Animals… Not Even Close
  Athletes Vs Animals… Not Even Close

  The world’s fastest and fittest have descended on the Hungarian capital of Budapest to compete in the 2023 World Athletics Championships, taking place August 19-27. 

  

  Sporting events like these show just what humans are capable of.

  But, out of interest, Statista’s Anna Fleck wondered how do the best of our kind compare to the mightiest of the animal kingdom?

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, not that well.

  For example, the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt, ran at a top speed of 44.72 kilometers per hour in his world record 100-meter sprint in Berlin in 2009. Even such a pace pales next to that of a cheetah, the fastest animal in the world, which can reach speeds of around 114.5 kilometers per hour while hunting.

  In this rather odd hypothetical race, Olympian Michael Phelps too would have to bow out. On his top form, Phelps reached a speed of 7.08 kilometers per hour in an Olympic swimming pool. But as the following chart shows, a sailfish can reach speeds of 110 kilometers per hour under water.

  Meanwhile, a contest between human and animal jumpers is at least somewhat in the same ballpark. Where a snow leopard can cover distances of up to 15 meters in a single jump, world record holder Mike Powell set the best mark of 8.95 meters in the long jump in 1991.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  …yeah, but we can kick their ass at Chess or Minecraft or Pool or Beer-pong or Cornhole…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 22:40

• After Years In The Wilderness, Conservative Christian Education Is Being Born Again Post-Pandemic
  After Years In The Wilderness, Conservative Christian Education Is Being Born Again Post-Pandemic

  Authored by Vince Bielski via RealClear Wire,

  Conservative Christian education is being born again.  

  

  Arcadia Christian Academy, which opened in Arizona on Aug. 8, is one of dozens of Christian micro-schools popping up across the country, offering a hybrid in-class and at-home education to keep costs down and the odds of survival up in an increasingly competitive K-12 sector. What’s more, many long-established Christian schools are growing their enrollment after years of stagnation. 

  The recent post-pandemic rebound in Christian education, prompted by parental anger over public school shutdowns and the expansion of school choice programs, comes after a prolonged period of plunging enrollment and shutdowns since the mid-2000s. Behind that decline were dismay over unaccredited schools and an emphasis on preaching the gospel over teaching rigorous courses, according to interviews with Christian school leaders, parents, and national associations, as well as religious education scholars and consultants. 

  They tell the story now of a Christian school movement with about 700,000 students in 8,000 schools that’s striving to leave behind its reclusive evangelical roots and reinvent itself for today, with STEM programs, AP classes, and classical “great books” curriculums. 

  The revamp, demanded by millennial parents and embraced by leaders of accreditation associations, is propelled by a combination of push-and-pull forces. 

  The push started with COVID. Public schools lost an estimated 1.2 million students during the pandemic. Upset over the long-term closure of classrooms, some parents also objected to what they observed their kids being taught during remote learning at home: Schools with a progressive tilt were teaching that gender is a fluid concept and that America is an inherently racist nation. 

  Evangelical schools have taken in a fair share of these public school refugees by appealing to the conservative views of parents. In their statements of faith, schools not only stress classic doctrine, such as the Bible as the word of God and the second coming of Jesus Christ. The statements also include the conservative Christian take on hot-button issues, such as it’s a sin to deny one’s biological sex.  

  “Alarmed that schools are embracing gender neutral ideology?” Arizona’s Dream City Christian School asks parents rhetorically on its homepage. 

  The pull factor – a major expansion of school choice programs – is now adding to the appeal of Christian schools. In addition to programs in 32 states that mostly provide taxpayer funding for the private education of low-income and special needs kids, eight states recently approved universal laws that make all students eligible for scholarships, regardless of family wealth. At Christian schools, these state-funded scholarships typically cover most if not all tuition, providing a powerful incentive for families that’s boosting enrollment. 

  But after the growth spurt, scholars and school leaders are asking a big question: Does it have legs or will it soon burn out? 

  New-wave Christian schooling faces plenty of headwinds. There’s competition for students from well-established Catholic schools, which have a superior academic track record, as well as rapidly expanding charter networks and homeschooling, says David Sikkink, a prominent scholar of religious education at Notre Dame. And there are the old-guard fundamentalist schools that resist accreditation and refuse to accept school-choice funding. 

  “Are Christian schools going to retain those parents who came at the end of COVID and continue to grow?” says Vance Nichols, head of Alta Loma Christian School in southern California. “That’s the question of the moment.”

  Flocking to Christian Schools 

  In Florida and Arizona, the answer to that question seems to be yes, thanks to new universal choice laws. 

  By removing income and other restrictions on receiving school choice funding, the universal laws have expanded the eligibility pool nationwide by about 4 million students, bringing the total to more than 13 million, according to the advocacy group EdChoice. 

  But the sweeping laws have also sharply divided school choice advocates, with prominent players like Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute objecting to ultra-wealthy families getting taxpayer dollars to send their kids to private schools. 

  Florida was already a wellspring of Christian education, with about 800 schools, when it approved a universal choice program in March. The new law is expected to dramatically boost the number of choice scholarships by as much as 40% to 350,000 students for the 2023-24 school year, says Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students, which administers Florida’s five choice scholarship programs. 

  “A lot of bigger Protestant schools with middle- and upper-middle class students are definitely going to benefit from this expansion in demand for scholarships,” Tuthill says. 

  To meet demand in states like Arizona, where many Christian schools are full, educators are setting up micro-schools that enroll only about a hundred students. With students learning both in formal classrooms for a few days a week and at home for the rest, these hybrid schools keep operating costs down. To access a steady revenue stream, they are setting tuition below the choice scholarship maximum amount, allowing them to attract students with the enticing offer of a free ride. “Historically, the amount is able to cover all of our tuition costs,” which top out at $5,950, Arcadia Christian says on its website. 

  The new wave of micro-schools is enabled by entrepreneurial consulting groups like Soaring Education Services, which provides a one-stop shop of educational models and coaching for the Christian startups. The group, which is part of the Christian nonprofit Open Sky Education in Wisconsin, is helping launch seven micro-schools in seven states by 2024, says Jack Preus, Soaring’s national director. 

  “Demand for Christian schools is high,” Preus says. “Most of the growth in new schools is in micro and hybrid space.” 

  But traditional Christian schools are starting too. The Minneapolis-based Spreading Hope Network, which focuses on bringing a God-centered and rigorous liberal arts education to low-income urban youth, will have assisted 19 new schools and campuses get started through this year with the goal of opening 100 startups by 2032. Most of these schools are in states with choice programs, making it easier for students from poor families to afford the tuition, says Executive Director Dan Olson. 

  That’s true at the new campus at Pusch Ridge Christian Academy, serving mostly Latino students on the south side of Tucson. Latino pastors convinced Pusch Ridge to open the new campus after the public school district in 2020 approved a sex education program starting in the 5th grade over the objections of conservative parents, says Jonathon Basurto, principal of the new campus. 

  With all its low-income students certain to qualify for one or more of Arizona’s choice scholarship programs to cover the $13,000 tuition, the new Pusch Ridge campus has ambitious plans to grow from K-2 today to K-12 in 10 years. 

  “We are looking at a minimum of 500 students and up to 900,” Basurto says. “We have families driving 45 minutes to come to this Spanish-speaking school because it is Christian.”

  Christian Schools in Crisis 

  The growth in Christian education is a remarkable turnaround for a movement that suffered thousands of school closures in the 15 years before the pandemic. It was a period of “crisis” for the community, says Nichols, the school leader, who wrote his dissertation at the University of Southern California on the rash of failures. 

  The mid-2000s were the high-water mark for Christian schools. In 2006, the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), the largest of many Protestant education associations, counted almost 4,000 schools as members, or about half the U.S. total. Membership plummeted to 2,094 by 2022 amid the shutdowns before increasing by 45 schools this year, says Nichols, who is also an ACSI commissioner overseeing accreditation. 

  For Christian schools, which tend to enroll several hundred students, it was the biggest decline in their modern history. Nichols’ research shows that poor leadership, particularly by school boards, lackluster academics that didn’t meet the rising expectations of families for a rigorous education, and financial pressures from the Great Recession were major causes of the closures. 

  Many of the schools that shuttered in the last decade were the old-timers that remained attached to the original separatist ideology of Christian education. This took root in the 1950s when Baptist and other Christian churches began setting up hundreds of schools in response to sweeping changes in public education from Supreme Court orders that ended racial segregation and banned prayer in classrooms, according to studies of the period. 

  The main priority of these fundamentalist schools has been the cultivation of Christian morality and faith for the benefit of their communities. As for academics, they have practiced “good enough-ism,” or an education that’s good enough to get by in the real world, says Patrick Wolf, who studies private schools at the University of Arkansas.  

  “The churches were sold on the concept that all they had to do is to buy a curriculum in packets and parents could run the school without professionals,” says Howard Burke, executive director of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, an accreditation agency. “They believed a godly mother could teach a child a Christian curriculum.” 

  Since then, many Christian schools have made big academic leaps forward. The best of them send students to Harvard, M.I.T., Vanderbilt, and West Point. 

  Alta Loma Christian, the school Nichols heads, is an example. In 2016, Nichols began introducing a serious STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) program, where students learn computer coding in early elementary grades. That’s partly why Alta Loma’s enrollment has grown from 240 to more than 300 students in a highly competitive private school market in San Bernardino County. 

  When Paul and Nuria Koszut were looking for a Christian school for their oldest son, they rejected several that seemed like a continuation of Sunday school until they found Alta Loma. “We did want a Christian foundation at a school but also a very strong academic program,” says Paul Koszut. “Alta Loma has both parts.” 

  Hundreds of Christian schools are also adopting a demanding classical liberal arts program, a rapidly growing trend in private education that focuses on fundamental truths and virtue through the reading of great works of literature and philosophy. In Illinois at the K-12 Classical Consortium Academy, a Christian hybrid school, seventh graders read Dante’s “Inferno,” one of a long list of classics in the middle and high school curriculum that includes “The Republic,” Plutarch’s “Lives,” Augustine’s “Confessions,” “Don Quixote,” and “The Communist Manifesto.” 

  “The academic bar has been lowered so significantly that students think they can’t read these great works,” says Jennifer Burns, who founded the school and is helping launch seven more classical Christian academies nationwide for Turning Point Academy. “We offer rigor not to break their spirit but to show them they can handle it.”

  Fundamentalist Education Lives On 

  But a smaller number of Christian schools continue to abide by orthodoxy. They criticize bigger and academically driven schools for “being not very Christian and tempted by worldly standards of success,” says Sikkink of Notre Dame. 

  The fundamentalist schools also don’t see the need for accreditation – a big priority for leaders in the movement – because it brings outside oversight and standards. As a result, these schools struggle to attract students and revenue and can’t afford to offer higher-level classes like calculus and physics. “Fundamentalist schools could use some financial help,” says Sikkink. 

  No one knows how many Christian schools are accredited, but only 39% of more than 2,100 ACSI schools have this stamp of academic approval by the association, which is making efforts to expand that number. In Florida, where Christian schools have had more state support to develop and improve, almost 80% are accredited by independent associations.  

  The unaccredited schools are more likely to use the overtly patriotic Christian textbooks from Bob Jones University Press and Abeka, which were mainstays in Christian education several decades ago. School leaders now criticize the textbooks for sugarcoating America’s transgressions, such as the treatment of America Indians and black slaves. While many schools have ditched these materials in favor of more politically balanced readings, the Bob Jones and Abeka brands continue to be used at about 40% of Christian schools, estimates Sikkink, who says the textbooks remain “an issue.” 

  The infusion of faith-based politics into the classrooms of evangelical schools is also concerning to education leaders. They aim to steer clear of accusations that Christian schools are a conservative training ground for America’s culture wars. 

  A Christian school in New England blurs the line between education and activism, according to research that kept the school anonymous as a condition of access to its classes. In a lesson on transgender issues, several articles given to students all concluded that the practice of gender reassignment is wrong and harmful to teens, a position in keeping with Christian dogma about the God-given sexual identities of men and women, according to the study of the school by Jeremy Alexander of Boston College. At the end of the lesson, the teacher stressed to students the importance of voting, particularly in local school board elections, where candidates who hold anti-Christian views on issues like gender identity can be defeated. 

  Scholars differ on whether just a handful or a significant chunk of schools are encouraging students to be political activists guided by the conservative Christian playbook. But they agree that schools shouldn’t tell students how to think and should instead present a range of views, on everything from economics to evolution, to prepare them for the debates and compromises that are essential to a democracy. 

  “I don’t think the overwhelming majority of Christian schools are trying to groom culture warriors, but some of them are,” says Alexander, who published a 2022 paper on this topic. “This isn’t how students should be taught to live in a pluralistic society.”

  Schools Built on Choice  

  Most schools benefiting from school choice are not Christian traditionalists. They shun the programs in fear that the government will try to control them despite a hands-off approach in most states. Instead, college-prep schools like Little Rock Christian Academy in Arkansas are opening their doors to state funding. 

  The PK-12 academy has steadily grown since 1977 to about 1,600 students, luring them with at least 18 AP classes and an average ACT test score well above the national average. The strong academic program in a Christian academy also brought Justin Smith, who holds a doctorate in education, to the school six years ago. 

  Smith, who heads Little Rock, says his board decided to participate in the state’s recently approved universal choice program after concluding it wouldn’t compromise the school’s Christian values with requirements other than accreditation, an award the school has already earned. As the program rolls out, increasing numbers of currently enrolled and new students will get $6,600 in funding for tuition and other expenses, reaching all students in the state by 2025. 

  The funding makes it easier for hardworking families to afford the tuition and stay enrolled, providing Little Rock with more stability. “It strengthens our families, and in turn, our school,” says Smith. 

  States like Arkansas that are just starting to expand choice programs can look to Florida to see what decades of taxpayer support for private schools can do. 

  So far, the biggest impact is in poor communities, where black and Latino churches have used the state funding to build and expand more than 200 schools over two decades, says Tuthill of Step Up For Students. The payoff has been the improved academic performance of underprivileged students, almost all of whom are on choice scholarships, and job growth that the schools generate in these communities. 

  “Show me a better anti-poverty program anywhere,” says Tuthill. “The churches are essentially running small businesses and the schools are thriving.” 

  Florida’s new universal program is now expanding scholarships to the middle and upper classes, benefiting schools like the high-performing Rocky Bayou Christian Academy in Niceville. It educates students from military, law enforcement, and wealthier families with a college prep curriculum inspired by the Dutch Reformed idea of schooling. “You worship God by learning,” says Superintendent Mike Mosley, who holds a Ph.D. in history. “We have 11 AP classes, including calculus BC and physics.” 

  Rocky Bayou has expanded from 730 students in 2021 to 1,100, partly because choice scholarships have made the tuition of about $10,000 affordable. With universal choice, the number of students on a state-funded scholarship will rise to 80%, which will allow Mosley to reduce his own school’s financial aid and redeploy it to upgrade the facilities and boost low teacher salaries. A new high school building is in the works that will push enrollment up to about 1,400. 

  Katie Williams, whose husband works in law enforcement, has four children at Rocky Bayou. During the pandemic, she pulled her two boys out of public school to teach them at home using a Christian curriculum that won her over. She now sends the boys and her two young daughters to Rocky Bayou to continue their Christian education. 

  “We would never be able to send our four children to Rocky without the choice scholarships,” says Williams, who pays only $400 a month in total tuition. 

  What will be the impact of more school choice funding on Christian education nationwide? Sikkink estimates that enrollment could grow by about 20% over time despite resistance from the fundamentalist wing and competition from other private schools. 

  “Christian schools have been reinventing themselves and it needs to continue to prepare our kids for their future,” says Nichols. “If we do this, we can prevent another downturn in the number of Christian schools.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 22:20

• Which Country Consumes The Most Oil?
  Which Country Consumes The Most Oil?

  Even with the share of renewables in electricity production rising continuously over the past years, oil remains the world’s most important energy source when factoring in transport and heating.

  As Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA), 29 percent of the world’s energy supply in 2020 came from oil.

  As Zandt shows in the below, based on the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, two countries were particularly heavy oil consumers in 2022.

  The United States consumed 19 million barrels of oil per day, followed by its fiercest economic and political competitor, the People’s Republic of China, with 14 million barrels per day this past year.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The usage of other countries pales compared to the two superpowers: The rest of the top 8 consumers combined only amounted to two thirds of the amount used by the U.S. and China.

  When looking at the change in oil consumption between 2012 and 2022, the picture changes significantly.

  U.S. oil usage only increased by about nine percent, with China and India emerging as growth leaders with 42 and 41 percent consumption growth, respectively.

  All in all, four out of the five BRICS countries are featured in the top 8 oil-consuming countries, and three out of four have shown a considerable increase in appetite for fossil fuel over the past decade.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 22:00

• Researchers Discover Concerning Cancer Trend In Young Adults
  Researchers Discover Concerning Cancer Trend In Young Adults

  Authored by Mary Gillis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The number of people under 50 getting cancer is on the rise, leaving scientists puzzled about the concerning uptick, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open.

  

  After analyzing a diverse group of 562,142 people between 2010 and 2019, data showed the rise in overall early-onset cancer was most pronounced in young people between the ages of 30 and 39. Other groups affected were women and several ethnic groups, with Asian or Pacific Islander people being affected the most, followed by Hispanic and American Indian or Alaska Native people.

  Gastrointestinal cancers grew the fastest, averaging a 2.6 percent increase in incidence rate per study year. When gastrointestinal cancers were teased out and analyzed by type, data showed appendix, bile duct, and pancreatic cancer increased by 15 percent, 8.1 percent, and 2.5 percent, respectively. Incidence refers to the measure of the number of new cases that develop in a population over a specific period.

  Additional analyses revealed breast cancer made up the highest number of early-onset disease cases, followed by thyroid and colon cancer.

  In contrast, rates decreased among black and white people during the same 10-year period. Rates also declined in older adults over 50—a group typically hit hardest by cancer.

  “This nationwide study provides updated evidence that the incidence of early-onset cancers in the U.S. is increasing and highlights several disparities,” the authors wrote in the paper.

  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates 2 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in 2023. Breast cancer is the No. 1 cancer affecting women. An estimated over 300,000 women will be diagnosed this year. Prostate cancer is the leading cancer diagnosis among men. Similarly, the NIH estimates nearly 300,000 cases. Cancer costs the United States more than $156 billion annually, and the total cost of cancer globally is on pace to reach $25.2 trillion by 2050.

  Risk Factors

  Up to 50 percent of all cancers are preventable. Several lifestyle risk factors for preventable cancers include the following:

  • Smoking.
  • Being overweight or obese.
  • Drinking too much alcohol.
  • Eating a poor diet.
  • Lacking physical activity.
  • Being stressed.
  • Exposures to radiation.
  • Infections.

  “There is a need to inform health care professionals about the increasing incidence of early-onset cancer, and investigations for possible tumors need to be considered when clinically appropriate, even in patients younger than 50 years,” the authors continued in the paper. “These data will be useful for public health specialists and health care policy makers and serve as a call to action for further research into the various environmental factors that may be associated with this concerning pattern.”

  The authors pointed out the possibility that cancer statistics are underreported, and study results may not apply to other areas outside the United States. Therefore, they should be interpreted with caution.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 21:40

• Total Ukraine War Troop Deaths, Injuries Approaching 500,000: US Officials
  Total Ukraine War Troop Deaths, Injuries Approaching 500,000: US Officials

  A surprisingly blunt and revealing Friday report in The New York Times cites US officials who estimate that total war casualties in Ukraine among both sides are at nearly 500,000 dead and wounded. 

  “The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops,” the Times wrote based on the unnamed officials. “The Russian numbers dwarf the Ukrainian figures, which the officials put at close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.”

  To put these grim and tragic figures in perspective, the United States military involvement in Vietnam over the course of a nearly two-decade period resulted in about 58,000 Americans killed.

  

  Given Kiev doesn’t release official casualty numbers, the US officials cited in the Times report are estimating, but it generally lines up with the immense numbers of Ukrainian losses the Kremlin has presented in evaluating the counteroffensive. But Western sources have consistently said that Russian losses are more staggering.

  The NY Times has characterized the now largely stalemated conflict as a war of attrition, with Russia having the manpower and supply lines keep the upper-hand and to far outlast: 

  Ukraine has around 500,000 troops, including active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops, according to analysts. By contrast, Russia has almost triple that number, with 1,330,000 active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops — most of the latter from the Wagner Group.

  As for Russia, the West has accused it of habitually undercounting its own casualty rates. Last January, US Chief of the Joint Staff Mark Milley asserted that Russian forces had suffered losses at “significantly well over 100,000”. 

  Likely many of the recent casualties on each side were from the months-long battle for the city of Bakhmut. President Zelensky has come under recent criticism for pouring so many resources and manpower into what was a losing battle. That’s when many reports emerged of large amounts of completely untrained and underequipped Ukrainians being shipped to the frontlines. 

  The military analysis source 19fortyfive.com has assessed that the defense of Bakhmut was an incredible risk and gamble which didn’t pay off, and led to a very poor start to the now faltering counteroffensive:

  However, Zelensky chose to press the fight anyway. For months, senior U.S. leaders warned the Ukrainian president the battle was unwinnable and to move to other defensive positions. Not only did he refuse to withdraw to a superior fighting position, he ordered his men not to give up so much as a single building, forcing them to fight to the death. Month after month, Zelensky sent brigade after brigade to reinforce Bakhmut in an effort to reverse the tide. 

  Not only was it painfully obvious that military fundamentals made clear there was little rational hope of stopping Wagner’s drive to capture Bakhmut, but many of those brigades Zelensky sent in futile aid to help Bakhmut were also urgently needed in the upcoming spring and summer offensive. Two days after Bakhmut’s fall, Zelensky was still defiant, claiming the city had not fallen. In 2022, Zelensky’s tenacity and unwillingness to compromise resulted in blunting Russia’s invasion and then inflicting two major operational defeats. 

  This is an interesting article which argues that Zelensky made serious mistakes in the fight over Bakhmut when the conventional wisdom at the time was that Russia was the side acting stupidly. https://t.co/M5Wq7NQfgb

  — Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) August 17, 2023

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

  While Ukrainian forces held out for longer than most predicted, it was a very costly loss, and at the same time it’s anything but clear that it put a significant dent in Russian force strength. 

  19FortyFive concludes that it’s certainly not Washington’s fault (despite the persistent complaint to this end of Zelensky officials)… “No one can claim the United States didn’t give Ukraine every chance to find out if it could succeed on the battlefield, as we provided literally thousands of armored vehicles, millions of shells, missiles, and bombs, and training and intelligence support – along with scores of billions in other aid.” And the publication emphasizes, “But that help did not produce a Ukrainian victory.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 21:20

• "This Is Unacceptable": Biden's DOJ Attempts To Silence Journalist In Firearms Case
  “This Is Unacceptable”: Biden’s DOJ Attempts To Silence Journalist In Firearms Case

  Submitted By Gun Owners of America,

  In April, the Department of Justice convicted two men, Matthew Hoover & Kristopher Ervin, of conspiring to transfer unregistered machine gun devices known as “Auto Key Cards.”

  The case known as United States of America v. Kristopher Ervin & Matthew Hoover has been regarded as controversial. ATF employees involved in the case admitted to taking classes on convincing a jury of their testimony, among other interesting developments.

  As such, the case has been subject to much discussion and coverage by firearms-related news outlets. One of those outlets, AmmoLand News & their journalist, John Crump, was recently the subject of an attempted gag order by the DoJ due to his reporting on the case.

  The gag order was specifically in relation to a Presentencing Investigation Report given to Crump by Hoover to aid in his coverage of the court case. Unbeknownst to Crump, after this report was given to him, the DoJ filed a motion to silence Crump and have his copy of the Presentencing Investigation Report destroyed.

  In the motion, the Justice Department refers to Crump as a “YouTube personality” in an attempt to discredit his status as a journalist and the free speech protections he is entitled to as a member of the press.

  Distasteful YouTube comments are cited in the motion as well as the reason for the gag order, with many of the comments taking a critical tone against the State’s Attorney.

  When we learned about this situation, Gun Owners of America stepped in to defend Crump and his First Amendment rights. Our legal team filed an Emergency Motion to Intervene on the gag order placed on him.

  🚨BREAKING🚨

  The US gov is attempting to silence pro-gun journalist and content creator, @crumpyss.

  This is unacceptable & we will not stand for this blatant disrespect for our constitutionally-protected rights. We are stepping up to help John beat this attempt to silence him. pic.twitter.com/6b9JpqDfCQ

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 9, 2023

  While the Judge agreed with our motion, it seemed that the DoJ saw the writing on the wall, withdrawing their motion and mooting the challenge.
  Either way, GOA is proud to help block the Government’s attempt to silence a journalist’s First Amendment rights.

  *  *  *

  Today on the Minuteman Moment, Ben details the current situation between John Crump, a reporter for AmmoLand news and OAN Contributor, and his coverage of the CRS Firearms case being placed under a gag order by an overzealous federal prosecutor.

  *   *   *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 21:00

• Another One? Boeing Dreamliner Pilot Suffers "Fatal Cardiac Arrest" Shortly After Takeoff
  Another One? Boeing Dreamliner Pilot Suffers “Fatal Cardiac Arrest” Shortly After Takeoff

  In late January, US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent a letter to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Acting Administrator Billy Nolen and Office of Aerospace Medicine Federal Air Surgeon Susan Northrup shedding light on a concerning trend of individuals in the aviation industry who experienced medical events after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine. 

  “What steps has FAA taken or will FAA take to investigate whether Cody Flint, Hayley Lopez, Greg Pierson, Bob Snow, Wil Wolfe, and other pilots experienced COVID-19 vaccine adverse events?” Johnson asked. 

  The senator wrote, “Based on data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database, the whistleblower reported that the total number of diseases and injuries in pilots across DoD was 265 in 2016; 252 in 2017; 164 in 2018; 223 in 2019; 2,194 in 2020; 2,861 in 2021; and 4,059 in 2022. These increases in disease and injuries in pilots across the DoD over the last three years, and particularly over the last year, raise questions as to whether FAA has seen similar increases in disease and injuries in individuals in the aviation industry.”

  This leaves us with the latest incident: a pilot in command of a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner suffered a fatal cardiac arrest in the bathroom of a commercial flight from Miami to Chile on Monday. 

  “Flight LA505 (Miami – Santiago) diverted to Tocumen International Airport in Panama due to a medical emergency of one of the three members of the crew in command,” according to CBS News, which obtained a statement from LATAM Airlines.

  The airline continued, “Unfortunately, after landing and receiving further medical assistance, the pilot passed away.”

  … and remember this? 

  HERE’S MORE CHAOS

  Bombshell Finding About the FAA Loosening It’s EKG Range for Pilots While Offering No Explanation as to Why to the Public

  Army Flight Surgeon Theresa Long: “DMED reportable events (death, perm harm, or severe temp harm) on pilots across the….👇👇Part 2 pic.twitter.com/Q1brKaxXkk

  — Freedom (@MassAdi15176401) January 31, 2023

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

  Here are the latest headlines of pilots suffering medical emergencies:

  • Two Indian Pilots Die In 2 Days, 1 At Airport, Another On Flight

  • Shocking Moment Pilot Suffers Cardiac Arrest In Virginia Airport

  • BA pilot dies shortly before he was due to captain Airbus flight to Heathrow

  • Southwest pilot suffers medical emergency on flight, off-duty pilot helps land plane

  In Feb., Captain Robert Snow revealed he suffered a cardiac arrest on the final approach of an American Airlines flight. He said he was vaxxed in order to maintain his employment status with the airlines. 

  Will the FAA or the Biden administration even be willing to investigate the surge in disease and injuries in pilots after the Covid shot?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 20:40

• Genes May Explain Why 20% Of People Who Get COVID-19 Are Asymptomatic: Study
  Genes May Explain Why 20% Of People Who Get COVID-19 Are Asymptomatic: Study

  Authored by Megan Redshaw, JD via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Scientists recently discovered a gene variant that may explain why 20 percent of people who get COVID-19 never develop symptoms.

  

  In a recent study published in Nature, researchers theorized that human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes may be the reason some people are asymptomatic when they test positive for COVID-19.

  According to the authors, HLA genes play a significant role in viral infections by helping the immune system recognize infected or foreign cells and are the most medically important region of the human genome.

  To determine whether HLA gene variants are associated with asymptomatic COVID-19, researchers enrolled 24,947 bone marrow donors over a nine-month study period, as gene sequencing is a prerequisite for being a tissue or organ donor and recipient, and genetic information was already available.

  Participants used a smartphone app to track positive COVID-19 tests and daily symptoms, including fever, chills, and mild symptoms such as scratchy throat or runny nose. Each week volunteers noted whether they had taken a COVID-19 test, and each month reported whether hospitalization had occurred.

  During the study period, 1,428 unvaccinated individuals reported a positive COVID-19 test, with 20 percent of individuals reporting no symptoms. Further analysis revealed a specific HLA-B*15:01 variant was “significantly overrepresented” in asymptomatic individuals compared to symptomatic individuals.

  Those who carried two copies of this variant—one passed down by each parent—were more than eight times more likely to remain asymptomatic than those carrying other genotypes. Researchers confirmed their findings in two other groups of people.

  The authors then examined the effect HLA-B*15:01 had on T cells—a type of white blood cell that helps the immune system recognize germs and fight disease, including SARS-CoV-2.

  Analyzing T cells donated by HLA-B*15:01⁺ people before the pandemic, researchers discovered that T cells in asymptomatic participants reacted to a specific piece of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, enabling the virus to enter the cells as if they had previously encountered the virus. Additional experiments showed that T cells with the specific HLA variant responded aggressively to an almost identical spike protein fragment from two seasonal coronaviruses associated with common colds.

  “The findings suggest that T cells in many people with HLA-B*15:01 could already recognize SARS-CoV-2 because of their prior exposure to seasonal coronaviruses,” according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This ability to recognize SARS-CoV-2 allowed their immune systems to respond rapidly to clear out the virus before it caused symptoms of infection.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 20:20

• China's Housing Slump Far Worse Than Reported; Half Of State-Owned Builders Warn Of "Widespread" Losses
  China’s Housing Slump Far Worse Than Reported; Half Of State-Owned Builders Warn Of “Widespread” Losses

  Earlier today, Goldman’s head of hedge fund sales Tony Pasquariello observed that “to this point in the sequence, I’d argue the slowdown in China had been a net positive for US equities — with specific regard to the disinflationary impulse and the flow of capital. That said, coming out of a week that featured another disappointing set of data — and another dose of CNH weakness — it now feels like China growth fears can provoke a more global risk-off dynamic.“

  Well, if Tony is right, then watch out below, because the bad news out of China has become a firehose that is only getting more powerful with every passing day, especially if one ignores the fake official data and looks at the truth beneath the surface.

  Consider China’s official housing market statistics, which despite falling sequentially for the first time in 2023 in July, have first been remarkably resilient in the face of tepid economic growth and record defaults by developers. New-home prices have slipped just 2.4% from a high in August 2021, government figures show, while those for existing homes have dropped 6%.

  

  Of course, China’s official data is almost as credible as that of the Biden Department of Labor; and indeed, the picture emerging from property agents and private data providers is far more dire.

  As Bloomberg notes, these figures show existing-home prices falling at least 15% in prime neighborhoods of major metropolitan areas like Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as in more than half of China’s tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

  • Existing homes near Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou have dropped about 25% from late 2021 highs, according to local agents.
  • In Lianyang, a downtown area popular with expats and financiers in Shanghai, residential prices have slid 15% to 20% from record highs in mid-2021.

  Even as of March, before the latest property market crisis, more than half of tier-2 and tier-3 cities saw existing-home prices fall more than 15% from peaks, Guolian Securities economists wrote in a report citing data by existing housing transaction services provider KE Holdings Inc. Actual declines from peaks could be sharper, as the agency only compiles data starting November 2018, the economists cautioned

  

  Top-tier cities, once considered resilient against a housing downturn, are also not immune. Prices of existing homes in at least five popular districts of Shenzhen have slumped 15% in the past three years, according to a July report by property research institute Leyoujia. The southern hub is the country’s least affordable housing market.

  It’s hardly rocket science what is going on here: industry insiders and economists say China’s official home-price indexes are understating the depth of the downturn (by a lot) in part because of longstanding methodologies that struggle to capture market turning points, in part because – well – all of China’s data is propaganda.

  That’s heightening concern among investors about the availability of timely economic data in China, where access to some information has become increasingly restricted under the government of President Xi Jinping. It also raises questions about whether policy makers themselves have an accurate understanding of the market as they devise measures to prop up demand. Another risk is that wary homebuyers stay on the sidelines, waiting for price declines to show up in the data before they step in.

  Analysts say the methodology, which partly relies on surveys rather than price data from transactions, helps authorities to smooth the trend and to avoid large swings. By contrast, in the US, the widely cited S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indexes use home-price data collected at local deed recording offices across the country.

  For Henry Chin, who’s spent more than 20 years researching global real estate markets, the data’s source and accuracy are critical.

  “Home-price data in many countries are based on total market transactions, yet China uses selective samples,” said Chin, the head of research for Asia Pacific at CBRE Group Inc. “When a market goes down, the true market condition is hard to be reflected in such data.”

  China’s statistics bureau has said in an online explanation that raw data on new-home prices is based on all sales and purchases registered in local housing transaction bodies. Existing-home prices, though, are based on both sales of key projects and surveys, it said. The NBS uses the Laspeyres price index, a common formula used worldwide, to calculate its 70-city home-price gauge, the statistics bureau told Bloomberg. Market watchers say the methodology on sampling and index calculation remain ambiguous.

  

  Survey-based data “serves a purpose avoiding extreme fluctuation,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis SA in Hong Kong. “But when people are wary that prices are falling even more, thus not buying, such data defeats its own purpose.”

  This partly explains why home price changes implied by official and private sources appear inconsistent with market perceptions on some occasions, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists said in a July report called “Understanding differences in China’s home price measures.”

  Translation: nobody believes Chinese data any more.

  Which is very bad for Beijing, since nobody will buy real estate – China’s biggest asset by orders of magnitude – if there is zero confidence in what the accurate price is, and until there is some comfort that the price drops are over.

  What is worse is that even China’s state-owned property developers are now warning of widespread losses, fueling concerns that the housing crisis is expanding from the private sector to companies with government backing.

  In a separate Bloomberg report, we learn that 18 out of 38 state-owned enterprise builders listed in Hong Kong and the mainland reported preliminary losses in the six months ended June 30, up from 11 that warned of full-year losses in 2022, according to a Bloomberg tally based on corporate filings. Two years ago, only four firms with controlling or major state shareholdings posted losses.

  Some of the state-owned developers have cited declining profit margins and heavier provisions to write down asset values stemming from the housing woes. Companies seeing losses include some of the biggest developers owned by the central government. Shenzhen Overseas Chinese Town warned of a loss of as much as 1.7 billion yuan ($233 million), partly due to a marketing strategy to speed up home sales. That followed a loss in the second half of last year, which was its first since its 1997 listing.

  Players in economically stronger cities are also suffering. Everbright Jiabao Co., operated by a local state asset manager in Shanghai’s Jiading district, said it expects its first ever half-year loss since its listing.

  The warnings signal state builders are no longer immune from the two-year housing slump that has weakened the economy and triggered dozens of defaults by private peers, with speculation that Country Garden Holdings may be next, a collapse which would be more devastating than the Evergrande collapse two years ago. Authorities have in recent weeks stepped up pledges to support the property sector, though analysts are skeptical that the measures will be enough to revive the market anytime soon.

  

  “China’s property slowdown is already hurting all developers, including the large government-linked ones,” said Zerlina Zeng, senior credit analyst at CreditSights Singapore. “We do not expect the situation to materially improve in the second half.”

  That said, according to Bloomberg Intelligence credit analyst Andrew Chan, the loss warnings aren’t necessarily all doom and gloom for state developers – it’s natural that they would write down their inventories to reflect the slump in values, he notes.

  “SOEs could be kitchen-sinking their results for better years ahead,” Chan said. “The key is whether they can still receive liquidity support from banks. For smaller SOE developers, it will be a case-by-case situation.”

  But losses will reduce their scope to take on unfinished projects left by defaulted private-sector firms, further denting homebuyer sentiment. Chinese regulators see asset sales as a key step to easing the debt crisis, as President Xi Jinping’s government largely steers clear of direct bailouts.

  “Sector consolidation anyhow takes time,” CreditSights’ Zeng said. “Especially in a property downturn when acquirers, such as SOEs and asset management firms, are demanding better valuations and sellers are not willing to dispose at a deep discount.”

  One policy tool being used to revive the housing market and the broader economy is interest-rate cuts. In a surprise move, the People’s Bank of China on Tuesday made the steepest cut in three years on the rate on its one-year loans. The central bank has also encouraged lenders to lower mortgage rates, Jingyang Chen, Asia FX strategist at HSBC Holdings Plc, said earlier this month.

  As of June, 100 out of 343 Chinese cities have lowered the rate floor of new-home mortgages or removed the minimum required, the PBOC said in its quarterly monetary policy report on Thursday. That has brought the nation’s average mortgage rate to 4.11% in June, down 0.51 percentage point from a year earlier.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 20:00

• Growing Warnings: Biden Could Get Scorched By Green Dependency On Red China
  Growing Warnings: Biden Could Get Scorched By Green Dependency On Red China

  Authored by Ben Weingarten via RealClear Wire,

  President Biden’s stance toward China hardened this month when he issued an executive order prohibiting American investment in Chinese companies developing advanced technologies that could be used by the military. 

  

  But a growing chorus of critics, including some Democrats, argue that the administration’s effort to grapple with America’s foremost adversary is contradictory, illustrated in the White House’s Beijing-empowering pursuit of ambitious climate change goals. 

  Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, as the White House has called for, will almost assuredly make the United States dependent on China while enriching it. 

  China currently holds a commanding position in the clean energy industry, controlling the natural resources and manufacturing the components essential to the Biden administration’s desired alternative energy transition. Energy experts believe that its dominance will become more entrenched in the years ahead because of domestic environmentalist opposition to perceived “dirty” mining and refining operations, and the Biden administration’s “clean energy” spending blitz – which could provide Chinese companies and subsidiaries billions in subsidies. 

  The Biden administration also considers it imperative to get buy-in from Beijing on dramatically reducing emissions, given it produces more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions globally. 

  This too gives critics of the Biden administration’s green agenda pause. They see China as an unreliable partner that will leverage the Biden administration’s desire for it to go green to its own advantage. 

  “China,” says Senator John Barrasso (R-Wy.), the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, “is playing us for suckers.” 

  Red China’s Green Dominance 

  China’s alternative energy clout comes from its command over supply chains that culminate in the production of wind turbines, solar panels, and lithium-ion batteries on which the net zero transition depends. 

  On top of its own large domestic reserves, it has invested in mines worldwide, and grown into a global hub for raw material refining and processing. China underscored this point on the eve of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit last month, when it imposed export restrictions on gallium and germanium, rare earth metals not only critical to the manufacture of semiconductors, but also found in electric vehicles and solar panels.  

  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, China is the leading producer of 30 of 50 minerals, including among them rare earth metals, that the U.S. government deems critical, particularly for their usage in energy technologies.  

  Rare earth metals are integral to the magnets key to electric vehicle motors and wind turbines. America is 95% net import reliant on such materials, which China produces 70% of globally. According to the International Energy Agency, the PRC dominates “across the [rare earth] value chain from mining to processing and magnet production.”  

  Other critical minerals for clean energy technologies include: copper, key to solar cells, wind turbines, and electric vehicles; cobalt, key to lithium-ion batteries; nickel, also key to such batteries and in renewable energy storage; and lithium itself. China is the world’s largest refiner of all these minerals and produces 50-70% of all lithium and cobalt globally. The U.S. has no refining capacity for many of the same materials. 

  In analyzing the International Energy Agency’s authoritative “Net Zero by 2050” roadmap, the Energy Policy Research Foundation concluded, in a report supported by the RealClearFoundation (which also funds RealClearInvestigations), that “replacing oil and gas with metal-intensive renewables and batteries risks further reinforcing China’s dominance in these critical minerals, at the expense of the energy security of most of the world.” 

  Research shows that: 

  • Ten of the top 15 global wind turbine manufacturers are Chinese. 

  • China’s share in each of the five key manufacturing stages of solar panels exceeds 80%. 

  • China dominates in every aspect of the lithium-ion battery value chain – the batteries that power electric vehicles and battery storage power stations. 

  To put China’s clean energy dominance in perspective, as BloombergNEF reported, while “Saudi Aramco pumped some 11% of the world’s crude in 2021 … [t]hat pales before the 70% of production capacity in 11 clean energy segments nestled within China’s borders.”   

  “By cultivating leadership in clean energy technologies,” the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has assessed, “Beijing is seeking to profit from a global clean energy transition while further deepening its geoeconomic leverage.” 

  Some lawmakers are concerned China might hold such leverage over President Biden himself. In 2021 the New York Times reported that Hunter Biden had “helped secure cobalt for the Chinese” in 2016, while his father was vice president. House Republicans were reportedly investigating this matter as of March, and the issue could resurface in connection with a potential impeachment inquiry into the Biden family’s alleged international influence peddling. 

  Biden’s Green Energy Blitz – and its Limits 

  Acknowledging China’s alternative energy prowess, and therefore America’s dependence on Beijing to hit its green targets, the Biden administration has pushed legislation – including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which allocates $369 billion in green subsidies and incentives, as well as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which commits still billions more – and sought to use its executive authority and regulatory power to build America’s alternative energy infrastructure. 

  The White House touts $3 billion in federal grants for expanding the manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles and the grid; $50 million in funding for wind energy research and development; and $35 million more in funding for Las Vegas, Nevada-based MP Materials to establish an end-to-end magnet supply chain. 

  All told, the Biden administration says it has committed some $22 billion in grants, rebates, and other initiatives “to accelerate the deployment of clean energy, clean buildings, and clean manufacturing.” It also takes credit for private sector investments of $133 billion in electric vehicles and batteries, and $103 billion in clean energy. Still, experts say these measures leave America lagging behind China, and that the aggressive goals set by the administration therefore require reliance on the Communist power. 

  Mark Mills, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and energy-tech venture capitalist, said the Biden administration’s efforts are “window dressing – maybe there’s a new term equivalent to ‘green washing’ along the lines of ‘mineral washing’ – since there are no commensurate necessary regulatory changes for large-scale, chemically-difficult industries,” like mineral refining, necessary to meaningfully ramp up the onshoring of clean energy. 

  Republican lawmakers likewise have criticized the Biden administration for imposing environmental restrictions they see as hamstringing the president’s stated agenda by blocking domestic projects that would unleash key natural resources. 

  The U.S. Army Corps revoked a key permit for a major domestic nickel mining project in Minnesota, as recommended by the EPA, on grounds that it might not comply with the water quality requirements of a sovereign tribe downstream of the project. The Biden administration has also been reticent to engage in seabed mining, with U.S. Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry indicating the administration is “very wary of procedures that could disturb the ocean floor.” 

  Even if America overcame these environmental concerns and fast-tracked mining projects, it is not clear it could sustain a wholly domestic clean energy industry. Echoing an emerging consensus among experts from the right and the left, Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and nonresident senior research fellow at the Center for Climate & Security, said, “The idea that you can have a truly made-in-America supply chain for all of these minerals is a fiction.” 

  Certainly, says Dr. Victoria Coates, it cannot do so on the aggressive schedule the Biden administration has set, which would require the creation of vast supply chains during the next few years. The former deputy national security adviser, and later adviser to the Secretary of Energy during the Trump administration, Coates told RCI that home-sourcing desired clean energy technology not only would be “cost prohibitive,” but “I don’t know that we’d even be up and running by 2050, let alone implementing a transition that would impact carbon emissions.” 

  Therefore, says Coates, now helming the Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, America “can’t decouple from China in this process to get to that target on that time frame.” 

  RCI contacted trade groups representing the solar, wind, and electric industries present at a Treasury-led clean power generation roundtable to ask them about the feasibility of decoupling from China, and whether and to what extent meeting the White House’s green goals would redound to China’s benefit, but did not receive any responses. 

  Mills said that the massive increase in wind/solar/battery utilization required by the Biden administration would serve China’s “direct benefit.”  

  Asked by RCI in an email whether it was concerned the clean energy transition would increase America’s dependence on, and otherwise redound to the benefit of China, a State Department spokesperson replied: “No,” adding that that the Biden administration’s policies “are all intended to revitalize American leadership in emerging technologies and supply chains, protect our national security, advance American competitiveness, and create well-paying, high-quality jobs at home.” 

  Neither the White House, Treasury Department, nor Kerry’s office responded to a series of related inquiries. 

  Conflicts and Contradictions 

  The fundamental question for the Biden administration, Dr. Coates asks, is “How much China is too much China?” White House Clean Energy Czar John Podesta hinted that the bar may be high. In March, he told a renewable energy advocacy group that China would be a “big player” in the clean energy transition. 

  Podesta drew a rebuke from fellow Democrat Joe Manchin. The West Virginia senator, who chairs the Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, released a statement saying that “It is beyond irresponsible for someone speaking on behalf of the White House to not only condone but also advocate for sending American tax dollars to Chinese companies.” 

  Manchin added: “These words are especially concerning as rumors circulate about the Administration thoughtlessly considering opening up the EV credit’s eligibility beyond our free trade agreement partners and allowing the laundering of Chinese minerals and materials through Trojan horse agreements.” 

  While the White House seeks to go green in a way that reduces dependency on China, there also appear to be loopholes in Biden administration policies, and its enforcement of them. One question is whether Chinese companies can benefit from subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act despite the bill’s purported focus on building the American clean energy industry. 

  Critics such as the Coalition for a Prosperous America have highlighted six Chinese companies that have announced plans to partner with American outfits to assemble solar panels and other components domestically, making them eligible for an estimated $1 billion in U.S. tax credits.  

  This is also happening in the auto industry, where Ford recently announced a partnership with Chinese company CATL to build a domestic $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant. There are also growing concerns that the Treasury Department will loosely interpret provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act aimed at limiting such credits to electric vehicles and solar panels comprised of components and minerals from America or its friends. 

  In March, the Treasury Department released the proposed regulations on electric vehicle credits, which included provisions that critics saw as skirting the IRA’s intended domestic sourcing requirements for such cars. Manchin called the guidance “a pathetic excuse to spend more taxpayer dollars as quickly as possible,” that “further cedes control to the Chinese Communist Party in the process.” 

  When Treasury issued guidance in May indicating that solar project developers would receive a 10% bonus tax credit for using solar panels manufactured in America – even if they contained foreign silicon wafers, some 97% of which are produced in China – it drew stern rebukes from several populist Democrats. 

  This was not the first time Biden had run afoul of some in his party over solar panels. Weeks earlier, Congress sent a veto to the president desk calling on him to rescind a two-year moratorium on solar tariffs from Southeast Asian countries Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. This was seen as a boon to Beijing, as Chinese entities had been found to be circumventing more onerous tariffs by shifting their solar panel production to the neighboring countries. 

  After a dozen Democrats voted with Republicans to pass a resolution disapproving of the moratorium in the House, nine Democrats in the Senate did the same. “The president got this one wrong,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat.  

  “You can’t say you want American manufacturing to lead the world and then allow Chinese companies, subsidized always by their government, to skirt the rules and dump solar panels into the U.S,” Brown  added.  

  After Biden vetoed the resolution. Congress failed to muster the votes to override the veto. 

  Democrats and Republicans alike have also raised concerns about how rigorously the administration is enforcing sanctions aimed at keeping Chinese solar panels from America’s shores under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The polysilicon pivotal to solar panels is largely produced in China’s Xinjiang region, where forced labor camps are prevalent.  

  Another issue raised by critics is that because of the amount of money the administration is doling out, and the speed at which it is dispensing it, it is not carefully scrutinizing who the recipients might be – potentially to China’s benefit. 

  Republicans point to a $200 million grant made under the Energy Department’s Battery Manufacturing and Recycling Grants Program, a creation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to a company called Microvast, as an example of this problem. Microvast’s battery production largely takes place in China, and by the company’s own admission China “exerts substantial influence over” the firm. Facing a firestorm from Republicans, the Energy Department ultimately scrapped the grant – with Secretary Jennifer Granholm admitting it had been subject solely to a “post-selection” review under a pilot vetting process, drawing their ire. 

  The Department of Energy’s inspector general noted that the Biden administration had appropriated about $84 billion to stand up over 70 new programs in recent legislation – more than two times the Department’s total fiscal year 2022 budget. 

  New programs, the inspector general warned “push funding through untested processes and newly designed and untested internal controls.” Combined with the speed at which the funds are moving out the door, the general warned that this creates “risks of fraud, waste and abuse.” 

  “The IRA – and, generally, intensified government support for domestic production – risks opening the door to a wave of Chinese efforts to coopt that support and the domestic players benefiting from it,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s Emily de La Bruyère recently argued in written testimony prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission. “Those efforts,” she stated, “are particularly potent considering China’s existing industrial dominance in the sectors being prioritized by government action.” 

  Climate and the U.S.-China Rivalry

  “There’s simply no way to solve climate change without China’s leadership,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a May 2022 speech unveiling the Biden administration’s approach to China. As John Kerry has stated, “We could go to zero [emissions] tomorrow and the problem isn’t solved.”

  Thus, the Biden administration has repeatedly stressed that as the world’s largest polluter, China must go green, and that cooperation on climate is essential. For its part, China has not only dramatically ramped up its production of coal plants, but also serves as the largest underwriter of fossil fuel infrastructure globally, by way of its Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping insists that the “method, pace and intensity” for China to achieve carbon neutrality – which the country claims it intends to hit by 2060 – “should and must be determined by ourselves, and will never be influenced by others.” 

  “China is not a partner on the environment,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, has said. “It is the No. 1 threat, globally.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 19:40

• Watch: Alarming Video Shows Chinese Troops Rehearsing For Taiwan Invasion
  Watch: Alarming Video Shows Chinese Troops Rehearsing For Taiwan Invasion

  The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command has released a provocative video showing troops practicing a coastal invasion of Taiwan. The video first appeared on the social media site WeChat Thursday, and features waves of PLA soldiers storming beaches, including armored vehicles and tanks driving into attack positions.

