• Intelligence Analyst Sounds Alarm On CCP's Influence Over WHO Through 'One Health' Ideologies
  Intelligence Analyst Sounds Alarm On CCP’s Influence Over WHO Through ‘One Health’ Ideologies

  Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  An intelligence analyst is sounding the alarm on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military strategy of influencing the World Health Organization’s (WHO) policies through “One Health” ideologies.

  

  “We are at war with the Chinese Communist Party,” Brian O’Shea told The Epoch Times. “Many people don’t understand or see this because—as the Chinese say—the God of War has many faces.”

  In this case, the battlefield isn’t men in uniform with artillery, O’Shea said.

  “The battlefield is all around us,” he said.

  O’Shea began his career with the Military Intelligence Corps, where he was trained in electronic warfare and various methods of intelligence analyses before he went into tactical military intelligence with the 1^st Special Forces Group, then later the 5^th Special Forces Group.

  “I learned to spot the patterns and connect the dots,” O’Shea said. “Zooming in and zooming out, I looked at what’s going on the ground and asked: ‘How does this connect on the national level? How does this connect on an international level?”

  O’Shea continued to work in intelligence after his 11 years with the special forces, eventually landing in the private sector working in competitive intelligence.

  Later, he decided that he wanted to offer his skill set to those “who might think these services are out of reach,” providing investigative aid and education to people who are being surveilled, stalked, or have even received death threats, which is how he met his wife: author and journalist Naomi Wolf.

  O’Shea, in addition to being the chief operating officer of Centurion Intelligence Partners, contributes as an investigative journalist to Wolf’s Daily Clout platform.

  ‘Drumbeat at Every Level of Society’

  During the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, O’Shea and Wolf witnessed policies not consistent with science but with authoritarian rule.

  “I remember Naomi saying, ‘They’re never going to let us out,’ and I thought, ‘That’s crazy,’” O’Shea said. “But she was right.”

  Then, as the vaccines emerged, O’Shea said he began to recognize the methods by which the propaganda fueling them was carried out.

  “At first, I thought it was just strange that there was this push for a vaccine for a virus that even the early statistics showed had a 99-plus percent survival rate,” O’Shea said. “It just seemed like one of the programs I would have implemented to propagandize against terrorism. It had this drumbeat at every level of society.”

  The more dots he connected, the more he saw what he believed to be a coordination of efforts.

  “The same people pushing the dangers of the virus were the same people pushing this cure-all vaccine that was supposed to save the world,” O’Shea said.

  One Health’s Mission Creep

  Through its One Health ideology, the WHO can engineer a level of control over its member nations evocative of the CCP’s dominance over its population by modeling and adopting the CCP’s ecological civilization policies, O’Shea said. These policies, like One Health, eventually infiltrate every aspect of life.

  The WHO defines One Health as an “integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.”

  The WHO presented a draft of a pandemic treaty in May at the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, where national leaders discussed the treaty and 307 proposed amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR).

  The treaty described One Health as the interconnection of “the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems).”

  It seems reasonable, O’Shea said, because humans could very well be affected by the sickness of local wildlife.

  “Where it gets dangerous is where One Health started having something called mission creep,” O’Shea said.

  Mission creep is a military term defined as a mission expanding beyond its scope.

  Formerly called One Medicine, based on the holistic medical theory originating in the 1930s, One Health was revised to include policies such as regulating how governments spend money and how farmers manage agriculture.

  A surveillance system is incorporated to guarantee everyone is adhering to these One Health policies, O’Shea said, creating biosecurity to ensure biodiversity.

  The word “surveillance” is found 11 times in the WHO’s treaty (pdf) titled “Bureau’s text of the WHO CA+,” such as under Article 4 on page 7, where it states, “The Parties shall take prevention and surveillance measures that are consistent with and supportive of effective implantation of the International Health Regulations.”

  There are also guidelines detailed for combating what it calls an “infodemic,” defined as “false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak.”

  Zoonotic Spillover and ‘Eminent Domain’

  “Where it gets chilling is when it starts blaming humans for the reason for an outbreak, insisting on our actions that need to be changed,” O’Shea said.

  Among One Health’s objectives is the prevention of zoonotic spillover of pathogens from animals to humans, which the WHO maintains is the predominant cause of infectious disease, as well as the primary cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  “It causes confusion and risk-taking behaviors that can harm health,” the document states. “It also leads to mistrust in health authorities and undermines the public health response.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 02:00

• Misinformation Is A Word We Use To Shut You Up
  Misinformation Is A Word We Use To Shut You Up

  Authored by Daniel Klein via the Brownstone Institute,

  The policing of “information” is the stuff of Naziism, Stalinism, Maoism, and similar anti-liberal regimes. To repress criticism of their dicta and diktats, anti-liberals label criticism “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Those labels are instruments to crush dissent. 

  This paper offers an understanding of knowledge as involving three chief facets: information, interpretation, and judgment. Usually, what people argue fervently over is not information, but interpretation and judgment. 

  What is being labeled and attacked as “misinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge—meaning that disagreement more commonly arises over interpretations and judgments as to which interpretations to take stock in or believe. We make judgments, “good” and “bad,” “wise” and “foolish,” about interpretations, “true” and “false.” 

  On that understanding, the paper explains that the projects and policies now afoot styled “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” are dishonest, as it should be obvious to all that those projects and policies would, if advanced honestly, be called something like “anti-falsehood” campaigns.

  But to prosecute an “anti-falsehood” campaign would make obvious the true nature of what is afoot—an Orwellian boot to stomp on Wrongthink. To support governmental policing of “information” is to confess one’s anti-liberalism and illiberality. The essay offers a spiral diagram to show the three chief facets of knowledge (information, interpretation, and judgment) plus a fourth facet, fact, which also deserves distinct conceptualization, even though the spiral reminds us: Facts are theory-laden.

  

  Introduction 

  Writing at Discourse, published by the Mercatus Center, Martin Gurri describes “disinformation” as follows:

  The word means, ‘Shut up, peasant.’ It’s a bullet aimed at killing the conversation. It’s loaded with hostility to reason, evidence, debate and all the stuff that makes our democracy great. (Gurri 2023)

  That is from Gurri’s excellent piece, “Disinformation Is the Word I Use When I Want You to Shut Up.” The piece prompted the present essay, the title of which is a variation on his. 

  With such titles, Gurri and I are being polemical, of course. Not all usages of “disinformation” and “misinformation” come from people intent on shutting someone up. But a lot are. The “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” projects now afoot or in effect are about shutting up opponents.

  In 2019 the Poynter Institute for Media Studies published “A Guide to Anti-misinformation Actions around the World.” There you survey examples of anti-misinformation and anti-disinformation projects and policies, which have no doubt soared further since 2019.

  The policing of ‘information’ is the stuff of Naziism, Stalinism, Maoism, and similar anti-liberal regimes. In my title “Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up,” anti-liberals are the “We.” To repress criticism of their dicta and diktats, they stamp criticism as “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Those stamps are Orwellian tools that anti-liberals wield in the hope of stamping out Wrongthink—for example, on climate, election integrity, the origins of the Covid virus, therapeutics such as Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, the effectiveness of masking, the effectiveness of the Covid injections, the safety of the Covid injections, and the effectiveness of lock-downs. “Anti-misinformation” could be deployed in keeping with whatever the next THE CURRENT THING might be, with associated slogans against, say, China, Putin, Nord Stream, racists, white supremacists, MAGA Republicans, “deniers,” et cetera. And then, of course, there’s all that “misinformation” disseminated by “conspiracy theorists”.

  In speaking of “policing,” I mean government throwing its weight and its coercion around against “misinformation” or “disinformation.” And, besides government coercion, there are allies. These allies often enjoy monopolistic positions, stemming either from government handouts, privileges, and sweetheart deals, as with broadcasters, universities, and pharmaceutical companies, or from having cornered certain network externalities, as with certain huge media platforms. Allies of various sorts sometimes do the bidding of the despots because they themselves are threatened and intimidated. The ecosystem leads to their debasement. 

  To support governmental policing of “information” is to confess one’s anti-liberalism and illiberality. Even worse, it is to flaunt them. The motive is to make and signal commitment to anti-liberalism, in a manner parallel to how religious cults sets up rituals and practices for making and signaling commitments (Iannaccone 1992). Vice signals vice, the ticket in some spheres to promotion and advancement. 

  Also, vicious action spurs more of the same to defend against exposé and accountability for past wrongs. In protecting their rackets, the wrongdoers verge upon a downward spiral.

  Knowledge’s richness

  I wrote Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation (Oxford University Press, 2012). The book says knowledge involves three chief facets. Those facets help us see why “misinformation” and “disinformation” are words anti-liberals use to shut people up. The three chief facets are information, interpretation, and judgment: 

  • Information exists within a working interpretation, natural to the context of the matter under discussion. 
  • Interpretation takes us beyond the working interpretation. It opens things up to the marvelous generation and multiplying of interpretations; you now face a portfolio or menu of interpretations, and it is a portfolio that can always grow yet another interpretation. 
  • Judgment is the action facet of knowledge. It is about, first, estimating interpretations and, second, taking stock in certain interpretations you estimate highly. Judgment involves a degree of commitment—belief—which propels you to act on the interpretations you take stock in. If you do not actually act on the interpretation you purport to take stock in, you are a hypocrite and a quack. If you are aware of your hypocrisy, you are a liar; if you are not aware of it, you are in denial, self-deluded. Lying, stubborn denial, self-delusion, and cynicism are features of baseness.

  When despots label opposition “misinformation” or “disinformation” they abuse language. They invoke presuppositions built into the word information, presuppositions that are false. When despots label opposition “mis-” or “disinformation, they are, at best, objecting in the interpretation and judgment dimensions of knowledge, or, at worst, they are speaking in a way that has abandoned civil engagement altogether, instead using words as instruments of wickedness. 

  Usually, what people argue fervently over is not information, but interpretations and judgments as to which interpretations to act on. What is being labeled and attacked as “misinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge. The projects and policies now afoot styled “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” are dishonest, as it should be obvious to all that those projects and policies would, if advanced honestly, be called “anti-falsehood” or “anti-falseness” or “anti-foolishness” or “anti-untruth” campaigns. But to prosecute an “anti-falsehood” campaign would make obvious the true nature of what is afoot: The persecution and silencing of Wrongthink. In misrepresenting matters of interpretation and judgment as one of “misinformation,” they misrepresent the nature of their projects and dodge the responsibility to account for how they judge among vying interpretations. 

  Within the information dimension of knowledge, variance is resolved in a straightforward manner. Very little interpretative engagement and dialogue are called for. The question of whether a movie is in black-and-white or in color can almost always be readily decided, because we basically share an interpretation of “black-and-white” and “in color,” making the question a matter of information. If interpretative effort is called for, the matter is no longer within the information dimension—is Citizen Kane a better movie than Roman Holiday? Only to be ironic would someone say: Dad misinforms you when he says that Citizen Kane is better than Roman Holiday. The irony there would be in the implied high self-estimation, as the speaker sets up his own aesthetic sensibilities in judging movies as a standard so precise and accurate as to warrant “misinform” when Dad disagrees with that standard.

  The despots are without irony. They dodge interpretive engagement by labeling dissenting statements “mis-” or “disinformation.” They are simply bullying and intimidating their opponents.

  We notice that sometimes, as here, announcing BBC Verfiy, the despots use the novel term “mistruth,” which was scarcely ever used prior to a few decades ago (see here). The “mis-” prefix does not well fit on the word truth, which pervades knowledge river-deep, mountain-high. Think of 

  mistake, misspeak, misremember, misplace, mislay, misquote, misdirect, and so on. The prefix “mis-” is proper when the betterness of a readily identifiable alternative—the accurate quotation, for example—is hardly a matter of dispute. I doubt that much time will be spent by BBC Verify on correcting misquotations.

  Misinformed by the supermarket clerk

  I enter a supermarket and ask a clerk where the peanut butter is, and he responds, “Aisle 6.” I go there but don’t find it. I wander about and find it in Aisle 9. 

  The clerk was mistaken. He gave me false or bad information. The idea Peanut butter is in Aisle 6  is a matter of information, an idea sitting within a set of working interpretations. The working interpretations include those of ordinary human purpose and of ordinary trust and common decency. The clerk and I were not playing a game, nor was it April Fools’ Day. Importantly, the working interpretations include those of plain English—the semantic conventions of “peanut butter,” “6,” the syntactical conventions of English, and so on. 

  April Fools’ Day tricks depart from working interpretations. The tricks create an unexpected asymmetry between the interpretation of the targeted person—who wishes to add a dash of salt to his soup—and the trickster—who unscrewed the top of the salt shaker. The target interpreted the world as presenting a salt shaker with top screwed on as usual. The trickster relished her anticipation of the victim’s shock and surprise in discovering the faultiness of his interpretation of the world. 

  Asymmetric interpretation is essential to humor. Another form of humor is the put-on, as when the trickster feigns his own frustrations, and we enter into the asymmetric interpretations of the amused target of the trick, as in these Buster Keaton put-ons from Candid Camera.

  Likewise, humor often plays upon departures from semantic conventions, as in punning, “Knock, knock” jokes, and “Who’s on First” by Abbot and Costello.

  A precondition of humor is a certain trust and joint interest in the truths that humor gets at. Without those preconditions, there is no humor.

  Despotism conceals its designs. It conceals its true beliefs and intentions. By its nature, it abuses working interpretations. Despotism is untrustworthy. Its relationship with ordinary organic interpretation is never playful. That is why despotism is incapable of being humorous. It cannot make a joke, and it cannot take a joke. Adam Smith wrote: 

  Reserve and concealment…call forth diffidence. We are afraid to follow the man who is going we do not know where.

  Afraid, we attend the despot with diffidence. Despotism is grim.

  I take my peanut butter to the check-out line where the same clerk is working, and say, “I found it—but in Aisle 9!,” trying to be humorous as though a joke had been played on me. Being a mere matter of information, the mistake is readily accepted. The clerk responds, “Ah?! Sorry about that!”

  Unintentional and intentional

  When one person, Bob, misinforms another, Jim, without realizing that the information is false, the mistake is amendable to ready corrected, without fuss, assuming the falseness is realized by Jim or Bob. Such misinformation events are trifling; we don’t debate them or dwell on them. Misinformation is rather like a typo, corrected by a proof-reader. 

  Scarcely ever do we speak of the mistake with the five-syllable Latinate word misinformation. Heavy usage of the word misinformation so often occurs in reference to “anti-misinformation” projects, usage either by the perpetrators and cheerleaders of those projects or by those who fend off threats from the perps. 

  When Bob misinforms Jim intentionally, however, information mistakes are dishonest. They are lies. We dwell on them as lies, not as matters of misinformation. The misinformer is a liar. Some now promulgate the word disinformation. 

  In distinguishing misinformation from disinformation, Dictionary.com explains “the critical distinction between these confusable words: intent.” Wikipedia says the same. Its entry on Disinformation begins: “Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It should not be confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.”

  According to those sources, then, disinformation is lying. It is false information spread by those who know that it is false information. To disinform is to lie.

  The distinction based on intent is not sharp. Is the misinformer who does not know that the information he spreads is false but who failed in performing basic due diligence against its falsity a perpetrator of disinformation? His discourse usually carries with it a claim to have done such due diligence, and that claim would be false. And if he knows he has not done due diligence, he is, once again a liar, though the lie is about his having performed due diligence, not about his knowing that the information is false. Out-and-out lying travels with a vast entourage of shabby norms and shabby understandings of the duties of due diligence. Related here would be the large topics of denial, self-deceit, self-delusion, and hypocrisy. (Adam Smith’s treatment of self-deceit is explained here.) The terminus is cynicism, baseness, and miserableness.

  In ordinary private-sector affairs, outside of politics and outside of heavily governmentalized affairs, lying at the level of information is naturally checked and counteracted. Again, the “information” implies reference to working interpretations. Getting things rights should not be difficult or tricky—issues there are all within the working interpretation. Sure, mistakes are made; but such mistakes are readily and easily corrected. 