  The clip didn’t specifically name Taiwan, but given the Eastern Theatre Command oversees the Taiwan Strait area, it’s being widely interpreted as a warning and threat aimed at the self-ruled island which is backed by the West. Watch:

  The Daily Mail in highlighting the video on Friday, commented: “Meanwhile, the song featured in the video and the accompanying WeChat post were littered with evocative lyrics and phrases like ‘go over the city gate and the high wall’ and ‘no matter how dark it is, don’t be afraid… chase and win the warmest years’.”

  At the same time, new joint Russia-China naval drills near Japan’s waters have alarmed Tokyo and its Western allies. Russia’s defense ministry (MoD) have confirmed the major exercises which rehearse ‘interoperability’ in the Pacific Ocean.

  Russian state media summarized of the MoD statements: 

  A Chinese vessel supplied a Russian warship with fuel and water as the two kept moving on parallel courses.

  In a post on Telegram on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that the crews of the Admiral Tributs anti-submarine warfare ship and China’s Tayhu supply ship practiced synchronizing the two vessels’ speed while maintaining the right distance.

  Russian military officials added that the two navies are currently conducting joint patrols in the East China Sea, covering more than 6,400 nautical miles (11,853km, or 7,365 miles) since the start of the maneuvers in the Pacific in late July.

  The two navies have also been conducting anti-submarine and anti-aircraft drills, which have been closely monitored from Japan. 

  Russia and China conduct series of naval drills in East China Sea pic.twitter.com/0lbEyzVShv

  — TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) August 18, 2023

  The Japanese government on Friday expressed “grave concern” given the close proximity of the Russian-Chinese naval grouping, consisting of nearly a dozen warships, having passed near Japan’s southern islands on Thursday. 

  While the ships did not breach Japan’s territorial waters, the particular passageway used off the southern islands marked a first for the Russian and Chinese navies.

  All of this comes just as President Biden is hosting his Japanese and South Korean counterparts at Camp David on Friday…

  President Joe Biden opened a historic summit with Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday focused on strengthening security and economic ties at a time of increasing concerns about North Korea’s persistent nuclear threats and China’s provocations in the Pacific.

  “Our countries are stronger and the world will be safer as we stand together. And I know this is a belief that all three share,” Biden declared at the start of the meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the presidential retreat in Maryland.

  Addressing his fellow leaders at what he called the first standalone summit of the three nations, the American president said, “I want to thank you both for your political courage that brought you here.”

  

  The three leaders are reportedly putting in place long-term joint naval exercises in Pacific waters as a response to regional provocations, including from North Korea and China. Beijing has been alarmed at deepening Washington-Tokyo defense relations in particular.

  China has also warned that NATO must not seek expansion east into the Pacific arena, after months ago there was talk of NATO opening a liaison office in Japan, but which didn’t materialize. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 19:20

• What If There Had Been No COVID Coup?
  What If There Had Been No COVID Coup?

  Authored by Debbie Lerman via The Brownstone Institute,

  In discussions about the military and national security coup during the Covid pandemic, people often ask me:

  Would it really have been so different if the NIH and CDC had remained in charge of the pandemic response?

  What if the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the National Security Council had never taken over? 

  Wouldn’t the public health agencies have done basically the same things?

  

  It is absolutely essential that everyone understand the answers to these questions.

  They impact not just our awareness of what happened during Covid, but also our assessment of how to handle all viral outbreaks in the future.

  In this article, I will describe how the response to the pandemic would have proceeded if normal public health guidelines had been followed, not just in the US but around the world, without interference from national security authorities or covert biowarfare experts. 

  Public health guidelines

  Before Covid, the guidelines for dealing with a new outbreak of a flu-like virus were clear:

  • avoid panic, 

  • search for cheap, widely available early treatments that may reduce the risk of serious illness,

  • plan to increase healthcare capacity if necessary, 

  • help local and state medical personnel to identify and treat cases if and when the virus causes serious illness, 

  • and keep society functioning as normally as possible. 

  This was the approach used in all previous epidemics and pandemics. The guidelines are detailed in the planning documents of the WHO, HHS, and EU countries.

  When the military and national security agencies took over the response, these guidelines were replaced by a biowarfare paradigm: Quarantine until vaccine. In other words, keep everyone locked down while rapidly developing medical countermeasures. This is a response intended to counter biowarfare and bioterrorism attacks. It is not a public health response and is, in fact, in direct conflict with the scientific and ethical underpinnings of established public health principles.

  Had we adhered to the public health protocols that were initially followed in the early months of 2020, life in the United States and around the world would have looked like life in Sweden during the pandemic, with even less panic: no masks, no school closures, no lockdowns, very low excess deaths. 

  No panic

  The reasons not to panic were apparent in early 2020 from the data we had gathered from China: the virus was deadly mainly to elderly people with multiple serious health conditions, did not cause life-threatening illness in children or in most people under 65, and did not seem poised to cause more of an increase in hospitalizations or deaths than a very bad flu season. 

  It can be difficult at this point – after years of unrelenting censorship and propaganda – to remember that, at the beginning of 2020, the new virus emerging in China was not front and center in most people’s minds. The US media was busy covering election campaigns and economic issues, and the general attitude was that what was happening in China would not happen elsewhere.

  Here are some examples of what medical and public health experts were saying in January, February and early March 2020:

  January 30, 2020, CNBC: Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama’s White House health advisor declared that “Americans are too worried about the new coronavirus that’s spreading rapidly across China.” He added: “Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down and stop panicking and being hysterical.” And he explained: “I think we need to put it into context, the death rate is much lower than for SARS.”

  February 27, 2020, CNN: The CNN website reported that CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield “has a simple message for Americans: No, you shouldn’t be afraid.” The website also quoted NIH Director Dr. Alex Azar saying that “most people who get coronavirus will have mild to moderate symptoms and will be able to stay home, treating it like the severe flu or cold.” And it reported that the CDC “does not recommend Americans wear surgical masks in public. Surgical masks are effective against respiratory infections but not airborne infections.”

  February 28, 2020, New England Journal of Medicine: Drs. Anthony Fauci and Robert Redfield wrote that “the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%” and “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).” They cited Chinese data showing that “either children are less likely to become infected, or their symptoms were so mild that their infection escaped detection.”

  March 4, 2020, Slate : Dr. Jeremy Samuel Faust, Harvard emergency physician reassured readers that all the evidence available at the time “suggests that COVID-19 is a relatively benign disease for most young people, and a potentially devastating one for the old and chronically ill, albeit not nearly as risky as reported.” He said the mortality rate was “zero in children 10 or younger among hundreds of cases in China” and that it was important to “divert our focus away from worrying about preventing systemic spread among healthy people—which is likely either inevitable, or out of our control.”

  No censorship or propaganda

  If we had continued down the road of a regular public health response, opinions like these from our national public health leaders would have continued to be published and discussed openly. There would have been open discussion of the virus’s potential harms, and expert debates about various response measures. There would have been no need to censor any particular opinion or disseminate propaganda supporting any other. 

  If some experts thought we should shut down the entire country (or world), they would have debated this position with those experts who thought this was a gross and dangerous overreaction. The media would most likely have taken the side of the less draconian measures, because it would have been common knowledge that the virus was not lethal for most people, and that the case fatality rate (how many people died after getting sick) was, as Fauci and Redfield reported in February 2020, around 0.1 percent in the general population, and much lower for anyone under 65.

  If anyone had published a model showing millions of potential deaths based on a 2 or 3 percent or higher estimated fatality rate, their assumptions would have been openly questioned and debated, and most likely easily debunked using available data and observed fatality rates from the real world.

  Here are other important topics the media would have been able to report on (as they were doing without censorship before the middle of March), had there been no intentional suppression of traditional public health guidelines, and no panic-fomenting propaganda:

  China

  Scientific and medical data from China was never considered reliable before Covid, because in a totalitarian regime it is assumed that the data must always conform to the regime’s agenda. Without censorship or propaganda, this would have remained true for everything related to Covid. The videos of people falling dead in the streets, the draconian lockdowns of millions of people, and the obviously absurd claims that the lockdowns in one area of the country had eradicated the virus everywhere for years on end, would all be openly questioned and debunked in the media.

  Testing and quarantines

  Without censorship or propaganda, the media would be able to invite top epidemiologists to explain to the public that once an airborne virus is widely disseminated in a population, you cannot stop it from spreading. You can use tests to help guide treatment. You can also use tests to figure out who has been exposed to the virus and is likely to have acquired immunity so they can interact safely with vulnerable populations. It would be common knowledge that it is not necessary or useful to test the entire population repeatedly or to quarantine healthy people.

  Early spread 

  It would have been reassuring for people to know that the virus probably started spreading before December 2019. This would mean that more people had already been exposed without getting sick or dying, which would support the low fatality estimates. It would also mean that since the virus was already widely disseminated, containment (using testing and quarantines) was not a viable or desirable objective, as experts were already stating (see Dr. Faust above).

  Cases

  Without unnecessary testing, the definition of a “case” would have remained what it had always been before Covid: someone who seeks medical care because they have serious symptoms. Thus, the media would report only on clusters of actual cases, if and when they emerged in different locations. There would be no ticker tapes with running numbers of asymptomatic people who tested positive. Instead of millions of positive “cases” (i.e., positive PCR tests), we would hear about hundreds or thousands of people who were hospitalized with serious symptoms, as in all previous epidemics and pandemics. This would happen in different places at different times, as the virus spread geographically. The vast majority of the population would never be counted as cases.

  Natural immunity and herd immunity

  Virologists and epidemiologists would be featured in the news, explaining that if you have been exposed to a virus you develop natural immunity. So, for example, if there were nurses at a hospital who had been sick with Covid, they could go back to work and not worry about getting seriously ill or spreading the virus. The public would also learn that the more people developed natural immunity, the closer we would get to herd immunity, which would mean the virus would have nowhere else to spread. Nobody would consider either of those terms a reckless strategy or a sociopathic plot to let the virus “rip” and kill large swaths of the population.

  Early treatment

  Doctors in China had several months experience treating Covid before observable clusters of cases emerged in other countries. They had developed treatment protocols with available drugs that they could have shared with the international medical community. The media would have reported on the efforts of researchers and doctors all over the world to find available treatments that could lower the risk of patients’ hospitalization or death. 

  Vaccines

  Without the quarantine-until-vaccine agenda, investments in vaccine development in 2020 would have been modest, and might have led to some clinical trials, although by the time they got to Phase III trials (on large numbers of patients), most people would already have natural immunity. The media would have been able to report in January 2020, as Anthony Fauci did in January 2023, that “viruses that replicate in the human respiratory mucosa without infecting systemically, including influenza A, SARS-CoV-2, endemic coronaviruses, RSV, and many other ‘common cold’ viruses” have never been “effectively controlled by licensed or experimental vaccines.” 

  With a focus on early treatments and keeping most people out of the hospital and in a normally functioning society, no one would have been holding their breath waiting for a “safe and effective” vaccine to emerge after only a few months’ trials. 

  Variants

  Nobody would have cared about – or even heard of – variants. The discussion would have centered around who was getting seriously ill and dying, and how they could be treated to lower the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. There would be no need to know whether someone was seriously ill with Alpha, Delta or Omicron XBB1.16, because the variant would have no impact on treatment. 

  Long Covid

  Every viral infection brings with it the potential for long-term symptoms, yet we’ve never talked about “long flu” or “long herpes.” There was no data back in 2020 suggesting that Covid was radically different and was more likely to result in troublesome symptoms once the initial infection was resolved. Thus, the topic probably would not even have come up. If it had, experts would have explained that feeling fatigued or depressed many months after a viral infection is probably not related, and that if you did not have a serious case of the illness you were very unlikely to have any serious long-term symptoms. 

  Origins of the virus

  If the biodefense experts had been honest with the public, they could have explained that the virus might have leaked from a lab, but that everything we knew about it – low fatality rate, steep fatality age gradient, no ill effects for children, etc. – was still true.

  At this point, there could have been open and honest public debates about the most important topics relevant to the outbreak: What is gain-of-function research, why are we doing it, and should we continue?

  There would have been no cover-ups or propaganda about the virus coming from an animal source. We would never know that pangolins or racoon dogs even existed.

  Why this sounds like a fantasy

  Once the biowarfare cartel took over the pandemic response, there was only one objective: scare everyone as much as possible to gain compliance with lockdowns and make everyone desperate for vaccines. Public health experts, including the leaders of the NIH, CDC, and NIAID, were no longer authorized to make their own pandemic policy decisions or public announcements. Everyone had to stick to the lockdown narrative.

  The forces of panic and propaganda, in the service of enormous profits for pharmaceutical and media companies, once unleashed could not be contained.

  It didn’t have to be that way.

  The more people understand this, the less likely they are to go along with such devastating madness in the future.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 19:00

• Which States Are Contributing The Most To US GDP?
  Which States Are Contributing The Most To US GDP?

  With 50 states in the Union and 100 percent to go around, the average state’s contribution to U.S. GDP would technically be two percent.

  While a lot of states are in that percentage range, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, there are some economic powerhouses that surpass that goal easily.

  The seven most populous states, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio are also the seven biggest contributors to U.S. GDP, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. 

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Yet, California is way ahead of the competition as far as per-capita contribution goes. While 11.7 percent of Americans live in California, the state contributed 14.2 percent to GDP in Q1 of 2023.

  New York state, where 5.9 percent of Americans live, had a share of 8.1 percent of GDP that quarter.

  Florida, which has a 6.7 percent share of population, only contributed 5.5 percent of GDP.

  As far as regions go, the Southeast, including populous states Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, contributed the biggest share of just over a fifth to U.S. GDP.

  The Far West held the second largest share of almost exactly one fifth, largely driven by California.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 18:40

• The Right Can't Beat The Left At Its Own Game
  The Right Can’t Beat The Left At Its Own Game

  Authored by Matthew Boose via American Greatness,

  The phrase “our democracy” has become a pervasive cliche in American politics. But who is the subject in this presumptuous expression?

  Although never defined explicitly, the answer is implicit in what it does not include.

  To a greater and greater extent, American politics revolves around black people, women, and immigrant populations from the Third World, which together form the core of the Democratic party.

  The remnants of the old country are now facing obsolescence, with only a weak and ambivalent vessel, the Republican party, to defend them.

  

  The right, whether out of denial, cowardice, or a lack of imagination, has failed to grapple with the deep roots of its demise.

  Republicans ostracized “nativists” and helped facilitate the demographic replacement of their own voters with the delusion that cheap Third World day laborers are “natural conservatives,” overlooking the most naturally conservative constituency of all: white men. The right failed to conserve gender roles, as women left the home and became angry foot soldiers of a socialist revolution.

  Now we observe the results.

  Consider abortion. The right keeps losing on this issue, with the latest setback coming in Ohio, a red, pro-Trump state. The American people, it is now clear after 50 years of Roe, regard abortion as basically another form of contraception. There is nothing Republicans can really say to disabuse the masses of this belief. It would require a fundamental revolution in thinking, a rejection of everything the population now takes for granted.

  The left isn’t wrong when they paint conservatives as natural enemies of “our democracy.” There is nothing conservative about the radically egalitarian system that governs the country, which turns politics into a race to the bottom, a game at which the left naturally excels. The left, in all times and places, has thrived on destruction and decay. The muddled, obese, foreign mass that is today called “the American people” has only a faint connection to the sturdy, adventurous Anglo-Saxons who founded the nation. Their values – freedom of speech, property rights, religious toleration, free enterprise – it is not surprising to find, are being trampled by the government we now have, which imposes tyranny from above with the support and legitimacy of “we the people,” or what has become of the people, below.

  As the country degenerates, the left grows more and more extreme without ever paying a price at the polls. On the other hand, the right is under constant pressure to moderate an already liberal agenda in a futile effort to delay extinction. What passes for conservatism has retreated to the slippery redoubts of “parental rights,” platitudes about women’s sports and “nation of immigrants” pablum.

  Even still, there are some who argue the right is not persuasive or inclusive enough.

  The release of new data showing young women sprinting to the left led some “conservative” women to blame the right and a supposed failure to police misogyny. This is further evidence of the deep, nigh inescapable influence of feminist thinking. The truth is that the right, which is by nature hierarchical, was never geared to win the arms’ race of universal suffrage. Now, what is left of the country of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson is on life support, as conservatives scramble to pander to the descendants of Montezuma, radicalized and unhappy women, and wimpy yes-men. The ridiculous fraud of birthright citizenship allows the children of illegal immigrants, mere economic opportunists thumbing their nose at the nation and its laws, to have a say in its future.

  The ugly beast of socialism, led by the stalking horse of “democracy,” is killing America from the inside.

  Politics and culture revolve around the grievances of the weak and the envious. To speak of great projects, or even the low bar of sobriety in government, is an absurdity amidst the deafening cry for revenge against white men and the civilization they built.

  Our courts have been taken hostage by lynch mobs. Decadent judges showboat for approval from the crowd.

  Power is wielded with a heavy hand against the enemies of the revolution, while violent criminals roam free. No one in authority accepts accountability. The soul of “democracy” is captured well by the obscene spectacle of Donald Trump’s show trial, led by patently unqualified, racially aggrieved prosecutors.

  Those who find the present state of things tolerable, or even good, will never be shaken out of their delusions.

  One cannot feel too sorry for them when they come face to face with the creatures vomited out of the belly of their beloved “democracy.”

  If there is any hope of leaving this cesspool of mediocrity and disorder, it lies not with soft and flabby conservatism, which has utterly failed to yoke its vision to an unwilling, degenerate nation, but a politics that is willing to raise the bar.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 18:20

• North Korea Scrambles Jets After US Spy Plane Enters Economic Zone
  North Korea Scrambles Jets After US Spy Plane Enters Economic Zone

  North Korea’s military scrambled jets on Friday to intercept a US reconnaissance aircraft which Pyongyang says breached the country’s economic zone off the east coast. 

  State-run KCNA called it “a dangerous military provocation” for which the north is preparing further measures to deter incursions, based on a top military command statement. 

  

  The US spy plane reportedly entered as deep as 14km into North Korea’s economic zone (EEZ), which the US sees as international airspace – given an EEZ extends up to 200 nautical miles beyond a nation’s territorial waters.

  This fresh incident comes after the Kim Jong Un government’s ballistic missile test launches have gone relatively quiet in recent days, compared to prior weeks of a series of ramped-up tests warning against the intermittent US-South Korea drills. 

  Also on Friday the White House made a big announcement related to ongoing joint exercises, with Biden national security advisor Jake Sullivan outlining a plant for a new multiyear military exercises between the U.S., Japan and South Korea. He specifically identified the need for readiness in the face of provocations from China and North Korea.

  “We’re opening a new era, and we’re making sure that era has staying power,” Sullivan told reporters ahead of a daylong summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David.

  “We’re announcing significant steps to enhance trilateral security cooperation in the region in the face of North Korean provocations, including a multiyear exercise plan, deeper coordination and integration on ballistic missile defense, and improving information sharing and crisis communication,” Sullivan said.

  

  All of this is likely to rile Pyongyang further, after it recently ratcheted its nuclear rhetoric in the wake of the Ohio-Class USS Kentucky having docked in the South Korean port of Busan in July, which marked the first time since 1981 that an American nuclear-armed submarine arrived in the country.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 18:00

• Debunking Jack Smith's Latest Indictment Against President Trump
  Debunking Jack Smith’s Latest Indictment Against President Trump

  Authored by Paul and Olivia Ingrassia via AmericanMind.org,

  Efforts to sow confusion and chaos in our election systems must be confronted…

  When the Supreme Court denied the State of Texas’s lawsuit in December of 2020 to challenge the integrity of that year’s general election for lack of Article III standing, there already existed an overwhelming trove of evidence of procedural abnormalities and statistical anomalies that pointed to fundamental questions about the legitimacy of the election. Well over 155 million votes were allegedly cast in that year’s cycle – the most of any vote total in presidential history, surpassing 2016’s previous record-setting high by a whopping 28 million votes. Moreover, the 2020 election not only saw the highest percentage of votes cast either by mail or absentee ballot in modern American history, but it was the first time in which election day voting represented a minority of all methods of casting ballots: fewer than one third of voters who cast their ballots in the 2020 general election did so in person on election day.

  Even if there was absolutely no evidence of election fraud, the fact that more votes were cast than in any other election in American history – the majority of the ballots having been cast prior to the official election day by mail, a method of voting historically recognized as being rife with fraud, not only in the United States but other Western democracies—meant that extreme diligence and precautionary care ought to have been taken to minimize the high probability of outcome determinative error in an election of such complexity.

  

  The winner of the 2020 election was not declared by most mainstream networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as mainstream cable networks like Fox News and CNN, until November 7, four days after polls closed. 

  This was the longest gap in time to declare a winner since 2000, when the outcome in that year’s presidential election was eventually settled by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.

  Other serious abnormalities arose that, in a normal political climate, would have been cause for concern about overall election integrity.

  

  For example, despite Trump having won 18 of the 19 bellwether counties that have voted for the president in every election from 1980 to 2016, the mainstream media still called the race for Joe Biden.

  Moreover, the three major swing states—Florida, Iowa, and Ohio—which voted for the winner of every presidential election since 1996, all voted for Donald Trump.

  Biden won only 509 counties compared with the 2,500+ won by Trump, or just 16.7 percent of all the nation’s counties, the fewest of any presidential winner in history. On top of everything else, there were high-profile, newsworthy abnormalities that occurred on election night, or in the hours and days immediately following, that plainly did not make sense.

  Obviously, there was the story of the water main break in Georgia, in critical Fulton County, which occurred as vote counters were still tabulating ballots on election night.

  The pipe breakage conveniently bought officials time to delay the counting of nearly 40,000 outstanding, outcome-determinative absentee ballots.

  Then there were the countless stories of “ballot trafficking,” as documented in the now infamous Dinesh D’Souza film, 2000 Mules, whereby thousands of nonprofit hires, or “mules,” dumped fraudulent absentee ballots in critical swing states like Georgia and Arizona overnight, which contaminated the process and likely changed the final result of the election in those states.

  There was also a patent lack of transparency in the days following the election, particularly in Democratic strongholds such as Philadelphia, where major election sites were in some cases unlawfully closed off from the public, violating their fundamental right to transparent elections despite public assurances that ballots were counted consistent with state law and were executed impartially and without political bias. It was impossible to guarantee those assurances in Philadelphia or Fulton County or Maricopa County; indeed, the public’s constitutional rights in these procedures were fundamentally violated, itself sufficient grounds to demand recounts and reforms in at least those select battleground states.

  Recounts, audits, and legal challenges commenced throughout the months of November and December, many extending well beyond the “first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December”—in other words, the codified date on which the electors for president and vice president must meet.

  However, a major caveat existed: not unlike the unprecedented (and, in many cases, unlawful) manner in which certain states’ elections were carried out, the recounts and audits were conducted sloppily at best.

  So as not to belabor this point, here are just a few examples:

  In Georgia, where Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win the state in nearly 30 years by a minuscule 11,779 votes (or by just 0.23 percent), several audits and recounts were conducted in the weeks after election day. Statewide, the “official” Georgia hand recount resulted in Biden’s lead slimming by 1,274 votes, over ten percent of the margin of victory. It should be noted, however, as a major source of controversy, each audit occurred without signature verification: after the signed envelope containing an absentee voter’s ballot was received, the ballot was removed with no way of reconnecting the two again. 

  While some argued this falls under the Georgia Constitution’s requirement of a secret ballot (though it should be noted that other states with similar secrecy requirements enable the reconnection of ballots), Georgia failed to properly audit the 2020 election and mitigate the legitimate concerns raised. Given that a majority of voters cast their ballots by mail, which led to the heightened scrutiny in the first place, it appears likely that Georgia officials lacked the requisite means to ensure the orderly count, recount, and audit of those votes.

  In fact, the secretary of state’s failure to properly implement a signature verification system led to a complete overhaul of the balloting process. As a result of Georgia’s 2021 election law changes, voters now verify their absentee ballots by providing a driver’s license number or identification card. To add insult to injury, on top of the already dubious “signature verification” scheme which experts agree is a notoriously subjective process to begin with (for instance, what accounted for the general election having only 32.5 percent of the invalid signatures cured, compared to over 60 percent in the 2021 runoff?), votes from Georgia’s 159 counties were audited multiple times, yielding staggering results: an audit of Fulton County on November 16, 2020 (more than a week after the media declared Joe Biden the President-elect) found 2,600 otherwise uncounted ballots as a result of a person “not executing their job properly”; Fayette County failed to count another 2,755 votes; and several other forgotten memory cards carrying hundreds of votes were discovered across the state. The fact that Trump is facing possible federal charges for having inquired about “finding” votes in a state which indeed lost thousands of votes is an indicator of the corruption of the system.

  These challenges continued for weeks on end, such that another audit was announced in Cobb County on December 14, 2020, the day on which the electors were scheduled to meet. This is the backdrop that caused the meeting of the alternate electors in Georgia, which many legal scholars have pointed out that a similar scenario unfolded in Hawaii in 1960. Hawaii had officially certified the election and sent its own electors for Nixon accordingly, but because there was an ongoing legal challenge, an alternate slate of electors was sent by a group of Democrats for Kennedy. In the 1960 case, it was the alternate slate of electors that ultimately were counted and certified.

  In Pennsylvania, mail-in ballots constituted about 40 percent of the ballots cast statewide (up from 4 percent in 2016). The margin of victory was a narrow 1.17 percent, and legal challenges to the election procedures occurred well into December. Following an order by Justice Alito to separate the ballots arriving after election day, a deadline to challenge the state’s mail-in votes was set a day after the “safe harbor” deadline, or the day by which states were required to resolve their election controversies. A September 2020 decision from Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court clarified state law by requiring that ballots be placed in “secrecy envelopes” in order to be counted. “Naked ballots” lacking the envelope were not to be counted, which led to significant confusion during the primary. As a result, Pennsylvania implemented massive voter education efforts to prepare election workers specifically on how to manage these ballots, which were returned without having first been placed in a secrecy envelope. It remains unclear how many “naked ballots” were cast during the 2020 general election. Likely not wholly unrelated, it is noteworthy that the 2020 general election saw a significantly lower mail-in ballot rejection rate.

  In Wisconsin, the hundreds of drop boxes installed during the 2020 election to collect absentee ballots were deemed “illegal under Wisconsin statutes” by the state’s supreme court in 2022. This is particularly troublesome, considering a whopping 40.8 percent of the ballots in the 2020 election were cast by mail, compared to just 4.8 percent in 2016. Because of these illegal election law changes, as explicitly referenced by John Eastman in his memoranda, the country may never know how many votes in Wisconsin were cast and counted in accordance with the state legislature’s procedures, a state that went for Biden by just around 20,000 votes, or a 0.63 percent margin of victory. Wisconsin also saw a record high turnout rate, so much so that many observers have questioned the definition of “turnout rate” itself: 89 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin cast their ballots in 2020.

  

  Election law challenges were not limited to Wisconsin. Several states saw improper changes to election laws by bodies other than the state legislature, in violation of Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution. While some of the lawsuits were successful in the weeks leading up to the election, others after November 3 were dismissed not on the merits but instead due to lack of standing. Regardless, many lawsuits were ongoing at the appointed time at which the electors were scheduled to meet in December. 

  The President of the United States was, in the weeks following the fraudulent election, outright censored, shadow banned, and blacklisted from every major social media platform, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter—his influence and reach severely undercut and silenced by a partnership of hostile government agents and private actors in Silicon Valley who harbored well-known political and personal antipathies against him. Even while still on those platforms, however, there has come to light overwhelming evidence that pro-Trump stories, or at the very least, stories perceived as anti-Biden or anti-Democratic, were shadow banned, if not outright censored, by those very same platforms. The Twitter Files shed some light onto what had happened behind the scenes. FBI agents, in collusion with censors who worked at Twitter, conspired surreptitiously to find ways to shut down content-based political speech, which should be protected speech under the First Amendment. The most damning revelation to have come out of the Twitter Files was, of course, the concerted effort to silence the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, as originally reported by the New York Post in the days and weeks leading up to November 3.

  The reports of thousands of emails exchanged between Hunter and business associates over a decade-long period strongly hinted at a money laundering scheme involving the Ukrainian company Burisma, for which Hunter Biden is currently facing criminal charges, and through which the son of Joe Biden profited from his father’s lucrative contacts in foreign governments and other connections afforded by his public office. The FBI granted expedited Top Secret security clearances, normally reserved exclusively to high-ranking government officials, to members of Twitter in order to create a special portal for Twitter staff to counteract “disinformation”—which really meant any reporting that might benefit the Trump campaign at the expense of the Biden campaign. When polled, nearly 4 in 5 Americans believed that but for the censorship of the Hunter Biden story, the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, rigged procedures put to one side, would have been different.

  The greatest anomaly of the 2020 general election was the political context in which the election took place: COVID-19 reset the entire paradigm. One can easily forget that in December of 2019, prior to the first reported outbreak of the pandemic on American shores, the Trump economy was raging, unemployment was at historic lows across every demographic group, global terrorism was at decades lows, and America’s future looked quite bright. Then everything changed. The majority of states radically changed their election procedures—beyond anything previously seen in American history—using the justification of national emergency, which deeply complicated the process of counting votes. Such changes included switching to “universal mail voting”—which the Left sold to the public as a “civil rights issue,” adding a veneer of moral propriety to make it easier for them to affect the outcome of the election.

  The fact that so many states, such as Nevada and Vermont, made these changes permanent proves that civil rights was never the driving issue; these changes were always about maintaining power. The result of these changes meant “that millions more Americans will receive mail ballots in future elections,” as reported by Politico. The influx of new ballots has deeply muddied the waters and sowed permanent doubts about the integrity of all future elections.

  As it stood, prior to the pandemic, the integrity of our elections has been put into serious doubt over years by Democrats and Republicans alike. Before 2020, election integrity was mostly a Democratic boilerplate issue: the results of the 2000, 2004, and 2016 presidential elections, in particular, were seriously undermined by Democratic lawmakers and their media allies who in many cases outright denied the legitimacy of both elections. In 2016, many leading Democrats, incredulous over the thought of Donald Trump winning the 2016 election, also discussed the possibility of sending alternate electors or supporting so-called “faithless” electors, even going as far as signing onto an attempt to sully the electors’ fight on the grounds that the Electoral College is a “deliberative process.” Then, the Left had no shame in sowing doubts about the integrity of the election process and the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, having already conjured a false narrative about Russian influence in the 2016 election, to which the American people were subject nonstop for the entire first half of Trump’s term in office.

  According to the Durham Report, “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community Appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” It was the Crossfire Hurricane investigation launched on July 31, 2016, in the middle of the presidential election, that established the legal imprimatur for the Obama FBI to wiretap the Trump campaign. The 2020 election was carried out in the most polarized political climate since 1860. Because of our deeply polarized state of affairs, the election results were bound to be close, either way. So the fact that Trump’s administration wanted to exercise its due diligence—in light of how close our presidential elections are, including in 2020, which was decided by a mere 50,000 votes spread across a handful of states—was reasonable. 

  Indeed, it would have been an act of grave negligence had Trump not made inquiries into the integrity of the election. His phone calls, for example, to the Georgia governor, and his demands to the Georgia secretary of state, for which he is now being investigated, and state legislatures in critical battlegrounds, like Michigan and Wyoming, is not an impeachable or indictable offense: it is an act of precautionary care, the type of action one would expect a president to carry out to meet his constitutional oath.

  The words President Trump chose to communicate to Brian Kemp are far, far less important constitutionally speaking than the act itself, which was motivated by sincere worries about the legalities of the 2020 election, and out of an abundance of concern to uphold his Article II, Section 3 duty: “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The first line of Article II stipulates that “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Donald Trump, as President of the United States, therefore had a constitutional prerogative to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. 

  That dozens of states changed their election procedures during an extraordinarily precarious moment in American history would indeed necessitate the kinds of actions, at a bare minimum, that Trump undertook in the days following the 2020 election, in order to meet his oath. Here are just a handful of examples:

  • Florida’s voter registration deadline was extended.

  • Pennsylvania provided for prepaid postage for mail-in and absentee ballots. The state also extended the deadline for mail-in/absentee ballots, and authorized dropbox access for the collection of such ballots.

  • Arizona’s voter registration deadline was extended.

  • Michigan sent mail-in ballot applications “automatically” to all voters for the general election.

  • Maine extended its voter pre-registration deadline for the general election.

  • Wisconsin automatically sent mail-in ballots to most voters for the general election.

  The above partial list, which names just a handful of prominent swing states, only reflects the tip of the iceberg of the monumental, historic, and unprecedented changes that were unlawfully implemented by state legislatures across the country to make ballot harvesting and voting generally easier (which is to say, more susceptible to corruption) in the lead-up to the 2020 election. And this list excludes deep blue states like California and New York, which made radical changes to its voting laws, including authorizing counties to “consolidate polling places”; extending the eligibility for mail-in ballots to any person deemed unable to personally appear at the polling place because of a risk of contracting COVID; and opening “online portals” to request absentee ballots, among other revolutionary changes that made voting easier and thus significantly more vulnerable to fraud. Indeed, one can reasonably argue that the procedures themselves, of highly dubious legality again, were prima facie fraudulent. And this neglects the hundreds if not thousands of other arbitrary rule changes made nationwide on a state-by-state basis, such as mask-wearing requirements and other unprecedented, last-minute rule changes implemented in numerous states with the  purpose of maximizing Biden voters and minimizing Trump voters. 

  In a country of this size under normal conditions, the changes discussed above would typically require years to implement in order to guarantee their efficacy. But the goal of electioneering in this country is no longer one of minimizing corruption to ensure a fair, orderly, and competent process—producing outcomes that every American can confidently rally around. Instead, its purpose has been reverse engineered to now sow as much confusion in the process as humanly possible, making election procedures so complicated—and the thought of conducting proper discovery in a would-be lawsuit so time consuming and arduous—that it has tragically rendered irreparable damage to the legitimacy of the entire system. 

  Free and fair elections, much like equitable justice, is a foreign concept in a banana republic. The expedited timeline by which the 2020 general election procedures were changed in the name of national security is the ultimate testimony of a society that does not care any longer for competence, or fairness, or democratic governance, or putting its own interests above the voters’. Instead, it is the mark of a regime that is sinking into unmanageable corruption.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 17:40

• DOJ Wants 33-Year Prison Sentence For Proud Boy Leader Over J6
  DOJ Wants 33-Year Prison Sentence For Proud Boy Leader Over J6

  Federal prosecutors want to toss Proud Boys’ leader Enrique Tarrio in prison for 33-years, and slap his associates with prison terms ranging from 20 years to 30 years, for their alleged role in the Jan. 6 breach, which would make it the longest punishment doled out over the incident if imposed.

  

  “The scope of the defendants’ conspiracy is vast. The defendants organized and directed a force of nearly 200 to attack the heart of our democracy,” reads a DOJ sentencing memo filed at the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday. “The government’s evidence showed that all five defendants were motivated to use force to stop the certification proceedings in order to keep former President Donald J. Trump in power.”

  “The government recommends that the Court impose a lengthy sentence of imprisonment on each defendant. Specifically, Enrique Tarrio should serve 33 years in prison; Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl, 30 years; Ethan Nordean, 27 years; and Dominic Pezzola, 20 years.”

  Tarrio – who wasn’t even at the Capitol on Jan. 6 – was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in May, along with Biggs, Nodean and Rehl, for which prosecutors have sought to impose the longest prison terms. Pezolla was acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge, but was found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and conspiracy to prevent Congress and federal law enforcement from performing their duties.

  As Julie Kelly wrote via American Greatness in March:

  Five Proud Boys, including the group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, are accused of conspiring to “oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force” on January 6, 2021. It is Attorney General Merrick Garland’s most consequential case related to January 6; convictions will help build a similar case against Donald Trump largely based on his infamous “stand back and stand by” remark to the Proud Boys during an October 2020 presidential debate.

  Most of the evidence is nothing more than inflammatory, braggadocious chatter in group texts; Tarrio wasn’t even present at the Capitol on January 6. Another defendant, Ethan Nordean, can be seen on surveillance video walking through an open door as Capitol police stood nearby.

  Similar to other so-called “militia” groups tied to January 6, no one brought weapons to the Capitol that day; no one was charged with assaulting police officers or lawmakers. A key piece of evidence that prosecutors claimed was a road map for the “attack” on the Capitol wasn’t produced by any Proud Boy but by a former intelligence asset who himself sent the plan to Tarrio through a third party.

  The 33-year sentence is almost double that of Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, who was sentenced to 18-years in prison in May.

  Informants, informants everywhere

  As Julie Kelly further noted in March:

  At least 10 and possibly up to 15 FBI informants were embedded in the group months before and continuing after the events of January 6. Informants participated in numerous group chats, cozied up to leadership, and even accompanied the Proud Boys to Washington.

  One known informant, according to a September 2021 New York Times report, was involved in the first breach of Capitol grounds and entered the building that afternoon.

  Many have speculated that the harsh treatment of J6 defendants portends how the DOJ is going to treat former President Trump.

  

  As the Epoch Times notes;

  Special Counsel Jack Smith, who filed the Jan. 6 indictment, is accusing the former president of violating Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, arguing that President Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results threatened lawful votes cast by voters for President Biden.

  Violators of Section 241 can be fined and/or imprisoned for up to 10 years. In case the violation results in sexual abuse, kidnapping, or death, the accused can also be sentenced to life imprisonment or death.

  The judge set to preside over the case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, is an Obama appointee who has sentenced at least 38 people involved in the Jan. 6 breach and is known to hand out harsher punishments than what government prosecutors have requested.

  Jan. 6 Defendants’ Lawyers Blame Trump

  In the Jan. 6 case (pdf) against Mr. Tarrio and the four other individuals, prosecutors insist that the defendants “embraced their role in bringing about a ‘revolution.’”

  “They unleashed a force on the Capitol that was calculated to exert their political will on elected officials by force and to undo the results of a democratic election. The foot soldiers of the right aimed to keep their leader in power. They failed. They are not heroes; they are criminals,” the prosecutors argued.

  “The actions of these defendants threatened the bedrock principles of our country—democracy and the rule of law. These defendants sought out and embraced their role as the purveyors of street violence to achieve their political objectives.”

  

  Defense attorneys argued that their clients hatched no conspiracy nor had a plan to attack the U.S. Capitol and sought to characterize the breach as a spontaneous action that was fueled by President Trump’s claims.

  Mr. Tarrio’s lawyers argued that President Trump is to be blamed for asking a crowd outside the White House to “fight like hell” on the day. A lawyer for Mr. Rehl and Mr. Biggs insisted that “believing the commander in chief and heeding his call should yield some measure of mitigation.”

  “The defendants are not terrorists. Whatever excesses of zeal they demonstrated on January 6, 2021, and no matter how grave the potential interference with the orderly transfer of power due to the events of that day, a decade or more behind bars is an excessive punishment,” attorney Norm Pattis stated.

  Two of the charges that Mr. Tarrio and his co-defendants face are the same that President Trump has been charged with—conspiracy to obstruct Congress and obstruction of Congress’ certification of President Biden’s victory.

  Mr. Tarrio and his co-defendants will be subjected to several hearings beginning later this month at a federal court in Washington, the same court where President Trump had pleaded not guilty in his Jan. 6 indictment.

  Meanwhile, President Trump has argued that it is “impossible” for him to get a fair trial in D.C. The place is “over 95 percent anti-Trump,” he said in an Aug. 3 Truth Social post.

  The President Trump expressed hope that the case may be “moved to an impartial venue, such as the politically unbiased nearby State of West Virginia!”

  A survey (pdf) by The Economist/YouGov conducted earlier this month asked respondents whether they think “Donald Trump can get a fair trial in Washington, D.C.”

  Only 40 percent replied “Yes.” While 39 percent of respondents said “No,” 21 percent replied that they’re “not sure.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 17:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Europe Braces For $3 A Pill 'Poor Man's Cocaine' To Flood Streets After Gulf Crackdown
  Europe Braces For $3 A Pill ‘Poor Man’s Cocaine’ To Flood Streets After Gulf Crackdown

  Bloomberg has described that what’s been dubbed “poor man’s cocaine” at as little as $3 a pill is threatening to proliferate across the Middle East and into Europe. It’s long been part of the underground party scene in what are otherwise strict Sharia law Arab Gulf countries, but that’s poised to change after authorities have prioritized its eradication.

  “Europe is bracing for the possible influx of a drug that’s hooked the Middle East as political shifts and crackdowns in the Gulf spur producers in Syria and Lebanon to tap new markets,” a fresh report warns.

  

  But while acknowledging that the synthetic stimulant Captagon has been popular for years in parts of the Middle East and North Africa, Bloomberg blames the Assad government and allied militias for its now rapid spread.

  “Selling for around $3 to $25 per tablet, the amphetamine-type pill captagon is primarily produced and trafficked by individuals and groups tied to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and his ally the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, according to the US State Department and Treasury, the UK’s Foreign Office as well as independent researchers,” Bloomberg writes.

  Saudi Arabia and Gulf allies have reportedly recently urged President Assad to stem the flow of Captagon from Syria as part of restored diplomatic ties, also at a moment Damascus has been re-embraced by the Arab League. 

  The drug was produced in the 1960s in the Germany, and in its medical form typically treats ailments like attention deficit disorders and narcolepsy. 

  It is certainly ironic and dubious that the West now widely blames the Assad government for the proliferation of Captagon, given that for much of the last decade it was anti-government insurgents known to be the heaviest users. At one point the pill even became known as “the drug of jihad”.

  Reuters has previously detailed, “It was discontinued but an illicit version of the drug continued to be produced in eastern Europe and later in the Arab region, becoming prominent in the conflict that erupted in Syria following anti-government protests in 2011.”

  The same report noted its prominence on the anti-Assad or “rebel” side. “The illicit version – also nicknamed ‘the drug of jihad’ or ‘poor man’s cocaine’ – is thought to be made of a mix of fenethylline, caffeine and other fillers. It generates focus and staves off sleep and hunger,” Reuters wrote.

  Saudi Arabia seizes 8 million Captagon pills as it courts Syria’s Assad to clamp down on the trade.

  By @Adam_Lucente https://t.co/zhELbd0xk2 via @AlMonitor

  — Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) May 11, 2023

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

  It has also been seen widely in war-torn places like Libya and Sudan, favored among militants precisely as an energy-booster which staves off natural cravings.

  As for pro-Assad networks allegedly being deep in the current Captagon trade, this is a trend likely fueled by Washington having for years sanctioned Syria to hell. Currently the US-led sanctions on the Syrian government are among the most brutal and far-reaching in the world, unleashing runaway inflation, hunger, and lack of electricity — and the trend in the MENA region has been that wherever poverty and political instability persists, the Captagon trade ratchets up. 

  Currently, anti-Assad activists who are attempting to thwart Gulf-Damascus rapprochement are harping on the issue in order to argue that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and other Arab states must resist normalization with the Syrian government.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 02:45

• Italian PM Meloni Under Fire As Illegal Immigration Soars To New Highs
  Italian PM Meloni Under Fire As Illegal Immigration Soars To New Highs

  Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

  Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is under pressure to deliver on her electoral pledge to curb illegal immigration after embarrassing figures published this week by her country’s interior ministry revealed more than 100,000 migrants have landed on Italian shores so far this year.

  

  A total of 101,386 migrants landed on Italian islands or the mainland between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16, more than double the 48,000 who arrived in the same period last year, and almost triple the 34,556 landings recorded in 2021.

  With migrant activity in the Mediterranean showing no sign of slowing down, the right-wing Italian government runs the very real risk of overseeing a record number of arrivals in a single year, surpassing the 180,000 arrivals recorded at the peak of the migrant crisis in 2016.

  This is despite promises from Italian conservatives to install stricter border controls, block boat landings, and establish offshore reception centers to evaluate asylum applications.

  The Italian government’s attempts to restrict the movement of NGO-operated rescue vessels in the Mediterranean have failed to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the country, and the Italian island of Lampedusa has once again been saturated with new arrivals.

  Regional politicians are now sounding the alarm, including hardline President of Veneto Luca Zaia of the League party, who in a recent interview with local media called on just 10 percent of new arrivals to be allowed to stay in the country.

  “I’m seeing worrying numbers. Veneto is already hosting 9,000 migrants… Italy cannot be the cushion of Europe and welcome all of Africa,” he warned.

  Opposition lawmakers have sensed the opportunity to take the government to task on its immigration failures, following the Italian right’s years on the sidelines hurling insults at centrist and center-left administrations over their inability to tackle the issue.

  “For years, Meloni and Salvini taunted us every summer for the number of migrant arrivals,” said former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

  “Now that arrivals have doubled, they try to divert attention and pretend not to see,” added the president of the left-wing Five Star Movement.

  “They’re always shouting ‘close the ports’ and ‘the gravy train for migrants is over’ and ‘Italians first,’ but the right is demonstrating a manifest failure in its management of immigration,” claimed Stefano Bonaccini, the governor of Emilia Romagna in the country’s north.

  Meloni’s administration, despite pledging a hardline approach, has in reality advocated a far more internationalist approach to the migration issue than many expected. In a bid to distance herself from initial comparisons to far-right administrations from the 19th century, Meloni has opted to pursue European cooperation over nationalistic attitudes as much as possible.

  Italy backed down from its opposition to the European Union’s proposed Migration Pact earlier this year and announced its intention to ease restrictions on legal migrants wishing to live and work in the country.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/18/2023 – 02:00

• From Press-Room Raids To Indictments, Anything Goes When The Government Piles On
  From Press-Room Raids To Indictments, Anything Goes When The Government Piles On

  Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “When players are piled on top of each other after a mad scramble for a loose ball, it’s a free-for-all. There are no rules. Anything goes. That’s because there’s nobody in the pile to monitor what’s going on.”

  – Mike Thomas, sports editor

  What is playing out before our eyes right now should be familiar to any fan of football: it’s called the pile on, a brutal, frenzied, desperate play to seize control and gain power while crushing the opposition.

  In this particular analogy, “we the people” are trapped at the bottom of that pile, buried under a mountain of bread-and-circus distractions, economic worries, environmental disasters, power plays, power grabs, police raids, indictments and circus politics.

  The Maui wildfires. The Trump indictments. Hunter Biden’s legal troubles. The looming 2024 presidential election. The Ukraine-Russia conflict.

  In the midst of this pile on of woes, worries and semi-manufactured crises falling with sledgehammer-like frequency, monopolizing the media narrative and eclipsing all other news, it’s difficult to stay focused on what’s really going on, and yet something is brewing.

  Pay attention.

  Caught up in the partisan boxing match that is politics today, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s real.

  The indictments against Trump, the investigation of Hunter Biden, and the chatter of the political classes aren’t real; they are more sound and fury, signifying nothing in the end.

  As Aldous Huxley observed in Brave New World Revisited:

  “Non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation… Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures.”

  

  So what is real?

  What’s real is the $5,000 fine and five-year jail sentence that could be levied against anyone found driving an illegal immigrant in their car in the state of Florida.

  What’s real are the hi-tech policing tools such as robotic dogs equipped with all manner of weaponry and surveillance technology that are rewriting the ground rules when it comes to privacy and security.

  What’s real is the North Carolina pastor who was fined $60,000 for ministering to the homeless on church property without a permit.

  What’s real is the revelation that Boston officials created and sent police a watch list of the mayor’s most vocal critics, not unlike the government’s own growing databases for anti-government dissidents.

  What’s real is what happened in Marion, Kansas, on Fri., Aug. 11, 2023, when police raided the office of the Marion County Record, blowing past the constitutional safeguards intended to safeguard the freedom of the press.

  Are you starting to get the picture yet?

  The manufactured media spectacles, piled on one after another, have a very real purpose, which is to distract us from the government’s constant encroachments on our freedoms.

  In the larger scheme of things, these individual incidents—the police raid of a small-town newspaper, a state ban on who gets to be inside your car, an outrageous fine for feeding the destitute, a politician’s use of an enemies list to silence critics—might easily go unremarked, yet they are all part of the police state’s tendency to pile on: pile on the distractions, pile on the retribution, pile on the show of force in order to completely eviscerate anything that even remotely resembles opposition.

  The police state has embarked on a ruthless, take-no-prisoners, all-out assault on anyone who even questions its authority, let alone challenges its chokehold on power.

  “We the people”—the proverbial nails to the police state’s heavy-handed tactics—will be hammered into compliance, intimidated into subservience, and terrorized into silence.

  It doesn’t matter which party dominates in Congress or the White House: all of us are in danger from these fear-inducing, mind-altering, soul-destroying, smash-your-face-in tactics.

  In this way, anarchy is being loosed upon the nation.

  Day after day, the government’s crimes against the citizenry grow more egregious, more treacherous and more tragic. And day after day, the prison walls holding the American people captive become ever more inescapable.

  The upcoming election and its aftermath will undoubtedly keep the citizenry divided and at each other’s throats, so busy fighting each other that they never manage to present a unified front against tyranny in any form.

  Yet the winner has already been decided.

  As American satirist H.L. Mencken predicted almost a century ago:

  “All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

  In other words, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, nothing will change.

  You cannot have a republican form of government—nor a democratic one, for that matter—when the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 23:40

• China Launches War On Yuan Bears With 1000+ pip Fixing Gap Vs Estimates
  China Launches War On Yuan Bears With 1000+ pip Fixing Gap Vs Estimates

  Earlier, when discussing China’s recent surge in FX outflows, we said that while promoting growth remains a priority for Beijing, the PBOC is expected to follow up with more measures to slow the depreciation trend in the yuan,  such as more significant countercyclical factors in the daily CNY fixing, cutting FX deposit reserve requirement ratio, and/or adding FX forward sales reserve requirement.

  Of course, China can just keep doing what it has been doing now for several weeks, but never to the extent it just moments ago when the PBOC delivered its strongest ever pushback against a weaker yuan via its daily reference rate, as it sought to restore some confidence in a Chinese market that has seen an unprecedented collapse in confidence – not to mention prices – spooked by disappointing (and disappearing) data and heightened credit risks.

  The Chinese central bank set its yuan fixing at 7.2006 per dollar compared to the average estimate of 7.3047. The gap – an unprecedented 1,041 pips – was the largest gap to estimates since the poll was initiated in 2018.

  

  The offshore yuan extended gains to 0.2% after the fixing…

  

  … which was also set at a stronger level to the previous day for the first time in six sessions…

  

  “At this juncture, the PBOC might want to put a stop in the trend,” of a weaker yuan, said Kiyong Seong, lead Asia macro strategist for Societe Generale SA. “On a temporary basis, it’s possible the actions by policy makers can discourage more bearish betting.”

  As discussed earlier today, as part of China’s escalating support for the embattled yuan in recent days – which has so far failed to yield any notable results with the currency hitting an all time low yesterday…

  

  … Beijing told state-owned banks to step up intervention, while the central bank said it will resolutely prevent excessive adjustment in the yuan.

  That “request” came as the yuan touched on 7.35 per dollar, a level that Beijing has been paying close attention to as a line in the sand. The yuan traded around the 7.29 level offshore on Friday.

  “Going ahead, further measures such as potential cut to the foreign-exchange reserve-requirement ratio following the PBOC’s pledge to prevent overshoooting may prompt yuan bears to trim their short position,” said Ken Cheung, FX strategist at Mizuho.

  Still, as Bloomberg notes, the problem for China is that yuan bears had latched on to the fact that the fixing itself had been progressively weaker over the past weeks, regardless of its gap to estimates, and taken that as a sign the PBOC is ok with a slow depreciation in the currency. Of course, dismal economic data, plunging housing prices coupled with a spreading crisis in the property and shadow banking sector, and the biggest FX outflow in one year, have also hammered sentiment and led to further currency selling.

  “The PBOC has persisted in setting the fixings much stronger than expected, with the largest counter-cyclical factor since late last year, but they have been allowing the yuan to adjust,” Australia & New Zealand Banking Group strategists including Mahjabeen Zaman wrote in a note Thursday. “This is a sign that the authorities are prioritizing the need to support growth at the expense of the currency.”

  China’s currency has tumbled over 5% against the dollar this year amid a disappointing economic recovery and broad dollar strength. Adding insult to injury, while traditionally an FX decline of this magnitude would boost exports, those have also languished and in July plunged the most since the covid crash.

  

  Meanwhile, an unexpected PBOC rate cut earlier this week to re-ignite growth have just intensified the focus on the widening US-China yield gap and added more pressure to the yuan.

  “The authorities are preparing to draw a line in the sand and defend the currency from further weakness,” said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at Australian & New Zealand Banking Group in Singapore. “But for a more sustained rebound in the yuan, we really need to see US 10-year bond yields come down from current high levels.”

  So the Fed never counted on Biden’s Dept of Commerce, Labor, Census Bureau, etc, coming up with the most creative seasonal adjustments in history and making the economy “grow” at 5.8%, so EMs (and DMs) are about to croak

  Time for an emergency CB session at Centralbahnplatz 2

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 17, 2023

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

  And that, as we explained yesterday, is unlikely to happen as long as the Biden admin keeps putting seasonally adjusted lipstick on the pig that is the US economy at least until the Nov 2024 election. So to all the EMs and DMs out there, condolences: your economies are about to get it because Biden has to get reelected.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 23:20

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Great China-American Abyss
  Victor Davis Hanson: The Great China-American Abyss

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  Imagine if the United States treated China in the same way it does us?

  

  What if American companies simply ignored Chinese copyrights and patents, and stole Chinese ideas, inventions, and intellectual property, as they pleased and with impunity?

  What if the American government targeted Chinese industries by dumping competing American export products at below the cost of production—to bankrupt Chinese competitors and corner their markets?

  What would the communist Chinese government do if a huge American spy balloon lazily traversed continental China—sending back to the United States photographic surveillance of Chinese military bases and installations?

  How would China react to American stonewalling any explanation, much less refusing to apologize for such an American attack on Chinese sovereignty?

  Envision a U.S. high-security virology lab in the Midwest, run by the Pentagon, allowing the escape of an engineered, gain-of-function deadly virus.

  Instead of enlisting world cooperation to stop the spread of the virus, the American government would lie that it sprung up from a local bat or wild possum.

  Washington would then make all its relevant military scientists disappear who were assigned to the lab, while ordering a complete media blackout.

  America would forbid Chinese scientists from contacting their American counterparts involved in the lab, despite the deaths of more than 1 million Chinese from the American-manufactured disease.

  And what if during the first days of the pandemic Washington had quietly prevented all foreign travel to the United States, while keeping open one-way direct flights from America to major Chinese cities?

  How would Beijing respond if American biotech company warehouses were discovered in rural China with unsecured vials of deadly viruses and pathogens?

  Would China be angered that it was never notified by an American company that it had left abandoned COVID and HIV viruses and malaria parasites in its facilities—along with rotting genetically engineered dead rats littering the floors with hundreds more lab animals abandoned in laboratory cages?

  What would Chairman Xi Jinping have done if American-made fentanyl was shipped in massive quantities to nearby Tibet on the Chinese border? And what if it would be deliberately repackaged there as deceptive recreational drugs and smuggled into China, where it annually killed 100,000 Chinese youth, year after year?

  What if 10,000 Americans this year illegally crossed the Indian border into China and disappeared into its interior?

  What if an allied Asian nation—such as South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan—went nuclear. And what if, in North-Korean style, it serially blustered to send one of its nuclear missiles into the major cities of China?

  What if almost monthly China discovered an American military operative teaching incognito at a major Chinese university or among the ranks of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army?

  Would China object if an American femme fatale agent was sleeping with a high-ranking Chinese official of the Chinese communist politburo?

  Or what if one of the chauffeurs of its top ranking Chinese officials was a nearly two-decade-long American agent?

  What would be the Chinese reaction if there were 350,000 American students attending schools all over the Chinese nation, with perhaps 3,000-4,000 of them actively engaged in national security espionage on behalf of the United States?

  These “what-ifs” could be expanded endlessly. But they reflect well enough the great asymmetry in the bizarre Chinese-American relationship.

  Obviously, China would not tolerate America treating it as it does the Americans.

  Why then does the imbalance continue?

  Do naïve Americans believe that the more China is indulged, the more it will respond in kind to American magnanimity?

  Does the United States believe that the more China is exposed to our supposedly radically democratic and free culture, the sooner it will become a good democratic citizen of the global community?

  Are we afraid of China, because it has four times our population, and believes its economy and military will overtake ours in a decade?

  Are we terrified that its ruthless Chinese government is completely amoral, utterly ruthless, and capable of anything?

  Or are our political, cultural, and corporate elites so compromised by their lucrative Chinese investments and joint ventures, that they prioritize profits over their own country’s national security and self-interest?

  And did the Biden family—including President Joe Biden himself—in the past receive millions of dollars from Chinese energy and investment interests?

  Did Hunter Biden’s quid pro quo decade of grifting result in millions in Chinese money filling the Biden family coffers—all in exchange for the current Biden and past Obama administrations going soft on Chinese aggression?

  No one seems able to explain the otherwise inexplicable.

  But one way to get along with China, and to regain its respect is to deal with it exactly the way it deals with the United States.

  Anything less, and America will continually be treated with even more Chinese contempt—and eventually extreme violence.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 23:00

• The Hits Just Keep On Coming: China Suffers Biggest FX Outflow Since July 2022
  The Hits Just Keep On Coming: China Suffers Biggest FX Outflow Since July 2022

  And the hits just keep on coming for China.

  With its economy on the verge of a Japanification vicious loop, where record debts, lead to distressed selling, repayment of debt, contraction in the money supply, falling asset prices, a wave of bankruptcies, surging unemployment, a slowing economy, spiking unemployment and a crisis of confidence, which then leads to money hoarding and deflation…

  

  … not to mention a growing property crisis, shadow banking crisis, a youth unemployment crisis, a record collapse in foreign direct investment…

  

  … China is now also facing a sudden surge in FX outflows: according to Goldman’s preferred gauge of FX flows, China’s net outflows were around $26bn in July, the fastest pace of outflows since September 2022, in contrast to US$6bn inflows in June. While there was net buying of equities in both Southbound and Northbound of the stock connect in July, and on net basis small inflows through the Stock Connect channel, the goods trade FX conversion ratio declined and related inflows slowed in July, while services trade deficit widened. In addition, cross-border RMB transfers showed net outflows in the month.

  Here are the key points from the latest data:

  1. In July, China experienced $25BN in net outflows via onshore outright spot transactions, and $14BN inflows via freshly entered and canceled forward transactions. Another SAFE dataset on “cross-border RMB flows” showed outflows of US$16bn in the month. Goldman’s preferred FX flow measure therefore suggests a total US$26BN outflows in July, in comparison with US$6BN inflows in June. This was the biggest net outflow since Sept 22.

  

  2. The current account showed broadly balanced flows as goods trade related inflows declined meanwhile services trade related outflows rose: There was a net inflow of $18BN related to goods trade in July, lower than the $36bn in June. Goods trade surplus conversion ratio declined to 22% in July vs 50% in June on the back of continued currency depreciation. The services trade deficit was $11BN, more negative than US$8bn in June as outbound tourism continued to recover. The income and transfers account showed outflows of $6BN in July, smaller than $8BN in June.

  3. SAFE stated that foreigners continued to buy RMB assets on a net basis in July. Stock Connect flows showed net buying of $7BN of equities through northbound and $2BN net buying through southbound, which implies $5BN inflows through the Stock Connect channel, vs $3BN inflows in June. Foreigners’ holding of RMB bonds data are not released yet though.

  4. PBOC cut policy interest rates on August 15th, which added depreciation pressures on the currency. Promoting growth remains the priority, and the PBOC is expected to follow up with more measures to slow the depreciation trend in the next few weeks, such as more significant countercyclical factors in the daily CNY fixing, cutting FX deposit reserve requirement ratio, and/or adding FX forward sales reserve requirement.

  

  With China’s currency the weakest it has ever been, and with FX outflows accelerating sharply, one can’t help but remember the panic observed after the August 2015 devaluation, which not only shocked global markets but woke bitcoin from its long slumber as billions in Chinese savings scrambled to the safety of offshore bank accounts via one of the few still open cracks in China’s great monetary firewall. How long until we get a rerun?

  More in the full Goldman note available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 22:40

• This 'Far-Right' Bit Is Getting Old
  This ‘Far-Right’ Bit Is Getting Old

  Commentary by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A great new country music song comes out, by a completely unknown performer, and takes the #1 spot in charts. The mainstream press decries the artist and song as “far-right.”

  

  An exciting movie based on a true story of child trafficking blasts forward to earn more than the expected blockbuster. The mainstream press denounces the film as “far-right.”

  An insurgent campaign in Argentina by an economist rocks the election primaries. The candidate wants to crush the central bank and level state bureaucracies that interfere with freedom. The press universally decries him as “far-right.”

  [ZH: And Milei punches back]

  “Argentinian Trump” Presidential candidate Javier Milei leaves reporter in STUNNED silence— WATCH

  REPORTER: “Why do you call Leftists shit?”

  MILEI: “BECAUSE THEY ARE SHIT!”

  REPORTER: 😧

  MILEI: “If you think differently they will kill you!”

  pic.twitter.com/rybDuYtZN3

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 17, 2023

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

  Your favorite newspaper covers facts that matter with tremendous accuracy. It’s called The Epoch Times. But your social circles says this paper is “far right.”

  You get the message? Anything that rocks the boat these days is called “far-right. The point of the phrase is to recall Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, maybe even Torquemada and Attila the Hun, and conjures up images of shock troops, black boots, goose stepping, and the darkest forms of intolerance and coercion.

  It’s all rather strange because each of the above is not about any of that. They are about the opposite. They are calling for ending oppression, curbing government, revealing the truth behind official lies, draining the swamp, ending corruption, and restoring freedom and dignity to the people against the elites.

  What in the world is this “far-right” thing the press has going on? It is designed to broadcast the message that anything that is not conventional or left-of-center is necessarily flirting with some dark interwar catastrophe. That is to say, it is a smear.

  The smear is so habitual at this point that it probably can’t be stopped. No journalist gets in trouble for deploying it. It cannot be challenged with defamation law, though it probably should be.

  In fact, the phrase “far-right” is so opaque, unfalsifiable, and still damaging that it is flung around with abandon by anyone threatened by the slightest change in society’s relationship to the state and its allied interest groups.

  Permit me a brief examination of the roots.

  If looking to the roots of right and left, historians often consider France. On the right side of the parliament sat the monarchists, established business interests, the ecclesiocrats, and champions of the Ancien Régime. On the left sat the reformers, the liberals, the free traders, the republicans, and the proponents of religious liberty.

  Is this where we get the idea? Not really. America didn’t really deploy the concepts of right and left in national parlance until the 20th century. Here the influence was not France, at least not directly, but Germany, especially the 19th century political debates between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the rise of Otto von Bismarck. It was during this time, particularly in the 1880s and 90s, that U.S. elite intellectuals frequently traveled to Germany to study under the fashionable gurus of the time.

  We are not talking about American popular culture but intellectual culture, a world set apart but ultimately decisively influential over the commanding heights of civilization itself. The U.S. Ivys were all invaded rather dramatically by a Prussian spirit: historicist, elitist, and thoroughly statist.

  Here is where we find the origin of American Progressivism. It was a Prussian/German import. And what was German politics and philosophy about in that period? The poet of the entire German intellectual scene was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a philosopher who came to prominence in the 1820s for his forecast of the inevitable return of the German empire and the unity of society, church, and state.

  At least that’s what the old Hegelians wanted, and Bismarck was their champion. They wanted a giant welfare state, a central bank, a powerful military empire, society organized as a unified family, an economically self-sufficient nation, and a state with overweening power to dominate the social order. In music, the leader was of course Richard Wagner: nationalistic, romantic, idealistic, and fundamentally statist. This was the right, or, one might say, the far-right (and yes anti-Semitism and racism were part of that).

  The left was more complicated because it was split between the old liberals as represented by champions of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johannes Brahms, who had nothing to do with Hegelianism, and the rise of the Marxists, on the other. The Marxists were the successors to the French socialists who appropriated Hegel to weave into the cockamamie economics a deterministic view of history, which ended up being called dialectical materialism.

  It’s a wonder this gibberish ever caught on but there is something strange about the Hegelian virus and the German academic mind. As Ludwig von Mises wrote, it utterly wrecked German academia for a century and a half. More than that, it had a profound impact on 20th-century politics. Marxism spread from Russia to China to Latin America, and Nazism engulfed Europe and painted the map brown.

  Do you see where this is going? The Hegelians broke into two large branches: left for the Marxists and right for the nationalists, who ended up following Hitler to the doom of the entire project. That is a more precise way to understand the left and right as it came to be understood in the U.S. context from the turn of the 20th century and forward.

  Indeed, the American Progressives were themselves split into left and right, with the left pushing great scientific planning over economic life and the right wanting to deploy national power in war and unifying society in a single familial model that forced women not to work and large-scale industry to replace agriculture.

  In other words, in this parlance, left and right were both versions of statism, a basically insane confidence that experts with power, resources, and intelligence will improve the whole over what essential freedom would yield. They are two flavors of the same poison, both accusing each other of various forms of evil.

  It’s always the same thing: confidence that intellectuals can outsmart everyone else in the peoples’ evaluation of their own problems, risks, issues, faith, and solutions. The heck of it is that it is never true. And this truth invalidates centuries of dangerous ideological fantasies which invalidate both left and right.

  So when the media complains that people doing normal things and making justifiable complaints against the system as it is are “far-right,” what they are really confessing is their own ideological commitments. They are leftists in what they imagine to be a grand ideological struggle against the right. In this struggle, they want no one to be independent.

  The tragedy comes when people take the bait. They believe that because the left is so nuts, they themselves must associate with the right. I’m telling you that none of this is necessary. You can be independent. You can reject both flavors of top-down rule.

  Freedom is an idea that has always stood apart from the insane ravings of the intellectual class. It’s a cry for plain freedom itself, which is part of the normal human moral intuition. It requires no ideological structure. It just is what it is. And in this, it is neither left nor right.

  And that’s okay. But apparently, this desire to be left alone and not be manipulated by elites is so unfamiliar these days that everyone’s aspiration for freedom itself is conscripted into an ideological tribe. The best strategy for resistance is to trust those instincts and follow your gut. You have every right to be free, and also to like the latest song, movie, to follow media with facts and truth, and to celebrate the resistance.

  We are today battling all the powers that be. That doesn’t make us left or right but rather normal and hopefully free at some point in the distant future.

  Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five languages, most recently “Liberty or Lockdown.” He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 22:20

• Resignation Calls Mount After Maryland Superintendent Public Records Destroyed In Test Score Scandal
  Resignation Calls Mount After Maryland Superintendent Public Records Destroyed In Test Score Scandal

  The nation’s fourth most funded school system has a grade rigging scandal and now a cover-up. There are mounting calls for Maryland Governor Wes Moore and the State Board of Education to remove Maryland State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury for a Maryland Public Information Act violation. 

  Investigative journalist Chris Papst from Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore published a damning report (read: here) on Feb. 6 about how 23 Baltimore City Schools, with zero students, among those tested, scored proficient on the state math exam. The story went viral, forcing the state to cover up the education blunder. 

  In a public records request, Papst’s team found metadata for 98 text messages sent or received by Superintendent Choudhury in the first quarter of this year — around the time the state changed the grades that no longer can be seen. 

  Before

  

  After

  

  Papst believes these text messages hold the answer to why the state government made the statistical cover-up. However, Choudhury’s text on the taxpayer-funded cell phone was automatically set to delete just after 30 days — something a government watchdog group has called foul while a local community group has called for Choudhury’s resignation. 

  “Most people would take a look at this circumstance and say it’s a cover-up,” said Adam Andrzejewski, the founder of Openthebooks.com, a non-partisan government watchdog group, told Papst. 

  The public records expert said the deleted text messages are a “big problem.” He said this is grounds for the superintendent to resign. 

  Here’s where the cover-up is very obvious:

  Project Baltimore filed the initial public records request on Apr. 10. At that time, according to the metadata of the 98 text messages, there were 12 texts that were not yet 30 days old. According to state law, as soon as the public records request was filed, those documents should have been preserved. But they were not. Those 12 text messages were also deleted.

  98 text messages GONE. @MdPublicSchools State Superintendent’s taxpayer-funded phone set to AUTO-DELETE texts in 30 days. But 12 texts were NOT 30 days old when we filed a PIA for them. They too are gone. Criminal investigation?@Project_Bmore @FOXBaltimorehttps://t.co/Xkik0GxCRL

  — Chris Papst (@chrispapst) August 17, 2023

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  Papst said, “The State Board recognizes that text messages cannot be deliberately deleted after they are requested as part of a PIA [Maryland Public Information Act] request.”

  “This needs to be investigated immediately as record concealment or destruction of the public record,” said Andrzejewski. He added, “Those records belong to the people.”

  Calls mount for Governor Moore and the State Board of Education to remove the top school board official. 

  New overnight, the group People Empowered by The Struggle writes to Gov. Wes Moore and MSDE demanding the State Superintendent of Schools be removed. @FOXBaltimore @chrispapst https://t.co/zL2vFkgmtA pic.twitter.com/t0y2juLTL7

  — Project Baltimore (@Project_Bmore) August 17, 2023

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  Why is the top school official in the progressive state not being transparent about student academic performance?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 22:00

• Here's What The Democrats Should Expect If A Republican Wins Back The White House
  Here’s What The Democrats Should Expect If A Republican Wins Back The White House

  Authored by ‘Carpe Diem’ via American Greatness,

  Now that the Democrat Party has established that it’s fair game to “reimagine” the rule of law — in an attempt to jail a former president of the United States for a maximum sentence of 700 plus years — or Moses’s lifespan three times over, that benighted party should be fully prepared to accept the consequences, in the not so unlikely event that a Republican takes back the White House come January 2025.

  Here is what should occur with a new GOP administration post haste.

  

  A special counsel should immediately be appointed to investigate how the Biden family raked in millions of dollars from some of our biggest adversaries, including China and Russia, as well as Romania and Ukraine, while Joe Biden was vice president.

  If the evidence becomes overwhelming (which it already appears to be) and it is uncovered that the Biden family did not provide any actual services to these shady oligarchs and foreign nationalists — other than using the office of the vice presidency to enrich themselves — then nothing less than a handful of indictments for bribery, extortion, and treason should be levied against Joe, his son Hunter, and anyone else involved in this disgraceful scheme.

  Simultaneously, a special counsel should be appointed to look into Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign to determine what she knew about the phony Russian dossier that her campaign funded and that was used in an attempt to take down a duly elected president of the United States.

  If the evidence is overwhelming (as it already appears to be) that Clinton not only knew about the dossier, but greenlit the idea — then a series of indictments for racketeering, falsifying business records and campaign finance violations should immediately be levied against her and any of her associates who were co-conspirators, including Jake Sullivan, Biden’s current incompetent National Security Advisor, former president Barack Obama, former disgraced FBI director James Comey, former CIA director and serial liar John Brennan, and perhaps the biggest fraud of them all, Rep. Adam Schiff.

  A special counsel should also be appointed to look at the behavior and state of mind of all 51 former intelligence “experts” who appeared to have knowingly and deliberately lied and defrauded the American public during the heart of the 2020 presidential election, when they claimed that Hunter Biden’s authentic and incriminating laptop was a Russian plant.

  If it can be proven that these “experts” knowingly and deliberately lied to the American people, then indictments, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, should immediately be brought against every single one of these corrupt individuals.

  A special counsel should also be appointed to look into what communication occurred between Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and Jack Smith regarding the federal indictment of Donald Trump, as well as any communication that occurred between the White House, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, regarding possible indictments of Trump.

  If it turns out, there was communication and an attempt to “get Trump” then all of these individuals should be tried under 18 U.S. Code § 201 for Bribery of public officials and witnesses.

  Finally, a special counsel should look into every single Democrat politician, CNN news anchor, or Washington Post “reporter” who publicly supported and encouraged the 2020 Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that left 2,000 police officers blinded or injured, more than two dozen people dead, and property damage that reached $2 billion.

  Anyone who promoted the summer of mayhem, death and destruction, including Kamala Harris who tweeted her support to bail out violent arsonists, as well as failed anchors, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon who encouraged and were sympathetic to these criminals that went around terrorizing communities night after night for months, should be indicted under 18 U.S. Code § 373 for Solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

  If everything you just read sounds completely absurd, remember the rule of law doesn’t matter anymore.

  I didn’t set the standards, the Stalinist regime in power did.

  As Billy Joel might say, we didn’t start the fire.

  *  *  *

  Carpe Diem is the pseudonym for a writer who was a speechwriter in the Trump Administration.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 21:40

• "Unlivable" – Iconic San Fran Business Blasts Democrats For "Litany Of Destructive" Policies
  “Unlivable” – Iconic San Fran Business Blasts Democrats For “Litany Of Destructive” Policies

  John Chachas, the owner of iconic luxury department store Gump’s, remained silent for years, much like many other business owners in San Francisco, as violent crime soared. This silence stemmed from concerns over the fear of being canceled by a thousand angry ‘Karens’ for pointing out that progressive policies were transforming the once beautiful town into a shit-covered hellhole. However, Chachas, like many other business owners who once thought they were powerless, have realized they have a voice, nevertheless the First Amendment, and railed against Democrats in the state. 

  “Today, as we prepare for our 166th holiday season at 250 Post Street, we fear this may be our last because of the profound erosion of this city’s conditions,” Chachas wrote in an open letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, published as a paid ad in the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.

  Chachas, who acquired Gump’s in bankruptcy in 2018, continued, “The ramifications of Covid policies advising people to abandon their offices are only beginning to be understood. Equally devastating have been a litany of destructive San Francisco strategies, including allowing the homeless to occupy our sidewalks, to openly distribute and use illegal drugs, to harass the public and to defile the city’s streets.” 

  He argued that current downtown conditions are “unlivable for its residents, unsafe for our employees, and unwelcoming to visitors from around the world,” adding the failed metro area suffers “from a “tyranny of the minority” – behavior and actions of the few that jeopardize the livelihood of the many.” 

  Chachas concluded: “We believe failed public policies must be abandoned and a renewed focus must be brought to restore the city we all love.” 

  

  We have some bad news for the store owner — the open letter is several years too late. There’s been a major exodus of chain stores like Whole Foods, Anthropologie, Office Depot, and CB2 from downtown, all citing out-of-control crime. Research firm Coresight said more than 39 retail stores have closed up shops in Union Square since 2020. 

  A commercial real estate crisis has unfolded, with parts of the metro area overrun with criminals, shit-covered streets, and a lack of office workers that make the local economy thrive. The latest is an 11-story office building on Sixty Spear St. dumped for a 66% discount versus the most recently assessed property value of $121 million. Also, things are so bad that some building owners are just walking away from properties:

  • CRE Doom Loop Accelerates As Westfield Abandons Largest San Fran Mall, Stops Paying $558 Million Loan

  And defaulting… 

  • San Fran’s CRE Apocalypse: The City’s Two Biggest Hotels Have Defaulted

  We have shown readers parts of the downtown are nothing but… 

  • Video Of Deserted Mall And Streets In Downtown San Fran Reveals Democrats Destroyed City
  • “Major Artery” In Downtown San Fran Is Deserted

  People are even taking “Downtown Doom Loop Walking Tour” tours of the imploded metro area… 

  As we pointed out, Mayor London Breed made an embarrassing U-Turn to fund the police after her decision to defund the police backfired. 

  You get what you vote for. To the remaining business owners: Where were your voices several years ago? 

  It is about damn time.

  The people and institutions of SF are finally speaking out.

  The culture of fear of being canceled by ideologues kept them quite for too long. pic.twitter.com/n0U3PxER6n

  — Zach Coelius (@zachcoelius) August 13, 2023

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  Business owners in progressive metro areas across the country should consider taking a page out of Chachas’ book by placing ads in local newspapers highlighting the unintended consequences of failed progressive policies. The more folks understand that out-of-control crime is linked to failed policies — the quicker voters can hold these folks accountable at the election booths. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 21:20

• How Did Big Pharma Buy So Many Governments?
  How Did Big Pharma Buy So Many Governments?

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  Among the many alarming revelations from the “Facebook Files” is the discovery of a strange official policy that dominated the platform in the COVID-19 years.

  “For content that doesn’t meet that threshold, we instituted borderline demotions,” the company wrote on July 16, 2021.

  “For example, someone sharing negative side effect posts. Similarly, posts questioning whether you get a vaccine under a mandate, whether it’s government overreach. We demote those. That’s not false information but it leads to a vaccine-negative environment.”

  This formerly trusted platform had become a major source of news for millions. Users believed it to be an authentic expression of what their friends were thinking and doing. It turns out that, regarding any injury caused by the vaccine, people were silenced. Meanwhile, major media was screaming at everyone that these shots are necessary, safe, and effective—none of which was true. But users didn’t know that this was occurring.

  The policy was pushed by the federal government on all major social media platforms, which massively distorted public debate. Anyone who spoke about the downsides of the vaccine was treated as a crank and a public danger. All claims that contradicted the government and pharmaceutical line were demoted or deleted for creating a “vaccine-negative environment.”

  I was personally denounced in many articles for raising questions about the shots.

  It’s no wonder, then, why it has been so incredibly difficult to gain any real clarity about the risk profile of these shots. The age gradient of risk was widely obscured throughout the entire period, all in the interest of imposing universal lockdowns and then shots for everyone, even those who were at zero risk from the virus.

  To this day, there’s no honest discussion of this topic in official circles. No major media or tech company has apologized. We only have the above policy documentation because the House of Representatives under Republican control forced Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to cough it up. Now, we know that the official policy of government and its allied tech companies was to keep the public in the dark.

  The extent of the damage and death caused by the vaccine is left to independent researchers who are working from a tsunami of anecdotes and hard-to-find data. There’s a concerted effort to cover it all up, no doubt. It’s all done on behalf of the winning pharmaceutical companies and their deployment of a new platform technology for what they call vaccines, even though mRNA shots would never have been called that a few years ago.

  Some people aren’t surprised by the power of this industry. I am. It’s all new to me. When the lockdowns came, my operating theory was that a bunch of scary intellectuals were using the social order as an experiment in pathogenic control, one destined to fail. I never imagined a larger agenda aside from an appalling exercise of power. I certainly never imagined that pharma was the hand in the glove.

  When we first started hearing news of the coming antidote, I dismissed this possibility out of hand. I knew from my reading that vaccines were only workable for stable viruses with unchanging profiles. Smallpox, measles, mumps, polio, and others qualify. But a coronavirus is fast-mutating, especially because we knew that it spread widely because of a fairly low fatality rate.

  Incredibly, I never imagined that a vaccine for such a virus would ever gain approval. My operating understanding of the Food and Drug Administration was that it was bureaucratically risk-averse. It was more inclined to refuse approval than to grant it prematurely. This was wrong. Using the excuse of emergency, and smearing and deprecating all therapeutics as a condition for emergency approval, it sailed through.

  When uptake on the shots was low, the government went hardcore with mandates. Major cities actually segregated based on vaccine status. There were attempts to implement digital passports. These mostly flopped. People quit their jobs and moved to new cities, and vast numbers somehow managed to avoid the needle. Uptake was lower on the boosters and bivalents, which similarly sailed through the approval process.

  

  How can we explain this?

  The regulatory agencies get half or more of their own funding from pharmaceutical companies. Media broadcasts the propaganda because three-quarters or more of their advertising revenue comes from pharma. The development of the shots themselves benefitted from enormous government grants. The companies that are given approval are then given a complete patent monopoly on the drugs, so that they can take legal action against all attempts to reproduce them.

  More than anything else, these vaccines benefit from protection from liability for any harm that they cause.

  Just think about this.

  Why would any government ever grant such an exclusion from liability?

  It makes no sense. If the shots are safe, indemnification wouldn’t be necessary. If they aren’t safe, such indemnification would be grossly irresponsible.

  Nonetheless, in 1986, lawmakers approved 42 U.S. Code § 300aa–22, “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”

  The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act of 2005 further codified this.

  This was invoked in March 2020. The government might as well have announced to the country and the world: We’re coming to hurt you. It’s the very opposite of the Hippocratic Oath. Indeed, this case shows why such an oath was necessary in the first place.

  Adding all of this together, you have a completely indefensible industrial monopoly in operation and fully out in the open.

  These days, the FDA, having driven out anyone with integrity from its ranks, routinely approves drugs without proper successful trials. It seems to happen daily: RSV shots and an over-the-counter birth control pill are two recent cases. The new head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) introduced herself to the public with a big push for everyone to get the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, especially infants.

  There’s simply no theory of political economy, medicine, political science, philosophy, or ethics—whether ancient or modern, left or right—that can justify such an absurdly dangerous system. It would be one thing if such an industrial monopoly made a mess of a single sector of life, but our times have revealed something much more shocking. Pharma has essentially bought most governments in the West and converted them into doing their bidding.

  This is simply intolerable. I’ve just about had it with the claims that the adverse effects of these vaccines are rare. We don’t know that. In any case, “rare” has no firm definition. Plus, if I’m dead on the street from having been run over by a bus, it does me no good for bystanders to stand around proclaiming that my death is rare. Indeed for me, my chance of getting killed by a bus is ex post facto 100 percent.

  What the vaccine-injured need is compassion, public attention, care, and compensation. It adds gross insult to injury to demote their plight as irrelevant because knowing about it contributes to a “vaccine-negative environment.” This isn’t the Soviet Union, and we don’t live in a country founded as a biomedical security state ruled by pharmaceutical monopolies using the people as guinea pigs in genetic experiments.

  The whole machinery must come to an immediate end, starting with the end of indemnification against harm. It never should have been granted. Moderna and Pfizer are already facing dramatic declines in stock valuation after the discrediting of their shots. What would happen to their stocks if they bore some financial repercussions for the damages that they have caused?

  Brownstone Institute is cooperating with The Epoch Times for a showing of the marvelous film “Unseen Crisis,” which is about vaccine injury. Finding a venue to host the film wasn’t easy. As soon as the “independent” theaters in town found out the subject, they figured out a way not to accept new showings. Fascinating.

  The crisis is indeed unseen. It must be seen if we expect to regain our status as a civilized and self-governing people.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 21:00

• Project Veritas Implodes Six Months After Firing James O'Keefe
  Project Veritas Implodes Six Months After Firing James O’Keefe

  Update: PV CEO Tom O’Hara is out, and George Skakel 2 is in. So while it appears that many of the staff have been let go, the organization is still operating.

  Post Millennial report confirmed https://t.co/qkn5YMCBwH

  — Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 18, 2023

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  *  *  *

  Project Veritas has reportedly imploded roughly six months after bad actors infiltrated the undercover whistleblower organization and orchestrated the ouster of founder James O’Keefe.

  

  Earlier Thursday, the Project Veritas X account tweeted: “SOS Hannah Giles just fired us all,” before it was quickly deleted.

  Sources tell the Post Millennial, however, that they’ve indeed ‘all been fired.’

  I’m told almost all of Project Veritas was just laid off and this is legit

  “All of production, all of field ops, all of comms, all of legal. Only remaining are office admin, HR person, a couple development people & IT” pic.twitter.com/X65CQBgK7A

  — Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 17, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMore details were provided by the Post Millennial:

  Giles, who became notorious for starring in the ACORN video with founder and former CEO James O’Keefe, took over for O’Keefe after he was summarily pushed out by the board of directors. She took over as CEO only to destroy the company entirely.

  “She came to all hands in April with her fat sidekick Ben Wetmore and all they did for 3 days was talk shit about James and relitigate all the terrible things he did to her/them 10-12 years ago. I knew right then her entire agenda was revenge,” a source said.

  On-air talent Christian Hartsock, James Lalino were both laid off after Giles told staff that a restructuring would be underway. Kalen Eriksson, Jaime Phillips, Alyssa Dehen, were also fired. The terminations were done via a Zoom call with HR, with a few of those in the New York office. Giles did not make an appearance.

  “She’s a lying sack of sh*t,” a source told The Post Millennial. “No one respected her anyway.”

  On Monday, five people were fired according to the report – including a more recent hire, producer Pam Browne, who was brought in by O’Keefe last year. Others who were fired were allegedly done so in retaliation for their undercover work (!?). The remaining employees are ‘primarily admin,’ after around 20 people were fired on Thursday.

  “Since James quit, the donations dried up…the donations never resumed,” one source told the Post Millennial, adding “The board were desperate to bring Hannah on board because they thought it would be cute but the problem is she’s a charlatan and a fraud. Everything she’s ever done has been a failure and she lied to everyone claiming she had all these donors she could bring in.”

  James O’Keefe, meanwhile, can be found here at his new venture, O’Keefe Media Group (OMG).

  

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 20:40

• Child Social Media Stars Can Now Sue 'Influencer' Parents Under New Illinois Law
  Child Social Media Stars Can Now Sue ‘Influencer’ Parents Under New Illinois Law

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

  Child social media stars in Illinois can now sue their “influencer” parents for pocketing the profits made from videos shared online under new legislation signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Aug. 11.

  

  The legislation, Senate Bill 1782, was introduced by state Sen. David Koehler, a Democrat, in February and passed by lawmakers in Illinois—where Democrats hold a supermajority—in May with bipartisan support.

  It is set to go into effect on July 1, 2024.

  Under the measure, the Child Labor Law is amended to ensure that children under 16 who are featured in significant portions of their parents’ online videos—such as vlogs uploaded by their parents across various social media platforms—are fairly compensated for their work.

  The legislation also allows minors who were “engaged in the work of vlogging,” also known as “kidfluencers,” to request their parents permanently delete any video footage of them once they reach the age of 18.

  Additionally, the bill ensures that parents who feature their children in online videos or vlogs set aside a specified amount of gross earnings into a trust account for their children, who may access it once they reach 18.

  Illinois is the first U.S. state to sign such legislation into law.

  Kids Working in ‘Digital Environments’ Must Be Protected

  In a statement after the bill was signed into law, Mr. Koehler said the rise of social media has granted children new opportunities to earn a profit but noted how some parents or guardians are choosing to take the earnings for their own use.

  “Many parents have taken this opportunity to pocket the money, while making their children continue to work in these digital environments,” said Mr. Koehler. “This new digital age has given us tremendous opportunities to connect with one another, but it’s also presented legal issues that have never existed before. We need to work with our children to see the problems they face and tackle them head-on before any further harm is done.”

  

  Mr. Koehler noted the legislation was inspired by Shreya Nallamothu, a 15-year-old high school student in Koehler’s district who had initially raised her concerns about the rise in child influencers and a lack of protections for them.

  “When scrolling on social media, I always saw young children and families, called family vlog channels, posting videos online. After finding that users could make money off of platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, I learned that, often, these kids are made to participate in videos without any guarantee of the income generated from the content,” said Shreya. “I wanted to work with Senator Koehler to protect the money that these kids have rightfully earned.”

  Specifically under Senate Bill 1782, parents must set aside a portion of their gross earnings from the video content that includes the “likeness, name, or photograph of the minor” into a trust fund for the child that can be accessed upon adulthood.

  Billion Dollar Industry

  The percentage of earnings is calculated based on how heavily the child features in the content. According to the legislation, a minor under the age of 16 must be compensated if, within a 30-day period, they feature in at least 30 percent of a video or online content for which their parent or guardian is being paid.

  However, the law only applies to video content made in Illinois that generates more than 10 cents per view.

  Parents who fail to comply with the new legislation could be sued by their child or children once they become adults for punitive and actual damages, according to the law.

  The legislation comes amid a booming child influencer industry.

  According to Humanium.org, highly successful child influencers generate roughly $26 million a year through advertising and the sharing of sponsored content, but many are under constant pressure to produce content on a regular basis.

  However, many studies have also noted the negative impacts social media can have on a minor’s well-being, including increased feelings of depression and anxiety.

  Research conducted by the University of Bath and published in May found that individuals who stopped using social media for one week saw substantial improvements in their well-being, depression, and anxiety.

  “The internet provides more opportunities for children to display their creativity than ever before,” a spokesperson for Mr. Pritzker told Gizmodo in a statement Monday. “In the event that minors are able to profit from that creativity, they deserve to be shielded from parents who would attempt to take advantage of their child’s talents and use them for their own financial gain.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 20:20

• California Braces As Hilary Upgraded To 'Major Hurricane'
  California Braces As Hilary Upgraded To ‘Major Hurricane’

  Update (2006ET): Hilary has been upgraded to a ‘major’ Category 3 hurricane, and is expected to become a Category 4 hurricane by late Thursday night or early Friday morning. According to the National Weather Service, it will most likely hit Eastern San Diego County on Monday at around 6 a.m. as a tropical storm.

  Here’s the latest rainfall totals and flash flood risk for Hurricane #Hilary. The current track has the center making landfall near San Diego Monday at 6 am, as a tropical storm. Shifts in the track to the east or west could increase impacts for our region. #LArain #CAwx pic.twitter.com/8Q8AWVORU0

  — NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) August 17, 2023

  Heavy rainfall may produce areas of flash flooding over part of the Baja California Peninsula between Late Friday and late Sunday, with hurricane-force wind impacts possible. 

  Flooding may occur anywhere in our area, especially across the mountains and deserts. Keep an eye on https://t.co/rX4LK2IHvk for the latest road conditions and please do not drive through flooded roadways. pic.twitter.com/2fXZr3xGHl

  — NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) August 17, 2023

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

  Major Hurricane Hilary has opportunity to clear out eye and zoom to Category 4.

  Very outside shot at Category 5. pic.twitter.com/4Pcx150nOM

  — Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) August 17, 2023

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  JUST IN: #Hilary is now a major hurricane with winds of 120mph and a pressure down to 955mb. Forecasted to become a category 4 with 140mph winds by tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/3WQrt2Axfi

  — Collin Gross (@CollinGrossWx) August 18, 2023

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  *  *  *

  Update (1215ET):

  Tropical Storm Hilary was upgraded to hurricane status off Mexico’s Pacific coast, according to the National Hurricane Center. 

  When NHC published the advisory early Thursday, Hurricane Hilary was churning several hundred miles southeast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and was moving west-northwest. Winds are sustained over 75 miles per hour, with higher gusts. 

  “Hilary rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to hurricane Wednesday into Thursday, and could top out at Category 4 intensity by Friday or Saturday,” The Weather Channel said. 

  Forecast models show Hilary could begin to impact parts of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula on Friday or Saturday, with Southern California in the crosshairs on Sunday or Monday. 

  

  Stefanie Sullivan, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in San Diego, told NYTimes: 

  The worst-case scenario for Southern California would be if the track shifted farther west and made landfall in California, which could produce much stronger winds and larger surf. The only tropical cyclone to truly make landfall in Southern California was an unnamed storm in 1939 that made landfall in Long Beach.

  Note the WPC forecast calls for Hilary to produce quite a bit more rain across most of the American Southwest than the 1939 hurricane did. pic.twitter.com/fkZTzjZwze

  — Jacob Feuerstein (@Jacob_Feuer) August 17, 2023

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  Latest rainfall forecast via The Weather Channel:

  

  Meanwhile, the tropics are awakening in the Atlantic. 

  

  All eyes are on Hilary this weekend. 

  *   *   * 

  Tropical Storm Hilary formed earlier Wednesday off Mexico’s coast in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. It’s forecasted to bring heavy rainfall and strong winds to parts of Southern California and the US Southwest at the end of the weekend or early next week. 

  Hillary has sustained winds of 40 miles per hour, with higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm is moving west-northwest toward Baja California — and is 470 miles from Manzanillo, Mexico, around 1100 ET. 

  Here’s the five-day forecast track for the storm:

  

  “It appears that a corridor will open up between a sharp dip in the jet stream along the West Coast and the super-strong heat dome over the central US,” FOX Weather hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross said.

  Norcross continued, “Tropical moisture from likely-Hilary has a good chance of spreading north in that river of air into the highly populated areas west of the Southern California mountains and the desert areas to the east.”

  According to Fox Weather, Southern California is expected to receive between 2-3 inches of rain, with some areas getting 3-5 inches.

  

  While the Eastern Pacific hurricane season has been active, over in the Atlantic, it’s been quiet: “Historical Lull”: Global Major Hurricane Activity Hits Four Decade Low.

   

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 20:06

• Student Loan Payments To Exceed Mortgage For Some Borrowers
  Student Loan Payments To Exceed Mortgage For Some Borrowers

  Thanks to people locking in historically low mortgage rates during the pandemic, many US borrowers will pay more on their student loans than their mortgage after a three-year pandemic-era student loan pause ends next month, Bloomberg reports.

  28-year-old Kentucky physical therapist Fikret Sabic, for example, will have to start making student loan payments of $1,130 per month to satisfy the student loan obligation. This is nearly $300 more than he and his wife Emina are paying on their mortgage.

  

  In total, Sabic is carrying around $94,000 in student debt from his undergraduate biology degree and doctorate of physical therapy, both from Western Kentucky University.

  The pandemic pause on student loan payments helped the couple buy a home in 2020 for $207,000 with a 3.25% interest rate, less than half what borrowing costs are now. Sabic knew debt payments would restart at some point, and he and Emina have been preparing their budget, but they still expect it to be difficult. -Bloomberg

  “It really does slow down a lot of your life decisions when you have such a big burden monthly to have to pay,” said Sabic, who agreed to said burden and then bought a house. That said, borrowers can be cut a little slack when factoring in crippling inflation thanks to ‘Bidenomics.’

  As Americans face the resumption of student loan payments, many will be cutting back on spending to make ends meet. Experts are predicting a wave of delinquencies hitting credit card, auto loans and student debt payments as people struggle to make ends meet.

  While the average student loan payment before the pandemic was about $400, one in five borrowers will be paying more than $500 a month. Almost 7% of debt holders face bills of $1,000 or more. At the same time, about 23.7 million homes in the US have a mortgage payment of $1,000 or less, according to Black Knight. -Bloomberg

  In Bloomberg‘s second example, Lexington, South Carolina attorney Chase Keibler and his wife Laura face $2,100 per month student loan payments next month – vs. just $1,850 for their mortgage. Chase has $75,000 in federal debt which he used to obtain an undergraduate degree in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and his law degree from the University of South Carolina. Laura has around $70,000 of debt, which is a mixture of public and private debt.

  In July 2020, the couple paid $346,000 and locked in a 3.2% mortgage rate.

  Now, they say the addition of their student loan obligations feels “daunting,” especially now that they’ve got two children under the age of two and Laura now a stay-at-home mom.

  “I expected to have law school debt, but it’s an incredible amount of money that is guaranteed out every month for the foreseeable future,” said Keibler, who also signed on the dotted line and then bought a house and had two kids and agreed that his wife would leave the workforce to raise their children.

  

  More than rent too?

  It’s not just homeowners – renters are about to feel the pain too. Bloomberg highlights the plight of one Molly McGhee, a 28-year-old novelist living in New York, whose student loan bill will exceed her rent.

  The 28-year-old novelist has $120,000 in public and private loans from her undergrad degree at Champlain College in Vermont and her MFA in writing at Columbia, where she also works as an adjunct professor. She will soon pay $1,270 a month on her debt. That’s more than her $1,100 share of the $2,500 rent for an apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where she lives with her partner.

  McGhee said she needed to get an MFA to be taken seriously in her field, but her paychecks haven’t made up for that investment. She and her partner are putting off goals like getting married because of the loans. -Bloomberg

  “I’m finding myself at a juncture where I’m really considering having to move back home to Tennessee and get an office job somewhere where the cost of living is way less,” she said.

  Would could imagine that taking on $120k of debt wouldn’t be tenable on a budding novelist’s salary in NYC.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 20:00

• China Imports The Most Iranian Oil In A Decade
  China Imports The Most Iranian Oil In A Decade

  By Tsvetana Paraskova of Oilprice.com

  

  China is expected to import as much as 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Iran in August, the highest since 2013, per estimates from data intelligence firm Kpler cited by Bloomberg.

  During the period January to July 2023, China received on average 917,000 bpd of oil from Iran, according to Kpler’s estimates.  

  The world’s largest crude oil importer, China, has been ramping up purchases of cheaper Iranian crude this year as competition with India for cheap Russian crude supply has intensified. Earlier this year, many private Chinese refiners in the Shandong province started buying increasing volumes of Iranian crude as competition for Russian oil from China’s major state-held refiners and from Indian buyers has made Moscow’s barrels relatively more expensive.

  There isn’t official data on Iranian imports into China, so the market relies on tanker-tracking companies that aim to capture the true picture of how much of Iran’s oil, sanctioned by the U.S. and going to very few destinations these days, is being shipped to China.

  Commenting on China’s crude oil imports in July, analysts at Vortexa said last week that private Chinese refiners, the so-called teapots, are likely to boost imports of Iranian oil, especially after Russia has pledged to reduce the volume of its oil exports this month and next.

  “With lower Russian crude supplies, Chinese teapot refiners that largely boosted Russian grades imports since Q2 last year, are expected to lean towards the deeply discounted Iranian barrels or other heavy feedstocks, as Shandong partially re-allowed non-crude imports recently,” Emma Li, China Market Analyst at Vortexa, said.  

  “State-run refiners, on the other hand, will likely import more crude from West Africa and the Americas, as attractive light-sweet crude margins encourage spot purchases against rising Saudi and Russian crude prices.”

  Meanwhile, Iran’s oil exports have recently jumped to a five-year high of 1.4 million bpd, and the Islamic Republic is looking to boost its oil production to 3.5 million bpd by the end of September.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 19:40

• 9/11 Families Told That Plotters May Not Face Death Penalty
  9/11 Families Told That Plotters May Not Face Death Penalty

  Almost 22 years after their loved ones were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, surviving family members have been given official notice that government prosecutors are considering plea agreements that could remove the possibility of death penalties for five men accused of organizing the worst terrorist attack on US soil. 

  Those defendants, all imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people. 

  

  The notification letter, obtained by the Associated Press, informed 9/11 families that, “The Office of the Chief Prosecutor has been negotiating and is considering entering into pre-trial agreements (PTAs)…[While no PTA] has been finalized, and may never be finalized, it is possible that a PTA in this case would remove the possibility of the death penalty.”

  Prosecutors assured the 9/11 families they’d take their opinions on the matter into consideration, giving them until Monday to provide their input to the FBI’s victim services division. 

  Jim Riches, father of a fallen 9/11 firefighter, Jimmy Riches, told AP that he laughed bitterly when he received the letter on Monday, as he’s running low on hope that justice will ever be served. “How can you have any faith in it?” he asked. Riches has concluded the military tribunal system has been a failure and that the alleged 9/11 conspirators should have been prosecuted in civilian courts — as many other terrorists have been. 

  

  The prosecution has been severely hamstrung by the US government’s use of torture in interrogating the defendants. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in a single month, profoundly endangering the admissibility of his statements. Other torture techniques were widely employed against 9/11 detainees. Collaborating with the deep state, Hollywood wants you to believe that torture was fruitful, but credible insiders say otherwise. 

  Peter Brady, whose father was killed on 9/11, said the prosecution is about “holding people responsible, and they’re taking that away with this plea.” He wants a full prosecution, not a plea deal. 

  9/11 families who’ve been pursuing a civil case against the government of Saudi Arabia tell AP they’d want a plea agreement to stipulate that the defendants would be made available for questioning about Saudi links to the attacks. Declassified FBI documents have revealed a variety of links between Saudi government employees and agents — particularly in the Saudi embassy in Washington and the consulate in Los Angeles — and the 9/11 hijackers and those who aided them. 

  

  To the extent 9/11 defendants may have damning things to say about Saudi bureaucrats and royals providing financial and logistical aid to al Qaeda, the US government may have ulterior motives for pursuing plea agreements that ensure those things aren’t said in open court. Saudi Arabia aside, the US government could face direct embarrassment, considering al Qaeda sprang to life from American fertilization of Islamic extremism. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 19:20

• Saudi Arabia Inks $1.3BN Worth Of Housing, Infrastructure Deals With China
  Saudi Arabia Inks $1.3BN Worth Of Housing, Infrastructure Deals With China

  Via The Cradle,

  Representatives from Saudi Arabia and China signed several housing and infrastructure agreements worth $1.33 billion on the sidelines of the Saudi-Chinese Business Forum hosted by Beijing on Wednesday.

  “[A total of] 12 agreements and memorandums of understanding were signed between the Saudi side and Chinese companies in the fields of infrastructure and financing,” Saudi Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing Majid al-Hogail, who presided over Wednesday’s forum, said in a tweet.

  

  Although the names of the companies involved were not made public, a press release from the Saudi government revealed that Hogail met with representatives of the Chinese state-owned investment conglomerate CITIC to discuss “construction in Saudi Arabia and green housing technology.”