  Liars about information lose the trust of their voluntary associates, whether those voluntary associates are friends, customers, trading partners, or employees. If liars lie about simple features of their products or their services, they could be subject to law suits from their trading partners, to public criticism, and to rival exposé by competitors. In ordinary private-sector affairs, everyone has reputational incentives not to lie systematically, and especially not to lie about information, and most of us have strong moral incentives within ourselves against lying. We dread the disapproval of “the man within the breast”—an expression Adam Smith used for the conscience.

  So, you might ask: If private actors without government privileges and immunities scarcely spread false information dishonestly and programmatically, is disinformation really a thing? Before addressing that question directly, let’s turn to the Godzilla of programmatic lying.

  Propaganda: Government’s programmatic lies

  It is government, especially, that lies programmatically. The lying can be at the level of information, but it usually makes more sense to say that its lying is at the level of interpretation: The government promotes interpretations—for example, The Covid virus came from nature—, interpretations that it, the government, itself does not particularly believe. It lies about the virus having come from nature, as it lies about many other big interpretations. It propagates big lies.

  And it lies with confidence. Government is the only player in society that initiates coercion in an institutionalized way. Its coercion is overt. What’s more, it does so on a colossal scale. That is the most essential feature of government. Every government is a Godzilla, and we must learn to live with our Godzilla and mitigate the destruction it wreaks.

  The traditional term for government’s programmatic lying is propaganda—a word that once did not necessarily imply falseness (instead meaning simply ideas propagated), but is now generally used in that necessarily-pejorative sense. The falsehoods of propaganda are typically lies, in that the propagandizers usually do not particularly believe the claims they propagate. 

  Government can lie programmatically because it does not depend on voluntary participation for its support. It subsists on coercion, including restrictions on competitors and opponents, and takings from taxpayers. Organizations in heavily governmentalized settings can also lie programmatically. Crony private-organizations sustain large programmatic lying only when they enjoy privileges, immunities, and protections from the government. 

  “Misinformation” and “disinformation” are weapons anti-liberals wield

  Again, Gurri suggested that, so often, “disinformation” “means, ‘Shut up, peasant.’ It’s a bullet aimed at killing the conversation.” The term “disinformation” scarcely existed before 1980, as shown in Figure 1. The figure contains data through 2019, and it is likely that the recent surge has continued.

  

  Gilbert Doctorow writes of “the introduction of the word ‘disinformation’ into common parlance.” Doctorow writes:

  ---

  The word “disinformation” has a specific context in time and intent: it is used by the powers that be and by the mainstream media they control to denigrate, marginalize and suppress sources of military, political, economic and other information that might contradict the official government narrative and so dilute the control exercised by those in power over the general population. (Doctorow 2023)

  ---

  Gurri and Doctorow are describing what is now the main way, or at least the most troubling and most terrible way, that “disinformation” is used. It must be noted, however, that the word has also been used simply as a synonym of propaganda—and thus something that governments, too, perpetrate. But, now, “misinformation” and “disinformation” are most conspicuously a propagandistic term used in the manner described by Gurri and Doctorow. In that sense, “disinformation” is not a general synonym for propaganda, but is, rather, a word that propagandists use to smear their opponents.

  Meanwhile, in fending off this new species of propaganda, honest people, too, resort to using “disinformation,” as a synonym for propaganda, to fling that specific word back onto the propagandists. Doctorow exemplifies what I mean, as he justly writes:

  In reality, it is these censorious states and the mass media that carry their messages with stenographic precision into print and electronic dissemination who are the ones that day after day feed disinformation to the public. It is cynically composed and consists of a toxic blend of ‘spin,’ by which is meant misleading interpretation of events, and outright lies. (Doctorow 2023)

  Time again we find ourselves having to use the degraded verbalisms of the anti-

  liberals to address and combat their abuses. Sometimes it seems like our civilization revolves around trying to keep the anti-liberals from burning down the house.

  Base humans tend to weaponize things

  But aren’t governments accountable to checks and balance, divisions of power, and the rule of law? Haven’t we learned to tame Godzilla, to chain down Leviathan? 

  It is true that the government of a rule-of-law republic, checked by an honest media, might be quite limited in its programmatic lying. But that’s not how it is today, where dissent is being tarred as “mis-” and “disinformation,” and where the legacy media is morally base in the extreme. Today, regimes are increasingly despotic, and despotic regimes are much less checked and limited. 

  The rule of law means, first and foremost, the government living up to the rules posted on its own website. Governments today don’t do that. Law is applied politically, that is, with extreme partiality, upon a double-standard. Laws are selectively enforced and punishments are selectively meted out. Despots avail themselves of show trials, kangaroo bodies, and galleries filled with stooges. The “anti-misinformation” agenda is misrule.

  Despotism despoils checks and balances. Despotism centralizes power formerly divided. It destroys the independency and autonomy that, theoretically, branches and units, divided and balanced, had once enjoyed. Despotism usurps powers once distributed and balanced. Despotism is unbalanced power.

  Under a despotic regime, the coercive institutions unique to government become weaponized by the despots and their allies. They turn them against their opponents. But weaponization is itself always somewhat constrained by cultural norms. The existence of government implies the existence of a governed society, and the existence of society implies the existence of some basic norms, for example against theft, murder, and lying. David Hume famously pointed out that the governed always vastly outnumber the governors, and hence government depends on “opinion”—if only the opinion to acquiesce to those governors:

  Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. (Hume, Essays)

  I wonder whether the shut-them-up projects of Naziism, Stalinism, and Maoism tarred their opponents with labels akin to “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Even National Socialists and Communists gave some lip service to social norms, with their show trials and righteous objections to “the lying press” (Lügenpresse). But did their languages, at those times, have words that corresponded to the English words information, interpretation, and judgment, along the lines of the distinctions made here? (This ngram diagram makes me wonder.) Was their vocabulary for knowledge like that of English, and did they abuse the presuppositions involved in those distinctions the way that “anti-misinformation” projects do today? For help with this question, maybe we should turn to ChatGPT.

  The contested claims go far beyond information

  Disagreement usually arises over interpretations and judgments as to which interpretations to take stock in or believe. We make judgments, “good” and “bad,” “wise” and “foolish,” about interpretations, “true” and “false.”

  Again, “anti-misinformation” projects presuppose the information dimension where such a presupposition is inapt. When despots declare something to be “misinformation,” the discourser—say, John Campbell, Peter McCullough, Robert Malone—does not readily accept the supposed correction, unlike the clerk in the supermarket example. That is quite decisive proof that presuppositions of the information dimension do not apply. The matter is clearly beyond information.

  The despots tend to invoke certain organizations as the definitive, authoritative sources of “information.” They say, in effect: “The CDC, the WHO, the FDA says the mRNA injections are safe and effective, so anything that suggests otherwise is misinformation.” The farce here is pretending that everyone’s working interpretation consists of the dicta of some such particular organization. Never has an organization or agency had such a Mount-Olympus status for determining, throughout society, working interpretations of complex matters, and particularly not an organization with the foul characters and track-records of the CDC, WHO, FDA, and similar highly governmentalized organizations. The similitude to the Soviet Union under Stalin is obvious. 

  A big part of the interpretation dimension is the estimation of the wisdom and virtue of those who contend for authority. Government is a Godzilla; it is not a validator of an organization’s wisdom and virtue. To be worth a damn, estimations of wisdom and virtue must emerge from arrangements not heavily governmentalized, liberal arrangements, in society, in science, and in public discourse. We shall look not to Godzilla but to certain among the human beings who check Godzilla. 

  What the sincere human looks like

  I wrote above of “quite decisive proof that presuppositions of the information dimension do not apply,” in noting that Peter McCullough does not readily accept the supposed correction. But what if McCullough is a liar? Then it would be no surprise that he does not readily accept the purported correction. What, in other words, about the possibility of disinformation? An insincere disinformationist would stand by his informational statements and persist in misinforming his listeners.

  What does sincere engagement look like? 

  Sincere engagement is sincere in the desire to become better aligned with the larger good, which would correspond to a universally benevolent God. The sincere human does not claim to be universally benevolent. He does not even claim to be more benevolent than the average person. But, compared to the average person, the sincere human scrupulously strives to align his conduct with universal benevolence.

  The sincere human wants to be corrected. He welcomes correction. Sincerity is evident in the human’s openness to engagement. The sincere human welcomes deep-dive conversation, debate, and challenge. He is eager to learn. 

  If the sincere human rejects a purported correction, he is eager to explain the interpretations and judgments that motivate his rejection of the purported correction. He explains why he rejects it. And he welcomes a response to his explanation. He is agreeable to continuing the engagement.

  The sincere human wants to sit down, human-to-human, and hash things out. He wants to enter into the mind of his intellectual adversary and see why the adversary says what he says. The sincere human wants to hear about the adversary’s portfolio of possible interpretations. The sincere human is eager to compare the adversary’s portfolio to his own portfolio of interpretations. 

  In comparing the portfolios, the sincere human may see some interpretations that are not in his own portfolio, and wish to consider those as candidates for incorporation into his own. The sincere human wants to probe their soundness, their worthiness. The sincere human may also see that the adversary’s portfolio lacks certain interpretations that are in his own, and will want to understand why those are lacking from the adversary’s portfolio.

  By hashing things out, the two prattlers should aim to get the contents of their respective portfolios onto the table, making a larger union of the contents of the two portfolios of possible interpretations. They can then explore together the reasons, or causes, for their difference in how they judge among the possible interpretations. They try to dwell in one another’s mind, sympathetically, to get a feeling for the ways of the other’s judgment. After doing so, each can then make a moment in the other’s judgment into an object up for examination, an object for interpretation and estimation. “But why do you draw that conclusion?” 

  The sincere human is frank and open about the calls of his own judgment. He invites the other human to ask, “But why do you draw that conclusion?” Adam Smith wrote: “Frankness and openness conciliate confidence.”

  When two sincere humans disagree, it is as if they say to one another: 

  We both purport to orient ourselves upward, toward alignment with the good of the whole. We both understand that our thinking must focus on the most important things in the issue at hand. We both look at the same world—our interpretations are, as it were, interpretations of the signals presented to us in the book of nature. And yet we draw different conclusions. Let us explore the sources of that difference, in the hope that as a result there will be an improvement, for the good of the whole, in the joint effect of (your revised outlook and my revised outlook), after your outlook and my outlook have been revised by virtue of our conversation.

  That is what the sincere human looks like. He is open, frank, and eager to participate in conversation and debate with adversaries. He is eager to sit down and hash things out. He is eager to delve into the fine points, to nail down the details, to respond to challenges, to document the evidence, to continue the conversation. He relishes engagement as a sort of adventure of the mind. He takes joy in argumentation and scholarship, as actualization of the human potentiality for virtue—of serving God, as it were.

  The sincere human looks like—from what I can tell—Peter McCullough. 

  I single out Peter McCullough as exemplar simply to single out someone. All of those who are eager to engage adversaries illustrate the most salient feature of the sincere human, and the more that that eagerness fits the rest of my description above, the more sincere that human likely is.

  The sincere human loves life, and hence loves the most rewarding, most sublime of life’s experiences. For scholars, researchers, thinkers, and indeed for Man Thinking everywhere, as humans in continual discourse about our duties to the good and our dependence on interpreting the book of nature, one of the most rewarding, sublime experiences is the sort of civil engagement described above. The sincere human, then, holds the norms, practices, and institutions that foster and safeguard that sort of civil engagement to be sacred. The sincere human, therefore, is not only a liberal in the pre-political senses of the word, but also in the political sense christened “liberal” around the 1770s by Adam Smith and other Britons. That is the political outlook that best sacralizes the norms, practices, and institutions of sincere engagement. 

  What the unsincere human looks like

  We now turn to characters opposite of the sincere human. One would be insincere, but I wonder whether another is the human without either sincerity or insincerity. I will use “unsincere.”

  The features of the unsincere human are generally the opposite of the just-described ways of the sincere human. The unsincere human is not open. He is averse to sitting and hashing out differences with adversaries. He may issue brief, peremptory messages. He avoids challenges. He ignores criticism. He does not explain. He refuses engagement.

  The most vicious humans hate to see adversaries finding platforms and channels to challenge their projects; they work to shut them up. Other humans fall in with, or at least stays silent about, the assaults on liberal norms and institutions, such as “anti-misinformation” projects. 

  The unsincere human is illiberal, and he tends to subserve anti-liberalism, even if he does not himself mouth the slogans of anti-liberalism.

  Fact

  I return to elaborating an understanding of knowledge, because I think that getting the understanding across can be useful to sincere efforts to advance the good. (At the end of this paper is a listing of a few philosophers whose thinking my thinking dovetails with.)

  Again, the chief facets of knowledge are information, interpretation, and judgment. What about fact? Is fact not a facet of knowledge?

  Consider the saying, Facts are theory-laden, a saying that got started in the 1960s. To relate that saying to my terminology, think of “theory” as interpretation judged worthy or superior. Theory, then, refers to the dimensions of interpretation and of judgment.  

  Facts are theory-laden is a useful saying, for it reminds us that what one person calls “fact” can be opened up to examination and challenge by another person—or even by the same person, a moment later, after having called it “fact.” The simple truth is that we could, if we had cause to, dig interpretation and judgment out from underneath any of our facts.

  Facts are theory-laden, but when “we” all embrace the laden theory, we call the statements fact. To call something fact is to declare that the laden theory is not the matter under discussion. Fact, then, is a facet of knowledge, but not a chief one. Fact designates statements that no one among “Us” wishes at all to take issue with. Facts are noncontroversial, at least for the discussion within which they are treated as facts. 

  A diagram may be helpful.

  The spiral of knowledge

  Communication picks up midstream of human experience. We proceed upon working interpretations. “Information” is what we call the facts as seen within the working interpretation. 

  Figure 2: The spiral of knowledge, with four phases: 

  fact, information, interpretation, and judgment

  

  Figure 2 offers four phases (or facets) of knowledge, shown in each loop of the spiral. “Facts” reside in a more basic interpretive frame—more basic than what I have called “the working interpretation”—in which “factual” statements are presumed acceptable to all parties of the communication. When Jane and Amy “argue over the facts,” they are, as it were, revisiting what is to be treated as factual. 

  The loops flow one into the next, through time, from outer loops to inner loops. We travel in the clockwise direction. The spiral image on your screen is two-dimensional, but imagine a third. We hope that the spiral winds upward in wisdom and virtue, such that the inner loops are higher than the outer loops. 

  Suppose we sit down together with a telephone book. We call the ink markings “the facts.” Neither of us thinks to dispute statements about the printed numbers on the pages. We then proceed to talk plainly of them as phone numbers. We often forget this working lens—interpreting the facts as phone numbers—because we see through it. 

  One of us, however, may propose another interpretation: Might the list of “phone numbers” contain secret knowledge encoded by spies? 

  Thus, we have multiple interpretations of the ink markings that some understand as “phone numbers.” Those quotation marks signal: what the facts are called when they are seen through the working interpretation. But we may more directly speak of multiple interpretations of the information, as opposed to multiple interpretations of the facts. Thus, rather than interpretively pivoting off the “fact”-level interpretation—that the line reads 678-3554—let’s pivot interpretively off of what I have called “the working interpretation”—that 678-3554 is a phone number—a level up from the factual, and there the pivot then turns to open up the interpretation dimension: “Maybe the phone number is a secret encoded message?” Again, universal acceptance among the “we” is built into “the facts”: None of us disputes that the line says 678-3554. Wherever you want to accommodate interpretive pivoting, move “factual” to somewhere down from there.

  Meanwhile, life rolls on, and we are called to act. The pitch races toward the plate. If the batter waits for a better interpretation, he may be called out on strikes. Again, the action facet of knowledge is judgment. As speaker, we judge of judgments—of our interlocutors and of agents existing within the descriptions we give of things. We convey our judgments of their judgments using judgmental terms. 

  If, among our circle of “we,” judgment is shared, then those judgments may now predicate a further conversation among us, and, thusly, those judgments present statements now treated as fact. Thus, we have completed the phases of the spiral and have moved from one loop to the next, where the sequence of phases may recur.

  Despotic contempt for our circle of “we”

  Again, what is labeled and attacked as “misinformation” or “disinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge. Recognizing that knowledge, not merely information, is at issue is a matter of common decency. 