  “These partnerships are set to foster advancements in key areas, including five focused on real estate developments, signaling a promising trajectory for the mutual growth of the Kingdom and China,” the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said on Thursday.

  During his speech at the forum, Hogail stressed Riyadh’s “dedication to enhancing its partnership with China” as he spoke about several recent achievements, including the summits led by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia in December.

  “With the construction of over 300,000 housing units across 17 Saudi cities, covering an area of over 150 million square meters., and valued at over [$26.66 billion], the kingdom holds significant investment opportunities,” Hogail emphasized.

  Saudi Arabia has significantly increased its economic cooperation with China over the past few years as the kingdom moves away from Washington’s sphere of influence.

  In June, during the 10th Arab-China Business Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment signed $10 billion worth of investment agreements with Chinese companies. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said in a speech during the conference that China remains the largest trading partner of Arab countries, with the volume of trade exchange reaching $430 billion in 2022, up 31 percent from the previous year.

  جرى خلال الملتقى توقيع 12 اتفاقية ومذكرة تفاهم تعاون بين الجانب السعودي والشركات الصينية في مجالات البنى التحتية والتمويل.

  كان من بينها 5 اتفاقيات في مجال الإسكان بقيمة استثمارية تصل إلى 5 مليار ريال سعودي. pic.twitter.com/2WVdbuEKQb

  — ماجد الحقيل (@majedhogail) August 16, 2023

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  Furthermore, Saudi Aramco acquired a $3.4 billion stake in the Chinese petrochemical firm Rongsheng Petrochemical Co. Ltd last month. The two countries are also in talks to allow exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to list on each other’s stock exchanges.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 19:00

• Leftist Establishment Dismayed By Rise Of "Populist" Candidate In Argentina
  Leftist Establishment Dismayed By Rise Of “Populist” Candidate In Argentina

  The Argentina peso plunged recently on the news that “populist” economist and candidate Javier Milei, which many describe as a libertarian, won the Argentina primaries with 30% of the vote.  The uproar from establishment media sources and western officials has been growing as the reality sinks in – Milei might just win the general election in October and dismantle nearly every socialist institution in the country once he’s in office.  

  Argentina’s economy has suffered under a series of progressive leaders, including Fernando de la Rúa, who was forced to resign after the inflationary crash of 2001 that led to mass civil unrest.  Then there was Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – who was president of Argentina for two terms between 2007 and 2015.  She has been arrested and sentenced to six years in prison for abuse of power and fraud, using her position to award at least 51 public works contracts and funneling over $1 billion to a friend of her husband through a shell company.  This occurred during the resurgence of inflation in Argentina which has now hit crisis levels under the current leadership (Alberto Fernandez) who is considered “center left.”

  Needless to say, the citizens of Argentina are fed up with the relentless lack of change and the relentless economic decline.  It is this same decline that has the International Monetary Fund circling the floundering nation like a hungry shark. 

  Enter Javier Milei, who is running on a platform of radical change which would include the dissolution of numerous socialist institutions and the very central bank which has led Argentina into multiple fiscal crisis events.  In a YouTube campaign video, Milei announced he would disband a number of ministries that he deems unnecessary. “Culture ministry – out! Environment – out! Ministry of women and gender diversity – out! Public works – out! Science – out! Labour and social security – out! Ministry of education and indoctrination – out!”

  Argentinians who support Milei suggest he is a “punishment vote” against the previous leftist regimes for their economic trespasses.  The sentiment has a similar ring to the widespread support in the US for Donald Trump as a message to establishment elites that the populace will no longer accept the status quo.  Whether or not Milei or Trump can or would institute any longstanding changes to an oligarch infested system is really a secondary issue; the public is simply making it clear that they are aware of the game being played with their future.

  The corporate media seems to have been caught off-guard by the popularity of Milei (just as they were caught off guard by Trump).  He was initially treated as a “joke” candidate with little chance of success, but now they are quickly moving to compile a list of buzzwords and negative descriptors as a means to undermine his image.  Thus far, they don’t have much – They cite his policies as dangerous and tie him to Trump as often as possible, while also noting his apparent history as a “tantric sex coach” with “long unkempt hair” who wants to “allow human organ sales.” 

  The truth is that Milei has not been shy about his political intentions.  He plans to cut government spending, do away with the largely socialized healthcare system, eliminate the public school system which he sees as a network of indoctrination centers and replace it with a voucher system, eliminate climate change policies and propaganda, eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion indoctrination, eliminate gender identity indoctrination for children, he values private property, wants to ban abortion, wants to return gun rights to Argentinians, wants to eliminate the central bank and flies the Gadsden Flag at his rallies. 

  The possible future present of Argentina Javier Milei explains how the right is winning and the left is terrified. He flies the Gadsden flag. pic.twitter.com/l6K4iliyFI

  — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 17, 2023

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  All in all, he might be one of the greatest political candidates in South American history.  Milei’s biggest mistake is his dollerization plan, which would essentially replace the peso with a dollar that is likely on the verge of its own implosion as the BRICS move to unseat the currency as the world reserve. But his social policies are being met with increasing approval among the public, indicating a growing disgust with far-left ideology.  

  He has certainly drawn the attention of the leftist and globalist guard.  Only two days after Milei’s primary win, the Biden Administration is discussing a possible meeting with Brazilians President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at next month’s United Nations General Assembly in New York.   The expectation is that Biden will be pushing Brazil to reduce economic trade with Russia and China, but that Milei will be a primary topic of interest as well.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 18:40

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• NATO Suggests For First Time Ukraine Could Cede Territory
  NATO Suggests For First Time Ukraine Could Cede Territory

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  A NATO official has suggested Ukraine could cede some territory to Russia in exchange for joining the Western military alliance.

  The comments were made on Tuesday by Stian Jenssen, chief of staff for NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and reported by the Norwegian newspaper VG. “I think that a solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory, and get NATO membership in return,” he said, adding that it should be up to Ukraine when and on what terms to negotiate.

  

  Jenssen said the issue of Ukraine’s status after the war is being discussed within the alliance and that some countries have raised the possibility of Kyiv ceding some territory. The comments come as the Ukrainian counteroffensive is stalling, and Western officials are admitting it’s very unlikely to succeed.

  The comments mark the first time that a high-level NATO official suggested Ukraine might have to cede territory to Russia.

  The US and NATO have backed Ukraine’s demands for peace, which include Russia withdrawing from all the territory it has captured since invading, as well as giving up Crimea, which has been Russian-controlled since 2014.

  Jenssen’s suggestion drew a sharp rebuke from Ukraine:

  “Trading territory for a NATO umbrella? It is ridiculous,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on X. “That means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, encouraging a global criminal, preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law, and passing the war on to other generations.”

  Podolyak said the war could only end if Russian President Vladimir Putin is defeated. “Obviously, if Putin does not suffer a crushing defeat, the political regime in Russia does not change, and war criminals are not punished, the war will definitely return with Russia’s appetite for more,” he said.

  Is NATO finally coming to its senses?

  NATO chief of staff says Ukraine may have to cede territory to end the war.https://t.co/yadPfVMIbt #Ukraine #NATO

  — Dimitri Lascaris (@dimitrilascaris) August 16, 2023

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  Russia would likely not go for any post-war settlement that involves Ukraine joining NATO as long as it can keep fueling the war since one of its main motives for invading was Kyiv’s alignment with NATO.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/17/2023 – 02:00

• Escobar: From Bukhara To BRICS, Searching For Light In The Darkness Of Insanity
  Escobar: From Bukhara To BRICS, Searching For Light In The Darkness Of Insanity

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  On the SCO, Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan sit at the same table…

  

  Bukhara The Noble, the “Dome of Islam”, with a history stretching back 2.500 years, bears too many marvels to mention: from the two-millennia-old Ark, a fortress around which the city developed, to the 48-meter high Kalon minaret, built in 1127, which so impressed Genghis Khan that he ordered it not to be razed.

  The elegant, single turquoise band near the top of the minaret is the earliest example of glazed tilework all across the Heartland.

  According to the Shanameh, the Persian epic, the hero Siyavush founded the city after marrying the daughter of neighboring Afrasiab. Even before the Ancient Silk Roads were in business, Bukhara thrived as a caravan crossroads – its city gates pointing to Merv (in today’s Turkmenistan), Herat (in western Afghanistan), Khiva and Samarkand.

  Bukhara’s apex was in the 9th-10th centuries under the Samanid dynasty, as it turned into a Mecca of Persian culture and science. That was the time of al-Biruni, the poet Rudaki and of course Avicenna: they all had access to the legendary Treasure of Wisdom, a library that in the Islamic world would only be rivalled by the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.

  Bukhara was largely razed by Genghis Khan and the Mongols in 1220 (yes: only the minaret was spared). When the great Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited in 1333, most of the city was still in ruins.

  But then, in 1318, someone very special had been born in Kasri Orifon, a village outside of Bukhara. At first he was simply known as Muhammad, after his father and grandfather, whose origins reached Hazrat Ali. But History ruled that Muhammad would eventually become famous all over the lands of Islam as the Sufi saint Bahauddin Naqshbandi.

  What’s in a name? Everything. Bahauddin means “the light of religion” and Naqshbandi means “chaser”. His upbringing was enriched by several pirs (“saints”) and sheikhs living in and around Bukhara. He spent almost all his life in these oases, very poor and always relying on his own manual labor, with no slaves or servants.

  Bahauddin Naqshbandi ended up founding a highly influential tariqa – Islamic school – based on a very simple concept: “Occupy your heart with Allah and your hands with work”. The concept was developed in other 11 rules, or rashas (“drops”).

  What’s coming out of those “five fingers”

  A visit to the Bahauddin Naqshbandi complex outside of Bukhara, centered around the tomb of the 14th century Sufi saint who is in fact the city’s spiritual protector, is an illuminating experience: such a peaceful atmosphere enveloping an appeasing network of holy stones, “wishing trees” and the odd sacrificial offering.

  This is the essence of what could be defined as a parallel Islam infusing so many latitudes across the Heartland, combining an animist past with formal Islamic teachings.

  At the complex, we meet scores of lovely, colorfully dressed Uzbek women from all regions and pilgrims from all over Central Asia but also from West and South Asia. Uzbek President Mirzoyoyev, extremely popular, was here late last week, and he came straight from the nearby, brand new, airport.

  This oasis of peace and meditation offers not only a sharp contrast to the toxic turbulence of the times but also inspires us to search for sanity among the madness. After all, one of Naqshbandi’s rashas states, “our way is conversation, good deeds are found only in mutual communication, but not in seclusion.”

  So let’s apply Sufi wisdom to the upcoming, possibly ground-breaking moment that should solidify the path of the Global Majority towards a more equitable, less deranged pattern of international relations: the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa next week.

  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has coined a concise definition that embodies a fascinating mix of Confucianism and Sufism:

  “The BRICS countries are like five fingers: short and long if extended, but a powerful fist if clenched together.”

  How to clench these fingers into a powerful fist has been the work of quite a few sherpas in preparation for the summit.

  But soon this will not be a matter related to a fist, but to fists, arms, legs and in fact, a whole body. That’s where BRICS+ comes in.

  Among the network of new multilateral organizations involved in preparing and acting out a new system of international relations, BRICS is now seen as the premier Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright Lukashenko) platform.

  We are still far away from the transition towards a new “world system” – to quote Wallerstein – but without BRICS even baby steps would be impossible.

  South Africa will seal the first coordinates for the BRICS+ expansion – which may go on indefinitely. After all, large swathes of the “Global Globe” already have stated, formally (23 nations) and informally (countless “expressions of interest”, according to the South African Foreign Ministry) they want in.

  The official list – subject to change – of those nations who want to be part of BRICS+ as soon as possible is a Global South’s who’s who: 

  Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, the State of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, UAE, Venezuela and Vietnam.

  Then there’s Africa: the “five fingers”, via South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, invited no less than 67 leaders from Africa and the Global South to follow the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS+ Dialogues.

  This all spells out what would be the key BRICS rasha, to evoke Naqshbandi: total Africa and Global South inclusion – all nations engaged in profitable conversations and equally respected in affirming their sovereignty.

  The Persians strike back

  A case can be made that Iran is in a privileged position to become one of the first BRICS+ members. It helps that Tehran already enjoys strategic partnership status with both Russia and China and also is a key partner of India in the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

  Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already stated, on the record that, “the partnership between Iran and BRICS has in fact already started in some areas. In the field of transport, the North-South transport corridor connecting India to Russia via Iran is actually part of BRICS’ transport project.”

  In parallel to breakthroughs on BRICS+, the “five fingers” will be relatively cautious on the de-dollarization front. Sherpas have already confirmed, off the record, there will be no official announcement of a new currency, but of more bilateral trade and multilateral trade using the members’ own currencies: for the moment the notorious R5 (renminbi, ruble, real, rupee and rand).

  Belarussian leader Lukashenko, who coined “Global Globe” as a motto as strong, if not even more seductive than Global South, was the first to evoke a crucial policy coup that may take place further on down the road, with BRICS+ in effect: the merger of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

  Now Lukashenko is being echoed in public by former South African ambassador Kingsley Makhubela – as well as scores of “Global Globe” diplomats and analysts off the record: “In the future, BRICS and the SCO would match to form one entity (…) Because having the BRICS and the SCO running in parallel with the same members would not make sense.”

  No question about that. The key BRICS drivers are Russia and China, with India slightly less influential for a number of complex reasons. On the SCO, Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan sit at the same table. The Eurasia focus of the SCO can easily be transplanted into BRICS+. Both organizations are “Global Globe”-centered; driving towards multipolarity; and most of all, committed to de-dollarization on all fronts.

  It is indeed possible to have a Sufi reading of all these geopolitical and geoeconomic tectonic plates in motion. As much as the promoters of Divide and Rule as well as assorted dogs of war would be clueless visiting the Naqshbandi complex outside of Bukhara, the “Global Globe” may find all the answers it seeks as it engages in a process of conversation and mutual respect.

  Bless these global souls – and may they find knowledge as if they were revisiting the Treasure of Wisdom of 10th century Bukhara.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 23:40

• Americans More Likely To Turn To Religion For Meaning
  Americans More Likely To Turn To Religion For Meaning

  “What makes life meaningful?”

  This is an open-ended question asked in a 2021 survey by Pew Research Center to 17 advanced economies. Analysts found that while many people find meaning in their surroundings, both in terms of society and nature, some also mentioned religion.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following graphic, religion and spirituality was mentioned more frequently among US adults, compared to those living in other advanced economies. 

  Pew analysts also ranked the most frequently mentioned topics, finding that in the US religion came up as the fifth most highly mentioned topic. 

  By contrast, only one percent of French respondents mentioned spirituality, faith and religion when describing what gives them meaning in life. 

  Even for this one percent, the topic was less front of mind than it was for their US counterparts, ranking in 15th place.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  These figures may seem low due to the open-ended nature of the question, which increases the range of different possible responses. Respondents who answered with reference to God or to religious communities, church attendance and general mention of spirituality or a higher power were counted for these results.

  According to the Pew Research Center, mention of religion was fairly similar across age, income, education or gender categories. 

  That is, apart from in the US, where older adults and Republicans or Republican-leaning independents were more likely to mention the topic than Democrats.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 23:20

• Argentina's Leading Presidential Candidate Vows To Shut Down "Thieving" Central Bank
  Argentina’s Leading Presidential Candidate Vows To Shut Down “Thieving” Central Bank

  After sending local capital markets into a tailspin and triggering a currency devaluation with his shock win in Sunday’s country’s presidential primary, Argentina’s leading presidential candidate Javier Milei – a self-described anarcho-capitalist – added to the shock factor on Wednesday when he pledged to close the nation’s central bank while saying he would make every effort to avoid a default on the country’s sovereign debt if he wins the October vote.

  

  Milei, a radical libertarian, told Bloomberg News his bold fiscal adjustment would boost Argentina’s reputation and credit profile, making a default unnecessary.

  His plan includes slashing spending by at least 13% of GDP before mid-2025 by dramatically downsizing public works, reducing the number of ministries, removing subsidies and capital restrictions that would allow businesses to transact in US dollars. More drastically, he also plans to shutter the central bank which he said has “no reason to exist”, and dollarize the $640 billion economy.

  “I will make every effort to avoid a default, obviously,” Milei said in a two-hour-long interview in Buenos Aires Wednesday. “If you do the fiscal adjustment that’s needed, the financing will be there.”

  Milei triggered a market shock when the presidential candidate – largely viewed as an outsider without serious chances for the position until now – came out ahead in the primary, seen as a barometer for presidential elections in a country where polls are notoriously unreliable. The slump forced the government to devalue its tightly controlled official exchange rate by 18% when markets opened Monday.

  In the first interview to foreign media after his unexpected win, Milei spoke to Bloomberg and detailed his plan to scrap the Argentine peso for the US dollar as a way to bring down inflation that’s running at 113%, and upped his criticism of the central bank, which he called “the worst garbage that exists on this Earth.”

  Argentina’s leading presidential candidate Javier Milei pledged to close the nation’s central bank, calling it “one of the greatest thieves in the history of mankind” https://t.co/IWKrXf3cwM pic.twitter.com/yRau0nlC3e

  — Bloomberg (@business) August 16, 2023

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  “Central banks are divided in four categories: the bad ones, like the Federal Reserve, the very bad ones, like the ones in Latin America, the horribly bad ones, and the Central Bank of Argentina,” he said.

  If Milei wins the presidency, he plans to hand over the keys to the central bank to economist Emilio Ocampo, his informal adviser on the dollarization program, so that he can shut it down. Ocampo will also help in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, which has a $44 billion program with the South American nation. The candidate says he has no plans to ask the IMF for more money.

  “A fiscal deficit is immoral,” Milei said.

  “If you live continually with a fiscal deficit, you’re going to be insolvent.”

  Just don’t tell that to the US which has had like four annual surpluses in the past 50 years.

  Milei said he’s already developed a plan to dollarize the economy, a move he vows would be among his first in case he wins the Oct. 22 election. Argentina would follow El Salvador’s model, allowing people voluntarily choose between currencies.

  Once two-thirds of the monetary base is converted, the economy would become fully dollarized, he said.

  “If nobody wants to have pesos in Argentina, the question is how much are pesos worth in real terms? Nobody wants them, we’re not talking about water in the middle of the desert. We’re talking about something nobody wants,” Milei said.

  Manuel Garcia Gojon writes, at The Mises Institute, that Milei’s full plan – which he laid out in some detail on August 2nd, is nothing if not pragmatic from an anarchist point of view.

   

  The first measure consists of an organizational reform of the government, going from 18 to 8 ministries. The ministries to be included are interior, foreign relations, defense, economy, justice, security, infrastructure, and human capital. No career bureaucrats are to be fired initially, but they will be reassigned. The political appointees will not be renewed and will be kept to a minimum. All government employee privileges, such as bodyguards and drivers, will be eliminated, except in the cases in which they are absolutely necessary for security reasons. This measure also includes initiating the privatization or closure process of all state-owned companies.

  The second measure consists of a significant reduction in public spending. For the first budget, they seek to eliminate expenditure items amounting to 15 percent of GDP, taking it from a deficit to a surplus. On the revenue side, they seek to eliminate 90 percent of taxes, which only raise an amount equal to 2 percent of GDP but have a distortive effect. There is also an intention of lowering the taxes that remain.

  The third measure consists of a flexibilization of labor regulations. Firing an employee is currently very costly in Argentina between litigation and compensation. This measure is geared toward reducing those costs by making it easier for companies to fire new employees. The balancing side of this measure is the implementation of a private unemployment insurance scheme. With this measure they seek to take formal employment in the private sector from 6 million positions to 14 million positions.

  The fourth measure consists of a liberalization of trade. The goal of this measure is unilateral free trade in the style of Chile. This includes the elimination of all import and export tariffs and the reduction of regulatory restrictions.

  The fifth measure consists of a monetary reform. This measure includes allowing the use of any commodity or foreign currency as legal tender and the liquidation of the central bank, which would result in the elimination of the Argentine Peso. There are alternative plans for the implementation of this measure, but the leading one is the one developed by Emilio Ocampo and Nicolas Cachanosky. In terms of timing, it would take between nine and 24 months. The conversion would be made at the market exchange rate. Once two thirds of the monetary base has been converted, a countdown for the last date to convert would be triggered.

  An additional challenge for this measure is that the central bank has remunerated liabilities three times the size of the monetary base. These are like the Federal Reserve’s program of paying interest on reserves in order to sterilize increases in the quantity of money. The central bank does have some commodities and foreign currencies in reserves but most of the assets consist of government bonds that currently trade at a third of their face value. To access the necessary liquidity to liquidate the central bank, the bonds would be transferred to a fund which would acquire the necessary line of credit using the bonds as collateral. The line of credit has already been confidentially agreed upon. The bonds are guaranteed to increase in price if the budget deficit is eliminated as specified in the second measure.

  The sixth measure consists of an energy reform. This measure intends to eliminate all subsidies to energy providers through a recalibration of the financial equilibrium to lower costs to keep the companies profitable and minimize the impact on the cost to the consumers. This measure opens a door to subsidies on the demand side for vulnerable households. They also seek to improve the energy infrastructure through a scheme of public interest declarations for projects which would be financed and executed by the private sector, but for which the government might provide a minimum revenue guarantee.

  The seventh measure consists of fostering investment. This will be done through a special legal arrangement for long term investment with a focus on mining, fossil fuels, renewable energy, forestry, and other sectors. In order to foster investment, they will also aim to eliminate foreign exchange restrictions and export fees.

  The eighth measure consists of an agrarian reform. This includes the elimination of the foreign exchange spread between the official exchange rate and the market exchange rate through the liquidation of the central bank, the elimination of all export fees and retentions, the elimination of the gross revenue tax, the elimination of all restrictions to foreign trade including quotas and the need for authorization, the promulgation of a new seeds law, and the improvement to road infrastructure through private enterprise.

  The ninth measure consists of a judicial reform. This measure includes the designation of a Minister of Justice with the consensus of the judicial branch, as well as the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice without political affiliations to fill the present vacancy, prohibiting members of the judicial branch from engaging in partisan politics, and promoting the budgetary independence of the judicial branch. Furthermore, they will seek to implement jury trials and oral proceedings throughout the country.

  The tenth measure consists of a welfare reform. Current welfare benefits will be initially maintained. They aim to move in the long term towards a private system in which users pay for the health and education services they consume. In the short term they aim to provide income protection programs to mitigate extreme poverty, nutritional programs, parental educational programs about cognitive stimulation, greater coverage for preschool, incentives for graduation, programs for the integration of people with disabilities, the promotion of access to private credit, and the elimination of all middlemen in the provision of welfare.

  The eleventh measure consists of an educational reform. They aim to move towards a greater degree of freedom to choose the curricula, methods, and educators. The measure also includes launching a school voucher pilot program. They will also establish an evaluation criterion for schools so that they may compete for incentives.

  The twelfth measure consists of a health reform. They aim to transfer the subsidization of healthcare from supply to demand to allow for greater freedom of choice and competition. This measure includes providing the existing healthcare benefits as vouchers so that there is no restriction to a specific provider.

  The thirteenth measure consists of a security reform. This measure includes reforms to the homeland security, national defense, and intelligence laws, as well as a reform to the penitentiary system to incorporate public private hybrids and intensifying the prosecution of drug trafficking.

  The one-time congressman obtained more votes than the pro business coalition led by Patricia Bullrich and the ruling Peronist bloc of Economy Minister Sergio Massa, surprising pollsters who expected him to come in third.

  Investors are now worried the country is headed for its fourth debt workout in the past two decades.

  Among chief concerns for markets is that Milei, a political outsider, wouldn’t be able to get backing for his plans.

  The 52 year-old, who doesn’t shy away from criticizing politicians he says have been robbing Argentines for decades, said he would call referendums if he can’t get legislative consensus to approve his measures.

  “If I lower the currency risk, and I lower the credit risk, that means country risk will plummet. It means that bonds are literally going to fly,” he said.

  “The truth is its a pretty simple trade. Or, if you buy and hold, for example, returns in a year would be above 200%.”

  In the wide-ranging Bloomberg interview, Milei also criticized China and Latin America leftist leaders he considers “socialists,” said he would seek to leave the Mercosur trade bloc and would quickly move to deregulate commodity markets.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 23:00

• Over 40% Of Japanese Women May Never Have Kids
  Over 40% Of Japanese Women May Never Have Kids

  Some 42% of adult Japanese women may never reproduce, according to a report by Nikkei, citing a not-yet published estimate by a government research group.

  

  According to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, the medium scenario projects that 33.4% of women born in 2005 will go through their childbearing years without having children, while the most optimistic case is that 24.6% won’t reproduce.

  The percentage is even higher for men – with as many as half of 18-year-old males projected to never have children.

  

  It’s not just Japan, either:

  The share of people without children is rising in such other developed economies as the U.S. and Europe. This has been attributed to a shift in values as more people focus on self-fulfillment rather than having kids.

  In these countries, around 10% to 20% of women born in 1970 never had children. The share in Japan is significantly higher at 27% and could end up at more than double Western levels if American and European rates stay around their current levels. –Nikkei

  That said, the number of childless adults has begun to drop in the US, UK and Germany, as efforts to encourage people to balance work with raising a family have encouraged many to have at least one child.

  Japan, meanwhile, has begun efforts to create a better environment for prospective parents with similar work-style reforms.

  You can lead a horse to water…

  Despite attempts at government ‘stimulation’ to reproduce, many young people are simply less interested in marriage and children right now, with stagnant wages and uncertainty about the future are cited as reasons.

  The Japanese institute’s 2021 National Fertility Survey found a surge in the number of unmarried young people who are fine with the concept of remaining single for life.

  “There needs to be an urgent discussion on building a social safety net in every area — including pensions, medical care, nursing care and living assistance — that does not disadvantage people without family, along with funding,” said social security expert Takashi Oshio, a professor at Hitotsubashi University’s Institute of Economic Research.

  China and South Korea have also seen plunging birthrates over the past several years – which began years later than Japan’s.

  What’s going on?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 22:40

• Fruit With Potentially Deadly Bacteria Recalled In A Dozen States
  Fruit With Potentially Deadly Bacteria Recalled In A Dozen States

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

  

  Green organic kiwifruit is now under recall in 14 states due to a potentially deadly listeria contamination, according to an announcement posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website.

  David Oppenheimer and Company said it is voluntarily recalling some of its clamshell packages of kiwi after testing found Listeria monocytogenes in some of the products, according to the notice. The bacteria can cause listeriosis, a sometimes severe and fatal infection.

  The company traced the contamination back to two grower lots in New Zealand. The recalled kiwi, repackaged locally for sale in 1-pound clear plastic clamshells has the Zespri brand and UPC code 8 18849 02009 3, and it has fruit with a sticker featuring a GTIN bar code of 9400 9552.

  The recalled products were shipped between June 14, 2023, and July 7, 2023, and were sold in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

  No illnesses have been reported to date in connection to the products, according to the notice. No other products from David Oppenheimer and Company are subject to the recall.

  What Is Listeria?

  Federal health officials say that listeria is a bacteria that can cause severe or fatal illness in children, the elderly, or individuals with compromised immune systems. Healthy people can suffer short-term problems including a high fever, nausea, stiffness, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headaches. Among pregnant women, the organism can cause stillbirths and miscarriages.

  Individuals who are infected with the bacteria may see symptoms within a few hours to three days after eating contaminated food, according to the FDA’s website. More severe forms can take three days to three months to develop.

  “L. monocytogenes is generally transmitted when food is harvested, processed, prepared, packed, transported or stored in environments contaminated with L. monocytogenes. Environments can be contaminated by raw materials, water, soil, and incoming air. Pets can also spread the bacteria in the home environment if they eat food contaminated with L. monocytogenes,” says the FDA’s website.

  Despite the warnings, the bacteria appears to be rare. An estimated 1,600 Americans develop listeriosis each year, while about 260 die, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data.

  “Listeria bacteria can survive refrigeration and even freezing. So people who are at higher risk of serious infections should avoid eating the types of food most likely to contain listeria bacteria,” according to the Mayo Clinic’s website. That includes “improperly processed” deli meat products and unpasteurized milk products, it says, while also listing raw vegetables that have been contaminated from manure or soil as a source of infection.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 22:20

• "Doom Loop Walking Tour" Of San Francisco Sells Out
  “Doom Loop Walking Tour” Of San Francisco Sells Out

  There’s a new entertainment option for people morbidly fascinated with San Francisco’s relentless decline: a “Downtown Doom Loop Walking Tour.” 

  The, anonymous, dry-witted host invites tourists to “discover the policy choices that made America’s wealthiest city the nation’s innovative leader of housing crisis, addiction crisis, mental-health crisis, & unrepentant crime crisis.” It’s not clear if this will be an ongoing offering, but the maiden tour — set for Saturday, August 26 — is already sold out. 

  More liberal perks in San Francisco Bay Area. Crime in California is at highest level ever!!! pic.twitter.com/Hg6OuUBiK2

  — Dhruven Patel 🇮🇳🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@dhruven_patel) August 14, 2023

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  “You will find no better expert,” reads the tour’s promotional page. “Your guide is an urban policy professional, card-carrying City Commissioner overseeing a municipal department with an annual budget over $500m, and cofounder of San Francisco’s largest neighborhood association. He has spent hundreds of hours on both sides of the government dais, shouting into the opposite abyss.” 

  Due to rampant crime and uncontrollable drug addiction & homelessness, Downtown San Francisco is a ghost town pic.twitter.com/gM5bpAiDIR

  — Doochebag (@everyone_fights) August 14, 2023

   “The tour will start at City Hall, and continue through Mid-Market, the Tenderloin, and Union Square. We will view the open-air drug markets, the abandoned tech offices, the outposts of the non-profit industrial complex, and the deserted department stores.“

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

  This is what the people of San Francisco voted for.

  A Crime wave and homelessness wave.

  Their liberal laws are now backfiring on them, and they are seeing why law and order is needed. pic.twitter.com/59GtaN4c9S

  — Akinola A. Raymond (@AkinolaARaymond) August 9, 2023

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  San Francisco has deteriorated so much that federal officials are now advising hundreds of Health and Human Services employees to work remotely for the foreseeable future, rather than wade through “one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets” that’s just outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street. 

  🚨🇺🇸 San Francisco – Federal Offices

  Government Bureaucrats instructed to work from home where Federal Office is now unsafe to access.

  Homelessness, Crime & Fentanyl usage are simply out of control in many US Democratic run cities that they are now unsafe for civilians to even… pic.twitter.com/PNYie16VWl

  — Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) August 15, 2023

   Instead of profit, the tour guide is apparently seeking an outlet for his policy frustrations. He says the tour “is the result of his own mental-health crisis,” and that he’ll donate proceeds to “a non-profit that does not actively degrade its community.” 

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

  Just a common everyday occurrence in San Francisco. The police do nothing. The city does nothing. Crime is just out of control. pic.twitter.com/adWuZMDra4

  — HumanDilemma (@HumanDilemma_) August 8, 2023

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  The 90-minute,1.5 mile tour promises to tackle a number of questions: 

  “How can a city with a $14.6 billion annual budget be a model of urban decay? How can it spend $776.8 million per year on police and have no rule of law to show for it? How can it spend $690 million on homeless services and receive an official United Nations condemnation for its treatment of the homeless (‘cruel and inhuman’; ‘violation of multiple human rights’)?”

  This woman might be close to figuring it out: 

  💥 Biden voters now complaining about rising crime in cities like San Francisco.

  Where Democrats lead crime follows.pic.twitter.com/SaswP3g1EC

  — Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) August 7, 2023

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  Let’s just hope the tour doesn’t get too good a look at the crime situation. 

  #SanFrancisco : Jogger confronts thieves & has a weapon pointed at him before dropping, tucking & rolling out of the way. Close call. ⬇️ #StaySafe #Crime #CrimeNews #California #TrueCrime pic.twitter.com/FwZR4Ge2J5

  — True Crime with Laura🕵🏼‍♀️⚖️ (@Lauraonthecase) August 15, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 22:00

• Medical Board Suspends License Of Doctor Critical Of COVID-19 Vaccines
  Medical Board Suspends License Of Doctor Critical Of COVID-19 Vaccines

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

  The State Medical Board of Ohio has suspended the license of a doctor who has offered criticism of COVID-19 vaccines.

  

  The board suspended Dr. Sherri Tenpenny’s license and fined her $3,000 because she allegedly refused to respond properly to complaints that poured in after she testified to state lawmakers.

  The suspension is for an indefinite period.

  “In short, Dr. Tenpenny did not simply fail to cooperate with a Board investigation, she refused to cooperate. And that refusal was based on her unsupported and subjective belief regarding the Board’s motive for the investigation,” Kimberly Lee, a state official, said in the suspension order.

  “Licensees of the Board cannot simply refuse to cooperate in investigations because they decide they do not like what they assume is the reason for the investigation,” Ms. Lee said.

  State law enables the board to discipline medical professionals for “failure to cooperate in an investigation conducted by the board.”

  Dr. Tenpenny said in a video after the suspension that she had cooperated with the board.

  “We cooperated at every level. We looked at the letters; we responded appropriately and legally,” Dr. Tenpenny said.

  “My lawyers … drafted responses appropriately and sent it back, and they go, ‘nope, you didn’t cooperate with us.’ Well, I guess that just simply means that they didn’t like the answers. But it didn’t mean that I failed to cooperate.”

  Dr. Tenpenny graduated from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1984 and has been practicing medicine since then. The Ohio license is for osteopathic medicine and surgery.

  Testimony

  The board said that it began investigating Dr. Tenpenny after receiving approximately 350 complaints following her June 2021 testimony to the Ohio House of Representatives Health Committee. The testimony included claims that the COVID-19 vaccines were causing people to become magnetized.

  “They can put a key on their forehead, and it sticks,” Dr. Tenpenny said at the time.

  The doctor also raised concerns about side effects, including heart inflammation, that U.S. officials have since acknowledged are caused by the shots.

  The board said it was investigating whether Dr. Tenpenny violated the state’s Medical Practices Act.

  The law says that the board “shall investigate evidence that appears to show that a person has violated any provision of this chapter,” including making a false or misleading statement in relation to the practice of medicine.

  Marcie Pastrick, a board attorney, said the complaints included allegations that, if true, would be violations of the law.

  However, the suspension was because of Dr. Tenpenny’s alleged refusal to cooperate as opposed to the allegations in those complaints.

  Thomas Renz, a lawyer representing Dr. Tenpenny, was cited as telling the board that Dr. Tenpenny was declining to cooperate with what he described as “the board’s bad faith and unjustified assault on her licensure, livelihood, and constitutional rights.” He said that Dr. Tenpenny’s testimony was based on “factual reports by third parties,” including peer-reviewed studies.

  Dr. Tenpenny later told the board that it was investigating without any evidence that she violated state law, but the board noted the volume of complaints and how the law says that the “board shall investigate evidence that appears to show that a person has violated any provision of this chapter.”

  Dr. Tenpenny must submit an application for reinstatement, pay the fine, and cooperate with the board if she wants it to consider lifting the suspension.

  Mr. Renz said that Dr. Tenpenny and her lawyers will fight the suspension in court.

  “The board was mad because when they sent her things, we did what they said,” he said in a video. “So if, for example, when the board sends out a questionnaire, and it says, ‘you can either answer this or you can object, and if you object we can compel’—which means going to court to compel—we objected. Well, they didn’t want to go to court to compel, because that would be very inconvenient.”

  Mr. Renz noted that the Ohio Attorney General’s Office said that the process for such investigations would “break down” if authorities had to go to the courts each time to compel.

  “This is one of the most shocking things I have ever heard,” he said. “We need reform. We need political reform. We need to pass laws now.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 21:40

• 'Zero Applicants, Zero Prospects': Entire Police Force Quits In Minnesota Town
  ‘Zero Applicants, Zero Prospects’: Entire Police Force Quits In Minnesota Town

  The town of Goodhue, Minnesota will be without police in 8 days after the chief and every member of the force resigned.

  

  “I think we’re all a little bit blindsided by it, but we’re resilient and we’re going to move forward,” said Ellen Anderson, mayor of the small town located in the southeastern part of the state.

  “I want to reiterate that we will have police coverage in the city of Goodhue,” Anderson promised, adding “That is not an issue.”

  Police Chief Josh Smith, who will continue to serve until Aug. 24, told city officials he’s been unable to find anyone to join the force.

  “This has been three weeks now, we have zero applicants, and I have zero prospects,” he said on July 26, adding “I’ve called every PD around for the youngest guys out there, getting into the game. There’s nobody getting into the game.”

  “If you want to keep the PD, and this is something we want to continue going with, something needs to change dramatically and drastically, and it’s got to happen now,” he continued.

  Smith told the Goodhue city council that the dismal recruitment numbers was due to low pay and competition from larger cities, the NY Post reports.

  The largest city in Minnesota, Minneapolis, is the site of one of the most important policing stories of the last decade. 

  The last ex-Minneapolis police officer to be convicted following the death of George Floyd received a sentence of 4 years and 9 months on Aug. 7.

  Who wouldn’t want to be an underpaid public servant that’s hated by half the population?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 21:20

• House GOP Investigates State Department Atheism Grants
  House GOP Investigates State Department Atheism Grants

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,

  The Biden administration, which came under fire earlier this year for an internal FBI memo targeting anti-abortion Catholic activists as “potential” domestic terrorists, is facing new questions from top House Republicans over its decision to fund a program promoting atheism overseas.

  

  Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the panel’s human rights subcommittee, are reviving a nearly year-long inquiry into a 2021 State Department grant they say is designed to expand the influence of atheists and humanists in the Middle East and North Africa.

  The GOP House members argue that the program could be violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which bars the use of tax dollars to promote theocracy or a specific religion.

  McCaul, Smith, and Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, last week sent a letter to Erin Barclay, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs, and Rashad Hussain, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The letter accuses both officials of “continued noncompliance” with their document requests regarding the atheism program.

  “We write once again to ask why it is in America’s interest to promote atheism overseas and why the department refuses to provide certain documents that shed light on that misguided decision,” they wrote.

  The trio specifically took issue with the State Department’s April 2021 decision to solicit bids for a $500,000 grant titled “Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals.” The funding notification states that the recipients’ programs should be designed to impact two to three countries across South and Central Asia or the Middle East and North Africa.

  “By not adhering to a predominant religious tradition, many individuals face discrimination in employment, housing, in civil and criminal proceedings, and other areas, especially in the context of intersectional identities,” the funding opportunity states. The notice also outlines the program’s objective as an effort “to combat discrimination, harassment, and abuses against atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals of all religious communities by strengthening networks among these communities and providing organizational training and resources.”

  In several countries across those regions, blasphemy and anti-conversion laws prohibit insults to the prevailing religion and are often abused when allegations are made against religious minorities, atheists, and other non-believers.

  While the State Department grant is designed to assist persecuted religious minorities and those who choose not to believe in a higher power, McCaul, Smith, and Mast are concerned that the program promotes the interest of one specific religious tradition – humanism – as opposed to those of all faith-based minorities. The grant eventually went to Humanists International, or HI, an organization aimed at promoting humanism, an outlook and system of thought attaching prime importance to human effort rather than divine or supernatural powers.

  In early June, the State Department told McCaul, Smith, and Mast that its Office of Religious Freedom and the human rights bureau “do not provide funds to any organization with the aim of using such funds to promote or advance specific religious ideologies or beliefs.”

  In their most recent letter to the Department, the House critics assert that “even a cursory look into the operations and mantra of Humanists International calls the agency’s claim into question.” On HI’s website, the organization requires all of its member organizations to pay dues and support its five objectives, the first of which is “the advancement of humanism,” the Republicans point out. In HI’s grant application, it specifically states that it will award sub-grants for “organizing events and seminars to promote the positive aspects of humanism and other ethical non-religious worldviews,” including atheism, added McCaul, Smith, and Mast.

  The State Department, which announced a shift away from prioritizing religious freedom over other human rights concerns at the beginning of the Biden administration, defended its grant solicitations.

  “This [funding opportunity] solicited programs to promote respect for freedom of conscience and the human rights of nonbelievers and others to live without repression and in their societies on account of their beliefs or non-beliefs,” a State Department spokesperson told RealClearPolitics.

  “We welcome Congressional interest in our efforts to ensure that all people around the world are free to live their lives in accordance with their conscience and beliefs and will continue to engage with the committee – having already turned over hundreds of pages of documents, hosted two briefings for the committee, one as recently as today, and had the ambassador-at-large testify before the committee in July,” added the spokesperson, who requested anonymity.

  Besides promoting humanism and atheism overseas, HI has close ties to member organizations that engage in U.S. litigation to promote humanism domestically, the GOP trio pointed out. These organizations include the American Humanist Association, or AHA, which shares a Washington, D.C. office with HI and American Atheists.

  “Far from advancing religious freedom, AHA often takes actions that are antithetical to the idea of religious freedom,” the Republicans argued in their letter to Barclay and Hussain. “HI’s close association with AHA speaks volumes about the true objectives of HI and should be of grave concern to the department.”

  The inquiry includes a series of questions and requests for transcribed, sit-down interviews with agency officials. If the agency continues to stonewall these specific requests, McCaul threatened to use his panel’s subpoena power to compel the interviews and responses.

  The clash between the House Republicans and State Department officials over the atheism program underscores a deeper conflict over the Biden administration’s decision to shift priority away from helping overseas populations persecuted for their religious beliefs to a broader human rights focus.

  In late March, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that shift, which includes a focus on the rights of immigrants and refugees, victims of human trafficking, LGBTQ individuals, and women’s access to abortion, birth control, and other reproductive options. Blinken faulted the Trump administration for what he characterized as an “unbalanced” emphasis on religious liberty over other concerns.

  “Human rights are also co-equal. There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken said during remarks at the State Department’s release of its 45^th annual report on the status of human rights around the world. “At my confirmation hearing, I promised that the Biden-Harris administration would repudiate those unbalanced views. We do so decisively today.”

  Even before Blinken’s statement, administration policies were reflecting the impact of this shift in priorities. Two days into the Biden administration, USAID rejected a project planned in Nigeria dedicated to providing a detailed accounting of Christian and Muslim persecution by jihadist terrorists Boko Haram and militant Fulani herdsmen and others. Thousands of Christians, as well as some Muslims opposed to Islamic extremism, have been killed in Nigeria over the last several years in what some leading human rights activists have labeled a “slow-motion genocide.”

  Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian, even though Christians make up nearly half of Nigeria’s population of 200 million. According to the religious freedom watchdog Open Doors International, more than 5,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria last year alone, accounting for nearly 90% of Christian deaths worldwide.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 21:00

• Harvard University Shows Students How To Milk Welfare System
  Harvard University Shows Students How To Milk Welfare System

  Earlier this year, Harvard University organized an event for graduate students, informing them how to milk the welfare system typically used by low-income families, not college students. 

  The Ivy League university’s endowment is upwards of $50 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world; sent a flier to graduate students, urging them to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in March, according to Vice. 

  

  The flier reads: “Fuel your body & stock your pantry. Did you know that grad students may qualify for assistance paying for food & groceries?“

  

  The university’s welfare advice comes as graduate students have demanded that Harvard increase all graduate student workers’ yearly wage to $60,000 from the current $40,000. These workers have gone on strike twice in recent years over low pay. Much of the distress is because the progressive city of Boston has out-of-control living expenses, including shelter and food. 

  A Harvard spokesperson told Vice in an email earlier this year that the flier would help students sign up for welfare. 

  … and it appears Harvard isn’t the only university encouraging grads to utilize welfare. 

  Are you a WVU graduate worker struggling to make ends meet due to meager wages and crippling fees?

  This Monday WVCW will be hosting a SNAP benefits sign-up party in the Mountainlair from 11-2PM!

  If WVU signs your paycheck, come through! #snapoutofit pic.twitter.com/KjsdKZhPcr

  — West Virginia Campus Workers (@WVCampusWorkers) February 19, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 20:40

• Emails Show Hunter Biden Hired Specialists To Quietly Airbrush Wikipedia: Fang
  Emails Show Hunter Biden Hired Specialists To Quietly Airbrush Wikipedia: Fang

  Authored by Lee Fang via leefang.com (highly recommend subscribing),

  Powerful individuals and corporations routinely tap specialized consultants to edit Wikipedia for more favorable entries, often through anonymous accounts designed to appear organic.

  

  Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop show that he made continuous efforts to airbrush his image and the Wikipedia articles associated with his Ukrainian benefactors.

  The outreach by high-priced consultants making stealth edits to Wikipedia, for a period, paid off.

  In 2014, working at the time with FTI Consulting, a major public relations and lobbying firm, Hunter sought changes to his personal Wikipedia entry.

  “Ryan- below is a start.  Eric is my partner and cc’d- he’s going to make additional edits,” wrote Hunter to FTI’s Ryan Toohey in May 2014, referring him to Eric Schwerin, the president of Hunter’s firm Rosemont Seneca. Hunter forwarded along edits seeking the deletion of unflattering lines in his Wikipedia biography, such as his ties to disgraced Ponzi scheme financier Allen Stanford.

  

  Toohey, emails from Hunter’s laptop show, confirmed that his company would get to work.

  Wikipedia maintains a semi-transparent system to show the edit history of any article on the website. The history shows that shortly after Hunter’s request, several anonymous Wikipedia accounts began a series of edits to his page, adding changes requested by Hunter and deleting embarrassing lines.

  Hunter, the emails show, sought to delete a line explaining that the National Endowment for Democracy, which he previously worked with, had ties to the CIA. He also pushed to include more official titles from his various NGO board memberships.

  On May 28, 2014, an account called “AmeliaChevalier” edited Hunter’s Wikipedia to delete any reference to “disgraced financier Allen Stanford.” Over the next few weeks, more anonymous Wikipedia accounts began rapidly editing Hunter’s page, records show. Archives of Wikipedia show that a month after engaging with FTI, Hunter’s Wikipedia page had dramatically changed, with negative references scrubbed, and lengthy passages added to discuss his volunteer work, service in government, and appointments to various boards and political committees.

  

  “This is back in good shape,” Toohey wrote to Hunter and Schwerin, dropping a link to the Wikipedia page. “We’ll be keeping an eye on it for changes.”

  Toohey, now a partner at the law-lobbying firm Dentons Global Advisors, did not respond to a request for comment.

  One of the more prolific and anonymous Wikipedia accounts making edits to Hunter’s page was a user called “Earflaps,” which made a number of edits, including the deletion of criticism of Hunter’s work for Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm. That account was later identified as a “sock puppet,” a term of art used for the illicit pay-for-play editing by fake accounts, to airbrush negative information off of Wikipedia. An investigation found that Earflaps was one of nearly a dozen fake accounts tied to PR firms hired to carefully manage the image of Russian businessmen.

  Subscribers to leefeng.com can read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 20:20

• Socialist Scholar Cornel West Owes $500,000 In Taxes
  Socialist Scholar Cornel West Owes $500,000 In Taxes

  By Matt Lamb of The College Fix

  Socialist professor and presidential candidate Cornel West wants “massive investments” including “free college tuition” and “Medicare for All” as part of his presidential campaign.

  

  Just don’t expect him to chip in on the bill.

  According to the Daily Beast, and confirmed by West, the Union Theological Seminary professor owes over half a million dollars in taxes.

  The Green Party candidate has “more than $500,000 in outstanding federal tax liens lodged against him in two states” dating back to 2005, according to the liberal news outlet.

  He explained, when asked on Monday by commentator Charlamagne Tha God, that not paying taxes is part of his “gangster proclivities.”

  “They’re not wasting no time attacking you because now they’re saying you owe a half a million dollars in taxes and they’re trying to say it’s hypocrisy on your part,” the commentator said.

  “Because you spent so much of your life advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy. I’m like ‘I ain’t never heard any of this about Dr. Cornel West before but now all of a sudden he’s running for president,’” he said. “Everything’s coming out the woodwork,” another host said.

  “Absolutely, absolutely, and the thing is, I mean, I told you before, I got so much gangster in me, I was a gangster before I met Jesus. I ain’t nothing but a reformed sinner with gangster proclivities,” West said on the show.

  “Partly it’s because I do like to give to loved ones and others too,” he said. “But I take responsibility for it too. But it don’t make no difference to me.”

  “They want to use it as a distraction. Why don’t you keep the focus on the suffering that I’m highlighting?” he told Charlamagne Tha God recently.

  Instead of focusing on West’s legal obligation to pay all his taxes, the obligation that all Americans share, the media should instead focus on “the suffering” people in Appalachia, Chicago and Harlem.

  “This is just a matter of trying to hit you below the belt and keep the distraction,” he added.”

  He appeared to deny a report from the Daily Beast that he also owes $45,000 in child support, saying the outlet was “lying about his kids.”

  West first announced he would run for president on the People’s Party ticket, but that organization only has ballot access in Florida. He then switched to the Green Party.

  While West is a socialist leftist professor, he has a good relationship with prominent conservatives, appeared throughout the years on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. He also has been supportive of teaching the classics and is on the board of academic advisors for the Classical Learning Test, an alternative to the SAT and ACT.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 20:00

• Will We Sacrifice DC And New York For Taiwan?
  Will We Sacrifice DC And New York For Taiwan?

  Authored by Francis P. Sempa via RealClear Wire,

  Last month, National Defense University professor Donald Stoker wrote a thought-provoking article for Real Clear Defense that examined China’s actions in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and concluded that it will be “exceedingly difficult to deter China in regard to Taiwan,” and that a successful American strategy of deterrence “requires strength, capability, credibility, and will.” A grand strategy of deterrence affects the mind of the enemy–in this case, the mind of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the minds of Xi’s top advisers. The United States and its allies, Stoker writes, must “produce overwhelming doubt in the minds of China’s leaders” that they can take control of Taiwan “at an acceptable cost.”

  

  China under Mao Zedong in the early 1950s in Korea was not deterred from fighting U.S. forces there even though the United States possessed atomic weapons and China did not, and even though America had a much stronger and technologically advanced military than China did at the time. China, Stoker explains, was willing to “endure the risks of escalation, and pay enormous costs in blood and treasure” to protect what its leaders perceived as threats to their security. China also had the advantage of geographical proximity to the conflict. In short, China was willing to risk atomic attack and to expend countless lives and treasure to ensure that the northern half of the Korean peninsula was ruled by a regime friendly to China’s interests.

  Stoker notes that China was much less involved in the fighting in Vietnam than in Korea, but attributes that to the U.S. decision not to invade North Vietnam. Stoker writes that Mao told Hanoi’s leaders that his armies would fight the Americans if they invaded northern territory. If Mao was serious–and we have no reason to doubt that–Chinese forces would have intervened in North Vietnam, just as they did in Korea, had American forces crossed into northern territory with the express purpose (as in Korea) of uniting the country under non-communist, pro-American rule.

  In both Korea and Vietnam, China had the same political goal–to maintain a friendly regime on its southern border. America’s atomic weapons and its superior military power were insufficient to deter China from achieving its political aims. China’s political goal with regard to Taiwan is to reunify the island under communist party rule. It is the unfinished business of the Chinese Civil War. China’s leaders have been unambiguous about that goal. What will it take, Stoker asks, to deter China from achieving that political goal?

  Stoker is not confident that China can be deterred regarding Taiwan. China views Taiwan as a “lost province.” Its value to China’s leaders, Stoker writes, “is exceedingly high,” higher in fact than the independence of North Korea and North Vietnam. The only object that China values more than Taiwan, Stoker writes, is “regime survival.” Which means that to deter China from taking Taiwan the United States must hold at risk the survival of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule on the mainland. We must convince Chinese leaders that if they attempt to conquer Taiwan, we will not only successfully defend Taiwan but will force the CCP from power in China–regime change.

  One aspect of U.S.-China history that Stoker did not examine was the two Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s. In the first crisis in 1954-55, China took control of offshore islands, shelled Quemoy and Matsu, and publicly called for the “liberation” of Formosa (Taiwan). President Eisenhower persuaded Congress to pass a resolution authorizing him to employ the armed forces to protect Taiwan–the so-called Formosa Resolution. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warned China that the U.S. was prepared to use atomic weapons to defend Taiwan. By mid-1955, the crisis was over. Deterrence had worked.

  Three years later, China again shelled Quemoy and Matsu, sent warplanes to bomb the islands, and imposed a naval blockade. Eisenhower dispatched the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, increased the number of aircraft carriers and warplanes in the region, and let Chinese leaders know that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Taiwan. Once again, deterrence worked.

  Why did deterrence work in the mid-to-late 1950s, but not in Korea and Vietnam? The answer is provided by Stoker at the end of his article: “a deterrent strategy requires strength, capability, credibility, and will.” Under President Eisenhower, the United States exuded “strength, capability, credibility, and will.” We had overwhelming nuclear dominance over China (which had no nuclear weapons then) and significant nuclear superiority over China’s Soviet ally. We also had naval predominance in the western Pacific and a huge technological edge vis-a-vis China. In Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, we had two statesmen whose will was unquestioned.

  The situation today is much different. We no longer have significant nuclear superiority over China, especially in theater nuclear weapons. We no longer have naval predominance in the western Pacific. Unlike the 1950s when we projected strategic clarity on defending Taiwan, today we continue to adhere to a policy of “strategic ambiguity” that has long since outlived its purposes. Finally, one suspects that even partisan Democrats will acknowledge that when it comes to assessing credibility and will, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken are no match for Eisenhower and Dulles, and Biden and Blinken are playing with a much weaker hand than Eisenhower and Dulles had in the 1950s.

  China’s top leaders have not hidden their belief that China will replace the United States as the word’s leading power in the not so distant future. This is part of Xi’s “China Dream” that will put the final nail in the coffin of China’s century of humiliation. China, unlike in the 1950s, is a peer competitor of the United States both economically and militarily. China is modernizing the PLA Navy and its nuclear weapons force. It has also formed a “strategic partnership” with a Russia that deploys a nuclear force that is at least equal to that of the United States. President Xi exudes confidence, while an aging President Biden exudes confusion.

  Perhaps a better historical analogy than the Korean or Vietnam Wars is West Berlin during the Cold War. West Berlin was an “island” of freedom surrounded by the East German state and Soviet forces. The United States and its European allies could not have defended West Berlin in the event of a Soviet conventional assault. Yet West Berlin survived. It survived because Soviet leaders believed that the United States would sacrifice Washington and New York for West Berlin. Presidents from Truman through Reagan projected strategic clarity about that, and in Reagan’s case added to that clarity by the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons and cruise missiles in West Germany in the 1980s in the face of massive protests in the U.S. and the West, and a significant propaganda effort on the part of the Soviets to cancel the deployment of the missiles.

  China will be successfully deterred from attacking Taiwan only if it believes that U.S. leaders are willing to sacrifice Washington and New York for Taiwan. Strategic ambiguity must give way to strategic clarity. But strategic clarity must include more than words. Which brings us back to Stoker’s requirements: strength, capability, credibility, and will.

  Francis P. Sempa writes on foreign policy and geopolitics. His Best Defense columns appear at the beginning of each month.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 19:40

• Cash Crunch Strikes Vornado? Considers Selling Manhattan's Farley Building Amid CRE Turmoil
  Cash Crunch Strikes Vornado? Considers Selling Manhattan’s Farley Building Amid CRE Turmoil

  In April, Vornado Realty Trust, an office, retail, and residential building owner, suspended its dividend and authorized a stock buyback while shares plunged to levels not seen since 1996. The billionaire head of Vornado in May warned the company was “going to take a breath” in the redevelopment around Manhattan’s Penn Station amid CRE turmoil. Now reports suggest Vornado is exploring options to sell a massive office building to raise cash.

  Bloomberg spoke with people familiar with Vornado’s move to “explore options” for the Farley Building, an iconic civic building that features 740,000 square feet of office and 120,000 square feet of retail. Sources said Vornado could sell the building or mortgage the asset to “shore up liquidity during a commercial-property downturn.” 

  

  They said the billionaire head of Vornado, Steven Roth, has contacted Newmark Group Inc.’s co-heads of US capital markets, Adam Spies and Douglas Harmon, to review the best strategic options. They added discussions are still ongoing. 

  What’s alarming is that Roth said the Farley Building is “arguably one of the best buildings of its type and kind in the city.” He then noted: The Farley Building “could be an important source of liquidity.” 

  This leaves us to believe that Vornado might be experiencing liquidity issues after it has been battered by high borrowing costs and falling office tower prices. 

  “The Manhattan-based company has been active in selling assets in a bid to boost liquidity. Earlier this year, the firm announced deals to offload four retail properties in Manhattan and the Armory Show,” Bloomberg said. 

  CRE pains come as the Federal Reserve has aggressively hiked interest rates to 22-year highs. 

  

  Vornado shares crashed below GFC levels. 

  

  And the overall office REIT space is at GFC crash levels. 

  

  Remember last month, Starwood Capital Group’s Barry Sternlicht warned CRE is in a “Category 5 hurricane.” And John Fish, who heads construction firm Suffolk, chair of the Real Estate Roundtable think tank, and former chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, warned in a recent What Goes Up podcast: “Nobody understands where the bottom is” for CRE markets. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 19:20

• The Long Reach Of COVID-19: Unraveling The Cognitive Puzzle Of Recovery
  The Long Reach Of COVID-19: Unraveling The Cognitive Puzzle Of Recovery

  Authored by Sheramy Tsai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

  Brain fog, the struggle to recall words, and forgetting why you entered a room may be more than mere annoyances. They could be lingering symptoms of COVID-19.

  

  Researchers in the UK found that individuals reporting long-lasting COVID-19 symptoms—persisting for at least three months post-infection—exhibited diminished capabilities in areas such as memory, reasoning, and motor control. The findings were recently published in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine journal.

  “The fact remains that two years on from their first infection, some people don’t feel fully recovered, and their lives continue to be impacted by the long-term effects of the coronavirus,” Claire Steves, co-author of the study and a professor at King’s College London, wrote.

  The study engaged 3,335 individuals from the United Kingdom COVID Symptom Study Biobank for a two-round evaluation spanning July 2021 to June 2022.

  The participants, including both those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and and those who tested negative, were assessed across 12 different tasks. These tasks were designed to test cognitive functions such as working memory, attention, reasoning, processing speed, and motor control.

  The analysis specifically examined the effects of COVID-19 exposure on cognitive accuracy and reaction time. It also looked into the role of ongoing symptoms after infection with the aim to provide valuable insights into the impact of the virus on mental functions.

  Researchers found notable cognitive deficits in individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and experienced symptoms for 12 weeks or more. These deficits—detected in areas such as visual memory and attention—were comparable in scale to the effect of aging by 10 years or being hospitalized during the illness. Notably, the deficits persisted almost two years after the infection in some cases, which raised concerns about the lasting impact of COVID-19 on cognitive function.

  When asked about the daily implications of cognitive deficits as compared with approximately 10 years of aging, Ms. Steves offered a sobering perspective to The Epoch Times.

  “The effects are tangible, and although they are relatively small, they are probably noticeable in everyday life,” she explained.

  Ms. Steves said that the data represent an average across varying cases. “The changes we report are average changes across groups of people, and some people will experience more or less,” she said.

  Self-Perception of Illness and Recovery

  The study also sheds new light on how people’s self-perception of their recovery from COVID-19 correlates with their actual ongoing symptoms. The research divided individuals who had developed COVID-19 into groups based on their responses to the question, “Thinking about the last or only episode of COVID-19 you have had, have you now recovered and are back to normal?”

  Those who answered “Yes, I am back to normal” didn’t show cognitive deficits. “Importantly, we found no detectable impairment among people who reported as feeling recovered and ‘back to normal’ after their COVID-19 illness, even among individuals who experience long-term symptoms [for as long as or longer than] 12 weeks,” the authors noted.

  On the other hand, those who answered “No, I still have some or all of my symptoms” revealed an increase in cognitive impairment. The study found that psychological distress and fatigue partially mediated these deficits.

  According to the study’s authors, self-perceived recovery was “highly correlated with symptom duration.” This discovery aligns with smaller studies that have examined recovery self-assessment.

  However, caution in interpretation is advised. Dr. Armen Nikogosian, a medical and functional physician treating long-COVID-19 patients, spoke about the complexity of the issue.

  “Patients who suffer from the effects of long COVID are typically sidelined in conventional medicine,” he told Epoch Times. “It’s entirely possible that these patients continue to have symptoms not identified or validated by their healthcare providers.”

  The relationship between self-perception, symptoms, and recovery appears multifaceted, and this study illuminates some aspects of that complexity.

  Cognitive Decline Following COVID-19

  Cognitive impairments following infections with viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 are well documented, but the experience of living with the resulting “brain fog” is a complex and distressing reality for many.

  Dr. Katherine Pannel, a psychiatrist and medical director of Right Track Medical Group in Oxford, Mississippi, experienced brain fog after contracting COVID-19 and describes the frustration of the condition. “I was hesitant to do any kind of public speaking because I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not find the words. It was so frustrating,” she shared on AMA’s What Doctors Wish Patients Knew.

  In January 2021, Jill, a respiratory therapist from Boston, experienced a mild case of COVID-19, marked only by a loss of smell and taste. As the year progressed, symptoms such as fatigue, forgetfulness, and getting lost while driving emerged. Jill’s physician husband helped her to investigate, leading to a diagnosis of mild cognitive decline, believed to be related to COVID-19. They embarked on a regimen of supplements, anticoagulants, red-light therapy, dietary changes, and at-home rehabilitation.

  Despite facing setbacks that included microclotting and cognitive impairment, Jill’s continual efforts in rehabilitation—guided by medical professionals—have yielded improvement. Through perseverance and a regimented daily routine focused on diet, exercise, and cognitive training, she has seen progress in her recovery, although challenges remain.

  The frustration extends beyond the symptoms themselves, as many sufferers face skepticism and disbelief about their condition, Dr. Pannel said.

  “As a psychiatrist, I’m used to stigma surrounding mental health with depression and anxiety, but I’m even starting to see stigma surrounding long-COVID brain fog where a lot of people aren’t believing that it exists,” she said. “And patients are frustrated because they have all these symptoms, but there’s not a lab test or imaging to prove this is what’s going on.”

  Solid data backs this anecdotal evidence. A 2022 meta-analysis published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia analyzed 27 studies and found that adults recovering from COVID-19 displayed noticeable deficits in executive functions, attention, and memory up to seven months after infection.

  This systematic review, including 2,049 people, shed light on a marked decrease in cognitive scores among those with no prior history of impairment. Determining the underlying causes of cognitive decline following COVID-19 remains a complex and unfolding area of study.

  “Often underlying their cognitive decline is chronic inflammatory response syndrome, a complex illness in which individuals process biotoxins differently,” Dr. Nikogosian said.

  “Biotoxins from a variety of sources, like mold, pathological gut microbes, Lyme disease, and chronic infections, can lead to chronic inflammation for some individuals.”

  This presents a challenge, he said, “when these individuals contract COVID, they struggle to clear the virus, resulting in symptoms such as brain fog.”

  Dr. Nikogosian said that treating long COVID isn’t as simple as finding a quick-fix solution. Instead, the underlying health issues must be addressed with care and consideration, reflecting the multifaceted nature of the disease.

  Cognitive Decline: Virus or Vaccine?

  The intersection of cognitive decline and COVID-19 extends beyond the virus, touching on a growing concern: the potential relationship between cognitive decline and COVID-19 vaccinations. Multiple case studies have identified cognitive decline in individuals following receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine. This phenomenon, labeled functional neurological disorder, has created a parallel dialogue about the cognitive impacts of both the virus and the vaccine.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 19:00

• Russia Destroys Grain Silos Along Danube As US Pushes For 'Alternative' Ukraine Shipping Routes
  Russia Destroys Grain Silos Along Danube As US Pushes For ‘Alternative’ Ukraine Shipping Routes

  The United States is actively pursuing ways for Ukraine to boost its grain exports via alternative routes after Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal this summer. This involves NATO-member Romania, and presents the increasingly dangerous prospect of Russia and a NATO country entering potential clashes.

  The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the US has been holding talks with Turkey, Ukraine, and its neighbors about exporting up to four million tons of grain a month by October, using the Danube River route.

  

  “Much of the grain would be sent down the river and via the Black Sea to nearby ports in Romania and shipped onward to other destinations,” wrote the WSJ. “Though slower and more expensive, the route would work as an alternative to a Black Sea shipping corridor established last year under an agreement with Russia, Turkey and the United Nations.”

  Ukraine has also been having to rely on slower and much more expensive, logistically challenging overland routes for more and more of its foodstuff exports, while some 50% of its exports must still flow through Black Sea routes.

  But any attempt to ramp up sea routes is more dangerous, given Russia has over several weeks increased its attacks on Ukrainian ports and event sent commandos to board a shipping vessel in the Black Sea which was headed toward Romania…

  🇷🇺Russians fire warning shots and board cargo ship MV Sukra Okan heading for Romanian port in the Black Sea.

  Video shows the boarding party being recovered by Ka-29 helicopter (based on OPV RFS Vasily Bykov)

  Via @WarMonitors https://t.co/TlOMqzMYJ3 pic.twitter.com/SXQJ5eZWhT

  — Navy Lookout (@NavyLookout) August 14, 2023

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  An unnamed US official said the Biden administration “is considering all potential options, including military solutions” to ensure the safety of ships entering Ukraine’s ports on the Danube. As part of the mulled plan, vessels would leave Ukrainian ports and enter Romanian ones and from there be shipped to outside destinations.

  However, the Russian naval intercept incident of an allegedly ‘unauthorized’ Turkish vessel bound for Romania and Ukraine highlights that Moscow’s readiness to crackdown on any ‘alternate’ routes for Ukrainian grain. Its forces have even bombed grain silos on the Danube, provocatively close to NATO-member Romania’s territory.

  There has been yet another attack Wednesday, per the AP: “Russian drones pounded grain storage facilities and ports along the Danube River that Ukraine has increasingly relied on as an alternative transport route to Europe, after Moscow broke off a key wartime shipping agreement using the Black Sea,” the report says.

  

  “At the same time, a loaded container ship stranded at the Black Sea port of Odesa since Russia’s full-scale invasion more than 17 months ago set sail along a temporary corridor established by Ukraine for merchant shipping,” it added. Thus it appears there are some early attempts in motion at freeing up an alternate corridor. But Russia’s military is continuing to bring the pressure.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 18:40

• Thanks To Government, Maui's Lahaina Fire Became A Deadly Conflagration
  Thanks To Government, Maui’s Lahaina Fire Became A Deadly Conflagration

  Authored by Connor O’Keefe via The Mises Institute,

  The most destructive natural disasters are never 100 percent natural. Human choices, land use, and government policies play a big role in how harmful hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flash floods, and wildfires are to the affected communities.

  And after catastrophes like the wildfire that destroyed much of the historic Hawaiian city of Lahaina last week, it’s worth taking stock of how much of the disaster was the result not of natural or accidental factors, but of policies and institutions that can be changed.

  Though details are still emerging, it’s becoming clear that government failure did much to make this disaster worse – and possibly even started it.

  

  While the so-called experts are blaming climate change—and in the process demanding that government grab even more power and authority ostensibly to someday give us better weather—the destructiveness this fire was the product of an all-powerful and all-incompetent régime.

  The specific origins of the fire are still being investigated, but there is much we already know. The city of Lahaina sits on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. It is surrounded by grassland, much of which the state owns.

  Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.

  Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.

  The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.

  But on the morning of August 8, as winds hammered the old wooden utility poles, this highly electrified area in the dry grasses above Lahaina was quickly becoming dangerous. Yet no formal procedure was in place to shut off sections of the grid in the face of severe fire risks. As a result, twenty-nine fully energized poles fell across West Maui that day.

  But even with downed poles in the way, the first firefighters on the scene met with some early success. Around 9 a.m., the county fire department declared the fire “100 percent contained.” But the message to residents included an ominous request. The county’s water pumps were powered by electricity, much of which was frantically being turned off to deactivate the downed lines. Officials asked the public to conserve water to preserve water pressure.

  But by midafternoon, a flare-up brought the fire back to life on the Lahaina Bypass, a major road that heads straight into town.

  The flames moved swiftly into Lahaina at 4:46 p.m., one minute after the county government finally sent out an alert to warn the city’s population, largely without power, about the flare-up that had occurred over an hour before.

  To make matters worse, county officials failed to activate emergency sirens, leaving residents unaware of the danger bearing down on them.

  And as firefighters heroically rushed toward the flames to try and save their community, they found that there was little to no water pressure in the fire hydrants, which quickly ran dry.

  With a single backed-up highway leading out of the city, many residents of Lahaina had nowhere to go. Some scrambled into the ocean to escape the smoke and flames. But in the end, many couldn’t get out. At least ninety-nine people have been confirmed dead at this writing, making this the deadliest American wildfire in over a century. In addition, 2,207 buildings were destroyed, with property damages expected to reach $5.5 billion.

  To review, a power company shielded from competition by the state placed electrical infrastructure among highly flammable state-owned grass fields above the historic city of Lahaina, which the government was twice warned were highly susceptible to fire. And once a fire broke out, a combination of defective water infrastructure, terrible communication by government officials, and only one escape route doomed the people of Lahaina to the worst wildfire experienced in this country in over a hundred years.

  This was government failure through and through. In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises explains that on the market, the ultimate source of profits is foresight—the ability to anticipate future conditions. And economic loss occurs when market actors fail to anticipate the future. This possibility of riches if one succeeds, and the guarantee of painful failures if one doesn’t, forces producers and service providers on the market to constantly weigh risks and opportunities.

  Government immunizes itself from the profit and loss system, and therefore from much of the need to weigh risk. Sure, some county officials may resign because of this. And the share price of Hawaiian Electric may dip. But the people of Maui will be forced to keep compensating the very organizations that have failed them. And there’s nothing natural about that disaster.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 18:20

• World's Largest Investor Starts Cutting Tech Exposure, Blames Global Warming For People Not Working In "The Middle Of The Day"
  World’s Largest Investor Starts Cutting Tech Exposure, Blames Global Warming For People Not Working In “The Middle Of The Day”

  Over the years we have heard and read a lot of very, very stupid things when it comes to “global cooling” pardon “global warming”, climate change, ESG, and so on, but this may be the dumbest.

  First the good news: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund – the world’s single largest stock market investor with $1.4 trillion in assets under management – made a mindblowing profit of $143 billion for the first half of the year, thanks to the growth of U.S tech companies (read the AI craze).

  It helps that tech is the largest sector among the fund’s equity investments, representing 11.9% of the its total value at end-2022; it also helps that the fund’s holdings in tech companies jumped by nearly 39% in the period, with Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia as the stocks contributing the most, and helping to drive the fund’s 10% overall return.

  Now the not so good news: even the Norwegians were shocked by this performance. CEO Nicolai Tangen told Reuters the strong return came as a surprise for such a large fund given “a pretty worrisome backdrop”, with high inflation and geopolitical tensions. It was partly due to AI becoming mainstream from previously being seen as “something with potential”, said deputy CEO Trond Grande. “Now we are seeing that potential being realized and that is being priced in the stock markets of these companies,” Grande told Reuters.

  Asked whether he was concerned about a possible crash in tech stocks, Tangen said: “We are always conscious and worried about the biggest exposures of the fund. Now they are in the tech sector. Therefore we monitor that very thoroughly.”

  And realizing that the gains won’t last indefinitely, CEO Tangen told a press conference on Wednesday that the world’s largest sovereign wealth has recently reduced its overweight investment position in the abovementioned major tech firm, something which the market has clearly not noticed yet judging by the continued meltup in the likes of Nvidia.

  There is another reason why Norway is starting to offload tech exposure: looking ahead, the CEO said the fund expects it will be difficult to reduce inflation worldwide, not least due to a new phenomenon – inflation fueled by climate change.

  Which brings us to the really dumb news: the CEO said that global warming is lowering food harvests, and thus increasing food prices, and – wait for it – reducing productivity since some workers are unable to work in the middle of the day in some countries.

  “The new thing here is the link between climate (change) and inflation and therefore between climate and financial markets,” Tangen said.

  That’s right: the Nordic folks finally discovered… siesta.

  

  But hey, if that’s the black swan that it will take to spook markets which will now rush to frontrun the fund which owns on average 1.5% of all listed stocks worldwide, so be it.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• West Alarmed As Putin Has Begun To Mediate Niger Coup Crisis
  West Alarmed As Putin Has Begun To Mediate Niger Coup Crisis

  Western nations are alarmed at the prospect of Russia deepening its presence and influence in West and Central Africa, particularly following the tumult in Niger late last month, which culminated in the July 26 coup against democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum.

  The West-friendly group of surrounding nations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has since threatened military intervention towards restoring Bazoum, and there have been persistent rumors that France is encouraging concrete action. Mali has played a key role in all of this given it stands on the other side, and is dead set against any interference in Niger, with fresh reports that Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone. 

  

  Goita announced that in the Tuesday call Putin “stressed the importance of a peaceful resolution of the situation for a more stable Sahel” – and the sides confirmed it was initiated by Mali.

  According to a Kremlin statement, “The parties specifically focused on the current situation in the Sahara-Sahel region and emphasised, in particular, the importance of settling the situation in the Republic of Niger solely through peaceful political and diplomatic means.”

  Putin separately told Tuesday’s Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) that “The countries of the Sahara-Sahel region, such as the Central African Republic and Mali, were under direct attack from numerous terrorist groups after the US and its allies unleashed aggression against Libya, which led to the collapse of the Libyan state.”

  The handful of regional supporters of the Niger junta have emphasized the same point of late…

  “NATO’s unilateral intervention in Libya led to the spread of terrorism in the Sahel and West Africa.”

  It’s one of the key complaints of the military coup plotters who’ve overthrown governments in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger that had cooperated closely with the US and France. pic.twitter.com/X8kNURWeyC

  — Seth Harp (@sethharpesq) August 9, 2023

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  Niger is known for having uranium, but it is the significant gold and oil resources which likely of greater interest to the large powers of Russia, China, the US, and Europe.

  The West’s concern is likely to grow given Putin’s mediation with Mali’s leadership. Russia’s Wagner Group also has an extensive presence across the African continent, having long had security and counterterrorism contracts with multiple governments. 

  So far, there’s still not been openness to negotiations on the part of the Niger coup leaders and Bazoum remains under hose arrest. Per the latest update in Reuters, “West African army chiefs will meet on Thursday and Friday in Ghana to prepare for a possible military intervention, which the main regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has threatened to launch if diplomacy fails.”

  Any external military intervention could spark a broader war across the Sahel, and would also be seized upon by regional terrorist groups. In this scenario Wagner fighters would likely enter the fray.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 02:45

• AfD Bavaria Chief Beaten Up In Organised Migrant Attack
  AfD Bavaria Chief Beaten Up In Organised Migrant Attack

  Authored by Thomas O’Reilly via EuropeanConservative.com,

  The chairman of the AfD in the Bavarian district of Augsburg and candidate for state legislature is nursing severe wounds after being set upon in what he describes as a politically motivated attack by migrants.

  

  Andreas Jurca was returning home with a party colleague Sunday when he was approached by a group of foreign males who asked him if he was the AfD candidate featured on nearby posters. Before he could answer, Jurca was punched and kicked to the ground with shouts of “f*****g Nazi.” His party colleague was also assaulted.

  After the altercation, Jurca, who is seventh on the AfD’s candidate list for state elections, was rushed to the hospital where his condition was referred to as stable Monday morning. In a post-attack statement, Jurca confirmed that the perpetrators of the attack were indeed of foreign origin. In his own words, “I don’t mean Spaniards or Italians.”

  Photos appearing on social media show Jurca with two black eyes as well as facial lacerations. He is currently under observation in hospital due to the head injuries he endured. In an interview with the populist publication Deutschland-Kurier magazine, Jurca said that the assault would only make him redouble his political efforts undeterred.

  De #AFD staat op flinke winst maar wordt in Duitsland door o.a de zittende coalitie en media gedemoniseerd.

  ‘AFD politicus Andreas Jurca in de nacht van vrijdag op zaterdag 12 augustus door migranten afgeranseld’

  Complete interview Deutschland Kurier: https://t.co/Al351cuqWy pic.twitter.com/pfOkfZmudB

  — Marc van der Vegt (@VegtDoor) August 14, 2023

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  Acts of violence by left-wing anti fascist groups are a regular occurrence for AfD representatives, as is state-backed harassment from domestic intelligence services, the BfV, which formally placed the party under surveillance last year.

  The German political establishment is struggling both to comprehend and to deal with the continued rise of the AfD, which now sits as the country’s second most popular party. This puts the party in a position to potentially break the sacrosanct ‘firewall’ that prohibits mainstream parties from cooperating with them at a national or municipal level.

  German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued a thinly veiled warning in favour of banning the populist party at a speech, a move that has been echoed by Berlin head of intelligence Thomas Haldenwang, and even Der Spiegel, which published an editorial endorsing proscribing the AfD.

  Many observers have noted an ideological shift to the anti-Altanticist right within the AfD. This was shown by its recent conference in Magdeburg as the party comes under the de facto leadership of Björn Höcke and the East German Thuringian branch of the party.

  The attack on Andreas Jurca was not the first physical attack on an AfD official. In 2019, the party’s regional leader in Bremen was beaten within an inch of his life by masked left-wing antifascists. Violent demonstrations outside AfD events have also been common.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/16/2023 – 02:00

• 'Raped And Pillaged': Maui Fire Survivors Describe Nighttime Looting, Botched Supply Drops
  ‘Raped And Pillaged’: Maui Fire Survivors Describe Nighttime Looting, Botched Supply Drops

  The tragic disaster that we just witnessed in Hawaii should break all of our hearts. 

  The death count just keeps going up, and it is being reported that these were the deadliest fires in the United States in more than 100 years. 

  In addition, Hawaii Governor Josh Green is telling us that this was actually “the largest natural disaster” that his state has ever experienced.  More than 2,700 structures have been burned down in Lahaina alone, and it is being estimated that the value of the property that has been destroyed is over 5 billion dollars. 

  But, there are some stories that are not making the evening news.

  

  As Insider.com reports, Maui residents are becoming increasingly desperate for local leadership to take control of the emergency response to the catastrophic fires that leveled parts of the Hawaiian island and left at least 93 dead.

  While rescue crews made their way across the island with water, food, and first aid, locals told Insider supply drops were being rerouted and anguished residents were taking matters into their own hands.

  “There’s some police presence. There’s some small military presence, but at night, people are being robbed at gunpoint,” Matt Robb, a co-owner of a Lāhainā bar called The Dirty Monkey, told Insider.

  “People are raped and pillaged. I mean, they’re going through houses – and then by day, it’s hunky-dory. So where is the support? I don’t think our government and our leaders, at this point, know how to handle this or what to do.”

  The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported a riot nearly broke out between police and about 100 residents after officers closed off access to a highway leading to Lāhainā, one of the hardest-hit areas on the island, preventing people from returning home to gather items that could be salvaged.

  Members of the staff of The Dirty Monkey said they had been coordinating with local authorities and community members, organizing and trying to direct supply drops and shipments of essential medications such as insulin to families in need.

  Kami Irwin, a Maui resident helping to coordinate relief efforts at the Maui Brewing Co. location in Kihei, told Insider that locals were working around the clock, forgoing sleep and creating neighborhood patrols to help keep each other safe and find essentials such as clean drinking water and medications.

  

  Residents told Insider they believed the mayor, who has offered limited public comments regarding the tragedy, had floundered in response to the emergency.

  “I think it’s the mayor’s fault,” Aivazian said.

  “If he would’ve asked, they had Marines, Coast Guards sitting there waiting, ready to go, and he didn’t send them over. Why wouldn’t the feds send them over? The mayor didn’t ask and the governor didn’t push. I mean, what the hell are they doing over there? They’re just hanging out at the beach.”

  How/why is this happening?!

  

  We have never seen anything quite like this before, and, as Michael Snyder remarks, the following are 8 questions that we should all be asking about the fires in Hawaii right now…

  #1 How did the fires start?  Governor Green is convinced that they were caused by a confluence of factors.  Do you buy his explanation?…

  Echoing wildfire experts, Gov. Green said Friday that he believes a confluence of weather conditions contributed to the ignition and spread of the blazes.

  “It is a product, in my estimation, of certainly global warming combined with drought, combined with a super storm, where we had a hurricane offshore several hundred miles, still generating large winds,” Green told CNN.

  #2 How did the fires spread so rapidly?  According to multiple news reports, people were literally jumping into the ocean to escape because the fires were moving so rapidly…

  With fires raging on Maui, two men felt there was nowhere to escape the flames – except for the ocean.

  The two men live in Lahaina, a historic part of Maui loved by tourists, which appears to be heavily damaged by this week’s raging fire. They described a terrifying scene as they evacuated from Prison Street, right in the heart of Lahaina.

  “I saw a couple people just running, I heard screams out of hell … explosions. It felt like we were in hell, it really was. It was just indescribable,” one of the men told Nexstar’s KHON.

  #3 How did a fire that was supposedly “out” end up causing the most damage of all?  According to  Governor Green, the Lahaina fire was supposedly given new energy “by far-off Hurricane Dora”…

  After first erupting early Tuesday, the fire was initially deemed to be out, but winds whipped up by far-off Hurricane Dora that reached up to 81 mph fanned the flames and spurred the blaze to travel about 1 mile every minute, Green said.

  #4 According to U.S. Representative Jill Tokuda, the alarm system that is supposed to warn residents that a disaster is happening appears to have failed.  How is that possible?…

  We know everybody who’s ever lived in Hawaii knows the warning sirens. It goes off once a month at the beginning of the month at 12 noon, and it blares and if it doesn’t, it gets fixed, because that is our first line of defense. Unfortunately, in this situation, sadly, tragically in this situation, those sirens likely did not go off. The warning signals that were on cell phones, we had no cell coverage or electricity in some of these areas. And the reality is with those warning signs, it tells all of us to turn on the television or look at our phones or turn on the radio. The reality is was how fast this burn was. And you could see it in the videos that survivors were showing me. You could see it in the wreckage. If you turned on your phone, you turned on a radio, if you even could. Remember things were out at that particular point, you would not know what the crisis was.

  #5 Why are emergency supplies not getting to the people that desperately need them?  It is being reported that a “telecommunications blackout” has been one of the factors that has been hampering relief efforts…

  But an enduring telecommunications blackout hampered government and grassroots efforts to distribute those supplies in the worst-affected neighborhoods, especially for an unknown number of survivors waiting out the aftermath in the few buildings still standing in the historic town of Lahaina and neighborhoods on the outskirts.

  With their vehicles burned to a crisp, some sheltering at home have no way to drive to distribution centers miles away, or their cars have run out of gas. Others simply don’t know where to go for help. Toxic fumes and downed power lines with live wires make venturing outdoors dangerous.

  #6 Why are people that have just had their homes burned down in the fires already being bombarded with calls with offers to purchase their properties?

  The vultures are circling, and it appears that there are some people out there that are extremely interested in scooping up land inexpensively.

  #7 Why has the FBI moved a “mobile refrigerated morgue” into Lahaina?…

  A mobile refrigerated morgue has been brought to the devastated town of Lahaina as Maui officials continue their search for victims of the worst U.S. wildfire in 100 years.

  The death toll on Sunday rose to 96, but Hawaii officials said it was likely to rise significantly.

  John Pelletier, the Maui police chief, said only three percent of Lahaina – home to more than 9,000 people – had been searched so far.

  #8 Why is Joe Biden lounging on the beach while all of this is happening?…

  Outraged Americans blasting President @JoeBiden after he said ‘no comment’ when asked about the catastrophic Maui wildfire, now the deadliest US blaze in over a century. Despite the death toll climbing to about 100, Americans were outraged that Biden remained sunbathing on a beach near his Delaware home.

  How can Biden be sunbathing on a beach while such tragedy is unfolding in Hawaii?

  I don’t understand it.

  This country has experienced so many great tragedies over the past few years, and it is inevitable that there will be many more in the years ahead.

  When disaster strikes, we need a leader in the White House that knows how to act appropriately.

  Those that have lost so much in these fires need our support and our prayers.

  Hawaii will never be quite the same after this, and the people of the state deserve to get some answers to the very pressing questions that they are asking right now.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 23:45

• Oakland's 'Soros' DA Faces Chopping Block As Recall Effort Kicks Off
  Oakland’s ‘Soros’ DA Faces Chopping Block As Recall Effort Kicks Off

  Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, whose jurisdiction includes the crime-ridden city of Oakland, has become the latest ‘Soros’-funded DA to face a recall, after several groups have called out the rampant violence and lack of response.

  

  A recap of recent headlines:

  • “Failed Leadership” – Oakland, CA Faces “State Of Emergency” As Consequence-Free Crime Soars
  • Oakland NAACP Begs For More Cops Amid ‘Heyday For Criminals’
  • Oakland Fails Women As Staggering Crime Surge Goes Unpunished
  • Mayhem Unfolds In Oakland As Soros-Backed DA Fails To Enforce Law And Order

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

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

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

  The recall, organizers say, is a community-led effort comprised of “residents, business owners, survivors, and family members of victims that demand justice and a return of law and order to Alameda County.”

  DA Price has addressed the recall effort and likened its organizers to those that stormed the U.S. Capitol to try and prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election.

  “In what appears to be a page out of the January 6th playbook, outside special interest groups, supported by the Republican Party, are trying to seize control from local voters because they refuse to accept the results of a legitimate, democratic election to remove the status quo,” said Price’s campaign in a statement.

  “So far, the Soros PAC has spent more than $559,000 to help [Oakland DA] Price” who “said she was drawn into the race by what she sees as the ‘absolutely outrageous’ over-prosecution of young blacks” pic.twitter.com/FmvuxkMPFw

  — Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) May 6, 2023

  Boy did Soros get his money’s worth! 

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 23:25

• Doctors Sound The Alarm Over Latest Obesity Drug Risk
  Doctors Sound The Alarm Over Latest Obesity Drug Risk

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

  Doctors are warning popular drugs taken for weight loss, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, may include the risk of life-threatening complications under anesthesia.

  

  Patients who take drugs like Wegovy or Ozempic for weight loss may face life-threatening complications if they need surgery or other procedures that require empty stomachs for anesthesia.

  This summer’s guidance to halt the medication for up to a week may not go far enough, officials said. Some anesthesiologists in the United States and Canada say they’ve seen growing numbers of patients on the weight-loss drugs who inhaled food and liquid into their lungs while sedated because their stomachs were still full—even after following standard instructions to stop eating for six to eight hours in advance.

  The drugs can slow digestion so much that it puts patients at increased risk for the problem, called pulmonary aspiration, which can cause dangerous lung damage, infections, and even death, said Dr. Ion Hobai, an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

  “This is such a serious sort of potential complication that everybody who takes this drug should know about it,” Mr. Hobai, who was among the first to flag the issue, told The Associated Press this week.

  Mr. Hobai suggested that individuals taking the drugs first tell their doctors before sedation and discuss the risk profile. “If you’re taking this drug and you need an operation, you will need to have some extra precautions,” he said.

  It’s not clear how many patients taking the anti-obesity drugs may be affected by the issue. But because the consequences can be so dire, Mr. Hobai and a group of colleagues decided to speak out. Writing in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia in mid-July, they called for the drug to be stopped for even longer—about three weeks before sedation.

  That accounts for how long semaglutide, the active medication in Ozempic and Wegovy, remains in the body, said Dr. Philip Jones, a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist who is also deputy editor-in-chief of the journal. “When 90 percent of it is gone, which is after three weeks, hopefully everything should go back to normal,” Mr. Jones said.

  Several weeks ago, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) said that people who take GLP-1 agonists like Wegovy or Ozempic every day should stop taking the drugs on the day of their surgery.

  That guidance was disseminated after “many reports from medical literature and anesthesia leaders about people who fasted but still vomited either going to sleep or waking up from anesthesia,” said Dr. Ronald L. Harter, the incoming president of the ASA and a professor of anesthesiology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

  “This was very concerning and something we needed to address and communicate to the public like we are doing right now,” Mr. Harter told ABC.

  Anesthesiologists have long discouraged patients from drinking or eating before surgery to ensure the stomach is empty to reduce the chance of vomiting during the procedure.

  “This is really a fairly unique situation where you have a relatively new class of drugs that are very, very quickly being taken up by and are being used by a fairly significant portion of the population,” Mr. Harter said. “One of the potential side effects of these medications is to delay gastric emptying, which has a unique risk or potential for aspiration for patients undergoing anesthesia. It was a combination of all those factors that really prompted us to give guidance, really to our anesthesiologist and to our patients who are on these medications.”

  The group stated that if the patient is having symptoms such as vomiting, bloating, abdominal pain, or nausea, doctors should consider delaying the surgical procedure.

  Several weeks ago, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it was investigating a connection between Ozempic and Wegovy and suicidal thoughts. About 150 reports of possible cases of self-injury among people taking semaglutide GLP-1 agonists were flagged.

  Sales of semaglutide products—particularly Ozempic—have soared in the past few years after the drug was shown to spur fast and significant weight loss. The drugs manufactured by Novo Nordisk include the brands Ozempic and Rybelsus, which are approved to treat diabetes, and Wegovy, which is approved by the FDA to treat obesity.

  Earlier this year, Novo Nordisk promised to boost its supply of Wegovy. However, in the company’s first-quarter earnings report, the firm said that it would “temporarily” reduce U.S. supply.

  Demand for the medications has outstripped supply. As of May, Ozempic and Wegovy remain on the FDA’s list of drug shortages. When drugs are in short supply, compounding pharmacies are permitted to produce versions of those medications.

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2014 approved semaglutide for weight loss among overweight or obese individuals with high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol.

  The Epoch Times has contacted Novo Nordisk for comment on Wednesday.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 23:05

• The US States Losing & Gaining Population The Fastest
  The US States Losing & Gaining Population The Fastest

  Florida and Idaho are America’s fastest-growing states, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Their populations increased by 1.9 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, causing them to rise to 22.2 million and 1.9 million from July 2021 to June 2022.

  The two are followed by South Carolina, Texas and South Dakota. While Texas is seeing both a high number of births and high levels of national and international migration, domestic movement of people has been a major factor for Idaho, South Carolina and South Dakota to achieve population growth. In Florida, the state with the largest net birth deficit, it has been even more crucial (while aided by international migration).

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, over the course of the pandemic, more states started to lose people due to excess deaths and new patterns of out-migration.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  18 U.S. states decreased in population – some only slightly – between the 2021 and 2022, up from ten in between 2018 and 2019.

  While states in the West or South had been attractive for new residents since before the pandemic because of low cost of living, low taxes and lower prices of housing, coastal states saw white color workers unmoored from their places of residence by remote work regimen seek out new (and often cheaper) living arrangements. Lower levels of Covid-19 restrictions in the South’s or West’s red states have also been named as a factor for some to move there.

  Even before the coronavirus pandemic, New York had been among the states losing population – then due to a decline in immigration that used to make up for people moving away.

  Over the course of the pandemic, even more people famously left the state, causing a deficit of -0.9 percent (previously -0.4 percent).

  Populous states like California, Pennsylvania and Ohio only started to decrease in population during the pandemic, which coincided with increased population growth in the American South and West.

  Texas, which previously grew by 1.3 percent, now increased in population by 1.6 percent – while Florida even stepped up from 1.1 percent to 1.9 percent.

  Population winners in the West were Montana (0.8 percent growth to 1.5 percent) and South Dakota (0.7 percent to 1.5 percent).

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 22:45

• Middle Class Meltdown: Thanks To The Reckless Policies Of Our Leaders, 'Average' Americans Are In Huge Trouble
  Middle Class Meltdown: Thanks To The Reckless Policies Of Our Leaders, ‘Average’ Americans Are In Huge Trouble

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  The middle class in the U.S. has been steadily shrinking for decades, but in recent years our leaders have greatly accelerated that process.  In 2020, 2021 and 2022 they absolutely flooded the system with new money, and almost all of that new money went into the pockets of the wealthy.  The gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is now larger than ever, and that isn’t a good thing for our society.  Even if you are still making as much money as you did a few years ago, you have lost a lot of ground financially, because the cost of living has been rapidly eating away at our standard of living.  As I covered the other day, household income in the United States has declined by 9.1 percent since April 2020 after adjusting for inflation and taxes.  In other words, the middle class is a whole lot smaller than it was in April 2020, and it continues to get smaller with each passing day.

  

  According to Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi, on average Americans are now spending “$709 more per month on everyday goods and services than they did two years ago”…

  Americans are spending $709 more per month on everyday goods and services than they did two years ago, according to Moody’s Analytics.

  Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi made the statement Friday on X, formerly known as Twitter, as part of his analysis of July’s consumer price index report.

  Is the rising cost of living causing financial stress for you?

  If it is, you are definitely not alone.

  The wealthy are doing just fine for the moment, but inflation has caused a lot of pain for the vast majority of the rest of us.

  Just paying for a place to live has become incredibly oppressive.  Personally, I was astounded to learn that the average rent in Manhattan has now reached $5,588 per month…

  New Yorkers are feeling the squeeze as rents hit a new high.

  Rent in Manhattan soared to a record-high average of $5,588 in July, up 9% from 2022.

  It’s hurting tenants struggling to find apartments they can afford. One apartment hunter said she can’t find a studio to suit her work-from-home needs for less than $5,000.

  Who can afford that?

  Only the wealthy.

  Of course the truth is that rents have been soaring all over the country.

  It is being reported that the nationwide average rent-to-income ratio has exceeded 30 percent for the past two years.

  This is the very first time in the entire history of our country that this has ever happened.

  With rents being so high, a lot of Americans are being forced out into the streets.

  According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States “has seen a record increase in homeless people this year”.

  Please let that statement sink in for a moment.

  So far in 2023, the number of homeless people in the U.S. is up 11 percent from last year.

  That is the biggest jump that the government has ever recorded.

  Not even during the recession of 2008 and 2009 did we see anything like this.

  Unfortunately, the outlook for the months ahead is not promising, because it looks like the cost of living is going to continue to rise at a brisk pace.

  According to CNN, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has nearly reached 4 dollars a gallon…

  Pump prices are creeping towards $4 a gallon nationally.

  The national average for regular gasoline hit $3.85 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s the highest level since October 19 and comes just weeks ahead of Labor Day weekend when millions of Americans will hit the roads.

  I remember the days when I could fill up my vehicle for less than 20 dollars.

  But the other day I spent 70 dollars at the gas station and that didn’t even fill the tank.

  And we are being warned that U.S. consumers are going to have a lot less discretionary income in the months ahead as tens of millions are forced to start making payments on student loans again…

  For more than three years, federal student loan borrowers have not had to make monthly payments. But that pandemic-era pause is coming to an end this fall, setting up a financial shock for millions of Americans and the big-name stores, such as Target, Nike, Under Armour and Gap, where they shop.

  About 44 million borrowers in the U.S. were affected by the payment pause, which initially began in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden administration extended the pause for the eighth time in November but will not do so again as part of the bipartisan debt ceiling deal approved by Congress.

  More than 60 percent of all Americans are already living paycheck to paycheck, and many are increasingly turning to debt in order to make ends meet.

  In fact, total credit card debt now exceeds the one trillion dollar mark for the first time ever, and that is not a good sign at all.

  Also, an increasing number of Americans are now dipping into their 401(K) plans…

  When father-of-two Ivan Marusic lost his job overnight in 2020, he was left panicking about how he would cover his mortgage.

  It prompted the 35-year-old, from Texas, to do something he never thought he would: withdraw $20,000 from his 401(K). It is a decision he is still paying for now.

  ‘I was really hesitant to do it because I knew it would set me back financially in the long run. But I didn’t have any other options. I had already maxed out my credit card and I was running out of money,’ Marusic, a tech worker who has since founded the website Game Taco, told Dailymail.com

  We really are witnessing a middle class meltdown.

  I have been warning about this trend in my books for years, and now the evisceration of the middle class has greatly accelerated.

  I wish that I could tell you that there is economic hope on the horizon.

  But I can’t do that, because our leaders continue to make incredibly self-destructive decisions which are going to cause immense economic pain for the entire country.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 22:25

• Pandora Wins "Massive" Market Share As Lab-Grown Diamonds In Hot Demand
  Pandora Wins “Massive” Market Share As Lab-Grown Diamonds In Hot Demand

  Pandora, the world’s largest jewelry brand, upgraded its full-year revenue outlook following a solid second-quarter earnings report. As the industry faces a contraction, the Danish jewelry giant is capturing a significant market share due primarily to the soaring demand for its lab-grown diamonds. 

  “Given our solid performance so far, our updated guidance now sees another year of positive organic growth,” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik wrote in a statement. 

  Pandora updated its full-year projections, anticipating an organic sales growth of 2% to 5%, compared to the previous estimate of -2% to 3%. Before today’s announcement, Wall Street analysts were forecasting 3% sales growth for the year based on a survey provided by the company.

  Lacik told Bloomberg in a phone interview that the company is winning a “massive” market share this year as it grows amid mounting macroeconomic uncertainty and an industry in contraction. 

  Lacik said, “We’re building market share in a very tough environment, which just shows that the brand is growing stronger and stronger all the time.” 

  He said, “Pandora is back to growth,” the plan is to introduce new collections with lab-made diamonds to all the company’s top markets.

  Even though lab-created stones made up less than 1% of the revenue in the first half, these cheaper alternatives to mined gems represented Pandora’s fastest-growing segment. 

  Hot demand for synthetic stones is likely due to thrifty consumers who no longer can afford the real thing. 

  

  Here are the earnings highlights from the second quarter:

  • Ebit before significant items DKK1.19 billion, estimate DKK1.17 billion

  • Revenue DKK5.89 billion, estimate DKK5.73 billion

  • Organic revenue +5%, estimate +3.06%

  • Net income DKK778 million, estimate DKK819.8 million

  • Ebitda DKK1.69 billion, estimate DKK1.7 billion

  And full-year:

  • Sees organic revenue +2% to +5%, saw -2% to +3%, estimate +3.08% (Bloomberg Consensus)

  •  Still sees adjusted Ebit margin about 25%, estimate 25.6%

  Analysts were overwhelmingly pleased with the results, with Jefferies highlighting the ability to navigate the challenging US market. 

  Here’s more commentary from analysts (courtesy of Bloomberg):

  RBC Capital Markets, Piral Dadhania (underperform)

  • Pandora posted better-than-expected results, with revenue and gross margin coming ahead of expectations

  • Dadhania sees “modest” consensus earnings upgrades

   Jefferies, Frederick Wild (hold)

  • Results show Pandora is navigating a difficult US market “surprisingly well”

  • Expects debate to stay focused on resilient organic growth dynamics against the uncertainty inherent in a margin guidance that so heavily relies on 4Q inflection

  • “But the fact remains the stock has managed to navigate challenges in key markets relatively well, even as peers have struggled”

  Bloomberg Intelligence, Deborah Aitken and Andrea Ferdinando Leggieri

  • “Pandora’s upgraded 2023 organic-growth outlook to 2-5% could still be cautious given its 2Q revenue beat and accelerated trading in 3Q to date”

  Shares of Pandora in Copenhagen are flat after the earnings release. Shares have rebounded in the last year after peaking around DKK 937 in late 2021. 

  

  Lab-grown diamonds are gaining popularity, a reflection of a more budget-conscious consumer.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 22:05

• With China's Economy On "Verge Of Collapse", PBOC Central Banker Calls For Helicopter Money
  With China’s Economy On “Verge Of Collapse”, PBOC Central Banker Calls For Helicopter Money

  As Bloomberg’s Garfield Reynolds writes in the aftermath of last night’s unexpected Chinese rate cut, while the nation’s economic struggles were (finally) severe enough for the authorities to respond with their biggest interest-rate cut since the pandemic, it will be nowhere near powerful enough to help spark a turnaround.

  For a start, Reynolds writes, that scope “is rather less impressive when you realize the reduction in the rate on one-year PBOC loans — or medium-term lending facility — was all of 15 basis points. Most central banks faced with the sort of slowdown China is facing might well decide to cut by three times as much or more.”

  The real difficulty for China is that previous reductions haven’t done all that much to galvanize lending in order to stimulate activity; after all as we have discussed previously, one can’t fix a lack of demand problem with more supply (one can , however, create asset bubbles).

  Furthermore, as we observed on Sunday, China’s new loans tumbled in July to the lowest since 2009…

  

  …. and the PBOC’s ever-increasing interest-rate benchmarks were all at multi-year lows even before this month’s reduction.

  

  Part of the reason for the lack of demand is the ongoing woes in the key property sector, though the situation also underscores concerns that China is tipping into a balance-sheet recession in which companies avoid fresh borrowings in order to service and pay down their existing debt.