  The dignity of sincere discourse involves an openness, in principle a universal openness, to other human “we’s” and their pursuits upward in wisdom and virtue. As we can see, the chief facets of knowledge—information, interpretation, and judgment—operate both behind and ahead of our current position in the spiral. Trying to shut us up is to show a despotic contempt for our way of weaving through the phases of knowledge. It is contemptuous towards the development of the many loops within which our sense-making has made a home and now operates.

  By weighing interpretations and making judgments, we establish certain beliefs as fact, to predicate our further conversation. Those beliefs reflect a “we” with those beliefs. Meanwhile, in the wider world, different “we’s” are forming and are addressing the public at large, representing different sets of belief, different ways of making sense of the world. We might call a “we” a distinct sense-making community. 

  The sincere human of any one of these communities is eager to learn from other communities. The sincere human has certain commitments which make it belong to the sense-making community it belongs to, but it is not wedded to that community. In fact, the entire population of that community—that is, the set of people who currently share that way of sense-making—may remake their community’s way of sense-making. Those who learn from other communities may become leaders of intellectual change within their own community.

  Thus, sincere humans favor the freedom of speech and the norms of frank and open discourse for all communities. Besides favoring that freedom, they welcome engagement across communities, for all the reasons given earlier.

  The “anti-misinformation” despots show contempt for communities at odds with their dicta and diktats. Not only are the members of the “anti-misinformation” community unwilling to engage in civil debate, but they promulgate “anti-misinformation” propaganda so as to intimidate their adversaries, to crush dissent. 

  I have explained that the “misinformation” characterization of the disagreement is false. The anti-liberals are presupposing that it is a matter within the information dimension of knowledge, when clearly the disagreement involves contentions in the interpretation and judgment dimensions. Under pretense of combatting misinformation, they are really just stomping on adversaries. As I said at the outset, it is akin to Naziism, Stalinism, and Maoism, regimes that likewise showed despotic contempt for sense-making communities at odds with their own. “Anti-misinformation” projects are a sham, just as “anti-racism” projects are a sham.

  A few words about “hate”

  Just as “anti-misinformation” projects are despotic, so too are “anti-hate-speech” projects. The failure is again one of bad semantics and false presuppositions. “Anti-misinformation” despots tar their opponents with “misinformation,” making an “information” category error based on a false presupposition. “Anti-hate speech” projects tar their opponents with “hate,” again making a category error, for they treat hatred as necessarily hateful—that is, improper. Figure 3 shows the recent onset of “hate speech” and “hate crime.”

  

  But hatred is a necessary and organic part of any coherent system of morals. A coherent system of morals holds love and hate to be counterparts to one another. In a coherent system of morals, love is to be felt toward objects that are loveworthy, and hatred is to be felt toward objects that are hateworthy, although the bounds of propriety for the intensity and expression of the two respective feelings are importantly different, as Adam Smith explained (see esp. TMS, Part I, Sect. II, Chaps. 3 & 4 on the “unsocial” and “social” passions). 

  Moreover, the two respective sets of objects bear a counterpart relation to one another, for that which works systematically against the loveworthy is hateworthy. As Edmund Burke wrote: “They will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”

  The implicit denial by anti-liberals that hatred is a necessary and organic part of any coherent system of morals is parallel to their implicit denial, in treating interpretive matters as informational matters, that asymmetric interpretation is a necessary and organic part of any coherent society of modern human beings. Just as “mis-” and “disinformation” are words they use to shut you up, “hate speech,” “hate group,” and “hate crime” are words they use to shut you up, ratified by show trials and kangaroo bodies. A proper court of hate would presuppose a distinction between proper hate and improper hate, just hate and unjust hate. In a liberal civilization such “courts” are not governmental. Rather, they remain in the judgment and interpretation of the individual’s own being. If hate is policed in the manner that outward action is policed by governments, 

  we should feel all the furies of that passion against any person in whose breast we suspected or believed such designs or affections were harboured, though they had never broken out into any actions. Sentiments, thoughts, intentions, would become the objects of punishment; and if the indignation of mankind run as high against them as against actions; if the baseness of the thought which had given birth to no action, seemed in the eyes of the world as much to call aloud for vengeance as the baseness of the action, every court of judicature would become a real inquisition. (Smith, TMS, italics added)

  Concluding remarks

  The “anti-misinformation” projects are obvious miscarriages of civility, decency, and the rule of law. We must rediscover the norms of openness, tolerance, and free speech that dignify humankind. Science depends on confidence, and confidence depends on those liberal norms. Those norms are the parents of good science, healthy sense-making, and civil tranquility. There are two roads here, namely:

  1. Freedom —> openness —> confidence —> truth-tracking —> dignity; 
  2. Despotism —> concealment —> diffidence —> bad science —> serfdom and servility. 

  Let’s get back to the right road.

  ---

  We must rediscover the norms of openness, tolerance, and free speech that dignify humankind. Science depends on confidence, and confidence depends on those liberal norms.

  ---

  Appendix: Philosophical affinities

  FWIW: My take on knowledge has affinities to the philosophizing of David Hume, Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Michael Polanyi, Thomas Kuhn, Iain McGilchrist, and many others. It also has affinities to the pragmatists William James and Richard Rorty, but I regard pragmatism—seeing one’s belief as the product of one’s choosing an idea among alternative ideas, and seeing the chosen idea’s betterness (compared to actual alternatives, not compared to the past or to hypotheticals) as necessarily the chief basis for what one shall count as true—as a phase situated on one side of a spiral, counterposed by, on the other side of the spiral, an alternate phase that we may call Humean natural belief. Humean natural belief is belief that has emerged from depths beyond the loop in which we pass between the two phases; Humean natural belief is, within that loop, not to be treated in terms of choice; it is what we would call, as we dwell within that loop, brute reality. To open such brute reality up to the pragmatist phase would mean acceding to another loop of the spiral. But the spiral is indefinite, with no first (or lower-most) loop and no final (or upper-most) loop, so certain brute realities at some loop or level remain brutish for any finite conversation. And all conversations are finite.

  Selective References:

  Burke, Edmund. 2022. Edmund Burke and the Perennial Battle, 1789–1797. Eds. D.B. Klein and D. Pino. CL Press. Link

  Doctorow, Gilbert. 2023. The Western Media Disinformation Campaign: Fall of Bakhmut, a Case in Point. Gilbert Doctorow website. Link

  Gurri, Martin. 2023. Disinformation Is the Word I Use When I Want You to Shut Up. Discourse, March 30. Link

  Hume, David. 1994. Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. Edited by Eugene F. Miller. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Link

  Iannaccone, Laurence. 1992. Sacrifice and Stigma: Reducing Free-riding in Cults, Communes, and Other Collectives. Journal of Political Economy 100(2): 271–291.

  Klein, Daniel B. 2012. Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation. Oxford University Press. Link

  Polanyi, Michael. 1963. The Study of Man. Chicago University Press.
  Smith, Adam. 1982 [1790]. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie. Oxford University Press/Liberty Fund. Link

  Daniel Klein is professor of economics and JIN Chair at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he leads a program in Adam Smith. He is also associate fellow at the Ratio Institute (Stockholm), research fellow at the Independent Institute, and chief editor of Econ Journal Watch.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 23:40

• ECB Preview: Running Out Of Hawkish Arguments
  ECB Preview: Running Out Of Hawkish Arguments

  By Antoine Bouvet of ING Economics

  We expect the ECB to deliver a 25bp rate hike this week and signal more to come. Rates markets are already priced for this outcome, and softening economic data dents the ECB’s ability to push rates above their 2023 top. The impact on EUR/USD may be short-lived, with dollar rates still likely to be the primary driver of any sustained trend in the pair.

  

  When the European Central Bank governing council meets this week, no one will be shocked to discover that it elected to raise its policy rates by another 25bp. Our colleagues think the bank won’t stop at that and deliver at least one more hike in this cycle. One clue will be in the updated staff forecasts, although, here too, offsetting factors make a radical change unlikely. The ECB should also confirm that, as it heavily hinted at the May meeting, quantitative tightening (QT) will accelerate from July.

  

  Rates stuck in the doldrums but low volatility is positive for risk appetite

  With euro rates stuck in an increasingly narrow range since the start of 2023, there are growing doubts about the ECB’s ability to push yields to new highs with its hawkish rhetoric alone. Slowing economic data and encouraging signs on leading inflation indicators are denting its message. Contrast that to an ECB labouring the point that its focus is on still-stubbornly high core inflation, and on backward-looking indicators in general. In this light, the swap curve implying two more hikes in this cycle (including this week) feels already in tune with the ECB’s hawkish message, leaving limited upside to rates. We would go as far as saying that it is priced to perfection.

  Rates upside could still come from the curve pricing one more hike in this cycle, or pricing out some of the roughly 70bp of cuts implied for 2024. Even then we doubt this would be enough to push 10Y EUR swap rates above its recent high of 3.33%. This is because we assume the curve retains its tendency to flatten when rates rise. In truth, the ‘higher for longer’ narrative was given extra credibility by the Bank of Canada resuming hikes in June after a five months hiatus, but there is a long way to go before markets imply that longer rates should rise above current policy rates. From now on, the curve’s bear-flattening tendency may be reduced, but there is a high bar to clear for euro rates to print new highs.

  Meanwhile, the lack of rates direction is proving a boon to risk sentiment. Macro uncertainty has indeed reduced. Even if rates upside materialises, a repeat of the 2022 surge in rates is very unlikely. In short, the ECB and other central banks are much closer to the end of their hiking cycles than to their starts. Even in case of a sharp drop in rates in case of a hard landing or collapse in inflation, volatility would eventually converge lower. This explains the decline in implied and realised volatility from a peak of around 10bp per day in late 2022, to 6bp currently. This is positive for risk sentiment in rates markets and elsewhere. Sovereign spreads, for instance Italy-Germany 10Y, have narrowed to their tightest level this year, and swap spreads are also shedding the risk premium acquired during the US regional banking crisis.

  

  The ECB balance sheet: firmly set on tightening course

  The ECB, one should think, has already made up its mind in regard to the balance sheet. The TLTROs will mature as planned – or be repaid early if banks choose – and the asset purchase programme (APP) reinvestments will stop from July. This has set also set the excess liquidity in the banking system on a declining trajectory. And we would already have seen more of a decline if the ECB were not also engaged in pushing government cash off its balance sheet and into the market. Those efforts appear to have been fruitful with government deposits at the ECB now at pre-Covid levels again.

  From here, one should see targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) and APP redemptions unfold their full impact. Taken together they will have a negative net impact on excess revers of around €770bn this year and €850bn next year. Implications for the market, judging by the absolute levels of liquidity look limited, after all €3.4tr and €2.5tr respectively, are still considerably high by historical standard. And after all, the trajectory was well flagged ahead of time. The market appears to agree, looking benignly on the spreads such as the 3m Euribor/OIS which forwards see widening only modestly from currently around 2bp to 7bp towards a little over 10bp by year-end.

  

  What the headline figures don’t tell, is that the impact is also a matter of how liquidity is distributed. One example is Italy’s banking system which has fewer excess reserves than it has outstanding in TLTROs. At the margin, we would expect the decline in excess reserves to gradually lead to more market funding activity – think interbank term deposits, commercial paper issuance or even longer funding – which in turn should pressure up rates and widen spreads.

  Should some banks be seen resorting to the ECB regular market operations, which President Christine Lagarde had flagged at the last meeting as a funding alternative, then we think this would be interpreted as signs of tension in some corners of the system given that someone was willing to pay a 50bp “penalty” despite an apparent abundance of liquidity. If the ECB were to feel that risks are elevated, this meeting would be the last opportunity to address the issue ahead of a large end of June TLTRO redemption.

  FX: June meeting unlikely to be the trigger for a sustained euro rally

  EUR/USD decline throughout the month of May was primarily driven by the hawkish repricing in Fed rate expectations, while market pricing on ECB tightening held relatively stable. The main reference short-term rate differential for FX, the two-year swap rate gap, saw a rewidening of about 60bp since touching the -60bp peak in early May (now around -120bp) when markets were pricing in no more hikes and 75bp of cuts by the Fed in 2023.

  

  What is clear is that the recent big shift in the EUR-USD rate differential has almost entirely been driven by the USD rate leg. We doubt this will change this week, or even beyond the short term.

  Whether the ECB will pre-commit or not to another 25bp hike in July will drive the immediate reaction in EUR/USD, but we suspect that the Fed meeting the day before and above all the data releases in the US in the following weeks will generate swings in the significantly more volatile Fed rate expectations that will ultimately do the heavy lifting in driving EUR/USD moves.

  Our medium-term bullish view on the pair, and our call for levels above 1.15 for the end of the year, primarily rely on a drop in USD rates rather than a material repricing higher in EUR rates.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 23:20

• Yuan Tumbles After Chinese Economic Data Dump; Youth Jobless Rate Hits Record High
  Yuan Tumbles After Chinese Economic Data Dump; Youth Jobless Rate Hits Record High

  An ugly night of data from China tonight suggests the ‘re-opening’ is not gathering pace:

  • China May Retail Sales disappointed, rising 12.7% Y/Y; Est. 13.7% – which is a flashing red indicator. Given the boost from the Golden Week holiday, May retail sales rising just 0.4% from April speaks to how consumer sentiment has yet to show any significant improvement.

  • China May Industrial Output slowed to a 3.5% rise Y/Y; Est. 3.5%

  • China Jan.-May Fixed Investment rose less than expected, up 4% Y/Y; Est. 4.4%

  • China Jan.-May Property investment tumbled 7.2% from a year earlier with the value of new home sales by the 100 biggest developers falling 14.3% in May.

  

  And finally, and perhaps most problematically, the jobless rate for 16-to-24 year olds hits 20.8% in May, another all-time high that is four times the national rate which stands at 5.2%…

  

  As Goldman noted, both cyclical and structural factors have contributed to the elevated youth unemployment rate in China. 

  • On the cyclical front, the correlation between unemployment rate and services sector output gap is much stronger for the 16-24 age group compared with the 25-59 year-olds. NBS’s labor survey shows that services industries such as hotel and catering, education, and information technology sectors tend to hire more young workers. Services sector slackening before reopening therefore contributed to the high youth unemployment rate. The improvement in service sector activity growth in Q1 should lower youth unemployment rate in Q2 by 3pp based on our estimate. While the improvement in service activity growth implies rising demand for young workers, this increase in demand could be more than offset by strong supply seasonality. As we enter the graduation season, youth unemployment rate could rise by 3-4pp and peak in summertime (usually in July or August) before starting to decline from end of Q3, if we look at the seasonal pattern in 2018 and 2019 (prior to Covid).

  • Structural imbalance is another reason behind the high youth unemployment rate. Despite the fact that a rising share of unemployed persons aged 16-24 years old have higher education, there appears to be misalignment of academic disciplines with business requirements. 

  Ken Wong, Asia equity portfolio specialist at Eastspring Investments, said youth unemployment seems to be the big one:

  “It impacts the consumption story and youth unemployment will probably continue to go up a bit more with fresh grads entering the workforce.”

  The National Bureau of Statistics desperately tried to put some lipstick on this pig:

  “The global environment is complex and grim, the domestic economy faces grave pressure of structural adjustment, and the economic recovery’s foundation is not yet solid.”

  There is one silver- lining – the apparent oil demand rose 17.11% from a year ago in May

  Critically, all of this puts more pressure on Beijing to unleash more stimulus (broader stimulus) and is sending the yuan lower…

  

  Steven Leung, UOB Kay Hian executive director, says the data suggests more support will be needed from Beijing: “China has to announce more policies to aid the economy. Among the speculated supportive policies, markets are betting Beijing will roll out more policies to help the consumption sector given the big miss in retail sales. Those policies should be effective given Chinese citizens’ huge savings.”

  Incidentally, China cuts it MLF rate by10bps earlier this evening, same as all the other secondary rate-cuts.

  However, as The Wall Street Journal recently noted, the urgency to throw money at the problem could have reached its efficacy limits since after years of heavy borrowing, many in China are focused on paying down their debts this year—and the result could be weaker growth for a long time to come.

  

  The issue isn’t the central government, whose debts are relatively low as a percentage of gross domestic product, but households, the private sector and local governments. Total debt as a share of GDP hit 295% in China last September, surpassing 257% in the U.S. and an average of 258% in the eurozone, BIS data show.