  As China slides into a Japan-style balance sheet recession and the resulting deflation – as recently discussed by Richard Ku – it is facing even bigger problems than just a garden-variety property and/or debt crisis.

  Indeed, as Rabobank’s Michael Every cites the Economic Observer, a subsidiary of Xinhua News Agency, which published a newsletter titled “Finance Bureau Chiefs in the Past Half Year”, and which concluded that local government finances and the national economy are reportedly “on the verge of collapse, and the thunder will explode at any time.” To be sure, recent events ensure the coming collapse:

  • Country Garden just defaulted;
  • Zhongzhi Enterprise Group missed payments on high-yield investment products;
  • recent bank loan data were terrible;
  • and today saw industrial production 3.7% y-o-y (4.3% expected),
  • retail sales 2.5% y-o-y (vs. 4.0%),
  • fixed asset investment 3.4% y-o-y year-to-date (vs. 3.7%),
  • property sales -8.5% y-o-y year-to-date (vs. -8.1%),
  • and unemployment 5.3% vs. 5.2% (not to mention that youth unemployment which just hit all time highs, will no longer be reported for obvious reasons).

  Summing it up, China “has fallen into a psycho-political funk,” says the FT, as its youth tell Soviet jokes again or say ‘let it rot’, and a high-earning Beijing worker is quoted as saving as much as he can to prepare for a property crash or a move against Taiwan.

  新華社下屬經濟觀察報11日發表通訊“財政局長這半年”，報導了三個地方財政局長今年以來的工作情況，在網上引發熱載，新浪APP用一張圖片為這三個財政局長的工作做了10條歸納,最後總結為:節流很難開源更難,地方財政和國民經濟處於崩潰邊緣,隨時會爆雷. pic.twitter.com/dJgwrXJ33P

  — 高瑜 (@gaoyu200812) August 13, 2023

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  So is there anything that could actually stop the bleeding in China from an economic or market perspective?  Well, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott writes – and agrees with our assessment – the biggest reason why China is imploding in slow-motion is that that, as opposed to rest of world, Chinese authorities never responded with Fiscal transfer into pockets of individuals and businesses who were bled dry during the covid crisis.

  Hence, the one thing that could truly “shock and awe” markets would be outright “helicopter drops” of money direct to households and businesses in order to stimulate DOA Chinese consumption.

  Impossible you say, after all China has nearly 300% debt/gdp… only the terminal economic basket case that is Japan is higher.

  

  Or maybe not: as Bloomberg writes today (see “PBOC Adviser Says China Urgently Needs to Boost Consumption”) Cai Fang, a member of the monetary policy committee at the PBoC, i.e. one of China’s top central bankers, warned that the top priority for policymakers is to stimulate household consumption:

  Cai added in the article posted late Monday on a social media account of the China Finance 40 Forum, one of the nation’s top economic think tanks, that continued unemployment in the wake of the pandemic is crimping household spending and that consumer confidence is expected to weaken without new policies.

  “The most urgent goal now is to stimulate household consumption, and it is necessary to use all reasonable, legally compliant and economic channels to put money in residents’ pockets,” said Cai, 66, one of the most well-known economists in China to focus on demography and labor economics.

  The former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state think tank, joined the PBOC’s policy advisory body in early 2021, and has helped the government map five-year plans for economic and social development. In July, Cai called on officials to reform the household registration system to unleash the consumption potential of the nation’s large pool of migrant workers.

  

  One can almost see why just hours later Beijing halted the publication of China’s youth unemployment data.

  More importantly, however, Cai called for the inevitable helicopter drops to boost household consumption and aid the economic recovery:

  He is among a group of economists who have called for providing direct stimulus to consumers to boost spending, a path that Beijing has so far been unwilling to follow. Earlier this year, Cai said direct stimulus of 4 trillion yuan ($551 billion) paid directly to Chinese households is an option to spur a recovery in consumer spending that has been slowed by weak wage growth during the pandemic.

  And while China can probably pretend it can avoid what’s coming for a few more months, it is now just a matter of time before China joins the rest of the “developed” world in what Michael Hartnett recently called the “era of fiscal excess.”

  

  After all, there is probably a reason why former PBOC governor, Yi Gang, who called for “economic prudence” and was against against massive stimulus, was recently “retired.”

  See Cai’s full post from the China Finance 40 Forum here.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 21:43

• Blackstone's Real Estate Trust Changes President As CRE Markets Crack
  Blackstone’s Real Estate Trust Changes President As CRE Markets Crack

  Blackstone Inc.’s $68 billion real estate trust has been bombarded with nine months of heavy redemption requests while storm clouds gather over commercial real estate markets. The latest sign of bad news from Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) is an announcement from the company that its president will go on nine months of leave. 

  BREIT filed an 8-K filing on Tuesday morning, announcing president A.J. Agarwal “will be taking a continuing education sabbatical beginning September 15, 2023 for nine months, and is stepping down from his role as President and Board member effective August 14, 2023.” 

  Agarwal will be replaced by “Robert Harper, BREIT’s current Head of Asset Management and Head of Blackstone Real Estate Asset Management Americas,” the filing said.

  

  The management change comes as BREIT has been working through redemption requests since last November. Wealthy investors have panicked out of the fund but have only been met with redemption restrictions to prevent massive outflows. 

  Remember when BREIT received a $4 billion bailout cash infusion from the University of California earlier this year?

  • Blackstone’s BREIT Gets $4 Billion ‘Buffett-Style’ Bailout From University Of California

  Late January, Blackstone President Jonathan Gray told Financial Times that BREIT was experiencing a “backlog” of redemption requests. 

  • Blackstone President Says BREIT Still Has “Backlog” Of Redemption Requests

  Redemption requests surged in Spring:

  • Blackstone BREIT Redemption Requests Surge To $4.5 Billion, Only $666 Million Granted
  • Blackstone’s BREIT Suffers Sixth Consecutive Month Of Withdraws As CRE Deteriorates

  And continued this summer:

  • BREIT Hit By Ninth Consecutive Month Of Redemptions; Plans Pivot To AI Data-Centers

  BREIT’s troubles stem from shifts in real estate demand and rising interest rates that have caused rumbles in CRE markets. 

  Taking a “continuing education sabbatical” is a new one… Typically, executives resign citing ‘health reasons’.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 21:25

• History Rejects President Biden's Rejection Of Reaganomics
  History Rejects President Biden’s Rejection Of Reaganomics

  Authored by Bruce Thompson via RealClearMarkets.com,

  President Biden has been traveling the country, touting the benefits of Bidenomics, claiming his tax and spending policies have been an economic success.

  The President says his approach is a better alternative to Reaganomics, which he constantly refers to as trickle down economics, or tax cuts for the rich.

  He argues that the Reagan approach has never worked, and that his tax and spend policies will produce stronger economic growth.

  

  But history shows that free market policies of low tax rates and limited spending have consistently led to stronger economic growth.

  In the early 1980s, with the economy facing double digit inflation and a recession, President Reagan’s economic recovery program was enacted by Congress with bipartisan support. The Reagan tax cuts were not tax cuts for the rich.

  His tax cuts reduced tax rates across the board in every tax bracket. Every taxpayer received tax relief, and everyone benefited from the subsequent higher economic growth.

  According to the Joint Tax Committee, two-thirds of the tax cuts went to middle-income taxpayers. Only six percent went to the top income level.

  More importantly, the Reagan tax cuts worked, producing the longest peacetime economic expansion since World War II. The tax cuts ignited an economic boom, with real GDP increasing 7.9% in 1983 and more than 8% in the first half of 1984. All told, economic growth averaged nearly 5% a year through 1988.

  By comparison, real GDP has averaged only 2% a year since 2007, and an anemic 1.3% over the last year and a half. CBO is projecting the economy to grow at only 1.7% a year for the next decade.

  Under Reagan, inflation dropped from double digit levels to 4%. The unemployment rate was cut in half, and 20 million new jobs were created. Business investment soared, and real income grew at every level.  By the  end of Reagan’s second term, the U.S. economy was one-third larger than when he took office.

  Biden used to appreciate the benefits of pro-growth economic policies.

  Then-Senator Biden voted for the Reagan tax cuts, saying in a Senate speech that he has “long advocated a reduction in the tax burden for individuals and businesses,” and that the tax cuts would “give a boost to the sluggish economy and encourage businesses to invest to achieve greater productivity.”

  That is exactly what happened. Thanks to the corporate tax cuts, manufacturing productivity grew at an average annual rate of more than 4%, nearly 50% faster than during the period 1948-1973, leading to higher wages, better jobs, and greater growth.

  Biden was right then, and he is wrong now.

  We need to move away from Bidenomics and put in place the Reagan pro-growth policies of low tax rates and spending restraint to unleash stronger economic growth.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 21:05

• Watch: San Francisco Retailers Are Abandoning The City In Droves
  Watch: San Francisco Retailers Are Abandoning The City In Droves

  Remember when San Francisco officials and the media denied that retailers were leaving metro areas?  Then they claimed that the businesses leaving were not leaving because of rising crime?  Remember when the government tried to institute a law which would allow them to continue taxing people and businesses up to ten years after they moved out of the state?  Remember when CNN reporters did a story on the crime epidemic in San Francisco and they got robbed in the process?  It’s hard to hide the economic consequences of bad policies and ignorant ideology – Eventually, the effects become undeniable.

  San Francisco looks dead. The city will completely die without tourism https://t.co/d3ffhORWDr

  — Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) August 14, 2023

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  The establishment media continues to suggest the pandemic is the primary cause of the decay, but residents of San Francisco disagree.  The majority of people mention crime and widespread drug use in the streets as the threat destroying the once vibrant retail environment.  It’s over for San Francisco – And as the saying goes, if you’re looking for someone to blame, the fish rots from the head down.  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 20:45

• Awkward: Rachel Maddow Calls Out 'Election Deniers' As Hillary Clinton Offers Blank Stare
  Awkward: Rachel Maddow Calls Out ‘Election Deniers’ As Hillary Clinton Offers Blank Stare

  Hoax-funding election denier Hillary Clinton sat down with MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow this week to cackle over the prosecution of Donald Trump.

  

  According to Clinton, who destroyed evidence with bleachbit and hammers, ran an illegal server out of her house containing highly classified documents, and was given a ‘no reasonable prosecutor’ pass by the FBI, Trump’s indictments represent a “terrible moment” for America, and that “The only satisfaction may be that the system is working.”

  Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow share a laugh about Trump being indicted in Georgia. pic.twitter.com/G7CiY4QLR1

  — Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) August 15, 2023

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  Things got a little awkward, however, when Maddow launched into a screed over election denial – during which Clinton sat in silence.

  

  Rachel Maddow says to Hillary Clinton “if bad actors tell us falsely that every election is stolen and that the only way an election is trustworthy is that if they come out on top of it, it tells you something not just about that person but it wounds us as a democracy in a way… pic.twitter.com/QEt1yl9FhG

  — Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 15, 2023

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  Awkward!

  Earth to Rachel Maddow…

  In 2019, Hillary Clinton said, “You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.” pic.twitter.com/WLtvtkcgoU

  — Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 15, 2023

  Watch the entire Maddow-Clinton interview below:

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 20:25

• Biden Announces $39 Billion Student Loans Will Be "Automatically Discharged" Soon
  Biden Announces $39 Billion Student Loans Will Be “Automatically Discharged” Soon

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Department of Education announced Monday that it will begin notifying more than 804,000 borrowers that their $39 billion in federal student loans will be “automatically discharged in the coming weeks.”

  “The forthcoming discharges are a result of fixes implemented by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure all borrowers have an accurate count of the number of monthly payments that qualify toward forgiveness under income-driven repayment (IDR) plans,” said the administration in an Aug. 14 press release—a month after the forgiveness plan was announced.

  

  The department said that the forgiveness program was part of fixes to address “historical failures” in which “qualifying payments made under IDR plans that should have moved borrowers closer to forgiveness were not accounted for.”

  If borrowers have accumulated the equivalent of either 20 or 25 years of qualifying months, they were “eligible for forgiveness,” said the department.

  In total, the current Biden administration has approved more than $116.6 billion in student loan forgiveness for more than 3.4 million borrowers, according to the release.

  Furthermore, the department touted the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, which will cut payments on undergraduate loans in half compared to other IDR plans, ensure that borrowers never see their balance grow as long as they keep up with their required payments, and protect more of a borrower’s income for basic needs.

  “A single borrower who makes less than $15 an hour will not have to make any payments.”

  Borrower benefits from the SAVE plan is estimated to begin rolling out this summer, according to the administration.

  SCOTUS Ruling and Biden Counter

  On June 30, the Supreme Court voted in a 6–3 decision to strike down the Biden administration’s loan forgiveness plan.

  In what is widely considered a political move, President Joe Biden promised to cancel as much as $20,000 for around 40 million borrowers, resulting in a massive $800 billion commitment, with experts claiming it could easily cross the trillion-dollar mark.

  

  “They said no, no—literally snatching from the hands of millions of Americans thousands of dollars in student debt relief that was about to change their lives,” President Biden said after the SCOTUS decision. “Today’s decision has closed one path and now we’re going to pursue another.”

  President Biden promised a “new way” to circumvent the decision.

  The Department of Education then started to pave the way to finalizing “the most affordable repayment plan ever created” using the authority found under the Higher Education Act. There were several programs put under this plan to support borrowers.

  “President Biden, Vice President Harris, and I will never stop fighting for borrowers, which is why we are using every tool available to provide them with needed relief,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona at the time. “Earlier today, the Department of Education initiated a regulatory process to provide debt relief, so we can help the working- and middle-class borrowers who need it most.”

  Despite the administration’s insistence that low- and middle-income borrowers would benefit, experts have pointed out the programs a putting strain on the economy, with some estimates placing the amount at up to $1 trillion in additional federal expenditures over the next decade.

  “We have a student loan system that assumes that people are going to pay their debt back, and instead, it’s just this massive government spending policy that has negative effects for everybody,” said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation to The Epoch Times.

  Eligibility Complications

  The loan forgiveness is only applicable to loans that were made under the IDR plan provided the borrowers have made 240 to 300 monthly payments, which is equivalent to 20 to 25 years’ worth.

  An IDR plan sets the monthly repayment at an amount deemed to be affordable for the borrowers based on their income and family size.

  In addition to being an IDR plan, the loan must either be a federal Direct Loan or a Federal Family Education Loan held by the Department of Education, including Parent PLUS loans.

  To be eligible for loan forgiveness, the borrower must hit the required loan forgiveness threshold as a result of receiving credit for IDR forgiveness on any of the following five periods, per the press release.

  • Any month in which a borrower was in a repayment status, regardless of whether payments were partial or late, the type of loan, or the repayment plan;
  • Any period in which a borrower spent 12 or more consecutive months in forbearance
  • Any month in forbearance for borrowers who spent 36 or more cumulative months in forbearance;
  • Any month spent in deferment (except for in-school deferment) prior to 2013; and
  • Any month spent in economic hardship or military deferments on or after January 1, 2013.

  “In addition, months described above that occurred prior to a loan consolidation will also be counted toward forgiveness.”

  Blowback to ‘Forgiveness’

  The Biden administration’s income-based student loan repayment plan could cost $475 billion over a period of 10 years and end up encouraging “more loan borrowing” among college students.

  

  According to an estimate by the Department of Education, the SAVE plan will cost $138 billion over a decade.

  However, the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton’s Budget Model predicts the cost to be more than three times that. “We estimate SAVE will incur a net cost of $475 billion over the 10-year budget window,” a July 17 post about the Budget Model said.

  Roughly $200 billion of this cost will come from payment reduction for the student loans that are already outstanding this year. Once SAVE comes into effect in July next year, the model estimates that over half of the current loan volume will switch to the plan.

  The remaining $275 billion of the cost will come from reduced payments for around $1 trillion in new loans that the model calculates will be extended over the next decade.

  The model warns that “due to the increased generosity of the newly proposed IDR (income-driven repayment) plan, future student borrowers have the incentive to increase their federal student loan borrowing.” As a result, the current college financing pattern will shift toward “more loan borrowing instead of paying out-of-pocket.”

  The $475 billion is the “medium” estimate of the model, which predicts a conservative estimate of $390.9 billion and a “maximum” estimate of up to $558.8 billion.

  In a June 30 statement, Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job Creators Network, slammed President Biden for criticizing the Supreme Court order striking down his student loan forgiveness plan and his vowing to find another way to push ahead with it.

  “President Biden shamelessly failed to recognize a co-equal branch of government in his remarks,” Mr. Ortiz said. “Rather than respecting the court’s decision, Biden promised more executive overreach to forgive student loan debt. His proposals include expanded income-driven repayment plans and a 12-month grace period when payments are set to restart this fall.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 20:25

• 'Stay Home': Feds Tell San Francisco Workers To Telecommute Due To Crime Wave
  ‘Stay Home’: Feds Tell San Francisco Workers To Telecommute Due To Crime Wave

  Crime is so bad near San Francisco’s US Department of Health and Human Services federal building that officials have advised hundreds of employees to work remotely for the foreseeable future.

  

  Citing public safety concerns outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street – which houses several federal agencies including the HHS, the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation and Nancy Pelosi’s office – officials issued the stay-home recommendation in an Aug. 4 memo to regional leaders.

  “In light of the conditions at the (Federal Building) we recommend employees … maximize the use of telework for the foreseeable future,” according to a copy of the memo by HHS Assistant Secretary for Administration Cheryl R. Campbell, and obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, which notes that the area surrounding the building is home to ‘one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets.’

  “This recommendation should be extended to all Region IX employees, including those not currently utilizing telework flexibilities,” the memo continues, referring to the federal government’s zone governing California and other Western states.

  The memo came on the same day that, according to Axios, President Biden’s White House chief of staff called for more federal employees to return to their offices after years of remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

  It was not immediately clear whether other tenants in the building had issued similar directives. Officials with Pelosi’s office and the Department of Labor said they have been working closely with local and federal law enforcement to ensure safety for their staffers, but they have not advised employees to work from home. 

  The building has long been a locus of some of the city’s most intractable problems. -SF Chronicle

  According to the report, dozens of drug dealers routinely post up on, next to, or across the street from the building, where they operate in shifts as users smoke, snort or shoot up drugs – particularly on the property’s concrete benches, where drug users regularly pass out.

  Yesterday, Mayor @LondonBreed said that downtown San Francisco is in “recovery.” In fact, the area around the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building downtown is so dangerous, due to open air drug dealing and crime, that HHS has urged federal employees to work from home. pic.twitter.com/wOFjdTbMsD

  — Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) August 12, 2023

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  “The safety of workers in our federal buildings has always been a priority for Speaker Emerita Pelosi, whether in the building or on their commutes,” said a Pelosi spokesperson in a statement. “Federal, state and local law enforcement — in coordination with public health officials and stakeholders — are working hard to address the acute crises of fentanyl trafficking and related violence in certain areas of the city.”

  Meanwhile, the owners of one of San Francisco’s most famous department stores, Gumps, have written a scathing letter to city leaders and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

  “Gump’s has been a San Francisco icon for more than 165 years,” reads the letter from Chairman John Chachas, who acquired Gump’s in 2018 out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. “Today, as we prepare for our 166th holiday season at 250 Post Street, we fear this may be our last because of the profound erosion of this city’s conditions.”

  OPEN LETTER from a San Francisco legacy business. This letter, a full-page newspaper ad published today. It summarizes what majority of residents lament. pic.twitter.com/2WlcSHTrxR

  — Richie Greenberg (@greenbergnation) August 13, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 20:05

• 'Justice Shrugged': The Persecution Of Donald Trump
  ‘Justice Shrugged’: The Persecution Of Donald Trump

  Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics.com,

  Here’s what I dream of Donald Trump saying when he stands trial on bogus charges proffered by his political opponents: “I do not recognize this court’s right to try me … I do not recognize my action as a crime.”

  

  Those are the fighting words of industrialist Hank Rearden when he was put on trial for ignoring an unjust law in Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.” Although the circumstances of the cases differ, Rearden is a perfect avatar of Donald Trump, as both larger-than-life men are persecuted by the justice system for seeking to pursue their own self-interest and for refusing to surrender to government oppression.

  Self-interest is central to the Objectivist philosophy of Rand, who grew up in Russia and witnessed first-hand the oppression of free thought and free enterprise following the 1917 Communist revolution. Her masterpiece, “Atlas Shrugged,” is the ultimate roadmap to how American democracy can be subverted by leftist bureaucrats and a corrupt media to destroy some individuals and intimidate the rest.

  In the novel, Rearden has created a unique metallic alloy that carries his own name. Rearden Metal is far superior to steel and was in high demand by contractors, but tyrannical government regulations prohibited Rearden from selling to customers of his own choice. He ignored the government’s warnings and sold to one of the few honest businessmen left in the country. That meant he had broken the law, and because of his stature and reputation for excellence, the government prosecuted him as a warning to others that they dare not pursue their own self-interest, too.

  Rearden epitomizes the essence of individualism, striving to achieve his goals despite societal pressure. As an industrialist, he prioritizes his innovation and accomplishments, unapologetically pursuing personal success. His trial underscores the struggle between individual rights and the perceived interests of society, reflecting Rand’s championing of individualism.

  Similarly, Trump’s refusal to accept the election results turns on his deep sense of individualistic ambition, his willingness to challenge societal norms, and his determination not to surrender his principles, even at the expense of public ridicule, political persecution, and now potentially years in prison. But you can’t view the 2020 election in a vacuum. Trump was no different than Rearden in fighting what he knows is a rigged system. For the preceding five years, Trump had been the victim of a series of vicious attacks by the Deep State and the  media who never really accepted him as president. So Trump had no reason to accept the election results parroted by the same actors who had already tried to destroy him multiple times.

  And now, two and a half years after the 2020 election, as Trump has a fighting chance of returning to the White House in the greatest political comeback in history, his enemies have come for him again, with three separate indictments and soon to be a fourth.

  The four-count indictment most recently brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith is intended to make a victory in 2024 nearly impossible. The Deep State in this case represents the entrenched bureaucracy of the federal government as well as the individual states’ election officials. This is the same Deep State that gathered up 51 national security officials to sign a statement prior to the 2020 election that falsely claimed that Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of Russian disinformation.” It had none of them. No wonder Trump was disinclined to accept their conclusions that the election was secure and fair. Trump sought to prove his concerns about the legitimacy of the 2020 election by pursuing a vigorous legal strategy as was guaranteed to him under the First Amendment’s right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

  Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice is determined to deny that right to Donald Trump, and by extension to the rest of us. You either agree with the government’s interpretation of election results or else you risk going to jail. The indictment brought against Trump acknowledges that everyone has a First Amendment right to speak their minds and even to “formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means,” but it then avers that Trump’s right to believe he won the election is abrogated by a string of court losses and equally pessimistic assessments from so-called experts.

  Here’s where it gets interesting, and where the Department of Justice has overstepped. The four counts in the indictment are based on what prosecutor Jack Smith calls three conspiracies: “A conspiracy to defraud the United States” by seeking to stop the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021; “a conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the Jan. 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified; and “a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.”

  All of these alleged conspiracies and the resulting four charges are directly related to the joint congressional session on Jan. 6, when the Electoral College votes were opened and debated to determine whether they should be counted. Moreover, when Jack Smith announced the indictment, he suggested that Trump was responsible for the riot that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on that day, yet none of the charges hold Trump responsible for the violence. Every charge in this dubious indictment could have been brought even if the protesters had marched “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol as Trump had requested. The charges in the indictment have nothing to do with the violence; they only relate to Trump’s insistence that he won the election, and that he would do whatever it takes to prove it.

  In other words, these are not real crimes like insurrection or sedition; they are thought crimes. Smith’s “conspiracy” charges simply reflect that Trump consulted his lawyers to develop a legal strategy on how to right the wrong that he perceived. In its substance, from paragraphs 8 to 123, the indictment merely alleges over and over again that Trump refused to accept the conclusions of others that the election of Biden was legitimate, and that he had help from like-minded attorneys. How infuriating that must be to prosecutor Smith, who believes with all his heart that no one could doubt the veracity of what government officials (like him!) tell us.

  But millions of us did doubt the official story of a Biden victory. In the weeks after the Nov. 3, 2020 election, I wrote about problems with the election on Nov. 6, Nov. 13, Nov. 23, Nov. 30, and Dec. 7. If I had been able to ensure that Trump had read those columns at RealClearPolitics, I might be under indictment for conspiracy now, too. Then on Jan. 2, 2021, I wrote a column called “Our Electoral Crisis: The Call of Conscience on Jan. 6.”

  In that preview of the challenge of electoral votes from disputed states, I wrote, “There is no reason to expect that the Jan. 6 session of Congress will result in certification of President Trump as the victor of the 2020 election. Despite the extensive evidence of fraud that has been amassed, this vote will be an exercise in raw political power, not an expression of blind justice. Probably the best that Trump supporters can hope for is a fair hearing before the American people regarding the reason why doubts exist as to the legitimacy of Biden’s apparent victory.”

  Because of the riot at the Capitol, even that small hope was dashed, as most of the congressional debate about fraudulent activity in swing states was canceled when the joint session resumed late in the evening. It is important to note that Trump was the political victim of Jan. 6, not its beneficiary. Because of the violence, he lost his last opportunity to have a public debate on the voting irregularities that made millions of us believe the election returns were compromised. Yet Jack Smith would have you believe that it was Trump’s plan all along to shut down the electoral count that day as part of a plan to overturn the results. It’s just a fairy tale told to Trump-hating liberals to make them feel better.

  MSNBC commentator Mike Barnicle summed up Smith’s theory of the case in a segment on “Morning Joe” the day after the indictment was unsealed. “It’s one thing to have beliefs. We all have beliefs,” Barnicle said. “Donald Trump had the belief that he won, and he can articulate it as long as he wants, but he does not have the right to transform that belief into illegal conduct.”

  What that means is that we all have First Amendment rights to be wrong, but we do not have a right to persuade others that we are right. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the first step toward totalitarianism. What we are seeing in Jack Smith’s indictment is the attempt to criminalize what I would call “other thought,” the insistence that you will make up your own mind and pursue your own truth regardless of what the government tells you. This is an attempt to codify the suppression of ideas that we saw the Deep State impose on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms in 2020. You have the right to think whatever you want, but as soon as you share thoughts that dispute the official narrative, you can be silenced, and in Trump’s case locked up in a federal penitentiary.

  Well, he wouldn’t be the first person to be jailed for “other thought,” and you don’t have to turn to Russia or China for examples. How about Henry David Thoreau, who spent a brief time in jail in 1846 for protesting the Mexican-American War and wrote about his beliefs in “Civil Disobedience”?

  “Any man more right than his neighbors, constitutes a majority of one already,” Thoreau told us. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

  That certainly will be true should the unthinkable happen and Jack Smith achieve his goal of imprisoning Trump. In a very real sense, the indictment is less an accusation against one man than a ham-handed attempt to enforce group-think on any Americans who resist the imperial decrees from Washington, D.C. Consider this passage from “Atlas Shrugged” in light of the hundreds of Jan. 6 convictions that turned ordinary Americans into felons:

  “Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against … We’re after power and we mean it … There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”

  One of the most striking parallels between the Trump and Rearden cases is the complicity of the mass media in promoting hatred for the defendants. The legacy press has been trying to destroy Trump for seven years now, starting with the Russia hoax, the Ukrainian impeachment hoax, the Trump taxes hoax, and the classified documents hoax. It didn’t matter what topic came up; the media turned it into another reason to hate Trump. Most recently, they have drummed up the “fake electors” narrative as proof that Trump intentionally tried to steal the election.

  That is essentially the linchpin of Smith’s case. When Trump’s team put forward alternate electors on Dec. 14, 2020, they were following the entirely legal precedent that Democrat John F. Kennedy used successfully in the 1960 election, when Hawaii’s result was in doubt until after Dec. 14. The reason that date is so important is because the U.S. Constitution mandates that all electors must give their votes on the same day. If Trump’s lawyers were able to prove fraud after Dec. 14, but his electors had not voted on that day, then their votes would be lost forever.

  Trump is an obstacle to the Deep State that seeks power over people, just as Hank Rearden was an obstacle to the economic tyranny of “Atlas Shrugged.” Rearden was not a person of quite the stature of Trump, but more of an Elon Musk – a self-made man of unthinkable wealth who didn’t follow anyone’s rules but his own. But that last quality is shared by all three men, and perhaps that more than anything is what has made them all targets.

  Here’s how Rand described the media’s assault against Rearden as his trial began, and how their campaign to marginalize him had failed because the regular people oddly identified with the millionaire industrialist just as Trump gains popular strength with each new indictment thrown his way:

  The crowd knew from the newspapers that he represented the evil of ruthless wealth; and … so they came to see him; evil, at least, did not have the stale hopelessness of a bromide which none believed and none dared to challenge. They looked at him without admiration – admiration was a feeling they had lost the capacity to experience, long ago; they looked with curiosity and with a dim sense of defiance against those who had told them that it was their duty to hate him.

  That’s how the trial started, but by the time Rearden spoke in his own defense – or rather spoke to demolish the prosecution’s false claims – the crowd was in full support of Rearden in his battle against the nameless, faceless bureaucrats who had regulated the country into despair. When he turned to the crowd in the courtroom:

  He saw faces that laughed in violent excitement, and faces that pleaded for help; he saw their silent despair breaking out into the open; he saw the same anger and indignation as his own, finding release in the wild defiance of their cheering; he saw the looks of admiration and the looks of hope.

  As the crowd surged around him, he smiled in answer to their smiles, to the frantic tragic eagerness of their faces; there was a touch of sadness in his smile. “God bless you, Mr. Rearden!” said an old woman with a ragged shawl over her head. “Can’t you save us, Mr. Rearden? They’re eating us alive, and it’s no use fooling anybody about how it’s the rich that they’re after…”

  It is just that same magical connection which happens between Trump and his supporters at a MAGA rally, and that is why Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and President Joe Biden want to put Trump behind bars. He gives people hope, and hope is dangerous when you have a plan to subjugate them. To succeed, tyranny needs willing victims, and Trump – like any Ayn Rand hero or heroine –  fights back. That’s the true reason his enemies hate him.

  “We fight like hell,” Trump said on Jan. 6, not in regard to violence but in regard to protecting our country from the thugs who would transform it into a dictatorship. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

  That’s the fighting spirit which makes me know my dream of Trump rejecting the court’s authority, like Hank Rearden did, will never come to fruition. While it would have a hint of poetic justice, that’s not what Trump is after. He wants real justice, political justice, freedom for all, and that means he has to stand up, stand tall, stand firm. When he says that the government is coming through him to get to you, he’s not joking. And millions of us are on his side, with one desperate question on our lips: “Can you save us, Mr. Trump?”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 19:45

• Watch: Five Dead Including Two Municipal Officials After House Explodes In PA
  Watch: Five Dead Including Two Municipal Officials After House Explodes In PA

  Five people have been declared dead and one person is in critical condition after a house exploded in Plum, Pennsylvania, a suburb of the Pittsburgh metro area.  The explosion rocked a Plum neighborhood, destroying three homes and damaging twelve others; witnesses reported hearing the blast from over 10 miles away.

  🚨#WATCH: As Surveillance Footage Captures Devastating House Explosion Resulting in Multiple Fatalities

  📌#Plum | #Pennsylvania

  Witness surveillance footage captured on a ring doorbell shows the devastating house explosion that occurred on a Saturday afternoon in Plum,… pic.twitter.com/99BPR1geRy

  — R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) August 13, 2023

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  Two municipal officials, Plum Borough Manager Michael Thomas and Community Development Director Heather Oravitz, were among the five people killed on Saturday, according to Mayor Harry Schlegel.  

  NOW: House explosion reported with multiple houses on fire in Plum, Pennsylvania; reports of multiple victims.pic.twitter.com/2Uikb9NKxl

  — Dredre babb (@DredreBabb) August 12, 2023

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  The Allegheny County Fire Marshal’s office is continuing to investigate the cause of the explosion.  In a statement issued Monday night, the office confirmed it is aware that the homeowners at 141 Rustic Ridge, the Oravitz home, were having issues with their hot water tank, located in the basement.  However, gas crews checked for leakages following the explosion and determined the gas system had been “operating as designed.”  Officials indicated that due to the time it would take to conduct forensic and other testing, the investigation could last “months, if not years.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 19:25

• 'Flash-Mob' Daytime Burglaries Strike Southern California Stores
  ‘Flash-Mob’ Daytime Burglaries Strike Southern California Stores

  Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A second daytime “flash-mob” burglary in Los Angeles County over the weekend that cost a luxury department $300,000 may be related to a similar burglary four days earlier in Glendale, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

  

  At about 4 p.m. Aug. 12, more than 30 suspects wearing hoodies and ski masks, some carrying knives, swarmed the Nordstrom department store located in the Westfield Topanga Mall in Canoga Park, and stole about $300,000 worth of merchandise before running out of the store and entering several vehicles, according to police.

  The incident is similar to another flash-mob theft that occurred Aug. 8 at a Glendale shopping center about 45 minutes away.

  “We’re working with law enforcement partners throughout the county, to assist each other,” Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Sgt. Bruce Borihanh told The Epoch Times. “Maybe they’re the same [suspects] or maybe they’re not.”

  A viral video of the Nordstrom burglary shows members of the group running around the store grabbing clothing, handbags, and other items. Investigators are looking at surveillance video to see if they can identify license plates on the cars, Borihanh said.

  The incident lasted about two minutes, according to Mr. Borihanh.

  “They targeted handbags and high-end stuff they know they can sell,” he said.

  

  One of the store’s security guards was sprayed with bear spray—which is similar to pepper spray—during the burglary. He was treated at the scene and recovered, according to police.

  An LAPD officer was deployed at the mall Monday, but an increased presence is not planned.

  Instead, LAPD is collaborating with retailers, security, and other law enforcement to prevent future incidents, according to Mr. Borihanh.

  “The LAPD doesn’t have the manpower to patrol the mall,” he said.

  Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the incident “unacceptable,” in a statement released Saturday.

  “Those who committed these acts and acts like it in the neighboring areas must be held accountable. The Los Angeles Police Department will continue to work to not only find those responsible for this incident but to prevent these attacks on retailers from happening in the future,” she said.

  ‘I’m Helpless’: Mall Security Guard

  Mall security guard Kevin Johnson was working at the time of the burglary and saw the aftermath of what happened, he said.

  “They’re hooligans,” Mr. Johnson told The Epoch Times.

  Theft regularly occurs at the mall, and he said he expects it to happen again.

  Mr. Johnson does not carry a firearm and said he is not allowed to confront suspected thieves.

  “If I see you stealing. I can’t even do anything. I can’t touch you. I can’t try to stop you. I’m helpless,” he said.

  

  This was the second time the Nordstrom location was targeted by organized crime in the past two years. In 2021, the store was burglarized the day before Thanksgiving by five people. The thieves stole several expensive handbags before fleeing in a car. Similar to last week’s event, the security guard was also sprayed with a chemical by the suspects, according to news reports.

  The LAPD is working with the Glendale Police Department to see if the same suspects were involved in the burglary in that city four days earlier.

  The Glendale theft also occurred during daylight hours—just before 5 p.m.—when at least 30 suspects entered a Yves Saint Laurent store at The Americana at Brand shopping center.

  The suspects stole clothing and other merchandise before fleeing on foot and in numerous cars. The estimated loss was also about $300,000, according to the Glendale Police Department.

  The owner of the shopping center, Rick Caruso—who ran for Los Angeles mayor in 2022 and lost—has offered a reward of $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects, according to a Glendale Police Department press release.

  “This type of criminal activity will not be tolerated in Glendale,” Glendale Police Chief Manny Cid said in the release. “Expect an elevated police presence in and around the downtown Glendale corridor.”

  Further south in Irvine, California, police are looking for three suspects who were seen on store video walking into the Jewels by Alan store near Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive at 12:20 p.m. July 31. The thieves smashed several display cases before walking out with about $900,000 worth of jewelry.

  No suspects have been arrested in that incident, Irvine Police Department spokeswoman Karie Davies told The Epoch Times.

  California Crime Policy in Spotlight

  The recent incidents were caught on video and have been widely circulated on social media, attracting nationwide attention.

  Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody blamed California’s crime policies for the thefts.

  “A mob of thieves brazenly stole up to $100K from a California Nordstrom in a smash-and-grab rampage. These criminals are emboldened by the state’s lax criminal justice policies,” Moody posted on X, formerly Twitter. “In Florida, organized retail theft is NOT tolerated – we’re fighting back with FORCE, … combating organized retail theft rings.”

  The increase in flash mob-style retail crime comes on the heels of Los Angeles County’s reinstatement of a zero-cash bail system. In May, as a result of a lawsuit, a judge ordered the county to return to its policy of requiring no bail for suspects charged with most non-violent felonies or misdemeanors.

  Although the county and city are awaiting a final ruling in the case, the judge’s temporary halt of the cash-bail system has already caused property crime to increase, according to local law enforcement.

  LAPD Chief Michel Moore and Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna testified in the lawsuit Aug. 7 about how the zero-cash bail was affecting their departments.

  “I do believe that bail acts as a general deterrence,” Chief Moore testified. “It creates consequences. You face a risk of being incarcerated as a punishment.”

  

  He said he did not agree, as the plaintiffs in the case have argued, that cash bail creates a “two-tier system.”

  Chief Moore told reporters after the court hearing that 76 people released on the zero-bail system since May have been arrested again for another crime, and the city had since seen a 4-percent rise in car theft.

  Criminals who offend again and again need to be held accountable, the sheriff also told the judge.

  “We’re not saying that zero bail is completely out,” Sheriff Luna said. “We’re saying if you have a repeat offender, someone who is a habitual criminal, they have to be held accountable—even for a stack of lower-level crimes.”

  According to the sheriff, in the past 10 weeks since the county’s zero-cash bail was reinstated by the court, his department had arrested 1,573 people, 226 of whom were released and then arrested again for a different crime—a 14.3-percent recidivism rate.

  In other action statewide, California lawmakers are close to prohibiting businesses from asking employees to confront shoplifters or active shooters. Senate Bill 553 has already passed the state Senate and has sailed through two committees in the Assembly on its way to a final vote.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 19:05

• US Gas Pump-Prices Surge To 10-Month-Highs
  US Gas Pump-Prices Surge To 10-Month-Highs

  At a time when gasoline prices – on average – should be falling, US pump prices are soaring (up seven weeks in a row – the longest streak since June 2022)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And while drivers benefited from the relative cheap prices as the summer driving season began, they are now facing pressures as the national average price in within pennies of its highest in a year (and given the surge in WTI Crude and wholesale gasoline prices – which tend to lead retail prices by one-to-two weeks – things are about to get a whole lot more painful again…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  All of which is a major problem for ‘inflation’ as CPI’s gasoline component is set to explode next month…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  “While July CPI [Consumer Price Index] data looked pretty good with energy prices well below their year-ago level, August data isn’t going to look nearly as friendly,” warned Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

  What will Joe do? Return to draining the SPR again? Complain to the Saudis (and be ignored)? Blame “Big Oil” again?

  

  We wonder what ’emergency’ he will blame this release on?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 18:45

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• The West And The War In Ukraine: Selling & Buying Hopium
  The West And The War In Ukraine: Selling & Buying Hopium

  Authored by Yves Smith via NakedCapitalism.com,

  The kinetic war in Ukraine has gotten less attention over the summer than in past periods due to the much-previewed-and-hyped counteroffensive in the southern oblast of Zaporzhizhia being worse than a bust. Yet we’ll give some examples below of how the Western press, to a large degree, is applying unimaginable amounts of porcine maquillage to Ukraine’s deteriorating situation. At best, this is a desperate effort to keep the war going in the hope that somehow, someway, luck or divine intervention will shift the tide in the West’s favor. But the damage to Ukraine is catastrophic, and the cost to the European economy from sanctions blowback, to arms stocks in the US and NATO member states, and of the fiscal commitment distorting national priorities (guns over butter in societies already showing social decay and fracture) is not shabby either.

  From time to time we’ve repeated the advice we first heard from the investment bankers at Lazard to their CEO clients, of the dangers of believing their own PR.

  Here we see this psychopathy as a mass phenomenon as too many individuals in or near positions of authority keep repeating things that are bunk and genuinely seem to believe them.

  And that is occurring even as more and more Administration-friendly outlets are signaling the counteroffensive is going badly.

  Another sign of problems are the complaints from the US and NATO officials that Ukraine deviated from its orders training of “combined arms warfare” (gotta love those talismanic phrases) to small unit infantry attacks after its initial attempts fared badly against heavy Russian mining. It does not take a great deal of insight to recognize that this is pre-positioning the scapegoating of Ukraine. However, it goes unsaid that “combined arms warfare” US-style presupposes air supremacy, something Ukraine has never enjoyed in the conflict areas.

  An optimistic view is the inconsistent messaging is a sign of divisions in policy-making circles, and specifically, of the realists (reported particularly to be military officials who know the West can’t win a land war against Russia) starting to get the upper hand.

  But this apparent increase in “realism” still has a lot of fuzzy thinking. For instance, overwhelmingly, the op-eds that discuss peace talks or some other endgames, exhibit another pathology we’ve described: that the West is talking to itself about what Russia will accept as if that were true. Exhibit 1 is the frozen conflict idea, that Russia will agree to what amounts to a standstill. The wee problem with that is that Anthony Blinken stated in a Washington Post interview last fall, that the US would keep arming Ukraine after the war and planned to retake any territory Ukraine ceded to stop fighting now. From the Washington Post:

  The Biden administration, convinced that Vladimir Putin has failed in his attempt to erase Ukraine, has begun planning for an eventual postwar military balance that will help Kyiv deter any repetition of Russia’s brutal invasion.

  Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined his strategy for the Ukrainian endgame and postwar deterrence…

  Russia’s colossal failure to achieve its military goals, Blinken believes, should now spur the United States and its allies to begin thinking about the shape of postwar Ukraine — and how to create a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity and allows it to deter and, if necessary, defend against any future aggression. In other words, Russia should not be able to rest, regroup and reattack.

  Blinken’s deterrence framework is somewhat different from last year’s discussions with Kyiv about security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5. Rather than such a formal treaty pledge, some U.S. officials increasingly believe the key is to give Ukraine the tools it needs to defend itself. Security will be ensured by potent weapons systems — especially armor and air defense — along with a strong, noncorrupt economy and membership in the European Union.

  The Pentagon’s current stress on providing Kyiv with weapons and training for maneuver warfare reflects this long-term goal of deterrence. “The importance of maneuver weapons isn’t just to give Ukraine strength now to regain territory but as a deterrent against future Russian attacks,” explained a State Department official familiar with Blinken’s thinking. “Maneuver is the future.”

  In other words, Blinken saw the war as ending without any deal. The West would then pump Ukraine full of weapons again to rinse and repeat and somehow expect a better outcome.

  Ukraine neutrality was and is a key Russian demand. And Russia has the big conundrum that after the Minsk Accords were revealed as a big France/German/Ukraine con, that Russia can’t trust any NATO/Ukraine pledge.

  Recall that Mark Milley had had the temerity to suggest that Ukraine consider peace talks after the much-bruited-about counteroffensive of course resulted in Ukraine territorial gains so it could then negotiate with Russia from a strong position. That was what precipitated the rejoinder-via-the-Washington Post from Blinken.

  That optimistic belief appears to have been the basis for the recent Jeddah “peace plan talks” which did not include Russia. It appears a prime aim was to dent Global South tacit and explicit support for Russia after Russia was presumed to look weaker after the grand counteroffensive. Despite Ukraine trying to claim the summit was a success, other reports say participants questioned how anything could be accomplished with no Russian participation and did not back Ukraine’s maximalist peace terms.

  So what we see are that two ideas from how the war would end, formulated before Russian mobilized forces were trained and deployed and started to show their stuff, appear to be on auto-pilot. Blinken and Biden both are still banging on about how Putin has already lost the war. There’s no sign of a meaningful change in position as the US/NATO plans are doing a big faceplant.

  To state what should now seem obvious, the problem here is the dogged refusal to recognize facts on the ground, like no way, no how is Ukraine getting back Crimea or more than trivial amounts of territory Russia has taken, is that this is setting the stage, not for a Korea-style outcome, but the collapse of the Ukraine military and potentially much of what is left of Ukraine as a nation.

  It resulted in huge losses of men without Ukraine even getting to, much the less penetrating, Russia’s first of three fortified lines. Douglas Macgregor, who has good contacts, puts the deaths (not wounded, deaths) from this operation that started in early June at approaching 40,000. There’s informal corroboration via graveyards all over Ukraine being reported as out of space, overflowing hospitals near the combat area, and blood shortages. Oh, and more evidence of manpower strains come via Zelensky announcing another mobilization3 and making a show of stopping bribery to evade service….when anyone who had the dough to do so has almost assuredly already done so.

  In Ukraine, the mobilization resource has actually been exhausted, so the military commissars are “raking out” even those citizens who should not be touched in wartime.

  The problem was raised by a former adviser to the President’s Office Oleksiy Arestovich, according to whom the… pic.twitter.com/7af3VTkc84

  — — GEROMAN — time will tell – 👀 — (@GeromanAT) August 6, 2023

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  Mobilization in Ukraine will affect every man, the country will have to send hundreds of thousands more men to the front, everyone will fight, said Taras Chmut, head of the help fund of the Armed Forces of Ukraine “Come Back Alive”. pic.twitter.com/AOEfQYyDGW

  — Leandro Romão 🇵🇹🇷🇺 (@leandro_ptbr) August 11, 2023

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  As the Ukraine counteroffensive in the South has failed, Ukraine has also been contesting Bakhmut4 at high cost and not much to show for it. In the last few weeks, Russia been pushing in a measured manner into Kharkiv. The Hill has just declared this campaign to be an offensive, but the level of manpower and materiel deployed is well below what Russia could commit if it chose to.5

  Russia may simply have intended to apply enough pressure to create yet another meat grinder and force Ukraine to commit more forces, either by redeploying from the south or by drawing upon its reserves. Alexander Mercouris has said (IIRC two days ago) that Ukraine was sending its last remaining reserves to this front. He also speculated (yesterday) that Russia may be taking its sweet time about re-taking Kupiansk, a city it had abandoned when it pulled out of Kharkiv last year, so as to better attrit Ukraine. Regardless, if Russia retakes the territory in Kharkiv that it ceded last year, this would be a big psychological blow to Ukraine and its supporters.

  With that long-winded intro, let’s look at a sampling of news reports. This screenshot is from the front page of the Wall Street Journal on Sunday:

  

  Now admittedly, the third headline clearly signposts shortcomings of Ukraine operations.6 But let’s look at the first. Its opening paragraphs:

  Ukraine’s current campaign to retake territory occupied by Russian forces could still have many months to run. But military strategists and policy makers across the West are already starting to think about next year’s spring offensive.

  The shift reflects a deepening appreciation that, barring a major breakthrough, Ukraine’s fight to eject Russia’s invasion forces is likely to take a long time.

  When Kyiv’s counteroffensive began in spring, optimists hoped Ukrainian troops could replicate their success last year in routing Russian forces. But an initial attempt to use newly supplied Western tanks and armored vehicles to punch through fortified Russian lines stalled.

  Since then, progress has been slow and painful, relying on small-unit tactics. A renewed push could still be in the offing. But military leaders and policy makers already are grappling with the question of what can be achieved in the next few months and how to prepare for a protracted conflict.

  A nagging concern in Kyiv and Western capitals is that politicians and voters may come to see the war as a quagmire and sour on supporting Ukraine. Even if Kyiv’s Western backers stay resolute, clocks are ticking as Ukrainian forces burn through munitions, manpower and stamina for a grueling fight.

  All military campaigns end at some point—even in wars that grind on for years—at what tacticians call a culmination, or the point when advancing forces can go no further due to success, impediments or lack of supplies.

  Kyiv’s goal now is for its current offensive to culminate with sufficient gains to show Ukrainian citizens and backers in Washington, Berlin and elsewhere that their support hasn’t been misplaced—and should continue.

  There is so much misdirection by omission that it is hard to know where to begin. For starters, there’s no indication of how badly the offensive has underperformed expectations. It was supposed to puncture Russian fortified lines in three weeks. Now well into the third month, it has not even gotten up to them.

  On top of that, Ukraine does not have months left for this push. Mud season is expected to start in mid-late September. And if there is another warm winter, the ground will not harden enough for a winter campaign.

  And we have the bogus claim that Ukraine defeated Russian forces, when Russia made tactical withdrawals before it had beefed up its forces via its partial mobilization, preserving men and materiel. So not only did Russia not suffer a battlefield defeat, but the Russian army now is not the Russian army as of then.

  Now arguably Ukraine could regroup and refit during a fall-winter slowdown. But the fights can continue readily in urban areas….like Kupiansk in Kharkiv. Russia can also keep up missile strikes. So there is no great reason to think Ukraine will emerge next spring in better shape than it is now, even with more mobilization efforts apace. Recall Ukraine, out of desperation, has thrown these new troops into the front lines with barely any training, almost assuring their combat life will be very short.

  Due to this post getting lengthy, I will spare readers more from this article or the companion Wall Street Journal articles, although I encourage readers to carry on about them in comments.

  In a bit of synchonicity, reader Userfriendly sent along an even more disconnected piece: The Ukraine War might really break up the Russian Federation from The Hill. To give you a flavor:

  It’s time to start taking the potential disintegration of Russia seriously.

  A number of analysts see the shattering of the Russian Federation as a possible aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s catastrophic war in Ukraine.

  Although the world would be better off with a much weakened Russia, its fall may not go smoothly…

  The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Tatiana Stanovaya occupies a middle ground, while leaning toward Ignatius. She writes that, on the one hand, “the Kremlin will be wrestling simultaneously with…a deepening crisis of Putin’s leadership, a growing lack of political accountability, increasingly ineffective responses by the authorities to new challenges, an intensifying fragmentation among elites, and a society that is growing more antiestablishment.”

  Huh? Putin’s approval rating remains around 80%. People in Russia like Mark Sleboda and Gilbert Doctorow, and visitors like Alex Christaforu, report that stores are full, life in proceeds very much like normal despite the war, and economic activity is accelerating. And despite Western mythology (and Putin’s high competence, particularly as a bureaucrat), Russia has bench depth in its leadership, so it’s not as if the state depends on Putin.7 And Putin is far and away the least bellicose member at the top of Russia. The idea that Putin gone would mean a less fierce Russia is lunacy.

  As Userfriendly remarked,

  I just do not understand how the entire US press core can be so utterly oblivious to the facts on the ground, and so confident of how right they are. Seriously, when dawn breaks I am genuinely worried what they will do. It wouldn’t be the first time we got led into a war purely based on the obstinate ignorance of the stenographer class.

  Again, there are way too many possible paths for the future of this conflict.

  If I were Russia, I would be thinking hard about a big offensive in the spring or summer of next year, both due to Ukraine’s likely decay path and to discomfit Biden. But the latter also risks reckless action by the US. So perhaps Russian just keeps grinding, albeit at a harder pace, and waits for Ukraine to start visibly falling apart before it acts.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/15/2023 – 02:00

• Jan. 6 Capitol Hill Security Footage Challenges Key Narratives
  Jan. 6 Capitol Hill Security Footage Challenges Key Narratives

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

  A three-month investigation by The Epoch Times of 41,000 hours of U.S. Capitol Police surveillance video has uncovered dramatic footage that in many cases challenges longstanding narratives about what took place on Jan. 6, 2021.

  

  Since late April, the newspaper has analyzed hundreds of hours of video that was previously hidden from public view.

  The first results of this ongoing investigation are presented in an Epoch TV Special Report with host Joshua Philipp and senior investigative reporter Joe Hanneman.

  The Epoch Times has so far obtained 65 video clips from the U.S. Capitol Police CCTV database. Another 64 clips are pending. A few clips were withheld due to security concerns. Together, these videos cover a wide range of Jan. 6 topics.

  

  

  Who is Pink Beret?

  Bystanders in the huge crowds at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 couldn’t help but notice the young woman with the stylish clothes, high heels, Dolce & Gabbana handbag, and a pink beret perched on her head. She became known on social media by the hashtag #PinkBeret.

  

  Pink Beret was in the crowd that watched the first breach of police lines near the Peace Fountain on the Capitol’s west front at about 12:50 p.m. Jan. 6 defendant Darrell Neely told a federal court in his criminal trial that Pink Beret lured him into the Capitol Visitor Center and tried to saddle him with a bag full of police gear she picked up off the floor.

  “It is clear Pink Beret was on a mission to get to the Capitol as quickly as possible and to be one of the first to get there,” Neely’s attorney, Kira West, wrote in a court filing. “We know this because she ran across grass—in heels.”

  The Epoch Times researched and requested a collection of video clips that document the actions of the woman.

  After more than two years, the FBI put her on its Jan. 6 most-wanted page in late April. More than two months after she was named in Neely’s court filings as a potential defense witness, the FBI identified Pink Beret as Jennifer Inzunza Vargas Geller.

  Ms. Geller was seen in the Capitol Visitor Center with Neely. At one point, surveillance video shows, she removed her beret, ducked down to hide herself, and ran up the escalator. Neely kept looking for her, not realizing she had ditched him. A short time later, CCTV video shows her with another male protester in a different part of the Capitol.

  Ms. Geller was observed outside the Senate parliamentarian’s entrance, directing people into the building with a stick. Ms. West wrote in a court filing that the sight reminded her of Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini.

  On May 9, the Department of Justice charged Ms. Geller with four Jan. 6 misdemeanor counts. Her case was unusual because the DOJ almost never announces charges against defendants before they are arrested and in custody.

  Her husband, Spencer Sidney Geller, was charged in July with a felony obstruction count and four misdemeanors. As in his wife’s case, Mr. Geller’s charges were announced when he was not in custody.

  The Gellers are living in Thailand with their 10-month-old daughter. So far, the FBI has not made moves to arrest the pair and extradite them back to the United States to face trial.

  Officer Brian Sicknick

  Some of the most dramatic CCTV footage acquired by The Epoch Times showed the disabling of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the day after the Capitol protest and riots of Jan. 6.

  

  Mr. Sicknick, 42, of Springfield, Va.—a 13-year U.S. Capitol Police veteran and central New Jersey native—died late on Jan. 7, 2021. His cause of death was two strokes. It was ruled a natural death by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Mr. Sicknick was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia after lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda in February 2021.

  Federal prosecutors charged two men with assaulting Mr. Sicknick with pepper spray: Julian Elie Khater, 34, of Somerset, New Jersey, and George P. Tanios, 41, of Morgantown, West Virginia.

  The video shows that just after 2:20 p.m., Mr. Sicknick and two MPD officers charged out into the crowd of rioters, who had been pulling over security barriers with a thick freight strap.

  In the center, however, an MPD commander fired numerous bursts of pepper spray from a high-velocity tank that snaked 20 feet or more into the crowd, the video shows. Both the stream of pepper spray and a plume of cast-off caused by stiff winds passed near the left side of Sicknick’s face, the video shows.

  Mr. Sicknick quickly retreated from the scene, just ahead of a rioter who charged at him and an MPD officer. He rinsed out his eyes near the inauguration scaffolding, then climbed the southwest steps to the upper terrace. He remained on duty but collapsed at about 10 p.m. after officers noticed him slurring his speech.

  

  Mr. Khater was sentenced to 6 years and 8 months in prison on a plea deal for assault with a deadly weapon and other charges. Although he was initially charged with 12 criminal counts, Mr. Tanios pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to time served, one year of probation, and a $1,800 fine.

  Mr. Khater’s father and Mr. Tanios said they never saw the video before being shown the footage by The Epoch Times.

  “They [expletive] withheld this. Big time. Oh, my God. My God,” Mr. Tanios told The Epoch Times while watching the footage.

  Mr. Tanios said he believes the video should have been disclosed to his and Mr. Khater’s defense teams as exculpatory evidence.

  Elie Khater, Julian Khater’s father, said the video is another example of the system being tipped against defendants.

  “Since it is in Washington D.C., everything is stacked against the January sixers,” Mr. Khater told The Epoch Times. “From the very beginning, they took this story and they just exaggerated, messed with the facts, lied about a lot of other things. We figured everything is stacked against us.”

  Mr. Khater estimated he has amassed nearly $450,000 in legal fees defending his son in criminal and civil court. He said he is nearly out of resources to pay a civil attorney to represent his son in a $30 million wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Sandra Garza, Mr. Sicknick’s former girlfriend, against President Trump, Mr. Tanios, and Mr. Khater.

  

  The New York Times published a 2021 story claiming Mr. Trump’s supporters smashed Mr. Sicknick’s head with a fire extinguisher, causing his death. That claim was eventually retracted but is still repeated 30 months after Mr. Sicknick’s death.

  The next claim was that his death was caused by a potent bear spray wielded by Mr. Khater and Mr. Tanios. While Mr. Tanios said he had bear spray canisters in his backpack in the event the men were attacked by Antifa, the spray was never used.

  Mr. Khater had a Mace Brand KeyGuard pepper spray canister he received from Mr. Tanios on the evening of Jan. 5. The pocket-size flip-top device was used to spray the officers, according to prosecutors. The manufacturer says the canister emits a thin stream of pepper spray up to 10 feet.

  Mr. Tanios said he did not realize that Mr. Khater had used the Mace canister until months after Jan. 6.

  Jesse Binnall, an attorney representing Mr. Trump in the $30 million civil suit, said he could not comment on what impact the video might have on the lawsuit.

  Oath Keepers

  When five Oath Keepers defendants went on trial in September 2022 for alleged seditious conspiracy to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, a key piece of prosecution evidence was an alleged three-way phone call initiated by Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III.

  Prosecutors alleged Mr. Rhodes spoke with Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs and Jan. 6 operations director Michael “Whip” Greene with instructions to attack the Capitol.

  Defense attorneys argued the call never happened, and the communications Mr. Rhodes attempted that afternoon were meant to tell the Oath Keepers to get away from the Capitol, not attack it.

  Video discovered by The Epoch Times shows one of the exterior terrace-level cameras was trained on Mr. Rhodes while he stood on the Upper Northwest Terrace at the Capitol between 2:51 p.m. and nearly 3:00 p.m.

  

  In the video, Mr. Rhodes appeared to be attempting cell phone calls but was not having success. It appeared that he was interviewed briefly by a podcaster, then continued trying to make calls, the video shows.

  Standing with Mr. Rhodes during the video were former Oath Keepers general counsel Kellye SoRelle and an unidentified Oath Keeper in a camouflage jacket with an Oath Keepers cap turned backward.

  At one point, Mr. Rhodes walked just out of camera view. The footage shows a hand reaching in to give the camera a nudge, which kept Mr. Rhodes in view. It appears someone was at the camera location during at least part of the nine minutes Mr. Rhodes stood on that portion of the terrace.

  “I never saw it,” Mr. Rhodes told The Epoch Times in a June phone interview from jail, referring to the nine minutes of CCTV video. Mr. Rhodes said the idea that he was being surveilled is “really creepy.”

  Mr. Rhodes and Ms. SoRelle appeared on the left side of the camera view at 2:51:36 p.m., the CCTV video shows.

  The unidentified Oath Keeper followed Mr. Rhodes into the camera view shortly after. The man was likely providing security for Ms. SoRelle, one of Mr. Rhodes’s attorneys told The Epoch Times.

  “I don’t remember seeing this video,” one of Mr. Rhodes’ defense attorneys, Edward Tarpley, told The Epoch Times. “It may have been in discovery, but I certainly didn’t see it. We were given thousands of videos to review. It seems pretty clear to me that someone actually was following Stewart on the ground with the video camera.”

  At 2:57:30, a hand appeared on the left side of the video frame and forcibly tilted the camera down and then to the left. Mr. Rhodes was then back within the camera’s field of view. The other Oath Keeper was visible at times on the left edge of the frame.

  The video is significant because it could back up testimony given by Mr. Rhodes in FBI interviews and in court testimony that he was attempting to get Oath Keepers away from the Capitol, not to attack it.

  “I was trying to call them, to get them to come to us, to get them to come to me and Whip,” Mr. Rhodes told the FBI in May 2021. “That’s all it was. I couldn’t get any [expletive] comms.”

  

  Mr. Tarpley said he considers the newly revealed security video to be exculpatory evidence that should have been turned over by prosecutors.

  “The government argued that Stewart‘s messages to everyone to come to the Capitol were his call to action for them to come and attack the Capitol,” Mr. Tarpley said. “Of course, we know that is totally false.”

  Defense attorney Brad Geyer, who represented Oath Keeper Kenneth Harrelson in the same trial as Mr. Rhodes, said the defense presented evidence that the call never happened.

  “The defense maintains that no communication occurred between Meggs and Rhodes,” Mr. Geyer said. “This video confirms that Rhodes was having operability issues with his phone and it also may suggest that Rhodes was being monitored on January 6 by law enforcement.”

  Rosanne Boyland

  The death of Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia, remains one of the biggest tragedies of Jan. 6. Ms. Boyland came to Washington to hear President Donald Trump speak at the Ellipse. She made her way to the Capitol and wandered into the Lower West Terrace tunnel just before an unknown gas was released in the crowed tunnel.

  

  Information uncovered in this video investigation filled in a lot of details on what happened to Ms. Boyland after her lifeless body was pulled into the Capitol just after 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 6.

  The CCTV footage shows that after medics in the Capitol basement tried to resuscitate her, Ms. Boyland was moved up one level and carted through the Crypt to meet D.C. Fire and EMS Department paramedics near the House Wing Door.

  Despite early Capitol Police reports that she collapsed in the Rotunda at 5:00 p.m., the video shows that was impossible, as was the notion paramedics came upon two unnamed Capitol Police officers doing CPR on Ms. Boyland.

  Dramatic resuscitation efforts continued near the House Wing Door for another 40 minutes before Ms. Boyland was placed in an ambulance for transport to George Washington University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

  The Epoch Times learned from Ms. Boyland’s family that she was shot in the chest by a pepper ball fired by a police officer at the rear of the Lower West Terrace tunnel. The Boyland family was told by witnesses that the pepper ball shot is what caused Ms. Boyland to fall and become trapped by the stampeding crowd.

  One of Ms. Boyland’s sisters noticed a large, dark bruise on her left shoulder in a Getty Images photograph run with a July 24 Epoch Times article on Ms. Boyland’s case. No shoulder injuries were documented in the emergency room notes or in the autopsy done by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

  Nor was the head wound above Ms. Boyland’s right eye documented. That injury was possibly sustained when a Metropolitan Police Department Officer beat an unresponsive Ms. Boyland with a wooden walking stick as previously reported by The Epoch Times based on police bodycam footage.

  Death of Benjamin Philips

  Security video challenged the longstanding narrative that Benjamin James Philips—the first of four Trump supporters to die on Jan. 6—was struck by a police munition before he collapsed from a fatal cardiac event.

  Video from a far-away west dome camera seems to show someone stumbling and collapsing behind the inauguration scaffolding on the Capitol’s west front at 12:59:17 p.m. That area of the grounds was breached by protesters at 12:58:52 p.m., shortly after a much larger crowd breached the low iron fence protecting the west plaza.

  Overhead security video shows the first munitions used on the huge crowd were deployed at 1:10 p.m. on the south end of the west plaza.

  “I got a crowd fighting with officers, pushing, throwing projectiles,” Deputy Chief Eric Waldow broadcast at 1:06 p.m. “I have given warnings about chemical munitions. I need the less-than-lethal team positioned above me to identify the agitators and start deploying. Launch, launch, launch!” The first munitions were not deployed until 1:10 p.m.

  

  The first closeup video of Mr. Philips begins at 1:02:51 p.m. when the U.S. Capitol Police Command Center trained one of its security cameras on the area where he fell. Bystanders and a Capitol Police officer took turns doing chest compressions. The first call for help went out over the USCP radio at 1:04 p.m., according to Jan. 6 audio recordings obtained by The Epoch Times.

  “Can you please have someone respond to my location with an AED [automated external defibrillator]? The bottom of the west front with an individual that’s down here, unconscious and not breathing,” a female officer broadcast on the main U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) radio channel.

  At about 1:15 p.m., an out-of-breath officer announced that the D.C. Fire and EMS Department rescue squad wouldn’t come down to the scaffolding where Mr. Philips lay on the sidewalk.

  “They are bringing the patient up to the ambulance right now,” he shouted on the radio. “They are refusing to come down.”

  Bystanders and police placed Mr. Philips on a section of a bike rack and carried it like a battlefield stretcher to the ambulance some 100 yards away. He was turned over to paramedics at 1:19 p.m. He was later pronounced dead.

  The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Mr. Philips died from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. His manner of death was listed by the pathologist, Dr. Fernando Diaz, as “natural.”

  Sweeping the Capitol

  After U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, 35, was shot by Capitol Police near the House Chamber at 2:45 p.m., police made aggressive efforts to push all of the protesters out of the Capitol. The Epoch Times obtained CCTV security video showing SWAT teams clearing the Capitol.

  

  Officers from Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department formed skirmish lines and pushed groups of protesters toward the exits while chanting, “Move back! Move back! Move back!” A large contingent of police pushed protesters across the Great Rotunda and forced them out through the exits.

  At the same time, tactical teams from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and other federal agencies began sweeping the upper floors of the Capitol to ensure no protesters were left.

  With rifles raised and SureFire tactical lights illuminating their paths, the tactical teams moved methodically through the building.

  At one point, an ATF tactical team came around the corner near House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. A stunned Capitol Police officer in the otherwise empty hallway threw his hands in the air as if to surrender.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 23:40

• Maryland Superintendent's Deleted Texts and Hidden Email Surfaces Amid Intensifying Grade-Rigging Scandal
  Maryland Superintendent’s Deleted Texts and Hidden Email Surfaces Amid Intensifying Grade-Rigging Scandal

  We’ve closely followed the investigative journalism of Chris Papst from Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore, who has uncovered what could be one of the largest education scandals in the country involving Baltimore City Schools. Papst’s latest report asks: What is the Maryland State Department of Education hiding? 

  For some context, Papst and his team of reporters have dedicated six years to investigating the Baltimore City School system, the fourth most funded in the nation. Their findings are shocking: 

  • 2017: “It’s Very Common”: Baltimore Teacher Admits To Passing Students That Never Showed For A Single Day Of Class

  • 2017: Attendance At Baltimore City Schools Crashes To 13 Year Low Just As Juvenile Crime Spikes

  • 2017: 13 Baltimore High Schools Have Zero Students That Are Proficient In Math

  • 2019: Grade-Changing Scandal: Judge Orders Baltimore City Schools To Release Documents 

  • 2019: Grade-Rigging Scandal: Baltimore Students Missed 100+ Days Of School, Failed Classes, Still Graduated

  • 2021: After Grade-Rigging Scandal, Baltimore City Schools No Longer Holding Back Failing Students

  • 2023: ‘Education Crisis’: 23 Baltimore City Schools Have No Students Proficient In Math

  Baltimore City has been riddled with scandals, and one of the most concerning ones has been the school system with a $1.6 billion budget. It appears some education officials are compromising the future of America’s next leaders by rigging grades. And the corruption might not stop at Baltimore but could extend to the leadership of the Maryland State Department of Education. 

  Papst spoke with attorney Scott Marder who believes that the Maryland State Department of Education under Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury may have violated the Maryland Public Information Act. 

  Papst’s team found metadata for 98 text messages sent or received by Superintendent Choudhury in the first quarter of this year. The metadata was obtained through a public records request. 

  

  When the texts were sent, Papst’s exposé on 23 schools in Baltimore City with zero students proficient in math was published. Then the state decided to change how it reports test scores. Papst believes these text messages hold the answer to why the state government made that decision.

  … but it appears the public will never know because those text messages were deleted. 

  In an email last week, the Maryland State Department of Education told Project Baltimore: 

  “The metadata of text messages provided is all that our Office of Information Technology could retrieve due to storage limitations.” 

  Put simply, the 98 text messages were deleted.

  “The cell phone issued to Mohammed Choudhury by Maryland State Department of Education is a government cell phone that’s supposed to be used for government business,” Marder told Project Baltimore. 

  He said, “I’m troubled by the fact that the Maryland State Department of Education says that they had to delete (the texts) because of storage issues. I find that troubling.”

  Project Baltimore pointed out that if the Maryland State Department of Education “willfully” violated Maryland Public Information Act, then that could mean the school officials might face upwards of 3 years, a fine up to $1,000, or both. The law clearly states a person cannot: “destroy, remove, or conceal a public record” and “the term’ public record’ would also include, for instance, text messages and other electronic communications.”

  In a separate report, Papst’s team wrote, “Hidden email address for Maryland Superintendent revealed after Department of Education removes redactions.” His team asked: 

  What is the Maryland State Department of Education hiding?

  Deleted text messages, a hidden email account, unlawful redactions – @Project_Bmore reached out to Maryland’s top elected officials asking for their thoughts on the State School Superintendent’s actions. We’ll have a report on their responses Monday. https://t.co/JwpB6figOk

  — Chris Papst (@chrispapst) August 13, 2023

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

  Here’s more on the reporting… 

  And another report from Project Baltimore stated last week: 

  A bombshell report just released by the office of the Maryland Inspector General for Education found that failures in Baltimore City Schools internal investigation into Augusta Fells, a high school in west Baltimore, hindered the chance of prosecuting those responsible.

  The IG finding City Schools Staff Investigations Unit lacks a written policy regarding self-incrimination, which potentially places employees at risk during internal investigations. This lack of a written policy, which is known as a Garrity Warning and is similar to Miranda Rights, according to the IG’s report, raised major concerns among local, state, and federal prosecutors. As a result, those prosecutors declined to consider criminal charges.

  Project Baltimore, in 2021, exposed a major scheme to change grades and inflate enrollment at the West Baltimore high school. Fox45 News obtained a list of 21 students who were enrolled at Augusta Fells but were not actually attending. Ghost students, as they are known by educators, are used to pad the rolls and increase the amount of funding a school receives.

  Dominos are quickly falling in the nation’s fourth most funded education system that now could involve a top Maryland education official. None of this should be shocking for a state run by out-of-control Democrats. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 23:20

• EMFs A Possible Human Carcinogen
  EMFs A Possible Human Carcinogen

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

  Many people know ultraviolet rays and X-rays can cause cancer.

  These are high-frequency, ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Ionizing EMFs are considered carcinogenic, while nonionizing EMFs, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth signals, and fields from electronic devices, are generally not. This perception has prevailed in the public mindset for decades.

  

  However, there’s limited awareness that certain nonionizing EMFs are also classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as class 2B carcinogens—a category indicating potential human carcinogenicity.

  Dr. David Carpenter, an environmental health professor at the University of Albany who received his medical doctorate from Havard Medical School, noted that radiofrequency, a type of nonionizing radiation used in telecommunications, might eventually fall under class 2A classification, denoting a probable human carcinogen.

  Oxidation, DNA Changes, and Cancer

  Cancer is usually caused by mutation or changes to DNA. Factors like viral infections, radiation, and environmental toxins can alter DNA sequences.

  Ionizing EMFs directly damage DNA. Ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays remove electrons from DNA, causing mutations. Accumulated mutations lead to cell malignancy.

  Nonionizing radiation doesn’t have enough energy to damage DNA directly. Yet various studies have linked exposure to nonionizing EMFs with DNA breakage. Cells from EMF-exposed animals and phone users have shown genetic damage.

  Cancer can also be induced through stress alone. Examples of this include asbestos and arsenic, which cause cancer in the absence of DNA damage. 

  For this reason, Dr. Carpenter suggests EMFs may be carcinogenic just by inducing “reactive oxygen species” that stress the cell environment through oxidation. Oxidation generated by EMFs have been shown to break DNA in human sperm and fibroblast cells, indicating potentially carcinogenic risks. 

  Professor Emeritus Martin Pall, specializing in biochemistry and basic medical sciences at Washington State University, explained that EMFs are complicated in that stronger EMFs don’t necessarily mean more DNA damage. Instead, only specific frequencies and intensities cause an effect.

  This has been shown in a recent University of Colorado study, finding that at a 4.2 MHz frequency, human fibroblast and fibrosarcoma mitochondria increased in mass, inducing cell stress. This effect was absent at higher and lower frequencies.

  According to IARC, possibly carcinogenic nonionizing EMFs include:

  1. Extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs commonly found at frequencies of 50 to 60 Hz emitted by power lines, electronic wires, and virtually all electrically powered devices.
  2. Radiofrequency EMFs emitted by wireless devices such as phones, Wi-Fi modems, TVs, and cellphone towers used in telecommunications. These are also utilized in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

  Research indicates chromosomal breakage after MRI sessions.

  IARC rated radiofrequency as class 2B rather than 2A, with one of the reasons being the lack of evidence linking it to cancer in animal studies.

  Contrastingly, the 2018 U.S. National Toxicology Program study from the 1990s presented “clear evidence” of radiofrequency-induced heart tumors in rats, along with “some evidence” of brain and adrenal cancers.

  The Ramazani Institute’s 2018 study also discovered heart and brain tumors in rats, aligning with these findings.

  EMFs and Brain Cancer

  Senior consultant in radiation sciences Kjell Hansson Mild from Umeå University in Sweden told The Epoch Times that the link between EMF exposure and brain cancer and tumors is well-established.

  A study from the 1980s revealed a 39 percent higher risk of brain cancer among amateur radio operators due to EMFs.

  “Brain gliomas associated with cellphones have the most research. The gliomas appear after 10 years of moderate cellphone use, primarily ipsilateral cancers (cancer on the same side of head where you hold the cellphone),” Professor Emerita Magda Havas told The Epoch Times over email. 

  Glioma are malignant brain cancers.

  A 2017 study linked long-term ipsilateral use of mobile phones with an over 40 percent increased risk of slow-growing glioma. A large French study conducted between 2004 to 2006 found that people with “heavy mobile phone use” had increased folds in glioma risk after years of use. 

  

  In 2004, oncologist and professor Lennart Hardell from Örebro University in Sweden published a study involving over 1,600 patients with benign brain tumors. His research found a 30 percent higher likelihood of brain tumors in wireless phone users. These tumors primarily developed on the side of the head in contact with the phone, with an over 60 percent higher risk after 10 years of phone use.

  Benign tumors typically do not become cancerous; they grow slower and do not invade nearby tissues or other areas of the body.

  Another Swedish study in 2004 indicated no initial risk increase of acoustic neuroma (benign brain tumor) associated with phone use within the first year. However, by the 10th year, the risk surged to 90 percent.

  Other research on brain tumors emerged from occupational exposure studies.

  

  During the late 1990s, a study examined approximately 880,000 U.S. Air Force personnel with at least one year of service. This study detected 230 cases of brain cancer potentially linked to radiofrequency exposure, revealing a 39 percent heightened risk through occupational exposure. In 2001, a review (pdf) demonstrated that those working with electricity faced an up to 20 percent greater risk of developing brain cancer than the general public. Still, researchers concluded the risk was too low to warrant a discussion on causality.

  Despite increased environmental radiofrequency exposures among the public, Mr. Hansson Mild’s primary concerns are power lines and occupational exposures.

  He noted that phones used in previous studies emitted stronger signals than today’s phones.

  “Today, you only need to reach 200 meters to the next base station. But yesterday, you needed to reach 35 kilometers to reach the base station,” Mr. Hansson Mild explained.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 23:00

• Some Parts Of America Are Already On The Verge Of Being Ungovernable As Rampant Lawlessness Spreads Like Wildfire
  Some Parts Of America Are Already On The Verge Of Being Ungovernable As Rampant Lawlessness Spreads Like Wildfire

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  In order for a civilized society to function, most people have to willingly follow the rules of that society.  If that happens, law enforcement authorities can deal with the few that choose to be lawless. 

  For generations, that is how things worked in America. 

  There was a high standard of morality among the general population, and so the police were able to successfully handle the few bad apples that insisted on breaking the law. 

  But now everything has changed.  As a result of decades of extreme moral decay, lawlessness is rampant and there are vast multitudes of young people that openly flaunt the rules of our society.  In fact, there are already some areas of the country that are literally on the verge of being ungovernable.

  

  A perfect example of what I am talking about happened in southern California on Saturday.

  Dozens of lawless young thieves systematically looted the Nordstrom store at the Westfield Topanga mall, and they were able to get away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise…

  Shoppers at the Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park were in for quite a shock when dozens of thieves ransacked the Nordstrom inside the mall on Saturday, Aug. 12, smashing displays and stealing an estimated $60,000- $100,000 worth of merchandise, authorities said.

  The Los Angeles Police Department responded to the mall at around 4 p.m. after hearing reports that between 20 and 50 people ran through the Nordstrom grabbing merchandise, leaving some on the ground and taking armfuls with them.

  When I was growing up, this sort of thing simply did not happen.

  But now we are seeing mobs of looters go haywire all over the nation on a regular basis.

  This heist was obviously well coordinated, and not one of the thieves even showed a shred of remorse.

  Apparently these young people are not exactly languishing in poverty, because a BMW and a Lexus were among the getaway vehicles that they used…

  After grabbing between $60,000 and $100,000 worth of goods, the crew fled in several cars including a BMW and a Lexus, cops said.

  At least one guard was doused with bear spray — which causes violent eye and respiratory irritation in humans. The guard was treated by paramedics.

  How are we supposed to respond to this?

  As I stated earlier, we are seeing robberies of this nature so often now.

  Several days earlier, dozens of  young people looted the Yves Saint Laurent store in Glendale…

  Earlier this week a high-end designer store in Glendale, California was looted by dozens of people in another flash mob burglary on Tuesday.

  At least 30 suspects “flooded” the Yves Saint Laurent store in The Americana at Brand Tuesday afternoon and stole clothing and other merchandise before fleeing on foot and leaving the location in numerous vehicles, said police in a statement.

  The total loss is estimated to be approximately $300,000.

  Some people attempt to downplay the severity of these crimes by saying that these big corporate retailers can afford the losses they are experiencing.

  No, they can’t.

  Overall, U.S. retailers will lose more than 100 billion dollars due to theft this year alone.

  This has become a major national crisis, and as J. Lee Grady has aptly pointed out, we truly have become “the land of the free-for-all”…

  You’ve probably seen the videos of thieves filling trash bags with stolen merchandise from CVS or walking out of Home Depot or Wal-Mart with armloads of tools, laptops, detergent and athletic shoes they didn’t pay for. We used to call this shoplifting, and it was a crime. Today, it’s known as “inventory shrinkage”—and it costs retailers billions of dollars in losses. But many soft-on-crime politicians are treating criminals like victims and allowing the crime wave to grow.

  Some retailers are locking items behind glass cases, but that hasn’t stopped brazen criminals who just smash and grab. Other retailers actually warn employees not to try to stop thieves—and they will even fire an employee for confronting a shoplifter. Welcome to the USA in 2023: We were once known as the land of the free; now we are the land of the free-for-all, where criminals can take whatever they want from store shelves knowing that no one will stop them.

  A lot of of this theft is being fueled by the worst drug crisis in the entire history of our nation.

  Today, vast stretches of the city of Los Angeles have been transformed into giant homeless encampments that are filled with “zombie-like residents smoking drugs”…

  Shocking new photos lay bear the devastating homeless crisis tormenting downtown LA – where filthy ramshackle tent cities are plagued by zombie-like residents smoking drugs, while others hawk stolen goods on street corners.

  There are currently an estimated 42,260 people sleeping rough in the City of Angels – a startling 10 percent rise compared to just last year, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported.

  Just this week, it emerged that the city had resorted to sending mobile teams with oxygen cylinders to Skid Row in a desperate bid to prevent overdoses amid its crippling opioid crisis.

  The same thing is happening in San Francisco.

  In fact, conditions have become so dangerous in downtown San Francisco that federal employees that work at “the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” are being told to work from home for the foreseeable future…

  Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advised hundreds of employees in San Francisco to work remotely for the foreseeable future due to public safety concerns outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street.

  The imposing, 18-story tower on the corner of Seventh and Mission streets houses various federal agencies, including HHS, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the office of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. The area is also home to one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets, where dozens of dealers and users congregate on a daily basis.

  I find it perfectly fitting that “one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets” is operating right outside of a giant office tower named for Nancy Pelosi.

  Politicians such as Pelosi have been making horrendously bad decisions for decades, and that has been a major factor in getting us to this point.

  We are truly reaping what we have sown, and what we are currently experiencing is just the beginning.

  Eventually, conditions will deteriorate so dramatically in our core urban areas that our leaders will be forced to implement extreme measures in a desperate attempt to restore order.

  But ultimately you can’t govern vast numbers of people that have no intention of being governed.

  The fabric of our society really is coming apart at the seams, and we are going to see things happen in the years ahead that will completely shock all of us.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 22:20

• PBOC Cuts Rates In Surprise 'Easing' Ahead Of Dismal China Data Dump; Japanese Economy Surged In Q2
  PBOC Cuts Rates In Surprise ‘Easing’ Ahead Of Dismal China Data Dump; Japanese Economy Surged In Q2

  An Asian avalanche of data and headlines:

  • Japanese GDP surged in Q2 – doubling expectations on export-led growth

  • Japanese domestic spending weak

  • PBOC surprises with rate-cuts (biggest MLF cut since 2020)

  • MoF fix dramatically stronger than offshore yuan

  • Yuan tumbles below 2023 lows on rate-cuts

  • China 10Y yield drops to lowest since 2020

  • Chinese macro data missed across the board

  • China gold premium to London is soaring

  • China did not report its (record high) youth unemployment rate

  *  *  *

  The Japanese economy grew dramatically faster than expected in the second quarter, driven by strong exports data.

  GDP grew at an annualized 6.0% in Q2 (the strongest growth since Q4 2020), more than double the 2.9% growth expected…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Outside of the post-COVID chaos, this is strongest annualized GDP growth for Japan since Q1 2015, even as economists see headwinds on the horizon in the US, China and Europe.

  The export growth was helped by a plunge in the yen during Q2 (which, again outside of the COVID craziness, is the biggest quarterly drop in the Japanese currency since Q4 2016).

  In fact, as Bloomberg reports, the yen has tumbled back toward a level that triggered the first yen-buying intervention since 1998 in September as yield differentials widened.

  “We believe the Ministry of Finance will start pushing back in the 145-148 range,” wrote Joey Chew, head of Asia FX research at HSBC Holdings Plc in a note.

  “But, if it does not, short positions on yen will likely be rebuilt further.”

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Perhaps the apparent strength of the Japanese economy will provide ‘room’ for the ‘buying’ intervention to stop the yen’s freefall?

  The anemic yen has been a double-edged sword for the economy, said Takahide Kiuchi, an economist at the Nomura Research Institute.

  “It can be a positive for exporters, increasing competitiveness and revenue,” he said.

  “However, it could undermine consumption.”

  And sure enough, while strong external demand supported the growth, domestically things aren’t so rosy as rising inflation made domestic households more hesitant to spend with private consumption dropping 0.5% QoQ – the weakest since Q1 2022…

  “Compared with the January-March period, the improvement seen in consumption driven by increased activity has weakened,” said Harumi Taguchi, principal economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

  “Rising prices are increasingly causing consumers to hold off on buying items.”

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Additionally, the high reliance on exports makes the recent growth vulnerable to other countries’ malaise. Recent softness in China, Japan’s largest trade partner, is a particular source of worry.

  “We see clear signs of slowing in China and Europe,” Mr. Kiuchi, of the Nomura Research Institute, said.

  That means “the stability of this high growth is unclear.”

  Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, and the largest creditor by far… meaning its growth or fragility reverberates around the world…

  “The only problem – it was all export driven and masked rocky conditions in domestic demand,” Bloomberg economist Taro Kimura explains.

  “The drop in consumption, despite a tailwind from this year’s reopening, reflects the impact of wages lagging far behind cost-push inflation.”

  …but tonight we also get a data dump from the world’s second largest economy – China.

  

  Amid a growing debt crisis, China’s trade outlook looking similarly dire (with overseas shipments tumbling in July by the most in more than three years, and imports contracted for a fifth consecutive month), and China’s banks having extended the smallest amount of monthly loans since 2009, and aggregate financing was less than half the level forecast by economists; the signals heading into tonight’s data suggest that China’s economy weakened further in July and  Beijing was slow to arrest the decline.

  Ahead of the China data dump, there was much excitement as the PBOC surprised with more ‘easing’ – sooner than most expected:

  • PBOC conducts 401b yuan of 1-year medium-term lending facility at a yield of 2.5% vs 2.65% in the last operation, the central bank says in a statement.

  • PBOC also sells 204b yuan of 7-day reverse repo at a yield of 1.8% vs 1.9% in the last operation

  Today’s MLF operation is “totally out of expectation,” says Becky Liu, head of China macro strategy of Standard Chartered Plc:

  “The cut has been aggressive, indicating the urgency of stepping up measures to shore up credit growth,” Liu notes that today’s cut “will almost certainly” be followed by cuts to China’s loan prime rates on August 20.

  This was the second cut this year (the last one was in June)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  While the PBOC delivered a surprise rate cut, its net injection this month was merely one billion yuan, the smallest since December, when the central bank started to pumping in funds in the operation.

  Given the slump in new yuan loans and aggregate financing last month, this is understandable – there’s not much demand for credit at the moment.

  Redmond Wong, market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets, makes the point that today’s unexpected rate cuts follow incredibly weak loan data released late last week. Chinese banks extended the smallest amount of monthly loans since 2009 in July.

  “The PBOC wants to get the banks to lend, but it seems it’s not being successful as both loan demand from households and credit-worth corporations have been weak. Banks are reluctant to lend to property companies and other private enterprises with more uncertain repayment abilities. Cutting rates can help at the margins but it may not be very effective in boosting loan demand when confidence is still weak in the corporate and household sectors.”

  China fires a mini-bazooka…

  

  The surprise action weakened the offshore yuan further (below 2023 lows)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And China’s 10-year government bond dropped 6bps to 2.56%, lowest since 2020…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And as the yuan weakens, we note that China’s gold price is rising against levels in London, a trend that local traders say is due to government curbs on imports of the precious metal.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Gold’s attractiveness as a potential capital outflow could be rising on the back of the weaker domestic currency, and authorities may potentially stymie that trade – lending some support to the yuan – by squeezing import quotas.

  And an additional sign of support is the dramatically ‘strong’ fixing for the Yuan…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  In context, that is a serious gap and we note that China has set a stronger-than-expected fixing everyday since late June (to little or no avail)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And that was all before the deluge of data (suggesting Beijing knew exactly what was about to hit the wires).

  Everything Missed

  The July data was as follows:

  • China Industrial Production YTD YoY +3.7% vs +3.8% exp and +3.8% prior

  • China Retail Sales YTD YoY +7.3% vs +7.6% exp and +8.2% prior

  • China Fixed Asset Investment YTD YoY +3.5% vs +3.7% and +3.8% prior

  • China Property Investment YTD YoY -8.5% vs -8.1% exp and -7.9% prior

  • China Surveyed jobless rate rose to 5.3% vs 5.2% exp and 5.2% prior

  • China Youth (16-24) Unemployment Rate was not disclosed in this report (was at record high 321.3% last month)

  Now that explains why they pre-emptively cut rates…

  

  Perhaps the most notable is the fact that NBS’ Fu says China will pause releasing the youth unemployment rate due to complexities in surveying.

  The bureau will conduct more research on the data point, he adds.

  In the US, bad data is just
  “seasonally” massaged and birth/deathed until it is +300,000.

  In China, they just stop reporting it.

  *CHINA TO STOP PUBLISH DATA FOR YOUTH JOBLESS RATE pic.twitter.com/uNdAYho9wo

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 15, 2023

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

  Raymond Yeung, chief economist for greater China at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.:

  “July’s economic data are significantly below market consensus. The data turn out to have rationalized the surprising interest rate cut early in the morning.

  In addition, the authorities are also aware of the recent financial events in the trust sector. There is a pressing need to revive market sentiment too.”

  Finally, we note that this all matters and the Biden administration knows it.

  Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called China’s economic woes a “risk factor” for the US, but one that doesn’t significantly dent her optimism for the American economy.

  “China’s slowdown will have the largest impact on its Asian neighbors, but there will be some spillovers to the United States,” Yellen told reporters following a speech in Las Vegas, where she’s touting the economic policy accomplishments of the Biden administration.

  Yellen’s comments come days after President Joe Biden blasted China’s economic problems as a “ticking time bomb” and referred to Communist Party leaders as “bad folks.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 22:05

• Two Princeton, MIT Scientists Say EPA Climate Regulations Based On A 'Hoax'
  Two Princeton, MIT Scientists Say EPA Climate Regulations Based On A ‘Hoax’

  Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Two prominent climate scientists have taken on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new rules to cut CO2 emissions in electricity generation, arguing in testimony that the regulations “will be disastrous for the country, for no scientifically justifiable reason.”

  

  Citing extensive data to support their case, William Happer, professor emeritus in physics at Princeton University, and Richard Lindzen, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), argued that the claims used by the EPA to justify the new regulations are not based on scientific facts but rather political opinions and speculative models that have consistently proven to be wrong. 

  “The unscientific method of analysis, relying on consensus, peer review, government opinion, models that do not work, cherry-picking data and omitting voluminous contradictory data, is commonly employed in these studies and by the EPA in the Proposed Rule,” Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen stated. “None of the studies provides scientific knowledge, and thus none provides any scientific support for the Proposed Rule.”

  “All of the models that predict catastrophic global warming fail the key test of the scientific method: they grossly overpredict the warming versus actual data,” they stated. “The scientific method proves there is no risk that fossil fuels and carbon dioxide will cause catastrophic warming and extreme weather.”

  Climate models like the ones that the EPA is using have been consistently wrong for decades in predicting actual outcomes, Mr. Happer told The Epoch Times. He presented the table below to the EPA to illustrate his point.

  

  “That was already an embarrassment in the ‘90s, when I was director of energy research in the U.S. Department of Energy,” he said. “I was funding a lot of this work, and I knew very well then that the models were overpredicting the warming by a huge amount.”

  He and his colleague argued that the EPA has grossly overstated the harm from CO2 emissions while ignoring the benefits of CO2 to life on Earth.

  Many who have fought against EPA climate regulations have done so by arguing what is called the “major questions doctrine,” that the EPA does not have the authority to invent regulations that have such an enormous impact on Americans without clear direction from Congress. Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen, however, have taken a different tack, arguing that the EPA regulations fail the “State Farm” test because they are “arbitrary and capricious.”

  “Time and again, courts have applied ‘State Farm’s’ principles to invalidate agency rules where the agency failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, or cherry-picked data to support a pre-ordained conclusion,” they stated. The case they referred to is the 2003 case of State Farm v. Campell (pdf), in which the Supreme Court argued that “a State can have no legitimate interest in deliberately making the law so arbitrary that citizens will be unable to avoid punishment based solely upon bias or whim.”

  According to Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen’s testimony, “600 million years of CO2 and temperature data contradict the theory that high levels of CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming.”

  They present CO2 and temperature data indicating much higher levels of both CO2 and temperatures than today, with little correlation between the two. They also argue that current CO2 levels are historically at a low point.

  

  “The often highly emphasized 140 [parts per million] increase in CO2 since the beginning of the Industrial Age is trivial compared to CO2 changes over the geological history of life on Earth,” they stated. 

  In addition, the scientists’ testimony to the EPA stated that the agency’s emissions rules fail to consider the fact that CO2 and fossil fuels are essential to life on earth, particularly human life.

  “Increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere create more food for people worldwide, including more food for people in drought-stricken areas,” they stated. “Increases in carbon dioxide over the past two centuries since the Industrial Revolution, from about 280 parts per million to about 420 ppm, caused an approximate 20 percent increase in the food available to people worldwide, as well as increased greening of the planet and a benign warming in temperature.”

  

  More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to more plant growth and higher farming yields, they argued. In addition, synthetic fertilizers, which are derivatives of natural gas, are responsible for nearly half the world’s food production today. “Net zero” goals would reduce CO2 emissions by more than 40 gigatons per year, reducing the food supply proportionally, they said.

  

  In addition to disregarding the benefits of CO2, they stated, the EPA’s emission rules and the global warming narrative that has been used to justify them are based on flawed data.

  In addition to teaching physics at Princeton, Mr. Happer’s decades of work in physics has focused on atmospheric radiation and atmospheric turbulence, and his inventions have been used by astronomers and in national defense.

  “Radiation in the atmosphere is my specialty,” Mr. Happer said, “and I know more about it than, I would guess, any climate scientists.” 

  His expertise, he said, “involves much of the same physics that’s involved in climate, and none of it is very alarming.”

  The global warming narrative argues that as people burn fossil fuels, they emit higher concentrations of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere, which absorbs sunlight and creates a “greenhouse effect,” trapping the sun’s radiation and warming the earth. 

  But one aspect of CO2 emissions that global warming models fail to take into account, Mr. Happer said, is a phenomenon called “saturation,” or the diminishing effect of CO2 in the atmosphere at higher concentrations.

  “At the current concentrations of CO2, around 400 parts per million, it decreases the radiation to space by about 30 percent, compared to what you would have if you took it all away,” Mr. Happer said. “So that’s enough to cause quite a bit of warming of the earth, and thank God for that; it helps make the earth habitable, along with the effects of water vapor and clouds.”

  “But if you could double the amount of CO2 from 400 to 800, and that will take a long time, the amount that you decrease radiation to space is only one percent,” Mr. Happer said. “Very few people realize how hard it is for additional carbon dioxide to make a difference to the radiation to space. That’s what’s called saturation, and it’s been well known for a century.”

  

  In addition to scientific arguments about why global warming is overblown, the scientists also cite data showing large discrepancies between global warming models and actual observations. In some cases, Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen say, data has been disingenuously manipulated to fit the climate-change narrative.

  “The most striking example of that is the temperature record,” Mr. Happer said. “If you look at the temperature records that were published 20 years ago, they showed very clearly that in the United States by far the warmest years we had were during the mid-1930s. 

  “If you look at the data today, that is no longer true,” he said. “People in charge of that data, or what the public sees, have gradually reduced the temperatures of the ‘30s, then increased the temperature of more recent measurements.”

  An example of misleading data used by the EPA as proof of global warming is shown in the chart below, Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen claimed. 

  

  “This chart does not actually show ‘daily temperatures,’” they state. “Instead it show a ‘ratio’ of daily record highs to lows – a number that appears designed to create the impression that temperatures are steadily rising.”

  By contrast, the scientists presented the following table, which indicates significantly higher temperatures in the 1930s versus today. 

  

  The Scientific ‘Consensus’ for Climate Change

  Proponents of the global warming narrative often state that it is “settled science” and that nearly all scientists agree that global warming is real and the result of human activity.

  According to an official NASA statement, “the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists—97 percent—agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world.”

  A report by Cornell University states that “more than 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree that climate change is mainly caused by humans, according to a new survey of 88,125 climate-related studies.”

  But Mr. Happer argues that consensus is not science, citing a lecture on the scientific method by renowned physicist Richard Feynman, who said, “if it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.”

  “Science has never been made by consensus,” Mr. Happer said. “The way you decide something is true in science is you compare it with experiment or observations.

  “It doesn’t matter if there’s a consensus; it doesn’t matter if a Nobel Prize winner says it’s true, if it disagrees with observations, it’s wrong,” he said. “And that’s the situation with climate models. They are clearly wrong because they don’t agree with observations.”

  The National Library of Medicine cites a speech by physician and author Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology in 2003 in which he said, “consensus is the business of politics.”

  “Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world,” Dr. Crichton said. “In science, consensus is irrelevant. What are relevant are reproducible results.”

  “The initial predictions of climate disasters had New York flooded by now, no ice left at the North Pole, England would be like Siberia by now,” Mr. Happer said. “Nothing that they predicted actually came true. You have to do something to keep the money coming in, so they changed ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change.’”

  The Price of Dissent

  Regarding the consensus in published literature cited by Cornell University, some experts counter that academic publications routinely reject any submissions that question the global warming narrative. 

  “I’m lucky because I didn’t really start pushing back on this until I was close to retirement,” Mr. Happer said. He had already established himself at that point as a tenured professor at Princeton, a member of the Academy of Sciences, and director of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy.

  “If I’d been much younger, they could have made sure I never got tenure, that my papers would never get published,” he said. “They can keep me from publishing papers now, but it doesn’t matter because I already have status. But it would matter a lot if I were younger and I had a career that I was trying to make.”

  In an interview with John Stossel, climate scientist Judith Curry said she paid the price for contradicting the narrative and called the global warming consensus “a manufactured consensus.”

  Ms. Curry, the former chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said that when she published a study that claimed hurricanes were increasing in intensity, “I was adopted by the environmental advocacy groups and the alarmists and I was treated like a rock star; I was flown all over the place to meet with politicians and to give these talks, and lots of media attention.”

  When several researchers questioned her findings, she investigated their claims and concluded that her critics were correct. 

  “Part of it was bad data; part of it was natural climate variability,” she said. But when she went public with that fact, she was shunned, she said and pushed out of academia. 

  Mr. Lindzen tells a similar tale, once he began to question the climate narrative.

  “Funding and publication became almost impossible,” he said, “and I was holding the most distinguished chair in meteorology,” which was MIT’s Sloan Professorship of Meteorology. 

  Nobel Prize-winning physicist John Clauser told The Epoch Times that he, too, was abruptly canceled from giving a speech on climate at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on July 25.

  Mr. Clauser had stated during a previous speech at Quantum Korea 2023 that “climate change is not a crisis.”

  He said that climate is a self-regulating process and that more clouds form when temperatures rise, resulting in a compensatory cooling effect. Although he agrees that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, he argued that the gas’s effect on global warming is swamped by the natural cloud cycle.

  However, only days before his IMF discussion was to take place, Mr. Clauser received an email indicating that the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) director, Pablo Moreno, didn’t want the event to happen. An assistant who was coordinating the event wrote to Mr. Clauser: “When I arranged this the Director was very happy about it but things have evidently changed.”

  The IMF’s current policy on climate change is that “large emitting countries need to introduce a carbon tax that rises quickly to $75 a ton in 2030, consistent with limiting global warming to 2° [Celcius] or less.”

  The Climate Money Machine

  Asked why there would be a need to censor, alter, and cherry-pick data to support the global warming narrative, Mr. Lindzen said “because it’s a hoax.”

  Mr. Clauser said of the climate consensus, “We are totally awash in pseudoscience.”

  “There is this huge fraction of the population that has been brainwashed into thinking this is an existential threat to the planet,” Mr. Happer said. “I don’t blame the people; they don’t have the background to know they are being deceived, but they are being deceived.” 

  The World Bank announced in September 2022 that it paid out a record $31.7 billion that fiscal year to help countries address climate change, a 19 percent increase from the $26.6 billion it paid out over the previous fiscal year. And according to Reuters, the United States is projected to spend about $500 billion to fight climate change over the next decade, including $362 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, $98 billion from the Infrastructure Act, and $54 billion from the CHIPS law.

  “What would happen to sustainable energy, the worthless windmills and solar panels if suddenly there were no climate change emergency,” Mr. Happer said. “They’re really not very good technology and they’re doing a lot more harm than good, but nevertheless people are making lots of money.”

  Many investors, most notably BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, have cited government regulations and subsidies as a key reason why investments in “green” energies would be profitable. 

  Research grants to study climate change are offered by many government agencies, including the EPA, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as well as by non-profits including Bloomberg Philanthropies and the MacArthur Foundation, which paid out $458 million since 2014.

  “Going back to [19]88 to ’90, funding went up by a factor of 15,” Mr. Lindzen said. “You created a whole new community.

  “This was a small field in 1990; not a single member of the faculty at MIT called themselves a climate scientist,” he said. “By 1996, everyone was a climate scientist, and that included impacts. If you’re studying cockroaches and you put in your grant, ‘cockroaches and climate,’ you are a climate scientist.”

  Asked to respond to the professors’ comments, an EPA spokesperson stated: “The Agency will review all comments we received as we work to finalize the proposed standards.”

  Kevin Stocklin is a business reporter, film producer and former Wall Street banker. He wrote and produced “We All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis,” a 2008 documentary on the collapse of the mortgage finance system. His most recent documentary is “The Shadow State,” an investigation of the ESG industry.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 21:40

• Here Is What Warren Buffett Bought And Sold In Q2
  Here Is What Warren Buffett Bought And Sold In Q2

  Today marks 45 days after the end of the first quarter, also known as the day when Q1 13-F season begins (and ends) and while we will have a comprehensive summary of what hedge funds did in the first quarter (which, again, ended 45 days ago and in a world where the average holding period is a few minutes, is largely meaningless by now) we start our reporting with the grand daddy of all modern day taxpayer-backed hedge funds, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

  Which actually was not that much: the reported value of Berkshire’s long-only equity portfolio rose by just 7% to $348BN as of June 30 from $325BN in Q1 (which in turn was an 8.7% increase from $299BN in Q4) to $325BN, largely thanks to stock price appreciation because as previously noted, in Q2 Buffett “harvested” (read sold) his positions for the third quarter running, dumping a net $8.0BN (down from $10.4BN in the previous quarter, and from the $15BN net he sold in Q4, both of which are a small fraction of his portfolio of ~$350BN).