  Consumers are hoarding cash, with many refusing to take out loans.

  Other countries – most notably Japan –  have been through similar processes, almost always painful.

  As WSJ goes on to note, economists at Société Générale in a recent report said Chinese policy makers need to learn lessons from Japan and prevent a deleveraging mind-set from becoming entrenched, by restructuring more debts or offering direct income support to households to boost consumption. If not, the economists warned, China could fall into a trap in which even zero interest rates wouldn’t stimulate growth.

  “Such a danger seems increasingly relevant for China,” they wrote.

  The bottom line is China’s economy is struggling; Beijing knows it but the best they can do are small piece-meal stimulus measures because China (more specifically the Chinese and their corporations) are already at their limit (even greater debt loads than the US).

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 22:34

• Annual US Excess Deaths Relative To Other Developed Countries Are Growing At An Alarming Rate
  Annual US Excess Deaths Relative To Other Developed Countries Are Growing At An Alarming Rate

  Authored by Patrick Heuveline via TheConversation.com,

  The big idea

  People in the U.S. are dying at higher rates than in other similar high-income countries, and that difference is only growing. That’s the key finding of a new study that I published in the journal PLOS One.

  

  In 2021, more than 892,000 of the 3,456,000 deaths the U.S. experienced, or about 1 in 4, were “excess deaths.” In 2019, that number was 483,000 deaths, or nearly 1 in 6. That represents an 84.9% increase in excess deaths in the U.S. between 2019 and 2021.

  Excess deaths refer to the actual number of deaths that occur in a given year compared with expected deaths over that same time period based on prior years or, as in this study, in other countries.

  In my study, I compared the number of U.S. deaths with those in the five largest countries in Western Europe: England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Those five countries make for a good comparison because they are nearly, if not quite, as wealthy as the U.S. and their combined population is similar in size and diversity to the U.S. population.

  I also chose those countries because they were used in an earlier study from another research team that documented a 34.5% increase in excess deaths in the U.S. between 2000 and 2017.

  The acceleration of this already alarming long-term trend in excess deaths in the U.S. was exacerbated by the fact that the U.S. experienced higher death rates from COVID-19 compared with similar countries. However, COVID-19 alone does not account for the recent increase in the number of excess deaths in the U.S. relative to comparison countries.

  Why it matters

  Rising living standards and medical advances through the 20th century have made it possible for people in wealthy countries to live longer and with a better quality of life. Given that the U.S. is the largest economic power in the world, with cutting-edge medical technology, Americans should have an advantage over other countries in terms of life span and death rates.

  But in the last 50 years, many countries around the world have outpaced the U.S. in how fast death rates are declining, as revealed by trends in life expectancy.

  Life expectancy is an average age at death, and it represents how long an average person is expected to live if current death rates remain unchanged throughout that person’s lifetime. Life expectancy is based on a complex combination of death rates at different ages, but in short, when death rates decline, life expectancy increases.

  

  Compared to about 20 other high-income countries, since around the mid-1970s the U.S. life expectancy has been slipping from about the middle, or median, to the lowest rungs of life expectancy. So the relative stagnation in life expectancy in the U.S. compared with other countries is directly related to the fact that death rates have also declined more slowly in the U.S.

  The U.S. has higher death rates than its peer countries due to a variety of causes. Cardiovascular disease prevalence has been an important driver of life expectancy changes across the globe in recent decades. But while death rates from cardiovascular disease have continued to decline in other parts of the world, those rates have stagnated in the U.S..

  A key reason for this trend is the rise in obesity, as research shows that obesity increases the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. High prevalence of obesity in the U.S. also likely contributed to the relatively high death rates from COVID-19.

  Another cause is that the U.S. has disproportionately high death rates from intentional injuries in the form of homicides, in particular those caused by firearms. Moreover, it also has high death rates from unintentional injuries, in particular drug overdoses.

  People are being exposed to fentanyl without knowing it, and because the synthetic opioid is so highly potent, people are dying in unprecedented numbers.

  What other research is being done

  While these specific causes of deaths should clearly be health policy priorities today, there might be more fundamental causes to the elevated U.S. death rates.

  In the early 1990s, young people in the U.S. between the ages of 15 and 34 were already dying at higher rates than their peers in other countries from a combination of homicides, unintentional injuries – in large part from motor vehicle accidents – and deaths from HIV/AIDS.

  Research is underway to understand the more fundamental societal causes that may explain the vulnerability of the U.S. population to successive epidemics, from HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 to gun violence and opioid overdoses.

  These include racial and economic inequalities, which combined with a weaker social security net and lack of health care access for all may help explain larger health and death disparities compared to European countries.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 22:20

• Reddit CEO Says 'Blackout Storm' Will Pass, Advises Staff Against Wearing Company Swag In Public
  Reddit CEO Says ‘Blackout Storm’ Will Pass, Advises Staff Against Wearing Company Swag In Public

  The 48-hour Reddit “Blackout” might be coming to an end today. However, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has managed to anger many Redditors this week as moderators closed thousands of subreddits to protest API price changes for third-party apps.  

  On Monday, more than 8,000 Reddit communities went dark. Moderators of these forums say the move is to protest the company’s price increases for third-party developers to access its API. Developers such as Apollo, a popular third-party app, warned it would incur a $20 million charge under the new pricing and would shutter operations later this month.  

  “We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor,” CEO Huffman wrote in an internal memo to staff on Monday, obtained by The Verge. 

  “There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest, we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well,” the CEO said. He anticipates that many of the subreddits will come back online Wednesday. 

  Huffman concluded the letter by saying, “I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.” 

  

  We suspect the API changes that go into effect on July 1 are a move by the company to increase a more diversified source of revenue ahead of a future IPO. It appears there’s no reversing course by Huffman. 

  Here’s Reddit’s Huffman full letter to employees: 

  Hi Snoos,

  Starting last night, about a thousand subreddits have gone private. We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as much. While we knew this was coming, it is a challenge nevertheless and we have our work cut out for us. A number of Snoos have been working around the clock, adapting to infrastructure strains, engaging with communities, and responding to the myriad of issues related to this blackout. Thank you, team.

  We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor.

  There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward. We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.

  While the two biggest third-party apps, Apollo and RIF, along with a couple others, have said they plan to shut down at the end of the month, we are still in conversation with some of the others. And as I mentioned in my post last week, we will exempt accessibility-focused apps and so far have agreements with RedReader and Dystopia.

  I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.

  Again, we’ll get through it. Thank you to all of you for helping us do so.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 22:00

• Trump Indictment Rests On Untested Legal Theory, Experts Say
  Trump Indictment Rests On Untested Legal Theory, Experts Say

  Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The indictment of former President Donald Trump for holding military documents and obstructing the government from taking them is built on a novel legal theory that has multiple weaknesses, according to several lawyers and other experts.

  The case has been portrayed in the media as being about Trump’s retaining classified documents from his presidency. However, the charges sidestep that issue and instead use a clause in the Espionage Act that criminalizes a failure to hand over national defense information. The indictment further alleges that Trump and staffer Waltine Nauta hid some documents when the government demanded them through a subpoena.

  The alleged Espionage Act violations impose a high burden of proof and raise the question of whether the statute should have been applied to begin with and, if not, whether the underlying investigation should serve as a basis for obstruction charges, some lawyers told The Epoch Times.

  “The key legal issue here is the interplay between the Presidential Records Act and the Espionage Act,” said Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor.

  The Presidential Records Act of 1978 stipulates that after a president leaves office, the National Archive and Records Administration (NARA) takes custody of all his official records.

  The law allows former presidents to keep personal documents such as “diaries, journals, or other personal notes” not used for government business.

  

  “If a former President or Vice President finds Presidential records among personal materials, he or she is expected to contact NARA in a timely manner to secure the transfer of those Presidential records to NARA,” NARA’s website states.

  However, the Presidential Records Act isn’t a criminal statute. If a former president refuses to turn over some documents or claims obviously official documents as personal, the worst he could face is a civil lawsuit.

  There’s little case law on such matters. In 2012, Judicial Watch tried to force former President Bill Clinton to turn over dozens of interview tapes he kept from his presidency. Clinton claimed the tapes were personal and the court sided with him. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, went so far as to argue that the court had no way to second-guess a president’s assertion of what is and isn’t personal.

  “Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records,” Jackson wrote.

  However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is now arguing that former presidents can be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for possession of documents that they kept from their presidencies.

  “That’s a totally novel legal issue,” Scharf said. “It’s never been tested before. The Espionage Act has never been used to prosecute in this sort of a setting.”

  

  Some lawyers believe the Espionage Act can’t be used this way because it wasn’t meant to be used in such a fashion. Before 1978, former presidents owned all documents from their presidencies, including any national defense information. There’s never been any suggestion that their holding on to such documents violated the Espionage Act.

  “Congress has been very, very clear … that the act that applies to presidents and former presidents is the Presidential Records Act. The act that applies to everyone else is the Espionage Act, which has different requirements,” said Jesse Binnall, a lawyer that represented Trump in another matter.

  Mike Davis of the conservative Article III Project voiced a similar opinion.

  “Even if President declassifies his presidential records and takes them when he leaves office, he can still get charged under Espionage Act. … Promise that theory won’t fly with Supreme Court,” he said in a tweet.

  Criminal Intent

  Much of the indictment rests on the allegation that Trump kept national defense documents “willfully”—with criminal intent.

  Yet the document falls short in providing evidence for such intent.

  On May 11, 2022, the DOJ obtained a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over all documents with classification markings, including electronic ones.

  One of the key claims is that Trump instructed Nauta to move boxes of documents around before his lawyer came to search the boxes for documents in response to the subpoena.

  Nauta allegedly moved 64 boxes out of a storage room where Trump kept items and documents from his presidency and moved them to Trump’s residence at the resort. Nauta then moved back 30 boxes shortly before Trump’s then-lawyer, Evan Corcoran, searched the storage room for the subpoenaed documents, according to the indictment, which refers to security camera footage obtained from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort via a subpoena.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 21:40

• "Nightmare Scenario": US Government Has Been Secretly Stockpiling Dirt On Americans Via Data Brokers
  “Nightmare Scenario”: US Government Has Been Secretly Stockpiling Dirt On Americans Via Data Brokers

  The US Government has been purchasing troves of information on American citizens from 3rd party data providers, according to Wired, which cites privacy advocates who say this constitutes a “nightmare scenario.”

  

  The United States government has been secretly amassing a “large amount” of “sensitive and intimate information” on its own citizens, a group of senior advisers informed Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, more than a year ago. 

  The size and scope of the government effort to accumulate data revealing the minute details of Americans’ lives are described soberly and at length by the director’s own panel of experts in a newly declassified report. Haines had first tasked her advisers in late 2021 with untangling a web of secretive business arrangements between commercial data brokers and US intelligence community members. -Wired

  “This report reveals what we feared most,” according to attorney Sean Vitka of the Demand Progress nonprofit. “Intelligence agencies are flouting the law and buying information about Americans that Congress and the Supreme Court have made clear the government should not have.”

  The government has been using ‘craven interpretations of aging laws’ to bypass privacy rights, as prosecutors have increasingly ignored limits traditionally imposed on domestic surveillance.

  “I’ve been warning for years that if using a credit card to buy an American’s personal information voids their Fourth Amendment rights, then traditional checks and balances for government surveillance will crumble,” according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

  During a March 8 hearing, Wyden pressed Haines to release the panel’s report – after Haines said it should “absolutely” be read by the public. On Friday, that’s exactly what happened after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released it amid a battle with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) over various related documents.

  “This report makes it clear that the government continues to think it can buy its way out of constitutional protections using taxpayers’ own money,” said EPIC law fellow, Chris Baumohl. “Congress must tackle the government’s data broker pipeline this year, before it considers any reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” he said (referring to the ongoing political fight over the so-called “crown jewel” of US surveillance, per Wired).

  The ODNI’s own panel of advisers makes clear that the government’s static interpretations of what constitutes “publicly available information” poses a significant threat to the public. The advisers decry existing policies that automatically conflate, in the first place, being able to buy information with it being considered “public.” The information being commercially sold about Americans today is “more revealing, available on more people (in bulk), less possible to avoid, and less well understood” than that which is traditionally thought of as being “publicly available.”

  Perhaps most controversially, the report states that the government believes it can “persistently” track the phones of “millions of Americans” without a warrant, so long as it pays for the information. Were the government to simply demand access to a device’s location instead, it would be considered a Fourth Amendment “search” and would require a judge’s sign-off. But because companies are willing to sell the information—not only to the US government but to other companies as well—the government considers it “publicly available” and therefore asserts that it “can purchase it.” -Wired

  What’s more, the report notes that it’s relatively easy to “deanonymize and identify individuals” based on data that was originally been anonymized prior to its commercial sale. According to the report, the data can do things like “identify every person who attended a protest or rally based on their smartphone location or ad-tracking records,” posing serious civil liberty concerns over how “large quantities of nominally ‘public’ information can result in sensitive aggregations.”

  The report goes on to say that in times past, access to sensitive information about a person was part of a “targeted” and “predicated” investigation. That’s no longer the case.

  “Today, in a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid, [commercially available information] includes information on nearly everyone,” it reads, adding that both the “volume and sensitivity” of information available for the government to purchase has exploded in recent years thanks to “location-tracking and other features of smartphones” as well as the “advertising-based monetization model” that underpins much of the internet.

  According to the ODNI, this data “in the wrong hands” could be used against Americans “facilitate blackmail, stalking, harassment, and public shaming” – all offenses that have been committed by intelligence agencies and the White House in the past.

  “The government would never have been permitted to compel billions of people to carry location tracking devices on their persons at all times, to log and track most of their social interactions, or to keep flawless records of all their reading habits. Yet smartphones, connected cars, web tracking technologies, the Internet of Things, and other innovations have had this effect without government participation,” reads the report.

  Read the report below:

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 21:20

• Federal Agencies Routinely Spy On Phone Calls, Texts, Emails Of American Citizens, Experts Say
  Federal Agencies Routinely Spy On Phone Calls, Texts, Emails Of American Citizens, Experts Say

  Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Despite the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits warrantless government searches, U.S. agencies are proving to be ever more intrusive in their routine surveillance of Americans’ speech and activities.

  

  Often working in collaboration with private companies and banks, agencies like the FBI have been misusing laws against foreign terrorism to vacuum up and sift through the private data of millions of Americans without a warrant or any evidence of a crime.

  As Congress now debates reauthorizing relevant sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that are set to expire this year, the libertarian Cato Institute held a four-day conference last week, which featured calls for major legal reforms by conservative and liberal speakers alike.

  “The violations that we’ve seen have not just been epic in scale, but they’ve also been persistent, over and over again,” Jake Laperruque, a deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, told attendees.

  “To put a human scale on this, what we’re talking about is not just random typos or wrong clicks; we’re looking at things like pulling up batches of thousands of political donors in one go, without any suspicion of wrongdoing,” Laperruque said. “We’ve had reports of journalists, political commentators, a domestic political party; these compliance violations are the most worrisome type of politically focused surveillance.”

  In 2001, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act as a means to combat foreign terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2008, Congress added an amendment to FISA, Section 702, which authorized warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. persons located outside the country. This amendment, which critics say is the source of much of the abuse, is scheduled to “sunset” on Dec. 31.

  Evidence of Abuse

  Congressional debates about whether to renew Section 702 are coming amid numerous reports that the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies have abused the surveillance authority granted to them by this law. Critics say there is mounting evidence that federal agencies have been using laws, which were intended to target foreign terrorists, to conduct extensive, long-term domestic spying campaigns on U.S. citizens.

  “To prevent Section 702 from being used as an end run around [Fourth Amendment] protections, Congress did two things: It required the government to minimize the collection, sharing and retention of Americans’ personal information … and it required the government to certify to the FISA court on an annual basis that it is not using Section 702 to try to access the communications of particular known Americans,” Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told conference attendees.

  “What has become abundantly clear over the last 15 years is that these protections are not working,” Goitein said. “All agencies that receive Section 702 data have procedures in place, approved by the FISA court, that allow them to run electronic searches … for the purpose of finding and retrieving the phone calls, text messages and emails of Americans.”