  

  With that in mind, here are the most notable changes in Q2:

  Three new buys, all homebuilders:

  • DR Horton: bought 5.97 million shares valued at $726.5 million
  • NVR: bought 70.6 million shares valued at $70.6 million
  • Lennar Group: bought 152,572 shares valued at just $17.2 million, in what may have been a fat finger purchase as it is completely meaningless for a firm the size of Berkshire

  As Bloomberg notes, the largest US homebuilders have been outperforming smaller rivals despite soaring mortgage rates, with stocks rallying and the companies welcoming an onrush of buyers frustrated by a severe shortage of existing-home listings. Lennar, D.R. Horton and NVR are all up more than 30% this year.

  Four exits:

  • McKesson Corp: 2.3 million shares, valued at $815 milion as of June 30, 2023
  • Marsh & McLennan: 404,911 shares valued at $67 million
  • Vitesse Energy: the unwind of last quarter’s “fat finger” purchase which was just 51,026 shares valued at $1 million.

  Added holdings in just two positions:

  • Occidental Petroleum: bought 12.4 million shares, bringing the new total to 224.1 million shares, valued at $13.2 billion
  • Capital One: added 2.549 million shares to prior stake of 9.9 million, bringing the total to 12.471 million, valued at $1.364 billion.

  Trimmed holdings in five positions, including:

  • Chevron: reduced by 9.3 million shares to 123.1 million shares valued at $19.4 billion
  • Activision Blizzard: reduced stake by another 34.8 million shares, following the sale of 3.3 million shares in Q1, bringing the latest total to just 14.7 million shares valued at $1.3 billion and largely missing out on the July surge in the stock when the MSFT deal was tentatively approved
  • General Motors: continued the stake reduction with another 18 million shares following the sale of 10 million shares in Q1, bringing the new total to 22  million shares valued at $848 million.
  • Celanese: another quarter of selling here, which reduced the position by 3.460 million shares to 5.4 million shares, from 8.8 million shares, and valued at $620.5 million
  • Globe Life: reduced by 3.8 million shares to 2.5 million shares valued at $276 million

  Recent disclosures from Berkshire related to its stock portfolio revealed a departure from the company’s long-held strategy of buying shares and holding them for the long term. The conglomerate revealed a stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. last year, only to largely rotate out of that position in subsequent months. Buffett said the decision to cut the stake in TSMC was his, citing geopolitical tensions as the motivation behind the move even as he continued to praise the chipmaker.

  “I feel better about the capital that we’ve got deployed in Japan than in Taiwan,” Buffett said earlier this year. “I wish it weren’t so, but I think that’s the reality, and I re-evaluated that in the light of certain things that were going on.”

  Of course, by now readers know but we will remind them anyway, the holdings reported here exclude derivatives and total values may include debt securities. The equities listed may not reflect current holdings. New holdings and exits may be caused by updated disclosure requirements rather than investment changes.

  Full details of all Berkshire Q2 moves can be found in the table below.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 21:20

• FDA Approved 65% Of New Drugs In 2022 Based On A Single Study
  FDA Approved 65% Of New Drugs In 2022 Based On A Single Study

  Authored by Megan Redshaw JD via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act), signed into law in December 2016, was created to help accelerate medical product development and “bring new innovations and advances” to patients quicker and more efficiently. Yet some researchers suggest the law is being used to bypass the once rigorous and evidenced-based standards for new drug approvals, allowing novel drugs to flood the market without adequate data and public transparency.

  

  According to a research letter published on August 8 in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open (JAMA), 24 of the 37 drugs approved in 2022 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were based on a single study, with only four drugs having more than three studies to support their approval.

  “I’m not surprised,” David Gortler, a pharmacologist, pharmacist, and FDA reform advocate at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told The Epoch Times in an email. As a former senior advisor to the FDA commissioner, Mr. Gortler said he saw the agency grant expedited approval to a medication called aducanumab—used to treat Alzheimer’s disease “based on zero positive studies.”

  “They did the same with other monoclonal antibodies for Alzheimer’s disease,” Mr. Gortler said.

  According to the research letter, most of the 413 studies evaluating the 37 drugs approved in 2022 were sponsored by the industry—meaning they were manufactured, funded, and analyzed by the company producing the product, seeking FDA approval, and standing to benefit financially from the drug.

  Of the studies available for analysis, only 25 percent of study results have been made publicly available, with the results of six percent of those studies published after the FDA had already approved the drug for use.

  Furthermore, researchers found that only 55 percent of studies evaluating drugs in 2022 consisted of randomized clinical trials—the “gold standard” of evidence-based medicine—despite the FDA justifying most approvals based on randomized clinical trial data.

  For comparison, only 20 percent of medical products in 2016 were approved based on a single study, and 55 percent were approved based on three or more studies, whereas 65 percent of drugs in 2022 were approved based on a single study, with only 11 percent having three or more studies.

  “We believe consumers deserve access to the full range of evidence for the drugs they are considering, not just from the selected studies released to the public,” the authors wrote.

  The researchers say their results “highlight a trend toward less rigorous standards for novel drug approvals that has evolved over the past few decades” and are consistent with other reports showing a widespread decrease in the number of trials used for drug approvals.

  “The authors point to the deterioration of the quality and rigor of the regulatory review and approval of new drugs over time,” Sasha Latypova told The Epoch Times in an email. Ms. Latypova is a retired pharmaceutical industry executive with 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development and co-founder of several organizations that work with pharmaceutical companies to design, execute, collect data, and submit clinical trial data to the FDA.

  Ms. Latypova says this trend began with a “fast track” designation implemented in 1988 that increased the number of special regulatory programs available by the FDA and decreased the evidentiary requirements for approval. In the 2000s, Ms. Latypova said many blockbuster drugs became generic medicines, which started a “patent cliff” where industry investments began to focus on narrower niches in an effort to get patent exclusivity—which is more profitable for a pharmaceutical company.

  “For example, approvals receiving an ‘orphan’ designation or what is considered rare disease increased to over 50% percent,” Ms. Latypova said. “These products are sometimes approved on as little as a single observational study with fewer than 20 subjects, however, once approved, the drug’s price increased one million to three million dollars per treatment and was fully covered by the taxpayer and private insurance—driving the costs of premiums.”

  Thus, the “regulatory requirements are minimal, but the profits are outsized,” she added.

  FDA Cures Act Made It Easier for Pharma and Regulatory Agencies to Cut Corners

  The FDA, on its website, states the intent of the Cures Act (pdf) passed by Congress in December 2016  was to “incorporate the perspectives of patients into the development of drugs, biological products, and devices in FDA’s decision-making process” and enhance its ability to “modernize clinical trial designs,” including the use of “real world evidence” to speed up the development and review of novel medical products, including emergency and preparedness response countermeasures used to justify rapid authorization of COVID-19 vaccines.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 21:00

• It's Not Just The Office: School Attendance Rates "Plummeting" As COVID's "Stay At Home" Effects Linger
  It’s Not Just The Office: School Attendance Rates “Plummeting” As COVID’s “Stay At Home” Effects Linger

  We’ve all heard the stories about workers not wanting to return to the office. 

  But it isn’t just the adults who are eager to do away with responsibility after the multiple-year free-for-all that was Covid – it’s now also the kids. A new report from Fortune details how Covid has “permanently severed something” relating to children and young adults attending school. Attendance is “plummeting”, the report says. 

  The report details the story of Rousmery Negrón and her 11 year old son, who said that school was “less welcoming” after the pandemic. “Everyone seemed less tolerant, more angry,” the report details, and parents were no longer allowed in the building without appointments. As a result, her son missed more than five months of sixth grade. 

  Fortune writes about how this one case is symbolic of a larger trend across the country. Students have been absent at “record rates”, the report says and more than 25% of students missed “at least 10%” of the 2021-22 school year. Prior to Covid, this number stood at just 15% of students. 

  6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, the report concludes, citing a study by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with The Associated Press. After looking at data from 40 states, they found that absenteeism was more pronounced among black, Latino and low income students. 

  

  Students not only miss out on education, but also on steady meals, counseling and socializing, the report says. Those who miss 18 days or more a year are at a higher risk of not learning how to read or dropping out altogether. 

  Seven states saw the rate of chronically absent kids double for the 2021-22 school year from 2018-19. 

  Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit addressing chronic absenteeism, told Fortune: “The long-term consequences of disengaging from school are devastating. And the pandemic has absolutely made things worse and for more students.”

  Elmer Roldan, of Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, added: “For almost two years, we told families that school can look different and that schoolwork could be accomplished in times outside of the traditional 8-to-3 day. Families got used to that.”

  Recall, just days ago we wrote about 66% of finance workers said they would quit if they were forced back into the office. The revelation came as part of a survey published this week by Deloitte, reported on by Banking Dive. 

  We have also been writing about how Wall Street banks have been mandating that their employees come back to the office now that the Covid hysteria has subsided. In March 2023, we wrote about how the era of working from home was drawing to a close. Returning to the office hasn’t gone over well everywhere. In Seattle, Amazon employees are protesting returning the office due to “climate change”, among other idiotic reasons, we wrote about in June. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 20:40

• "This Is Like A Nightmare": Mother Of Jan. 6 Prisoner Becomes Desperate As Her Son Goes Silent From Prison
  “This Is Like A Nightmare”: Mother Of Jan. 6 Prisoner Becomes Desperate As Her Son Goes Silent From Prison

  Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Lynda Davison is scared. Her son, Larry Brock Jr., is a Jan. 6 prisoner. She used to hear from him every day. But now she hasn’t heard from him in two weeks, and no one is giving her any answers.

  

  As reported by The Epoch Times on June 17, Mr. Brock was indicted on six charges (pdf), including obstruction of an official proceeding, one that carries a 20-year prison sentence. Prior to his incarceration, Mr. Brock announced his plans to go on a hunger strike. At the time of the report, Mr. Brock had dropped 30 pounds. His current health status is unknown.

  “He called on Monday, the 24th [of July], and said he couldn’t call at their normal time of 11 a.m. because he ‘had a meeting,’” Mrs. Davison recalled. “But then all of a sudden, Larry didn’t call me back that Monday. He didn’t call that evening, and I didn’t worry about it too much. But then the next day, and the next day, and the next, and the next, and nobody hears from him, and that went on until this past Sunday.”

  

  It wasn’t until nearly two weeks later, on Aug. 5, that anyone heard from him again.

  “He called his girlfriend and started telling her all this stuff about how they’ve moved him to supermax, and all I know about supermax is that it’s horrible,” Mrs. Davison told The Epoch Times, her voice strained with emotion. “This is like a nightmare.”

  From what Mrs. Davison learned, her son was moved on July 25 and placed under supermax restrictions. Where he once called her daily at 11 a.m., he now gets one phone call per month. Where he was once in a pod with 25 other prisoners, he is now alone in a cell 23 hours a day. He is no longer allowed to send or receive emails.

  Mrs. Davison says no reason is being given for the change in her son’s conditions other than they have “decided to put him under investigation,” and he has been advised “that he will likely remain under these conditions for the next six to nine months.”

  Mr. Brock’s attorney, Charles Burnham, confirmed to The Epoch Times that he, too, was in the dark.

  “I don’t know anything about why Larry is now under such restrictive conditions other than what I’ve heard secondhand from his family,” Mr. Burnham said. “I’ve emailed everybody I know, and nobody has answered my questions, which is typical of [the Bureau of Police]. I got an email from the warden’s office saying they forwarded my email to someone else, and they’re going to have someone get me in touch with his counselor so I can set up a call with him.”

  Asked what he suspected could be the reason for the sudden punishment, Mr. Burnham was reluctant to hypothesize.

  ‘This Is So Wrong’

  In the meantime, Mrs. Davison said she isn’t even sure if her son is still in Springfield Federal Prison in Texas.

  “I can’t find out anything,” she said, her voice strained. “I just don’t know. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  Her voice broke off into sobs.

  The next voice on the phone was that of her husband, Lowry.

  “It’s been so hard on her. So hard,” he said. “We lost our youngest, her youngest, it was my stepson, back in ’91, to an automobile accident. Now our only son is wrapped up in this nonsense. It’s hard on her. It’s hard on him. It’s hard on the whole family.”

  While the government wanted to sentence Mr. Brock to three years, the judge sentenced him to two years. Mr. Davison still thinks that’s too much.

  “What happened to the First Amendment rights of free speech, the right to assemble and to petition the government for redress of our grievances?” He asked. “This is so wrong.”

  

  “As far as I’m concerned, as an American citizen, the U.S. attorney’s department and the judiciary in Washington, D.C. are corrupt,” he asserted, saying, “They all go to the same little parties and bought into the same liberal agenda, and you will not ever get a fair trial as a conservative in Washington, D.C.”

  Mr. Davison said his stepson has already paid a heavy price for participating in the protests on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Brock lost his pilot’s license. He was fired from his job. When he tried starting his own business doing home inspections, the State of Texas also revoked that license.

  “I am 78 years old, and this is the most corrupt I have ever seen this government,” Mr. Davison said. “I never thought I’d see this. This used to only happen in China and Russia. You don’t put Americans in jail and refuse them their rights. What’s going on with this country?”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 20:20

• "Death Scientists?": Tucker And RFK Jr. Talk Ukraine, Biolabs, And Who Killed His Uncle
  “Death Scientists?”: Tucker And RFK Jr. Talk Ukraine, Biolabs, And Who Killed His Uncle

  RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson sat down for a lengthy interview published on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, in which the two discuss Ukraine, bio-labs, and who killed his uncle, JFK. Carlson made clear that he wasn’t going to badger Kennedy with questions about his stance on vaccines, which the MSM has made a central focus for obvious reasons.

  

  The interview begins by discussing the Biden administration denying RFK Jr. Secret Service protection

  Despite the fact that his uncle and his father were both assassinated, the Biden administration denied SS protection

  “We applied for Secret Service protection in May,” said Kennedy, adding “The President has discretion to give Secret Service protection to any candidate, for any reason.”

  Kennedy noted that former President Barack Obama was given Secret Service protection more than 500 days before the election, and that his uncle Ted Kennedy received protection more than 450 days before an election.

  “I think the DNC is playing hardball,” Kennedy added.

  On the topic of Ukraine

  (12 minutes in), Kennedy says Americans are being lied to, and were sold on a “comic book pitch, which we see in every war. There’s a bad guy who’s like, you know, unspeakably evil, who’s planning world conquest or a terrorist attack on America. And we have to be the good guys and go in and stop it.“

  Kennedy then explained that “a group of people who are known as Neocons, since 2001, have been talking about putting NATO in Ukraine. Now, I’ll give you some background. In 1992 the walls came down and the Soviet Union collapsed. Gorbichev went to Tony Blair and President Bush and said ‘I’m going to withdraw 400,000 Soviet troops from East Germany. I’m going to allow you to reunify Germany under NATO troops – so you’re gonna move NATO troops, a hostile force, into our barracks and our bases – and the only commitment I want from you, is that once I allow Germany top become part of NATO, that you will never move NATO further to the East.'”

  “James Baker, who was the Secretary of State at that time, famously said: ‘we promise that we will not move NATO one inch to the East.'”

  “Then, in 1996, 1997, five years later, Zbigniew Brzezinski … says ‘ok, we should start moving NATO to all the former (USSR) satellite states.'”

  US Biolabs in Ukraine

  At around 35 minutes into the interview, Carlson and Kennedy begin discussing the US bioweapons program. Meanwhile back home, RFK Jr. said that there are “36,000 ‘death scientists’ who are now employed full time in developing microbes that can be used to kill people.“

  🚨BOMBSHELL: @TuckerCarlson asked @RobertKennedyJr about the shadowy biolabs in Ukraine. RFK’s jaw-dropping answer, if proven true, could shake the very foundations of trust and demands unparalleled consequences for both Anthony Fauci and Ralph Baric.

  RFK: “Anthony Fauci got all… pic.twitter.com/fWBv9JCTbe

  — Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) August 15, 2023

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

  George W. Bush and Dick Cheney put Fauci in charge of the US bioweapons program.

  Dr. Peter Daszak, Dr. Ralph Baric, and Dr. Anthony Fauci should never have transferred their coronavirus research to Dr. Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.https://t.co/KP1tPc6AAR

  — KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) August 15, 2023

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  On the topic of who killed his uncle

  RFK Jr. alleged that the CIA was involved, and that most of the people at the agency had associations with Cuba.

  “The specific people who were involved in it were pretty much all associated with a Miami station, which was the largest CIA station at the time. It was basically, it was the Cuban station,” said Kennedy.

  “And the people who were involved in that station were people like Bill Harvey and David Atlee Phillips who was clearly involved in my uncle’s assassination. He was by all evidence, he was Lee Harvey Oswald’s handler at the CIA.”

  Kennedy also says that the corporate media has been publishing “outright lies” about him.

  “Right now, what it seems to me is that there’s been this alignment, this political alignment that I think really started with Fox News back, you know, when Roger was running things there where he overtly made it a political network. He ended it with the Republican Party and said we’re gonna push their agenda. And up until then, that has been considered a journalistic ethical breach. The networks were supposed to at least pretend neutrality and the newspapers as well,” he said.

  “But now I think that business model works so well for Fox and again, I think MSNBC and CNN adopted the same business model and there’s been this big consolidation in the media where really there’s no independent media.“

  Watch the entire interview below:

  Ep. 16 RFK Jr. explains Ukraine, bio-labs, and who killed his uncle pic.twitter.com/RMr5VZVqSM

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 14, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 20:00

• Age Of Rage: UChicago Report Finds 30 Million American View Violence As Justified To Keep Trump From Power
  Age Of Rage: UChicago Report Finds 30 Million American View Violence As Justified To Keep Trump From Power

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  I recently asked, in light of the free speech implications of the second federal Trump indictment, when the price is too high for those who seek to jail the former president.

  

  The chilling answer is found in a new report out of the University of Chicago showing that almost 12 percent of the population, representing 30 million people, believe that violence is warranted to prevent Trump from assuming the presidency. That is almost double the number who believe that violence is warranted to ensure that Trump does become president.

  30 million say “use of force” justified to prevent another Trump presidency, compared to 18 million who say same about restoring Trump presidency, per @ProfessorPape on @FaceTheNation. pic.twitter.com/KBHZO9cNsd

  — Brent Baker 🇺🇦 (@BrentHBaker) August 13, 2023

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

  As discussed in The Guardian, the Chicago Project on Security & Threats survey found many Americans are embracing violence as an option for political change.

  We have watched as rage has risen in the country. It is often celebrated by one side or the other. I previously discussed how a scene like the recent confrontation on the floor of the Tennessee House perfectly captured our “age of rage.” Protesters filled the capitol building to protest the failure to pass gun-control legislation. Three Democratic state representatives — Justin Jones from Nashville, Justin Pearson from Memphis, and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville — were unwilling to yield to the majority. They disrupted the floor proceedings with a bullhorn and screaming at their colleagues.

  It is a scene familiar to many of us in academia, where events are regularly canceled by those who shout down others.

  The three members yelled “No action, no peace” and “Power to the people” as their colleagues objected to their stopping the legislative process. Undeterred, the three refused to allow “business as usual” to continue.

  Nobel Laureate Albert Camus once said, “Insurrection is certainly not the sum total of human experience but … it is our historic reality.” Those words came to mind when Tennessee’s House of Representatives expelled two members accused of disrupting legislative proceedings in what some called an “insurrection” or a “mutiny.”

  Only a few days before the Tennessee House floor fight, a confrontation occurred off the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington which captured perfectly this new political reality.

  Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) was shown on videotape screaming about gun control in the Capitol as his colleagues left the floor following a vote. Various Democratic members, including former House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), tried to calm Bowman. However, when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) asked Bowman to stop yelling, Bowman shouted back: “I was screaming before you interrupted me” — which could go down as the epitaph for our age.

  The problem is that political figures on both sides are attempting to harness this rage.  They are playing a dangerous game. Trump’s inflammatory tweets are an example. Likewise, former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa as riots raged in his city last summer.

  Unleashing such rage is difficult to control and often those leading the mob find themselves later pursued by it. This is why, during the French Revolution, the journalist Jacques Mallet Pan warned, “Like Saturn, the revolution devours its children.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 19:40

• ​​​​​​​'Bidenomics' Leaves Americans Becoming Homeless At "Record Rate"
  ​​​​​​​’Bidenomics’ Leaves Americans Becoming Homeless At “Record Rate”

  The Biden administration’s fight against homelessness is faltering ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle. 

  A new Wall Street Journal report reveals the number of Americans ending up on the streets is happening at a “record rate” despite ‘Bidenomics‘ being touted as an economic savior for the middle class. Every working-class folk understands Biden’s policies have been absolutely horrendous — two years of negative real wages forced many to rack up insurmountable credit card debt during the highest interest rate environment in a generation while draining personal savings — all to make ends meet, like putting food on the table and paying rent. Compound this with the worst housing affordability period in decades (maybe relief in 2H24 or ’25), and it’s not hard to understand why the homelessness crisis is beginning to spiral out of control for Democrats. 

  

  WSJ’s Jon Kamp and Shannon Najmabadi analyzed data from more than 300 entities that track homeless people across metro areas, counties, and states. They noted the data accounted for 80% of the homeless people counted nationwide last year. 

  So far this year, the data shows the number of homeless people has soared by 11% compared with 2022. WSJ said the jump “represents by far the biggest recorded increase since the government started tracking comparable numbers in 2007.” They pointed out the second-highest increase was in 2019, at a 2.7% increase, “excluding an artificially high increase last year caused by pandemic counting interruptions.” 

  The surge in homelessness has now pushed the number of folks living on the streets to nearly 600,000. 

  

  Besides overleveraged and broke consumers, many can’t afford shelter costs. The national housing crisis has been exacerbated due to limited supply and the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate above 7%. 

  Nevertheless, consumers have used their credit cards too much during this high-rate environment. They’re tapped out: Consumers Finally Crack: Shocking Drop In June Credit Card Debt Marks End Of Spending Binge. And with a personal savings rate at ultra-low levels, folks have no financial cushion in hard times. 

  The situation worsens for the more than 40 million Americans with student loan debt who will see their payments restart in the next 2.5 weeks. 

  On top of this, all the Covid-relief funds have run out. Jamie Rife, executive director of the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, explained:

   “We are beginning to feel the full economic fallout of the Covid-19 era.” 

  Meanwhile, chronic homelessness has soared to a new high. 

  

  Not to mention Biden is also dealing with a “twin crisis”: Suicides and drug overdoses climbed to a record high in 2022. Let’s not forget there’s still a border crisis.

  Crisis after crisis, crushing the working poor while “Rich Men North Of Richmond” care more about giving billions of dollars to Ukraine instead of helping the working class, might be why Biden’s polling numbers are at ultra-low levels. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 19:20

• Ramaswamy Vows To "Shut Down The Three-Letter Agencies"
  Ramaswamy Vows To “Shut Down The Three-Letter Agencies”

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Republican Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy vowed Sunday that if elected his priority will be to “clean house, shut down the FBI, refurbish the DOJ.”

  

  “My core platform is to get in there and shut down the administrative deep state, the three-letter agencies, the regulatory state that is a threat to our constitutional republic, from the FBI, to the IRS, to the ATF, to the U.S. Department of Education,” Ramaswamy said during a Fox news interview.

  He continued, “that is our ticket to not only restoring the integrity of our government, but also to stimulating the economy, because those three-letter agencies are actually the source of the unconstitutional federal regulations that act like a wet blanket on businesses both large and small in our economy.”

  I will reduce headcount at the U.S. Federal Reserve by >90% and limit its scope to doing exactly *one* thing: stabilize the dollar as a stable unit of measurement. That’s it. I’ll make the 2024 election a referendum on the Fed & put the beast back in its cage. pic.twitter.com/FBfV646LDi

  — Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 14, 2023

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  Ramaswamy added that “these things go hand in glove together to be able to both restore the integrity of our constitutional republic by getting rid of that fourth branch while also stimulating the economy in the process.”

  After being misquoted in the press saying that he would pardon the Bidens for alleged corruption, Ramaswamy noted “I’m on record going in favor of an impeachment inquiry on Biden, because I personally believe the Ukraine war is indeed a repayment for a bribe made, now sending $200 billion of taxpayer money in the other direction.”

  “I’m the only candidate to actually pledge to pardon Trump for all of these political persecutions through prosecutions, even peaceful January 6 protesters on down,” Ramaswamy added.

  He further explained that while he would get to the bottom of Biden’s alleged bribery scandal, “I’m not going to be guided by vengeance and grievance. I’m going to be guided by integrity.”

  “I’m going to be focused on stimulating the economy, ending the war in Ukraine, declaring independence from China,” Ramaswamy urged, adding “I stand on the side of leading us forward to a national revival.”

  Watch:

  https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6333387315112&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 19:00

• West Coast Collapse: America's Most Affluent Regions Are Dying Under Democrat Control
  West Coast Collapse: America’s Most Affluent Regions Are Dying Under Democrat Control

  The recent implosion of Silicon Valley Bank out of Santa Clara, California was highly symbolic of the greater decline in progress on the west coast of the US.  The bank, which also had branch offices in the east, primarily operated out of the far-left corridor of LA, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.  SVB was a key hub in California for the proliferation of ESG investment and was deeply involved in ESG and DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) related policies.  The bank was intended as a model for “woke-capitalism.”

  The corporate world is quietly and quickly attempting to remove ESG terminology from their public websites and reports now that the money is drying up, and the media has tried to deny that ESG had anything to do with the bank crisis in the spring.  However, SVB’s own internal reports outline quite clearly their ESG goals and projects.

  The point?  Get woke, go broke.  

  The way SVB was governed was similar to how California, Oregon and Washington State are governed now – Chasing far-left ideology and dreams of progressive Utopia to the detriment of everything else, including the economy and the security of the citizenry.

  
       
  It’s important to mention that things were not always this way.  Pundits are quick to point out that states like California were wealthy and successful under Democrat leadership decades ago.  But what these people don’t want to talk about is the fact that the Democrat politicians of the past 5-10 years are not the same as the Democrats of previous eras.

  ESG was not a core mission for Democrats 20 years ago.  DEI was not a core mission for them 20 years ago.  And, management of west coast policies was far more balanced in years past with more conservative involvement.  One could make the argument that the Dems of today are the inevitable end result of any progressive party, and that full-blown collectivism was always the end game.  The point remains that woke Democrats are not your grandfather’s Democrats. They are a different breed; a different species with a far more obsessive and aggressive manifesto.

  The results?  Almost every major city on the coast has been witnessing a population exodus for at least the past three years.  Setting aside obscuring factors such as the birth/death ratio as well as illegal immigration, LA County saw over 300,000 citizens leave since 2020.  The Bay Area lost 250,000 people.  Portland, Oregon is now one of the fastest shrinking cities in America, losing 3% of its population in only two years.  Seattle is the only city that is not seeing a migration (at least not yet).

  Why is this happening, beyond the nearly three years of pointless pandemic lockdowns and covid mandates?   Leftist policies leading to social instability and higher crime are a good place to start (note that most west coast cities still don’t provide full reports on crime data to the FBI, and will not until 2025).  

  California specifically is adhering to Prop 47, which makes all theft under $950 a misdemeanor instead of a felony, and misdemeanors are rarely pursued with any vigor by police departments.  Meaning, theft under $950 is essentially welcomed by Democrats.  With rising property crime often comes rising violent crime.  Perpetrators think that if they can get away with theft, maybe they can also get away with assault, or even murder.  Similar woke laws and attempts to “defund” police have created an atmosphere of belligerence – Criminals are emboldened by Democrat politicians.     

  LA had an 11% spike in crime in 2022.  San Francisco has had a nearly 8% increase in violent crime in the past three years, a 20% increase in property crime and 17% increase in homicides.  Portland had a 35% increase in burglaries from 2019-2022, and they hit an all time record number of homicides in 2022.  Property crime and violent crime hit a 15-year high in Seattle in 2022, with verified criminal shootings rising 125% since 2019.  The true numbers will likely be revised much higher when full data is released to the FBI in 2025.  

  San Francisco in particular has provided a steady supply of violent crime videos on social media.  Residents are afraid to leave their homes in many neighborhoods, knowing that the city has no intention of helping solve the problem or cracking down on felons.  

  Then there’s the exploding costs and rising poverty.  West coast cities dominate the top of the list of the most expensive places to live in the US.  High taxes, rampant inflation and stagnant wages are all contributors.  There is a good reason people are leaving these states in droves.        

  The west coast is not alone in the overall decay that America is experiencing, it is just the most advanced and should be treated as a canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country.  Regions managed under far-left leadership are all facing imminent destabilization and this fact needs to be addressed on the national stage.  Is the fall of the west coast (and parts of the east coast) a precursor to the fall of the US?  If so, the most logical solution would be to take power away from the leftists causing the rot.     

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 18:40

• Trump, Giuliani, Powell, Meadows & 15 Others Indicted On 13 Counts By Atlanta Grand Jury
  Trump, Giuliani, Powell, Meadows & 15 Others Indicted On 13 Counts By Atlanta Grand Jury

  Summary

  It’s been quite a day in Atlanta (and for scrambling Democrats) as former President Trump was indicted for the 4th time.

  The events (detailed below) are summarized here in chronological order:

  Before the Grand Jury’s verdict, Reuters reported that a document was leaked earlier in the day on the Fulton County, Georgia court’s website showing former president Trump being indicted on RICO charges (among many others).

  • The Georgia DA released a statement calling the document “fictitious”.

  • Trump’s team (and the entire internet) mocked this farcical comment: “This was not a simple administrative mistake.”

  

  The Grand Jury then handed down a 98-page indictment, against the former president (the jurors’ names were unredacted)…

  

  …claiming that he – and 18 of his allies – orchestrated a sweeping criminal enterprise, committing more than a dozen felonies, as he tried and failed to overturn his defeat in Georgia’s 2020 election.

  • Defendants include Rudy Giuliani, Mark Leadows, Sidney Powell, and John Eastman.

  • The charging documents also list 30 unindicted co-conspirators.

  

  Trump faces 13 counts in the indictment. Here is the full list:

  • One count in violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

  • Three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by public officer

  • One count of conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer

  • Two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree

  • Two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings

  • One count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents

  • One count of filing a false document

  • Two counts of false statements and writings

  All of these charges were exactly as per the leaked “fictitious” document that was found on the courthouse website hours before the Grand Jury’s decision.

  

  The Trump team issued a statement blasting the Georgia DA as a “rabid partisan”, adding that “all of these corrupt Democrat attempts will fail.”

  Statement from the Trump Campaign

  Like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Deranged Jack Smith, and New York AG Letitia James, Fulton County, GA’s radical Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis is a rabid partisan who is campaigning and fundraising on a platform of prosecuting President Trump through these bogus indictments. Ripping a page from Crooked Joe Biden’s playbook, Willis has strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign. All of these corrupt Democrat attempts will fail.

  Combined with the intentionally slow-walked investigations by the Biden-Smith goon squads and the false charges in New York, the timing of this latest coordinated strike by a biased prosecutor in an overwhelmingly Democrat jurisdiction not only betrays the trust of the American people, but also exposes true motivation driving their fabricated accusations.

  They could have brought this two and half years ago, yet they chose to do this for election interference reasons in the middle of President Trump’s successful campaign. He is not only leading all Republicans by a lot but he is leading against Joe Biden in almost every poll. President Trump represents the greatest threat to these Democrats’ political futures (and the greatest hope for America).

  The legal double-standard set against President Trump must end. Under the Crooked Biden Cartel, there are no rules for Democrats, while Republicans face criminal charges for exercising their First Amendment rights.

  These activities by Democrat leaders constitute a grave threat to American democracy and are direct attempts to deprive the American people of their rightful choice to cast their vote for President. Call it election interference or election manipulation—it is a dangerous effort by the ruling class to suppress the choice of the people. It is un-American and wrong.

  They are taking away President Trump’s First Amendment right to free speech, and the right to challenge a rigged and stolen election that the Democrats do all the time. The ones who should be prosecuted are the ones who created the corruption.

  President Trump will never give up and will never stop fighting for you, as we all work to Make America Great Again in 2024.

  Read the full indictment below:

  Liberals everywhere…

  

  *  *  *

  Update (2033ET): A grand jury in Atlanta handed in an indictment late Monday related to a Georgia prosecutor’s investigation into former President Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

  

  The details were not immediately clear, but we know what’s coming.

  The full indictment is expected to be released later this evening.

  Emily khors is the forewoman of the Trump grand jury and she’s an absolute lunatic. She must think she’s the lead role in her head. pic.twitter.com/67DDzPmN83

  — Stephan (@itoldyaso88) February 22, 2023

  Never forget – President Trump was leading Biden by 160,000+ votes on election night

  Then a “water pipe burst” forcing GOP poll watchers out of the Atlanta counting center while Democrat criminals pulled out suitcases of ballots & ran them through the machines for hours… pic.twitter.com/f3PUuEiU1f

  — DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) August 15, 2023

  Another day, another indictment.

  No amount of indictments will explain how 80%+ of bellwether counties voted for Trump yet Biden won (something that has never happened before).

  No amount of indictments will explain how a presidential candidate could have such a strong lead and… pic.twitter.com/EU5dq48hZQ

  — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 15, 2023

  *  *  *

  Update (1830ET): Attorneys for Donald Trump on Monday criticized the Georgia Fulton County District Attorney’s Office over a report that a document listing criminal charges against the former president was briefly posted earlier in the day, then abruptly taken down.

  “The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process,” attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little said in a statement issued by the Trump campaign.

  “This was not a simple administrative mistake,” the attorneys added.

  “A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney’s Office, yet it somehow made its way to the clerk’s office and was assigned a case number and a judge before the grand jury even deliberated. This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception.”

  *  *  *

  Update (1820ET): Fulton County’s Office of the Court Clerk has issued a statement claiming that the RICO docket against former President Trump which was posted to their portal and subsequently deleted – and which was tweeted and reported on first by Reuters (along with a link to the Court’s portal), was “fictitious.”

  🚨 #BREAKING: The Fulton County, GA Clerk of Courts has released a statement claiming the document outlining the charges against President Trump that was posted on their website—and subsequently DELETED after it was reported on by Reuters—is a FAKE.

  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? pic.twitter.com/jRErmhUjKX

  — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 14, 2023

  The statement reads:

  Special Purpose Grand Jury Update The Office of the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts has learned of a fictitious document that has been circulated online and reported by various media outlets related to The Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury.

  While there have been no documents filed today regarding such, all members of the media should be reminded that documents that do not bear an official case number, filing date, and the name of The Clerk of Courts, in concert, are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such.

  Media members can expect to be notified of any/all filings in real time and will be provided access to filings via equitable communication.

  As the official custodian of various county records, the Clerk of Courts understands the sensitivity of all court filings, especially those that arc at the forefront of the national spotlight and remains committed to operating with an extreme level of efficiency, accuracy, and transparency.

  Hmm:

  Loos like case number and date to me. Hmmm pic.twitter.com/JNXcVAzPjo

  — Jackie 🇺🇸 (@Jackie9900) August 14, 2023

  In an earlier statement, the court said: “The Reuters report that those charges were filed is inaccurate. Beyond that we cannot comment,” said a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office, which stated that no charges had been filed against Trump.

  I hate it when fictitious legal documents get posted to my government website.

  — Jeremiah (@jeremiahbnewell) August 14, 2023

  *  *  *

  Former President Donald Trump is apparently going to be indicted under the RICO (Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act) statute, according to a document which was briefly posted on the Fulton County, Georgia court’s website.

  

  The document, dated Aug. 14 and titled “Trump” cites the case as “open.”

  It was quickly taken down:

  

  As Bloomberg noted earlier, the Fulton County case will likely echo allegations in the indictment of Trump in Washington, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Trump is accused in that case of trying to overturn the 2020 election nationwide, and his actions in Georgia feature prominently in the alleged conspiracy.

  Sounds legit

  — KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) August 14, 2023

  District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat who took office days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, had extensive details on Trump’s actions in Georgia when she opened her probe in February 2021. Those details included Trump’s effort to pressure Raffensperger, asking him and others to “find” just enough votes to overcome his loss, even though a recount had already been conducted.

  

  Willis has a history of prosecuting cases – from teachers to rap music stars – under Georgia’s version of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization act, or RICO – a statute often associated with organized crime. She may use the law against Trump and allies as well.

  Meanwhile, the streets around the Fulton County courthouse in Atlanta were lined with orange barricades in anticipation of potential civil unrest over the indictment. Armed sheriff’s deputies are also patrolling the area 24/7, while vehicles from several law enforcement agencies lined the streets.

  Security measures extended blocks away to the Georgia State Capitol, where the street nearest the entrance was sealed off. The gold-domed building was devoid of tourists and many staffers were working from home amid renovations. At nearby City Hall, no one was seen entering or leaving the building in the middle of a workday, though the office of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said city’s headquarters is “open for business.”

  One sheriff’s deputy standing guard said he’d never seen such an extensive security operation in 30 years on the job. The officer said one priority will be protecting protesters who may clash with each other if Trump appears in court. –Bloomberg

  According to Bloomberg, DA Fani Willis is expected to present the case to a grand jury as soon as the coming week.

  Trump is accused of trying to goad Georgia officials into ‘finding’ votes for him (when, in context, Trump was implying they were hiding votes). Trump has denied wrongdoing.

  Reminder:

  This was the foreperson of the Grand Jury that investigated Donald Trump in Georgia: pic.twitter.com/UEZCTKKVaK

  — ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 22, 2023

   

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 18:20

• Joe Biden's Race Against The Truth
  Joe Biden’s Race Against The Truth

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  Joe Biden has about 17 months left as an elected politician – if he is lucky. That projection guides most of the inexplicable and shameless behavior of the Department of Justice and Biden himself. View Biden as in a race against the truth. Will he be physically and mentally able to complete his term and head to retirement before his decades-long crimes of corruption catch up to him?

  

  Joe Biden’s serial yarn that he never knew anything about his son Hunter’s quid pro quo grifting with rich foreign grandees has been finally exposed as the old lie it always was.

  Biden’s fallback untruth—that he never got involved in Hunter’s business—proved instantly laughable, given prior damning testimonies from Hunter’s business associates, from IRS whistleblowers, from the assertions of foreign beneficiaries, from Hunter’s own laptop, and from Joe’s own earlier loudmouth braggadocio about using threats of canceling U.S. foreign aid to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into corruption of the sort in which his own son was knee deep. (Did not then president Barack Obama know the nature of Biden corruption when he appointed him as point man on Ukraine)?

  To his partners in corruption, Hunter referred to his father variously as the “big guy” as well as the recipient of “ten percent” of the leveraged income. And apparently as a rather greedy pop, Hunter whined that Joe himself demanded half of all Hunter’s own shake-down income from abroad—despite Hunter’s payment of many of Joe’s monthly bills incurred on his palatial lakeshore mansion.

  At some point, even the corrupt leftwing media and DNC cannot continue to laugh off eyewitness testimonies, whistleblowers’ revelations, bank records, Hunter Biden’s own computer messaging, Joe Biden’s phone calls and personal appearances, and the evidence from foreign beneficiaries.

  And then there is simply the power of reason and logic.

  Over the last five years of this hushed-up tawdry saga, Americans knew immediately that Joe Biden was lying in all his denials of any involvement whatsoever in the procurement of a large part of his income from abroad simply because no one in the entire Biden family had any business, investment, or energy expertise. In other words, as grifters without Joe, the Bidens had zero market value.

  As energy consultants, financial investors, or international analysts, they had no qualifications—a fact known and remarked upon by their corrupt foreign partners. If any doubt about that, try to guess how much the prior cash recipients Jim or Hunter or Sarah or Hallie or Kathleen Biden will be getting from foreign concerns for services rendered after Joe leaves office.

  The Biden familial mediocrities had nothing to offer shady wealthy foreign interests other than they were not only related to the Vice President of the United States, but also could guarantee that Joe Biden had no scruples whatsoever, and so even while in office he would call or meet his son’s associates to substantiate Hunter’s promises of favorable diplomatic or business treatment from the Obama—or a future Biden—administration. Note Biden seemed to have no worries whether his family’s lobbying of Ukraine, Russia, or China was in conflict with the interests of his own country.

  And so deals were cut, millions were rerouted to Biden accounts to avoid scrutiny, and the Biden clan got rich off Joe’s offices and his son’s rank criminality. Joe’s adjusted gross income on his 2016 return of $396,456 soared on his 2017 return to more than $11 million. No one knows whether these or any of Biden’s returns showed reported income commensurate with what either he actually received or with his lavish lifestyle, bank accounts, and his multiple expensive homes.

  Rarely has any prosecutor enjoyed a more riveting confessional than Hunter Biden’s own laptop that established his credentials as a drug addict who burned up millions of dollars on his various drug and sex addictions, while confirming that his own father was central to the family consortium’s shake-downs. Without an obsequious media, a Democratic Senate, and a weaponized Department of Justice, all the Biden recipients of foreign cash would by now have been prosecuted, and likely found guilty of an array of felonies.

  But like everything Joe and Hunter do to excess, they were not just shameless in their raking in money by using Joe’s senatorial and then vice presidential offices and likely presidential candidacy, but in covering up their crimes.

  Nothing is more emblematic of that brazenness than Biden aide and future Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s phone call to a former CIA interim director to round up 50 intelligence “authorities” to lie on the eve of the 2020 debate and election that the laptop was likely “Russian disinformation.” To go to such extremes to leverage proverbially retired “wise men” to so blatantly misinform, disinform and warp a presidential election reflects the paranoia of the Biden family over Hunter’s laptop confessional.

  Enter Merrick Garland. Like Blinken, his job description entailed hiding the truth about Hunter Biden’s incriminating evidence. First, Garland had assured the nation that no special counsel was needed to investigate the Bidens’ influence peddling. And on spec his lieutenant Delaware prosecutor David Weiss slow walked for years all investigations of Biden family wrongdoing.

  The Biden Department of Justice since January 2021 assumed that with a Democratic House and an obsequious media, it could simply run out the clock on any of the many Biden crimes that were not sufficiently covered up. Any problematic data or testimony that eventually entered the public domain, would do so only after the statute of limitations had expired. This cover-up continued to work well for the first two years of the Biden administration.

  But then the unexpected happened.

  First, the Republicans took the House in 2022 and suddenly had the ability to subpoena witnesses and documents over the objections of the media and Democratic congressional toadies.

  Second, the Ukraine war broke out and had refocused popular interest in the past Biden-Ukrainian profiteering.

  Third, when Donald Trump announced his reelection candidacy, he was soon met with a cohort of weaponized leftwing prosecutors. Immediately he and his supporters legitimately pointed out that while he was being politically neutered by the left, his possible 2024 opponent Joe Biden was given de facto exemptions.

  Finally, the congressional testimonies and whistleblowers grew so embarrassing, and the stark contrast between the government coverup of Biden crimes and the weaponized effort to destroy Trump so glaring, that even Biden’s handlers and Merrick Garland were forced to act—at least sort of.

  So last week the DOJ flipped.

  It abruptly announced that after years of a deliberately stalled David Weiss investigation and the collapse of Weiss’s own phony plea deal before an honest judge, Garland would now appoint a special counsel, after all—again, sort of.

  Garland then did something so outrageous that it eclipsed even his prior blatant politicalization of his department.

  First, he violated the special counsel statute by hiring an inside government attorney—another apparent confirmation that Garland and Biden were paranoid that any legitimate outside counsel might well tap into a gold mine of Biden family felonies.

  Second, he selected as independent counsel none other than David Weiss, the very prosecutor who had tried but failed to fool a judge into accepting a laughable Hunter Biden plea deal. Weiss’s only other alluring recommendation was that he had previously spearheaded and slow walked the DOJ non-investigation of Hunter.

  Third, by elevating the title—but not the mission—of Weiss in a manner that previously he promised he would not, Garland cleverly ensured that Weiss would likely not show up  to testify before the House about prior and ongoing whistleblower allegations that prosecutor Weiss had blocked investigations concerning Hunter that otherwise might well have led to multiple felony indictments. Now as special counsel, Weiss will even likely refuse congressional subpoenas concerning incriminating Biden information on grounds they would prejudice or interfere with his own special counsel inquiries.

  How could Garland believe he could fool the American people with the veneer of a special counsel appointee and then violate the very spirit and text of the law about such appointments by naming Weiss?

  Reason is not what guides the petulant Garland, who has never recovered from the trauma of being humiliated when his Barack Obama lame-duck supreme court appointment was recessed by a Republican Senate. Instead, Biden rescued Garland from bitter obscurity with the implied rationale, as Joe himself has mused openly to friends, that Garland should go after Trump, Biden’s past nemesis, and now his leading opponent in the 2024 presidential race.

  What then is the long-term Democrat strategy that requires such short-term malodorous skullduggery?

  Biden must be healthy and crime-free enough to finish his remaining term, but at all costs not run for reelection. 

  A full one-term Biden prevents a 2023 or 2024 presidency of an utterly incompetent Kamala Harris and thus in addition her route to the 2024 Democratic nomination—and in theory perhaps even a longer presidential tenure.

  Democrats will have enough trouble keeping Biden semi-coherent and upright over the 17 months without a string of indictments involving high crimes and misdemeanors from bribery to treason, if indeed Biden did alter U.S. policy at the bequest of his paymasters in China, Russia, Ukraine or Romania.

  In other words, Weiss was selected for his past loyal suppression of the Hunter investigation and his future further quashing indictments as special counsel. That fact almost ensures that Biden can finish his first term without an impeachment trial in the Senate or a forced Nixon-style resignation, given the enormity of his own illegality.

  Ensuring the viability of Biden’s next year-and-half will mean Kamala Harris does not inherit the presidency from either a physically or mentally incompetent Biden—or a president so reduced by bribery and racketeering counts that he is forced to resign.

  Biden then will likely not run for reelection, pleading age rather than his own and family’s blatant corruption. That will be another subtext for Weiss’s slothful investigation to be ground down into oblivion. Harris will not be president, and be reduced to just another wannabe 2024 primary candidate. She will likely, as in 2016, not win a single delegate.

  By 2024, Democrats will be seeking a young Gavin Newson-like candidate.

  Harris will not be the nominee, much less President by default. And Joe will likely be so bewildered that Weiss in a few months “for the sake of the country” will not hound either an enfeebled ex-president or his dutiful son.

  DOJ lawfare then works in two ways: by commission in neutering the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump after trying to ensure that he will win the Republican primary and nomination; by omission, in de facto suppressing momentum for Biden indictments and thus allowing the Biden family to be prison-free through 2024 and onto retirement—and thus sparing the nation a Harris presidency.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 18:20

• John Bolton Says Biden's Policy Only Assures Ukraine's Slow Demise
  John Bolton Says Biden’s Policy Only Assures Ukraine’s Slow Demise

  Well known uber-Hawk and former National Security Advisor John Bolton has blasted the Biden White House’s Ukraine policy, describing it as but an approach assuring Ukraine’ slow demise. 

  Despite the well over $100 billion in aid committed, and the seeming endless weapons being taken from Pentagon stockpiles, Bolton’s chief complaint naturally is that it’s not enough. “Ukraine’s offensive failures and Russia’s defensive successes share a common cause: the slow, faltering, non-strategic supply of military assistance by the West,” Bolton wrote in a Sunday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

  

  He acknowledged that the long awaited counteroffensive “isn’t making the headway some proponents had forecast,” and that this must serve as a “wake-up” call for the US administration.

  Bolton lamented that the real problem is that Washington is not going all in. Instead, he argued that the “inability to achieve major advances is the natural result of a US strategy aimed only at staving off Russian conquest.” He is urging President Biden to immediately begin “vigorously working toward Ukrainian victory.”

  As it stands, significant delays have pushed back the expected arrival of F-16s in Ukraine until at least next summer, following prior premature reporting that they were to arrive by year’s end. The Washington Post observed that merely six Ukrainian pilots are in the training program. 

  Bolton addressed this lagging advanced weapons pipeline in his op-ed: 

  “The serial debates over whether to supply this or that weapons system, the perpetual fear that Russia will escalate to war against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and occasional Kremlin nuclear saber-rattling have instilled a paralyzing caution in Western capitals. Although the UK under Boris Johnson wasn’t deterred, NATO has seemed unwilling to fulfill its commitment to restore Ukraine’s full sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

  Bolton seems to actually shrug his shoulders at the prospect of escalation into catastrophic nuclear war: “This hesitancy is a product of successful deterrence by the Kremlin, not American strategic necessity,” he wrote. “Far from being inevitable, the Ukrainians’ inability to achieve major advances is the natural result of a U.S. strategy aimed only at staving off Russian conquest.”

  He also took the opportunity to argue for more sanctions, and to escalate the economic war on Moscow: “The West – particularly Washington – also needs to rethink sanctions policy radically. Theories about price caps on Russian oil have failed, and Western sanctions generally remain piecemeal and seriously underenforced,” according to the scathing op-ed.

  “These defects aren’t confined to the Ukraine conflict and should prompt NATO institutionally to review how it conducts enforcement,” he added. “Proclaiming sanctions is great PR, but enforcement is hard, tedious and necessarily done clandestinely where possible. The US and its allies need a massive overhaul and upgrade of our sanction-enforcement instruments, procedures and personnel.”

  NYT, March 2022: US “seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire.”

  WSJ, Aug. 2023: “A nagging concern in Kyiv and Western capitals is that politicians and voters may come to see the war as a quagmire.”

  Proxy warriors worry that people will understand their proxy war aims. pic.twitter.com/tNn6TQFgQh

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) August 14, 2023

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

  But it remains that multiple polls have shown the American public is slowly turning against US involvement in the conflict. Likely this is what has motivated hawks like Bolton to grow louder in their insistence on broadening the war. For Bolton in particular, it seems there’s never been a war he hasn’t wanted to escalate and expand.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 08/14/2023 – 18:00