  A report by the Brennan Center for Justice states that “since 2006, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans from some of the largest telecommunications providers in the United States, via a series of regularly renewed requests by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”

  In addition, the report states that “over the past six years, the NSA has obtained unprecedented access to the data processed by nine leading U.S. internet companies. This was facilitated by a computer network named PRISM. The companies involved include Google, Facebook, Skype, and Apple.”

  Rise of Data Brokers

  Speaking to attendees of the Cato Institute conference, Nathan Wessler, a director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), detailed “the rise of data brokers” that assemble enormous databases of photo IDs that they then sell to law enforcement for profit.

  “Many companies are selling face recognition algorithms to government and private industry buyers,” Wessler said. “That might be state driver’s license photos, arrest photos, federal passport photos.

  “And then there’s another company, ClearView AI, which has been scouring the internet for billions of photos,” he said. “The last I heard, they had a database of 30 billion photos of people from social media, from employer websites, from local newspapers, and anywhere else on the internet where there’s a photo that might be attached to a name, building giant databases of face prints extracted from those photos, and selling that to police departments and other law enforcement around the country.”

  This, Wessler said, “presents a truly unprecedented ability for the government to instantaneously identify anyone in any situation and then take action without usually any kind of court oversight, and often in tremendous secrecy.”

  “We have legacy photo data sets of almost all of us,” said Clare Garvie, counsel at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “As a practical matter, most of us are in numerous of these, and they’ve been almost instantaneously turned into biometric data sets.”

  According to Garvie, the collection of these biometric data sets by law enforcement started around 2001, and has been expanding ever since.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 21:00

• "They Expect To Imprison You": GOP Lawmaker Warns Trump Supporters Against 'DOJ Trap'
  “They Expect To Imprison You”: GOP Lawmaker Warns Trump Supporters Against ‘DOJ Trap’

  A Republican lawmaker has warned Trump supporters against “falling for the trap” of protesting against latest indictment against the former president.

  

  “My fellow conservatives, the DOJ/FBI doesn’t expect to imprison Trump, they expect to imprison you. They want J6 again, in Miami and in your city and in mine. They want MAGA conservatives to react to this perimeter probe and in doing so, set yourselves up for targeted persecution and further entrapment,” said Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), a member of the Homeland Security Committee, who says the Biden DOJ would love nothing more than to have “J6 again.”

  “They want to intercept a busload of conservatives en route to protest and create conflicts during the stop. They are hoping to provoke conservative Americans. Don’t fall for the trap. Maintain your family. Live your life. Live free and pay close attention and make your voice heard,” Higgins continued, adding “Don’t become an incarcerated pawn in the agenda driven DOJ/FBI strategy to oppress conservatives across America.”

  Trump faces a total of 37 felony counts over his handling of documents after leaving office, including violating the federal Espionage Act and other federal laws for allegedly making false statements, concealing documents and conspiring to obstruct justice.

  

  “Our country is going communist, it’s going Marxist, it’s going really bad. The people of our country aren’t that way, but the people running it are,” Trump said Sunday during a radio interview. “We need strength at this point, and everyone’s afraid to do anything. They’re afraid to talk, and they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. They have to go.”

  More via the Epoch Times;

  Miami’s police chief, Manuel Morales, has said his department is taking Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday “extremely seriously” and it can handle a crowd of up to 50,000.

  “President Trump can take care of himself in court, he knows we’ve got his back. The DOJ knows they’ve got nothing on him. They’re doing this because they want you to let your anger overwhelm your strategic judgment and they expect you to step willingly into their trap,” Higgins added.

  “We will fight against this oppression. We are indeed, with every ounce of spirit, fighting against the insidious evil that threatens our beloved Republic, but We the People must fight against oppression legally, peacefully, and within the parameters of our Constitution.”

  The Epoch Times has contacted the DOJ for comment.

  Polls

  Before Trump’s indictment was unsealed on June 8, a new Gallup poll revealed that more Americans considered themselves to be conservative on social issues since 2012.

  The poll, which queried 1,011 U.S. adults from May 1 to May 24, found that 38 percent of respondents said they were conservative or very conservative on social issues, up from 33 percent in 2022 and 30 percent in 2021. Meanwhile, the percentage said they were liberal or very liberal on these issues stood at 29 percent, a decrease from 33 percent last year and 34 percent in 2021.

  Among Republicans, the percentage of respondents that said they were socially conservative increased from 60 percent two years ago to 74 percent this year.

  The percentage of Independents who said they were socially conservative increased from 26 percent last year to 29 percent this year. Fewer Independents said they were liberal on these issues, dropping to 23 percent from 29 percent in 2022.

  “Greater social conservatism may be fostering an environment more favorable to passing conservative-leaning social legislation, especially in Republican-dominated states,” the poll said.

  Trump continues to lead the GOP pack in the 2024 race for the White House. According to the latest I&I/TIPP poll, which polled 482 likely Republican primary voters from May 31 to June 2, Trump received 55 percent of support, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a distant second with 19 percent of  support.

  Former Vice President Mike Pence finished third with 6 percent of support, followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) with 3 percent each.

  “So Trump’s edge, when it comes to his own party, again appears insurmountable at this early stage of the nominating process,” the poll says.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 20:40

• Watchdog Observes Lack Of Oversight, Says 'Increased Risk' US Arms Could Be Lost En Route To Ukraine
  Watchdog Observes Lack Of Oversight, Says ‘Increased Risk’ US Arms Could Be Lost En Route To Ukraine

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

  A report from the Department of Defense Inspector General found Pentagon employees in Poland failed to follow procedures to account for military equipment being transferred to Ukraine. In the shipments of weapons monitored by the office, Pentagon employees failed to properly track the weapons in three of five shipments.

  “DoD personnel did not have the required accountability of the thousands of defense items that they received and transferred at Jasionka, [Poland],” it stated. “We observed that DoD personnel did not fully implement their standard operating procedures to account for defense items and could not confirm the quantities of defense items received against the quantity of items shipped for three of five shipments we observed.”

  

  The Pentagon does not “have reasonable assurance that their database of all defense items transferred to the [Ukraine] via air transport in Jasionka was accurate or complete.” The report added, “14 The DoD may risk providing more or less equipment than authorized by [President Joe Biden], and may not be able to verify the quantity of all defense items before they are transferred to [Ukraine].”

  One example in the inspector general report explains how weapons are shipped without a manifest. “One shipment containing thousands of small arms, night vision optics devices, and various types of cold weather gear did not include an air manifest.” The report continues, “DoD personnel opened crates to identify the types of defense items contained within the crates, but even then the personnel could not verify whether the number of items they identified represented the true number shipped.”

  Since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Washington has shipped tens of billions in weapons to Ukraine, including advanced platforms. The Pentagon inspector general report examined arms shipped to Ukraine directly from American stockpiles. 

  Further problems included Pentagon employees in Poland being unable to identify unlabeled weapons being shipped to Ukraine and incomplete training. “DoD personnel in Jasionka further stated that they developed their own [procedures] based on the procedures followed by the unit performing the mission before them,” the inspector general explained. The Pentagon employees “added additional accountability measures based on their own judgment.”

  The failure to inappropriately monitor the shipments has created discrepancies. The inspector general found a “discrepancy between the number of night vision optics devices reported on paper documents and the number reported via electronic means.”

  The Biden administration and leaders in Congress have insisted that establishing an office to track the billions in weapons being sent to Ukraine is unnecessary. However, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, John Sopko, said without more oversight, weapons will end up on the black market. 

  How many weapons have been lost already? https://t.co/opc9ufzWcv

  — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 12, 2023

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

  Without sufficient oversight, aid “gets stolen or diverted to local oligarchs or local politicians, or just the average Ukrainian will see the waste,” Sopko explained. The result would mean the loss of “support of the Ukrainian government by the average Ukrainian who’s fighting, dying and bleeding at the front. And that’s what we saw in Afghanistan… And we, the donors, the US, were identified as supporting the corrupt oligarchs.”

  Finnish authorities and leaders in Africa have complained that weapons intended for Kiev have been used by criminals and insurgents. President Muhammadu Buhari said in December that arms “being used for the war in Ukraine and Russia are equally beginning to filter to the region.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 20:20

• "Don't Call It A Skip" – Fed 'Pause' Prompts Wild Swings Across All Assets
  “Don’t Call It A Skip” – Fed ‘Pause’ Prompts Wild Swings Across All Assets

  A ‘pause’ in rate-hikes and a far more hawkish dot-plot than expected spooked markets and then Powell monotonously meandered through his press conference, seemingly providing something for doves to cling to (though we are not sure what).

  

  Powell emphasized that the inflation fight is still a priority: “Without price stability, the economy doesn’t work for anyone.”

  “There’s just not a lot of progress in core inflation.”

  “We want to see it moving down decisively.”

  But:

  “Risks for inflation are still to the upside.”

  Powell says the process of getting inflation back to the 2% target “has a long way to go,” but don’t call this ‘pause’ a skip…

  “The skip — I shouldn’t call it a skip.”

  

  And finally, to ensure the doves are clear:

  “It will be appropriate to cut rates at such time as inflation is coming down really significantly. And we’re talking about a couple of years out.“

  “I think, as anyone can see, not a single person on the committee wrote down a rate cut this year — nor do I think it is at all likely to be appropriate if you think about it.”

  “Inflation has not really moved down. It has not reacted much to our existing rate hikes. We’re going to have to keep at it.”

  The result of all that was a fair amount of chaos.

  First things first, rate-change expectations rose (hawkishly) with all rate-cuts for 2023 now priced-out and the odds of a hike by September significantly higher…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Stocks were even more wild, dumping on the statement/SEP, rallying at the start of Powell’s presser, only to reverse back as he noted ‘no rate cuts forecast by anyone’ and failed to actually offer a dovish bone to the market. The Nasdaq managed gains on the day while Small Caps and the Dow were hit hard (the latter hurt by UNH also) and late-day weakness dragged the S&P red but managed to pull back to unch at the close…

  

  Nasdaq pushed ahead of Small Caps once again, reversing more of last week’s reversal in favor of Small Caps…

  

  With a big OpEx right ahead of us, optionsland is a little chaotic also but today’s 0-DTE traders faded any gains off the PPI aggressively and were right…

  

  Source: SpotGamma

  VIX was smashed lower to a 13 handle!

  

  Banks were dumped but investors rushed to the new safe-haven – AI stocks…

  

  Utter chaos in bond-land with PPI taking yields gradually lower early on. The FOMC statement sent yields vertical – especially at the short-end – leaving the long-end actually lower on the day…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The yield curve (2s30s) plummeted to its most inverted since right around the SVB collapse…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The dollar ended lower – tumbling on the soft PPI, spiking on the FOMC statement, then fading back during the presser…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Gold ended unchanged but had a violent day, rallying on PPI, dumping on FOMC then bouncing then fading…

  

  Oil ended lower on the day with WTI testing down near a $67 handle intraday, hit by Iran headlines, strong inventory builds and the hawkish Fed…

  

  Perhaps most shockingly, crypto was the least volatile asset-class of the day…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Finally, did we just make the blow-off top on this AI cycle?

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Maybe The Fed didn’t like the decoupling from tighter financial conditions after all?

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Now we need to hear the follow-up FedSpeak to set the narrative.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 20:01

• Amazon Locks Man Out Of Smart Home Devices Over False Racism Claims
  Amazon Locks Man Out Of Smart Home Devices Over False Racism Claims

  Amazon locked a Microsoft engineer out of his smart home devices for nearly a week after a delivery driver accused him of uttering a racial slur.

  

  According to a June 4 blog post on Medium, Brandon Jackson found himself locked out of his Amazon Echo Show on May 25. When he contacted customer service, he was given the number of an Amazon executive – which he thought was a scam.

  “When I connected with the executive, they asked if I knew why my account had been locked,” he wrote. “When I answered I was unsure, their tone turned somewhat accusatory. I was told that the driver who had delivered my package reported receiving racist remarks from my ‘Ring doorbell.‘”

  Jackson, who is black, said that the accusation was improbable, as many of the delivery drivers in his area are the same race – thus, the racial slur was “highly unlikely.”

  Jackson tracked down the time that the driver would have dropped off his package (May 24 at 6:05 p.m.), and compared it  to footage from his home at the time of the incident – revealing that nobody was home at the time of the delivery. Instead, Jackson thinks that his Eufy automated doorbell said to the driver “Excuse me, can I help you?”

  “The driver, who was walking away and wearing headphones, must have misinterpreted the message,” wrote Jackson, adding that even after he shared the evidence with Amazon, his account remained locked.

  “Despite numerous calls and emails, it wasn’t until Friday afternoon [on May 26] that I received confirmation that the investigation had started,” he wrote, adding that it wasn’t until May 31 that access was finally restored.

  In a statement to NTD News, Amazon said: “we learned through our investigation that the customer did not act inappropriately, and we’re working directly with the customer to resolve their concerns while also looking at ways to prevent a similar situation from happening again.”

  More via the Epoch Times;

  Impact of the Lockout

  While he was locked out of the Amazon account he typically used for his smart home devices, Jackson said he had already thought ahead about alternate ways to control his devices.

  “I already had everything set up so if something did fail I have fallbacks so I wasn’t truly in the dark,” Jackson explained in a subsequent video post about the experience. “But I wrote [my blog post] from the perspective of someone who—what if they didn’t do all that.”

  Jackson, who is an engineer at Microsoft and is relatively tech savvy, shared his concerns for owners of smart home devices who don’t have the same knowledge base and find themselves locked out in a similar incident.

  He said the incident led him to lose trust in Amazon due to how it kept him locked out through the duration of the ordeal.

  “I fully support Amazon taking measures to ensure the safety of their drivers. However, I question why my entire smart home system had to be rendered unusable during their internal investigation,” he wrote.

  Jackson also argued that Amazon or other companies shouldn’t be able to block people from using the products they purchased because they expressed the wrong opinions.

  “If you bought a toaster right, it doesn’t matter what you did, how bad of a person you were how good of a person you are, you still own the toaster at the end of the day right?” Jackson said. “And if you really did do something that was so horrible and bad that shouldn’t be Amazon or Google or Apple’s call to do anything about that. You know, we already have a system set up for that and that’s what you should be going through.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 20:00

• A Quiet Revolution Is Unfolding Against 'Woke' Corporate America – Here's The Strategy Behind It
  A Quiet Revolution Is Unfolding Against ‘Woke’ Corporate America – Here’s The Strategy Behind It

  Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Consumer boycotts against “woke” corporations such as Target and Anheuser-Busch are the key to reversing race, gender, and environmental activism in corporate America, according to conservative groups.

  

  That’s because customers ditching companies pushing left-wing policies have given conservative groups the traction they needed to fight them legally.

  Scott Shepard is a Fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) and director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project, a conservative shareholder activist group.

  Shepard told The Epoch Times the tide is turning against environmental, social, and governance, or ESG.

  “We’re seeing something very different this time. Because it’s not just the conservatives, who are always interested in this sort of thing, it’s the whole country,” Shepard said.

  ESG, which started as guidelines, has now turned into heavy-handed mandates on controversial “social justice” ideologies, he said.

  And a potential breach of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders will expose businesses to legal action like Shepard’s organization has started.

  Even with companies losing billions of dollars, they continue to embrace the concept to the detriment of their shareholders, Shepard said.

  Target came under fire for “Pride Month” merchandise, including rainbow-colored onesies for babies and “tuck-friendly” women’s swimsuits for men identifying as women in front-of-the-store displays.

  

  Likewise, consumers boycotted Anheiser-Busch after the company provided transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney with a personalized can of Bud Light which subsequently went viral on social media.

  Target and Anheuser-Busch both came out with statements as the boycotts intensified. But they fell short of apologizing or continued to support transgenderism and LGBT causes as consumers stayed away.

  Target’s strategy was to blame threats from customers for removing some of the more “controversial” items from their “Pride Month” displays and relocating LGBT items to the back of the store.

  Employees at a Target location in Tennessee, where some wore rainbow-flag gear, gave a mixed review on June 13 about how the boycott was impacting sales.

  “Sundays and Mondays have been less busy. It’s noticeable if you work here long enough. The past few weeks have been slower,” one employee said.

  “It’s kind of hard to say. Day-to-day things are different,” added another.

  Anheuser-Busch came out with pro-America ads featuring Clydesdale horses traversing the country shortly after their campaign with Mulvaney.

  “We never intended to be a part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer,” Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth said.

  Besides Target and Anheuser-Busch’s continued support of Pride Month, business titans such as Citi, Bank of America, Cisco, HP, and Pfizer have all changed their social media icons to Pride-themed logos.

  Billionaire Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner, and Shark Tank star, went so far as to call going woke “good for business” over the weekend.

  Boycotts Kryptonite For Woke Firms

  Shareholder lawsuits could be the key to stopping ESG—and prolonged consumer boycotts are making it possible by inflicting huge losses on “woke” companies, Shepard said.

  On June 6, America First Legal (AFL) demanded Target’s corporate books and records amid the backlash against the retailer for selling Pride Month items aimed at children.

  The law firm represents NCPPR, a free market public policy research group, where Shepard is a fellow.

  AFL, headed by former Trump presidential adviser Stephen Miller, accused Target’s management of a “radical LGBT political agenda that has cost the corporation over $12 billion in market valuation since mid-May 2023,” according to a news release.

  The boycotts hit the companies’ market capitalizations, meaning their value dropped on the stock market.

  Target’s market capitalization fell from $72.52 billion to $58.61 billion between May 1 and June 10 and was downgraded on Wall Street twice.

  Anheuser-Busch’s market cap slid even more—from $132.06 billion to $108.96 billion between April 3 and June 2 and was also downgraded.

  Attorneys for AFL said its client has concerns about the possible financial risk posed by selling LGBT-related merchandise since Target admits its customer base is mainly made up of families.

  “This dramatic and sudden loss to shareholders is a direct and predictable result of management’s calculated efforts to please its extreme leftist “stakeholders,” almost none of whom shop at Target, and evidence contempt for the corporation’s core customers,” AFL said in a statement.

  Shepard said stock value losses demonstrate that “woke” corporate boards and executives care more about an ideology than their shareholders.

  “I think it’s now clear people are paying attention,” he said.

  

  “Aside from the hard-left activists, nobody wants trans issues aimed at children; nobody thinks that Target ought to play a central role in deciding whether our children are going to get drawn into all this nonsense,” Shepard said.

  If CEOs and corporate board members continue to “pretend” going woke won’t make them broke, Shepard believes they will likely be sued personally.

  He predicts executives will be forced to pay back the amount they cost shareholders out of their pockets by “running companies according to their own personal preferences, rather than according to objective, neutral rules of running a business.”

  Why Executives Alienate Customers

  Woke isn’t going away without a fight, according to Will Hild, executive director of Consumer’s Research, a nonprofit consumer protection group.

  Consumer’s Research launched a public information campaign on BlackRock and recently created a “woke alert” for consumers. Those who sign up are notified when companies “cave to the woke mob—so you know the brands attacking your values.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 19:40

• Middle School Students Stage Rebellion Against LGBTQ Indoctrination
  Middle School Students Stage Rebellion Against LGBTQ Indoctrination

  Massachusetts, where the first shots of the American Revolution were fired, has now witnessed a revolt against LGBTQ indoctrination, staged by students at a public middle school. 

  The action took place on June 2 at Marshall Simonds Middle School in the suburban Boston town of Burlington, in response to a Pride-themed “spirit day” organized by the school’s Spectrum Club, which is a group of LGBTQ students and their supporters.

  The student body was encouraged to dress in rainbow colors and wear rainbow stickers. The school was decorated with Pride flags and posters, rainbow streamers, and “educational” posters.

  School officials are in panic mode over kids revolting against “Pride Day”

  Kids refused to wear colors and some even chanted that their pronouns are USA pic.twitter.com/xuNBlMCrdq

  — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 13, 2023

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  However, according to a letter sent to parents from the school’s principal, many students were not in the mood and created — wait for it — an “unsafe environment.” Her list of “specific acts of intolerance” included:

  • “ripping of stickers and pulling down of banners”
  • “handmade signs were torn off the walls and crumbled into water fountains”
  • “groups of students were heard chanting ‘U.S.A. are my pronouns'” 
  • “students glaring intimidatingly at faculty members showing pride”
  • “students were shamed into removing their stickers or covering their clothing”

  Reports indicate that some of the dissent sprang from the school’s failure to acknowledge Memorial Day. In her letter to parents, Perchase acknowledged that it her staff had made an “error.” Many students wore red, white and blue on the Pride day, with some taking their patriotic display to the next level with face paint.  

  Parent Christine Steiner told WCVB that her daughter was offended by an “educational” poster that crossed the line from promoting tolerance of LGBTQ people to taking a shot at straight ones. The poster featured a quote from Tennessee Williams: “What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.” It also depicted two people waving rainbow flags; adhering to the woke rulebook, both were non-white. 

  

  In response to the discord, Perchase said her administration had created a form so students could anonymously report alleged “hateful” incidents that took place that day.  

  At a Monday night meeting of Burlington’s Select Board where the audience was dominated by parents of purported LGBTQ middle schoolers, Nancy Bonassera, co-chair of the Burlington Equity Coalition, demanded “consequences” for students who participated in the pushback against Pride.

  Her group is also demanding that the school district fill a “diversity, equity, inclusion” (DEI) director position that’s been left vacant since last year. The also want the Burlington Select Board — comparable to a town council — to “reinstate the recently disbanded Diversity, Equity and Inclusion subcommittee.” 

  Instead of all that, it’s time for more parents to ask why schools should be fostering celebrations of any flavor of sexuality. 

  Massachusetts isn’t the only blue state to recently see students pushing back against LGBTQ indoctrination. Watch the reaction of students at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California, when their teacher showed a Pride-flavored video — in a math class.  

  …and be sure to listen for the girl asking what parents everywhere should be asking: “Why are you showing this to kids?”

  Parents of kids at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California say this video was played to their kids in math class. The kids clearly didn’t want to watch this pride video so the teacher threatened them with Saturday school to get them to watch it. pic.twitter.com/FUnB9DKYrN

  — Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 11, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 19:20

• New Truck Sales Are Robust – But There's Still A Trucking Bloodbath
  New Truck Sales Are Robust – But There’s Still A Trucking Bloodbath

  By Craig Fuller, CEO of FreightWaves

  In the past week, several Twitter users have pointed to government data on retail sales of heavy-duty trucks as one reason why a recession is far off. 

  

  Two examples: 

  You want to know a Leading Indicator I use as a #recession warning? Here is a great one 👇

  Heavy Weight Trucks sales have predicted every recession since 1973! 🚛

  A steep decline is an early warning, that a recession is coming! Right now, Heavy Weight Trucks sales continue to… pic.twitter.com/ozNQKFaByS

  — BACH (@MortensenBach) June 9, 2023

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  Heavy truck sales continue to increase.

  Before the past 7 recessions we saw this decline well before the recession started.

  You want to talk about leading indicators of a recession? I’ll take this every time.

  Yet another clue a recession isn’t imminent like we keep hearing. pic.twitter.com/blLm0bLgiT

  — Ryan Detrick, CMT (@RyanDetrick) June 8, 2023

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  The context of their posts is that because of robust truck orders, the freight market must also be robust. And since the freight market is robust, they believe, it means that the U.S. economy is also robust. They have good reason for believing this. After all, new truck orders are at very high levels and, in a normal cycle, there is a correlation between robust truck orders and freight demand. 

  However, FreightWaves readers likely know better. The freight market is not robust. In fact, it is one of the most difficult freight markets in recent years, with comparisons to the 2009 economy among some fleet executives. 

  The Twitter posters can be forgiven. 

  They are likely just pulling random data charts and drawing their conclusions with little to no freight industry experience and little context. 

  But why are new truck orders robust?

  COVID screwed up the heavy-duty production cycle

  There is a backlog of heavy-duty truck orders. Therefore, the data is not telling us what some think it does. 

  In a normal economy, the health of the freight market is correlated with new truck order data. Not this time. The collapse in the freight market is well-documented from a range of sources, including leading industry surveys and bank reports on nationwide freight expenditure.

  New truck orders are continuing at robust levels, while the freight market collapses. This shouldn’t happen, so why is this cycle different? 

  Mid-sized and large fleets — 100 trucks or more — buy their trucks at regular intervals, regardless of the economy. In fact, some increase purchases during recessions — thanks to incentives from original equipment manufacturers and easy access to drivers. 

  Forty-two percent of the trucks on the road are held by fleets with more than 100 trucks. 

  From 2020-2022, mid-sized and large fleets were not able to get new truck allotments due to supply chain shortages and a strong retail truck market.

  The mid-size and large fleets also held on to trucks longer than usual — two years longer than normal. Some fleets delayed orders in 2020 because of the unprecedented uncertainty and then continued to hold off in 2021 because of the inability to find truck drivers to “seat their trucks.” 

  Now, truck drivers are much easier to find, uncertainty about an “apocalypse” is long forgotten and those trucks they held onto for two extra years are worn out.

  The largest fleets also know that with the availability of truck drivers (so long “shortage”), they will be able to grow market share. So what is occurring in truck order data is not related to robust freight demand, but rather a bulking of orders from the COVID economy among mid-sized and large fleets. 

  The OEMs are aware that the freight market is in recession. This is why they aren’t ramping up production to burn off the backlog. OEMs will keep production at current levels, hoping to time the cycle just in time for a rebound. 

  It is possible that the truck OEMs will miss the recession this time around.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 19:00

• China Rebukes US In Phone Call Ahead Of Blinken's Arrival In Beijing Sunday
  China Rebukes US In Phone Call Ahead Of Blinken’s Arrival In Beijing Sunday

  A Blinken trip to China has finally been confirmed, following the latest, albeit tense, phone call between the US Secretary of State and his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang. Both sides have said Blinken will be in Beijing on Sunday and Monday. Qin told Blinken in the Wednesday call the US must stop meddling in China’s affairs.

  State Dept spokesperson Matthew Miller in a new statement describing the itinerary said, “Blinken will travel to Beijing, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and London, the United Kingdom, June 16-21.” He detailed: “While in Beijing, Secretary Blinken will meet with senior PRC officials where he will discuss the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the US-PRC relationship. He will also raise bilateral issues of concern, global and regional matters, and potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges.”

  In prior recent exchanges with Blinken, the Chinese FM urged US to “show respect” and stressed it must stop undermining China’s interests. Blinken, for his part, has said the US wants “to avoid miscalculation and conflict” in restoring direct dialogue with Beijing.

  

  The more forceful new remarks from Qin (compared with the somewhat muted US readout), included a call for Washington to “stop undermining China’s sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition.”

  Of chief importance on the minds of Beijing officials is the newly inked trade agreement between the United States and Taiwan this month which seeks to “strengthen and deepen the economic and trade relationship between.”

  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning at the time said the deal “gravely violates” Beijing’s “one-China” policy under which it views Taiwan as a wayward province and has vowed to retake it by force, if necessary. — UPI

  This newly announced weekend trip by Blinken was supposed to happen in February, but that was abruptly canceled (or perhaps just “postponed”), following the Chinese “spy balloon” shootdown incident early that month and ensuing war of words and Chinese denials of wrongdoing.

  Earlier this month, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu told the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit that any potential future conflict between the United States and China would bring “unbearable disaster for the world”.

  But he said both rival powerful countries should be able to grow together and to avoid confrontation. His words came as the US condemned what it called unsafe and aggressive maneuvers by a Chinese PLA Navy warship in the Taiwan Strait as the American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon conducted a ‘freedom of navigation’ transit on June 3rd. 

  Lately, China has been ramping up its flights and naval maneuvers near Taiwan, and now somewhat routinely violates the Taiwan Strait median line. The US is at the same time sending more and more Navy warships through the strait, provoking Beijing.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 18:40

• "Biden Bucks" And The War On Crypto
  “Biden Bucks” And The War On Crypto

  Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

  I’ve written a lot about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) including the U.S. dollar version that I call “Biden Bucks.” The threat from CBDCs is enormous.

  They are digital (but not true cryptocurrencies), which means they are programmable. The Treasury and Fed can use the CBDC ledger to track your purchases, look at your political contributions, look at your religious affiliations and basically profile you as an enemy of the state or “ultra MAGA.”

  Your “Biden Bucks” could be made to stop working at the gas pump once you’ve purchased a certain amount of gasoline in a week. How’s that for control?

  And in a world of “Biden Bucks,” the government will even know your physical whereabouts at the point of purchase.

  

  But it gets even worse…

  CBDC + AI = Nightmare

  This profiling can be combined with artificial intelligence (AI) and generative pretrained transformer platforms (GPT) to practically read your mind.

  From there, the government can freeze your bank accounts, impose taxes and penalties and put you on a “use it or lose it” fiscal policy stimulus plan that forces you to spend your money within 30 days or have it partially confiscated.

  If any of this sounds extreme, fantastical or otherwise far-fetched, it’s not. It’s already happening around the world.

  China is already using its CBDC to deny travel and educational opportunities to political dissidents. Canada seized the bank accounts and crypto accounts of nonviolent trucker protesters last winter.

  These kinds of “social credit” systems and political suppression will be even easier to conduct when “Biden Bucks” are completely rolled out in the U.S.

  The Associated Press actually tried to fact-check me, saying that my claims are false, that the digital dollar has nothing to do with social control. The whole project is completely innocent and you can trust the government.

  But even the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, which is known as the “central bank of central banks,” has admitted that CBDCs would give central banks “absolute control” of everyone’s money — and the “technology to enforce that.”

  Even The Economist has announced the rise of government-backed digital currencies, warning they will “shift power from individuals to the state.”

  Let’s just say The Economist isn’t known for engaging in conspiracy theories.

  No Competition Allowed

  And this is central to the CBDC plan: As the CBDC dollar is being implemented, it’s important for the government to take away your alternatives. The three main alternatives are physical cash, gold and cryptocurrencies.

  Cash is under attack through multiple channels including “no cash accepted” signs at public events, anti-money laundering rules and simple inflation that might allow you to hold cash, but it won’t be worth very much.

  (In 1969, the U.S. abolished the $500 bill, leaving the $100 bill as the highest denomination. The $100 bill of 1969 is only worth $12 in today’s purchasing power because of inflation. Give it time and it won’t be worth much more than a $5 bill.)

  And cryptocurrencies are also under full-scale attack. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, and its founder Changpeng Zhao, alleging they operated a “web of deception.”

  Among the 13 other counts in the lawsuit are allegations that Binance inflated trading volumes, mishandled customer funds and misled investors about market-surveillance controls. Just one day later, the SEC also sued the Coinbase crypto exchange for failure to register as an exchange under U.S. law.

  During the wave of bank failures in early March, the FDIC closed Signature Bank, which operated a cryptocurrency portal called Signet in addition to normal banking activities. That came days after the failure of Silvergate Bank, which also bridged the normal banking world to the world of crypto.

  None of this is random.

  Governments Never Wanted to Kill the Blockchain — Just to Control It

  The U.S. has opened a full-scale war on crypto. Silvergate, Signature, Binance and Coinbase are just the first victims. They won’t be the last. Crypto has to go if CBDCs are going to be fully implemented.

  Many advocates of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have shared a naïve belief that their digital assets are “beyond the reach of governments,” “cannot be traced” and “cannot be frozen or seized.”

  They’ve learned otherwise. Blockchain does not exist in the ether (despite the name of one cryptocurrency) and it does not reside on Mars. Blockchain depends on critical infrastructure including servers, telecommunications networks, the banking system and the power grid, all of which are subject to government control.

  As I’ve argued for years, governments don’t want to kill the blockchain upon which cryptos are based. They want to control it.

  The fact is governments enjoy a monopoly on money creation and they’re not about to surrender that monopoly to cryptocurrencies.

  But governments know they cannot stop the technology platforms on which the cryptocurrencies are based. Blockchain technology has come too far to turn back. That’s why they’re co-opting it.

  What Happens if CBDCS Get Hacked?

  Here’s one issue with Biden Bucks that hasn’t been adequately addressed: How can you trust them to keep your money secure once you are forced to convert it to a traceable digital currency?

  Hackers routinely target crypto architecture and steal money. What happens if that digital currency gets hacked?

  This is from a 2022 Federal Reserve paper:

  Threats to existing payment services — including operational disruptions and cybersecurity risks — would apply to a CBDC as well. Any dedicated infrastructure for a CBDC would need to be extremely resilient to such threats, and the operators of the CBDC infrastructure would need to remain vigilant as bad actors employ ever more sophisticated methods and tactics. Designing appropriate defenses for CBDC could be particularly difficult because a CBDC network could potentially have more entry points than existing payment services.

  This part is truly terrifying. To repeat:

  Designing appropriate defenses for CBDC could be particularly difficult because a CBDC network could potentially have more entry points than existing payment services.

  If bad actors can already hack crypto platforms with ease, what’s to stop them from hacking a CBDC network with more entry points?

  You might not be able to fight back easily in the world of “Biden Bucks,” but there is one nondigital, nonhackable, nontraceable form of money you can still get your hands on.

  It’s called gold. Get some before it’s too late.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 18:20

• CIA Knew Ukraine Was Planning To Bomb Nord Stream Pipelines: Report
  CIA Knew Ukraine Was Planning To Bomb Nord Stream Pipelines: Report

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Several Western media outlets reported Tuesday that the CIA warned Ukraine last year not to bomb the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that connect Russia and Germany.

  In recent months, US and other Western officials speaking to the media have suggested Ukraine was behind the Nord Stream sabotage. Most reports on the issue have ignored or dismissed the fact that journalist Seymour Hersh has sources who said President Biden ordered the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.

  

  According to unnamed US officials speaking to The New York Times, Dutch intelligence officials told the CIA in June 2022 that they learned of a Ukrainian military plot to attack the pipelines. The CIA then warned Ukraine not to carry out the attack, and US officials now believe it was postponed to September 2022.

  A European official told the Times that Ukraine’s original plan involved Ukrainian special forces renting a submersible vessel to attack the pipelines. The CIA was also said to warn Germany about a potential plot to sabotage Nord Stream.

  The latest Nord Stream allegations were first reported by the news outlet Die Zeit and NOS, a Dutch broadcaster. They claimed that the Ukrainian plot was overseen by Valery Zaluchny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.

  For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied Kyiv was involved in the destruction of the pipelines. “I am president, and I give orders accordingly,” he said. “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way.”

  The idea that the US suspected Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings first surfaced in a New York Times report that was published on March 7. Sources told Seymour Hersh that the report was a cover-up planted in the paper by the CIA to discredit his story that points the finger at President Biden.

  Hersh’s reporting on the Nord Stream plot hasn’t been confirmed, but the US is still a prime suspect as it had a clear motive and US officials made threats against the pipelines. On February 7, 2022, President Biden vowed to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine.

  Pres. Biden: “If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

  Reporter: “But how will you do that, exactly, since…the project is in Germany’s control?”

  Biden: “I promise you, we will be able to do that.” https://t.co/uruQ4F4zM9 pic.twitter.com/4ksDaaU0YC

  — ABC News (@ABC) February 7, 2022

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  A few weeks earlier, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, made a similar threat. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward,” she said.

  According to Hersh’s reporting, US Navy divers planted explosives on the Nord Stream pipelines in June 2022 under cover of NATO exercises in the Baltic Sea. He said the explosives were detonated by a Norwegian spy plane dropping a sonar buoy in the area on September 26, 2022.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 18:00

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• Lukashenko's Latest Nuclear Bluster Comes Same Day US Signals Depleted Uranium Approved For Kiev
  Lukashenko’s Latest Nuclear Bluster Comes Same Day US Signals Depleted Uranium Approved For Kiev

  President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday he won’t hesitate to use Russian tactical nuclear weapons which are soon to be stationed on Belarusian soil if his country faces “an aggression”. 

  “God forbid I have to make a decision to use those weapons today, but there would be no hesitation if we face an aggression,” he said.

  

  Just last week, Russia’s President Putin told his Belarusian counterpart at a meeting Sochi that tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus after hosting facilities are ready on July 7-8. Putin had unveiled plans to send nukes there in March. The weapons will be under Russian military control but hosted at Belarusian bases.

  While Lukashenko is known for this kind of maximalist and jingoistic rhetoric, often in reaction to developments out of NATO concerning new weapons systems to Ukraine, the timing of these new willingness to “make a decision” remarks is notable. 

  The threat comes the same day The Wall Street Journal reported the White House is set to transfer depleted uranium shells to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion began. 

  Internal administration debate over the controversial munitions has been ongoing for several months, but an admin official quoted in WSJ says at this point there are “no major obstacles” to sending it, which will be used to equip M1 Abrams tanks provided by Washington. 

  As we recounted earlier, when the UK previously announced its authorization for depleted uranium for Challenger 2 main battle tanks, that’s when President Putin first said he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

  Putin had justified the move toward nuclear escalation very specifically in response to London’s decision at the time. But Washington has of course downplayed and rejected the association of depleted uranium shells with ‘nuclear weapons’.

  Regardless, as Lukashenko’s comments show, rhetoric regarding potential nuclear escalation continues to soar, at a very dangerous moment the world is already 90 seconds to midnight.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 02:45

• The EU Could Ban Imports Of Russian Natural Gas By Pipeline
  The EU Could Ban Imports Of Russian Natural Gas By Pipeline

  Authored by Tsvetana Parskova via OilPrice.com,

  The European Union could move to ban imports of Russia’s pipeline gas by the end of this year if it puts preliminary measures in place, Walter Boltz, energy advisor to the Austrian government, has told Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS).  

  

  The EU has seen increased recognition that it could cope without the remaining Russian pipeline gas it gets, but some countries still receiving natural gas via pipeline, most notably Hungary, could seek exemptions or not agree to an EU ban, according to Boltz.

  Gazprom has stopped publishing numbers on its gas deliveries to Europe. The Russian giant has seen exports to Europe decline since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, as Russia cut off gas supplies to a number of countries in Europe.

  Russia halted gas supply to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland in April and May 2022, slashed gas deliveries via Nord Stream to Germany in June, then cut off Nord Stream supply in early September, weeks before the still mysterious sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea at the end of September. 

  Russia still sends some gas via pipelines to Europe via one transit route through Ukraine, and via TurkStream.

  Ukraine itself could have a strong case for lobbying the EU to ban Russian pipeline gas imports.

  “If you think that Russia is making $15-$25bn annually from gas sales and Ukraine only $800m in transit, it would make every sense in the world for Ukraine to forego the transit and stop Russia from getting this money,” Boltz told ICIS.

  Still, the EU is unlikely to agree to an idea to ban gas imports from the pipelines from Russia, where Moscow has already cut off the gas supply to Europe, EU diplomats told POLITICO last month. Analysts and EU officials told POLITICO there is no consensus to support the idea of banning the resumption of Russian gas flows.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 02:00

• Escobar: China's BRI Has Fundamentally Transformed Global Geopolitics
  Escobar: China’s BRI Has Fundamentally Transformed Global Geopolitics

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  In less than a decade, China’s BRI has fundamentally transformed global geopolitics. It is already far too late for the west to compete…

  

  It is important to recognize that the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is simultaneously a war designed to interrupt the progress of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

  As we approach the 10th anniversary of the BRI, to be marked by the third Belt and Road Forum later this year in Beijing, it is clear the original Silk Road Economic Belt – announced by President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013 – has traveled a long way.

  By January this year, 151 nations had already signed up to the BRI: No less than 75 percent of the world’s population that represents more than half of the global GDP. Even an Atlanticist outfit such as the London-based Center for Economic and Business Research admits that the BRI may increase global GDP by a whopping $7.1 trillion a year by 2040, dispensing “widespread” benefits.

  Included in the Chinese Constitution since 2018, BRI constitutes the de facto overarching Chinese foreign policy framework all the way to 2049, marking the centenary of the People’s Republic of China.

  The BRI advances along several overland connectivity corridors – from the Trans-Siberian to the “middle corridor” along Iran and Turkiye and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) all the way to the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile, on the waterways front, the Maritime Silk Road offers a parallel network from southeast China to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Swahili Coast, and the Mediterranean Sea.

  All that is mirrored by the Russian-driven Northern Sea Route, connecting the eastern and western sides of the Arctic, and reducing to and fro sailing time from Europe to Asia from one month to less than two weeks.

  Such a massive Make Trade Not War project, centered on connectivity, infrastructure building, sustainable development, and diplomatic acumen – focusing on the Global South – could not but be interpreted by western elites as a supreme geopolitical and geoeconomic threat.

  And that’s why every geopolitical turbulence across the chessboard is directly or indirectly linked to BRI. Including Ukraine.

  “A brand new choice”

  At the Lanting Forum in Shanghai last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was at ease presenting to a select foreign audience the key outlines of “modernization, the Chinese way” and how it can be applied across the Global South.

  For their part, Global South experts had a chance to dwell on the motives underneath the collective west’s constant “threat” paranoia. The bottom line is that for the US and its vassal allies, it is anathema that Beijing – based on its own success – is offering an alternative development model compared to the sole product on the market since 1945.

  Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, currently the new president of the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – explained to the forum how neoliberalism was forced onto Latin America as a false path towards economic success. The Chinese model, on the other hand, as she stressed, now offers a “brand new choice,” which respects national peculiarities.

  Zhou Qiangwu, the Chinese vice president of NDB, expects that this will push the IMF and the World Bank to give the Global South more say in their decision-making as part of new “governance solutions.”

  Yet that’s unlikely to happen because the US and its vassals are not mentally prepared to get rid of their baggage of centuries-old prejudice and sit down at the same table with Global South representatives and accept them as equals as well as qualified stakeholders.

  The Global South though, waits for no one. Round tables are already following each other at dizzying speed. A key case was the May 18-19 China-Central Asia summit in the former imperial capital, Xi’an, when President Xi met with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – the five former USSR republics in the Heartland.

  That followed Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting the same five “stans” in Moscow on the extremely significant 9 May, Victory Day.

  Diplomatically, that suggests an already evolving 5+2 axis uniting Russia, China, and the five stans operating via their own secretariat in a slightly different manner from BRI, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

  And why is that? Because of a problem that will be afflicting all of these new multilateral Global South-led organizations: Internal frictions.

  And that brings us to the presence of India inside the SCO, an organization that privileges consensus in every decision.

  That’s a huge issue when in contrast with the intractable India-Pakistan conflict, and even more sensitive when it comes to New Delhi’s wobbling stance regarding Quad and AUKUS. At least the Indians have not totally submitted to NATO in its hybrid war against Russia-China and its dream of dictating terms in the Indo-Pacific.

  “A large-scale Eurasian partnership”

  Xi and Putin have fully understood the strategic energy stakes: Increased shipments of Russian oil and gas to China equal way more transit across the Heartland. So a fully integrated strategy is a must. And it will have to be integrated at the level of BRI and EAEU interaction, even if there may be a “gap” inside the SCO.

  Practical examples include accelerating the construction of the ultra-strategic Xinjiang-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which has been delayed for years: That will boost further connectivity with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

  In parallel, CPEC will be extended to Afghanistan: That was finally decided on during an AfPak-China ministerial meeting in Islamabad on 5 May. Although a very thorny dossier still remains: How to deal with, cajole, and satisfy the Taliban leadership in Kabul.

  Xi and the Heartland leaders in Xi’an forcefully committed to preventing “foreign interference” and proverbial color revolution attempts. These are all engineered to disturb BRI.

  Now compare it with the G7 meeting in Hiroshima – which was yet another thinly disguised exercise about  “containing” China. The Hiroshima communiqué, issued on May 20, a day after Xi and Central Asia in Xi’an, was heavy on “de-risking” – the new Western mantra that replaces “decoupling.”

  The EU had already telegraphed the move via notorious European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: Deception rules, because the concept that really matters, “economic coercion,” persists. Yet no serious Global South player thinks he’s being “coerced” to join BRI.

  Comic relief was offered via the G7 committing to raise a whopping $600 billion in funding to build “quality infrastructure” via a so-called Global Infrastructure Investment Partnership: Call it the white man’s burden answer to BRI.

  The fact remains that no one – from the western-monikered “Indo-Pacific” to ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – is demonstrating any sign of being “coerced” by China, not to mention showing any interest in ditching or antagonizing a wealth of trade and connectivity prospects.

  At the EAEU summit in Moscow in late May, it was up to Putin to cut to the chase by emphasizing Russia’s active cooperation with BRICS, SCO, ASEAN, GCC, and multilateral organizations in Africa and Latin America.

  Putin explicitly referred to “building new sustainable logistics chains” and developing the key connection between the EAEU and the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INTSC).

  It gets better. He also emphasized working with China to “link the integration processes” of the EAEU and BRI, thus “implementing the large-scale idea of building a large-scale Eurasian partnership.”

  It’s all here: Everything that makes Atlanticist elites howl in desperation. Old fox Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has seen it all since his USSR days, summed it up thus: Combining integration efforts – EAEU, SCO, BRICS – “will contribute to the creation of the largest coalition of states.”

  And he came up with the money quote that will surely reverberate all across the Global South: “If we lose time – we will never make up for it. The one who runs faster now will be in the vanguard for a couple of decades.”

  The jade tiger pounces

  All that brings us to Shangri-La, East Asia’s premier dialogue platform in Singapore, this past weekend.

  The real highlight was State Councilor and Defense Minister General Li Shangfu explaining China’s “New Security Initiative” in detail.

  Li stressed the concept of “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.” Remember: That’s exactly what Moscow was proposing to Washington in December 2021, which was met with a non-response response.

  He noted that China is “ready to work with all parties” to strengthen the awareness of an “Asia-Pacific community with a shared future” (Note: Asia-Pacific is the denomination everyone in the region understands, not “Indo-Pacific”).

  And then he got to the nitty-gritty: Taiwan is China’s Taiwan. And how to solve the Taiwan question is the Chinese people’s business. The message could not be more straightforward:

  “If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will resolutely safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity without any hesitation, at all cost, and not fearing any opponent.”

  The Chinese delegation at the Shangri-La totally dismissed the “so-called ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’” as a tawdry Hegemon rant.

  What Shangri-La unveiled was, in fact, Beijing’s clear, concise response to all those dismissals of BRI, all that carping about “debt trap” and “economic coercion,” all that “de-risking” rhetoric, and all those mounting intimations of false flags in Taiwan leading to the “real” war that the neocons in charge of US foreign policy dream about.

  Obviously, intellectually shallow Beltway types won’t get the message. Especially because Li Shangfu was as polished as a jade tiger – elegantly pouncing over an avalanche of lies. You wanna mess with us? We’re ready. The barbarians predictably will keep rattling at the gate. The jade tiger awaits.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 00:05

• Walmart Builds New Beef Plant To Bolster Meat Supply Chain
  Walmart Builds New Beef Plant To Bolster Meat Supply Chain

  Covid sparked beef and pork shortages, leaving shelves at Walmart stores bare throughout the US. Government-forced shutdowns and Covid outbreaks forced dozens of meatpackers across the US to shut down, reducing meat supplies reaching Walmart and other retailers. To safeguard against future supply disruptions, Walmart is bolstering its supply chain by building its own meatpacking facility in America’s Heartland. 

  “Today, we’re excited to share how Walmart is furthering that commitment by announcing plans for our first owned and operated case-ready beef facility, opening in 2025,” a Walmart press release read. 

  The new facility will be constructed later this year in Olathe, Kansas, about 25 miles southwest of Kansas City. It’s “an important milestone for Walmart as we continue to build a more resilient supply chain and identify ways to increase access to high-quality Angus beef for our customers,” America’s largest retailer said. 

  According to Bloomberg, Walmart’s move comes “as the Biden Administration pushes for more competition in the meat sector, where just four companies control about 85% of US beef-processing capacity.” 

  Once opened, the new meatpacking plant will package and distribute beef from Sustainable Beef LLC in North Platte, Nebraska, to serve stores across the Midwest. 

  Walmart wants to avoid severe supply chain challenges faced during Covid years, which resulted in some stores running out of beef and pork products. 

  

  Even though 600 jobs will be created at the new facility in Olathe, we suspect the future of meatpacking plants will involve a great deal of automation. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 23:45

• Unmasking The CDC's Medical CIA
  Unmasking The CDC’s Medical CIA

  Authored by Lloyd Billingsley via American Greatness,

  The swampy origins and foreign interests of the Epidemic Intelligence Services of the CDC need to be exposed…

  

  CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is departing at the end of June and Joe Biden has tapped former North Carolina health boss Dr. Mandy Cohen to replace her. More important than the identity of the CDC director is what goes on behind the scenes, and hints have been emerging. 

  In April of 2021, the CDC reassigned Dr. Nancy Messonnier, longtime director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). In a May 7, 2021 White House briefing, Walensky suddenly announced that Messonnier was stepping down.

  “Dr. Messonnier has been a true hero,” Walensky told reporters. “And through her career, in terms of public health, she’s been a steward of public health for the nation. Over this pandemic and through a many-decade career, she’s made significant contributions, and she leaves behind a strong, strong force of leadership and courage in all that she’s done.”

  Walensky neglected to mention Messonnier’s series of telebriefings in early 2020, conducted on January 17, January 24, January 29, January 30, February 3, February 5, February 12, February 25, and March 10.

  In these sessions, not shown to the public, Messonnier warned that a “novel coronavirus” had emerged from the “Wuhan market” and the highly contagious new virus would “gain a foothold” in the United States. According to Messonnier, many people would be infected, and there was “no immunity.” Some reporters were curious about people traveling to the United States from Wuhan.

  “That’s something I’m not at liberty to talk about today,” Messonnier said in the February 5 briefing, without revealing why that was so, or who was laying down the rules. On January 24, reporters who asked about China were told, “CDC has a team that’s been in China for many years where we work closely with the Department of Health in China.” There was information “from China” but Messonnier wasn’t giving it out.

  “I think we should be clear to compliment the Chinese,” Messonnier said, “on the early recognition of the respiratory outbreak center in the Wuhan market, and how rapidly they were able to identify it as a novel coronavirus.” And so on, a veritable recitation of China’s talking points, but there was more to it.

  In May of 2021, Walensky also failed to mention that “true hero” Nancy Messonnier was an officer of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), the CDC’s elite team of “disease detectives,” patrolling the world to prevent epidemics from arriving on American soil.

  “EIS officers serve on the front lines of public health, protecting Americans and the global community,” the CDC claims. When diseases and public health threats emerge, “EIS officers investigate, identify the cause, rapidly implement control measures, and collect evidence to recommend preventive actions.”

  In practice, as Peter Duesberg noted in Inventing the AIDS Virus, the EIS functions as a “medical CIA,” a support network for the CDC in government, academia, and media. For example, EIS veteran Lawrence Altman became a medical writer for the New York Times and in 2010 rendered a worshipful account of the intelligence service.

  In 1995, after completing her residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Nancy Messonnier went straight into the EIS. She shows up in the 2013 EIS conference report as a co-author of two studies on vaccine effectiveness, one in Burkina Faso and one in Washington, “among adolescents vaccinated with acellular pertussis vaccines.”

  Messonnier’s Wikipedia profile shows the EIS officer in a jacket emblazoned with medals. According to the site, she was born Nancy Ellen Rosenstein, sister of Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who launched the investigation of President Trump for allegedly colluding with Russia. 

  Messonnier’s connection to Rosenstein, and her experience with the EIS, did not emerge at the outset of 2020. By October, the EIS did briefly expose itself. 

  “We are proud of our training and service in the EIS, promoting CDC’s vital mission to protect the health of the American people,” claims an October 14, 2020 “Open Letter by Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers Past and Present—in Support of CDC.”

  As the letter explains, “the US epidemic is sustained by deadly chains of transmission that crisscross the entire country.” 

  How the deadly epidemic managed to escape the intrepid EIS, land stateside, and crisscross the entire country the letter does not explain. The signers “express our concern about the ominous politicization and silencing of the nation’s health protection agency during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” 

  In reality, the CDC was anything but silent—except on the EIS connections of Nancy Messonnier, their major mouthpiece on the pandemic. The 2013 conference she attended provides enlightenment on the CDC’s medical CIA. 

  “Fifty-seven of the new officers are women (70%), and 12 are citizens of other nations (15%),” explains Douglas H. Hamilton, director of the EIS division of applied science.

  “Besides the United States, this year’s officers represent Cambodia, China, Kenya, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria, Peru, South Korea, Taiwan, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.” (emphases added) 

  The CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service is actually a multinational body that includes “officers” from the People’s Republic of China. Embattled Americans might wonder which nation’s interests the Chinese EIS officers represent, and if any were on the CDC “team” working with China for many years.  

  The CDC’s intrepid disease detectives obviously failed to prevent the “novel coronavirus” from arriving in America, crisscrossing the country, and causing untold misery and death. The people have a right to wonder what the EIS officers, including any Chinese nationals, were doing at the time.

  Remember, when reporters asked Nancy Messonnier about travel from Wuhan, she wasn’t “at liberty to talk about that.” The “true hero” and outgoing CDC boss Walensky needs to talk about it now, under oath, for as long as it takes.

  Embattled Americans have a right to know which government official or politician slapped a gag order on Messonnier. The people also need to know the identities of all EIS officers in China in 2019 and 2020, their activities, travel schedules and a lot more. Biden CDC pick Dr. Mandy Cohen provides another opportunity.

  Cohen is the lockdown promoter who once strapped on a mask bearing a portrait of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime NIAID boss who claimed “I represent science.” Fauci also funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct the gain-of-function research that makes viruses more lethal and transmissible.

  Fauci claims that the COVID virus arose naturally in the wild. By contrast, when former CDC director Robert Redfield found evidence of a laboratory origin, he got death threats. No word of any FBI investigation, but FBI Director Christopher Wray now assesses that “the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

  In the confirmation hearing for Dr. Cohen, someone should ask the Biden pick if China, the EIS, Fauci and Messonnier ever said or did anything with which she disagreed. The struggle against white coat supremacy is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 23:25

• It's "Buy The Rumor" Time For Chinese Markets
  It’s “Buy The Rumor” Time For Chinese Markets

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg markets reporter and analyst

  The surprising rate cuts by the People’s Bank of China on Tuesday signaled that policy makers have shifted to stimulus mode after watching the economy languish over the past few months. The magnitude of the potential stimulus package remains to be seen. But as far as the market is concerned, the window of buying the rumor has opened —  at least before reality sets in again.  

  Two days before President Xi Jinping’s 70th birthday, the PBOC delivered a gift to investors by unexpectedly lowering the seven-day reverse repurchase rate and the standing lending facility rate. As Bloomberg economist David Qu noted, it’s almost guaranteed that the central bank will follow up by cutting the key rate on the medium-term lending facility on Thursday.

  The direct impact of a 10-bp rate cut is minimal, potentially lifting GDP this year by only 0.1 percentage points. More importantly, it’s not the cost of money that is ailing the economy. It’s the lack of demand for money, as private firms and households are pessimistic about the business and income outlook.

  

  That point is highlighted by credit data released late Tuesday. Both total social financing and new bank loans missed already low expectations. Corporate bond issuance took a hit amid renewed concern about local-government financing vehicles, while household borrowing remains sluggish, reflecting low demand for mortgages.

  It’s not surprising, then, that investor sentiment is depressed. Bank of America’s global fund-manager survey showed that investors’ expectations on the Chinese economy have drooped to the lowest level since the reopening from the pandemic late last year.

  

  And shorting Chinese equities is considered the second-most crowded trade after “Long Big Tech.” In addition, 13% of investors surveyed considered the Chinese housing market to be the most likely source of global credit risk.

  

  The good news is that Beijing seems to be ready for action. Bloomberg reported that policy makers are considering a broad package of stimulus measures, including supporting the real-estate market.

  Strategists at Clocktower Group are turning bullish:

  The bottom line is that we expect the material constraints from a burgeoning deflationary spiral to soon outweigh Beijing’s preference to remain patient, implying a potential stimulus announcement around the July politburo meeting. As such, Chinese risk assets are likely very close to, if not have already reached, the bottom in the near-term, especially given the overwhelming pessimism currently priced in the market.

  Keep in mind, though, that Beijing is facing significant constraints. Unless the government is willing to unwind some of Xi’s signature policies, including the notion that “housing is not for speculation,” and de-risk local government debt, there’s a good case to be made that any stimulus is likely to be moderate.

  When rumor — or “little articles” as Chinese investors call them — is driving market expectations and imaginations, the sky is the limit. The bad news is that when the actual policy initiatives are announced, the market may shift to sell-the-fact mode again.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 23:03

• Orange County Anatomy Teacher Placed On Leave Following Clip Discussing Sex Toys, Sexual Pleasure
  Orange County Anatomy Teacher Placed On Leave Following Clip Discussing Sex Toys, Sexual Pleasure

  Authored by Micaela Rocaforte via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Placentia-Yorba Linda School District teacher was placed on leave last month after a video was posted online of her explaining how to sexually stimulate the prostate gland to a high school class.

  

  El Dorado High School anatomy and environmental science teacher Judy Rehburg is seen in the video telling students how the male prostate gland can be stimulated through both external touch and anal penetration.

  “That’s why, for male and male, anal sex is still very pleasurable,” Rehburg said in the video.

  The teacher also discussed the use of sex toys, telling students such are available at local stores such as Target and CVS.

  The teacher has now been placed on paid administrative while district officials investigate the incident, a district spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

  The spokesperson said the district trusts employees to adhere to its set of expectations and exercise judgment when discussing sensitive topics.

  “Please know that our school district has a very explicit set of expectations for the conduct of our employees,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “District employees are trusted to exercise professional judgment when deciding whether or not a particular issue is suitable for study or discussion. In the classroom, employees act on behalf of the district and are expected to follow the adopted curriculum, and they should not advocate personal opinions or viewpoints.”

  Some criticized Rehburg’s lesson as inappropriate for students in a June 6 board meeting.

  “What Ms. Rehburg did is sexual harassment,” one parent said at the meeting. “We need to protect our children from this.”

  Another parent echoed similar sentiments at the board meeting.

  “This was a completely inappropriate, obscene and perverse discussion being had by this teacher with high school students paid for by our tax dollars,” the parent said.

  But others said Rehburg was simply doing her job.

  “Students asked the question,” said one parent during a June 6 board meeting. “She was answering the question in good faith to try to give that student a complete and well-thought-out answer to keep them from going home and googling it. This is not part of the teachers’ normal curriculum.”

  Additionally, a student at the board meeting who is in Rehburg’s anatomy class said the video was taken out of context.

  The student said Rehburg gave students a Google survey form for students to anonymously submit questions on reproductive anatomy, and made it clear she would answer such questions only in the context of anatomy.

  The student said that in the video, Rehburg was responding to a question a student had submitted about the male prostate, according to the post.

  “I don’t think an almost 20-year career should be thrown away for a one-minute video that was taken out of context,” the student said.

  Following Rehburg’s leave, an anonymous Instagram account @freejudy began posting statements from students who were in the room during the lesson.

  In one post, an anonymous student explained that Rehburg was teaching a reproductive anatomy unit, and that parents and students were required to sign off on the class syllabus at the beginning of the year.

  “I am more than certain not a single student felt uncomfortable in that class,” the post stated. “She made sure to tell us about the whole curriculum at the beginning of the year, and students and parents were required to sign a syllabus at the beginning of the year.”

  Rehburg was not immediately available for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 22:45

• First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources
  First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag via Public (emphasis ours),

  After years of official pronouncements to the contrary, significant new evidence has emerged that strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

  

  According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses.

  More than three years after the pandemic’s outbreak, many around the world had given up on learning the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the highly infectious respiratory virus that has killed millions, and the response to which shut down businesses and schools, upended societies, and caused enormous collateral damage.

  Public officials in the U.S. and other countries have repeatedly suggested that uncovering the pandemic’s origin may not be possible. “We may never know,” said Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who oversaw pandemic response for two administrations.

  Now, answers increasingly look within reach. Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.

  As such, not only do we know there were WIV scientists who had developed COVID-19-like illnesses in November 2019, but also that they were working with the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2, and inserting gain-of-function features unique to it.

  When a source was asked how certain they were that these were the identities of the three WIV scientists who developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, we were told, “100%”

  “Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli,” said Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and coauthor with Matt Ridley of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid19. Shi is known as “the bat woman of China,” and led the gain-of-function research at the WIV. “He was her star pupil. He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanized mice. If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him.”

  

  Hu and Yu researched the novel lineage of SARS-like viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 hails, and in 2019 coauthored a paper with Shi Zhengli that described SARS-like lineages they had studied over the years.

  Jamie Metzl, a former member of the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing who raised questions starting in early 2020 about a possible research-related pandemic origin, said, “It’s a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with COVID-19 before anyone else. That would be the ‘smoking gun.’ Hu was the lead hands-on researcher in Shi’s lab.”

  Sources tell Public and Racket that other news organizations are chasing aspects of this story. On Saturday, The Times of London quoted an anonymous U.S. State Department investigator saying, “It has become increasingly clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in the creation, promulgation, and cover-up of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

  Public and Racket are the first publications to reveal the names of the three sick WIV workers and place them directly in the lab that collected and experimented with SARS-like viruses poised for human emergence.

  Next week, the Directorate of National Intelligence is expected to release previously classified material, which may include the names of the three WIV scientists who were the likely among the first to be sickened by SARS-CoV-2.

  A bill signed by President Biden earlier this year specifically called for the release of the names and roles of the sick researchers at the WIV, their symptoms and date of symptom onset, and whether these researchers had been involved with or exposed to coronavirus research.

  On Dec. 29, 2017, two years before the pandemic began, Chinese state-run television aired a video that includes a scene of Ben Hu watching a lab worker handle specimens. Neither are wearing protective gear. The same video shows WIV scientists hunting for bat viruses with little protective gear. “If they were worried about being infected in the field, they would need full body suits with no gaps” to be safe, said Chan. “That’s the only way.”

  The WIV research with live SARS-like viruses was performed at too low of a safety level, “BSL-2,” explains Chan, “When we now know that the pandemic virus is even capable of escaping from a BSL-3 lab and infecting fully vaccinated young lab workers.”

  While scientists justify such research as necessary for developing vaccines, President Barack Obama banned federal funding for gain-of-function research of concern in 2014, because experts had come to the consensus that it was too dangerous. However, the National Institute of Health and NIAID headed by Francis Collins and Fauci, and a major U.S. government grantee, EcoHealth Alliance, deemed their work on SARS-like viruses as not falling under the gain-of-function research of concern definitions and funded this project in China and Southeast Asia.

  In March 2018, the WIV, the EcoHealth Alliance, and the University of North Carolina applied for a $14 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency DARPA to engineer “furin cleavage sites” into SARS-like coronaviruses to study how this affected their ability to grow and cause disease.

  Scientists say the key piece of the COVID-19 virus, which made it so transmissible compared to its closest relatives, was its unique furin cleavage site.

  DARPA rejected the grant, but it now appears the WIV went forward with the research anyway. The Times of London reported that US collaborators of the WIV had come forward and said the Wuhan scientists had put furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses in 2019.

  Hu co-authored multiple papers on coronavirus research, including a 2017 paper on chimeric bat coronaviruses with Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance, which was funded in part by the NIH and the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT Program. Data privately shared with the NIH revealed that these chimeric SARS-like viruses grew far more quickly and caused more severe disease in humanized mice in the lab.

  

  When the WIV put out their first paper about the pandemic virus, they failed to point out the novel furin cleavage site despite having had plans to and allegedly putting such gain-of-function features into SARS-like viruses in their lab. “It’s as if these scientists proposed putting horns on horses, but when a unicorn shows up in their city a year later they write a paper describing every part of it except its horn,” said Chan.

  Public sent emails and made phone calls to the NIH, WIV, EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak, Hu, and Shi over the last several days and did not hear back.

  It is unclear who in the U.S. government had access to the intelligence about the sick WIV workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the public. “You would expect the country of origin to be defensive,” said Chan, “but you wouldn’t expect a country receiving the virus to be withholding key evidence.”

  On January 15, 2021, five days before President Joe Biden took office, the U.S. State Department published a fact sheet that pointed to the likelihood of a lab leak as the cause of a pandemic.

  Already, the State Department in 2021 suspected that the WIV had lied to the public. “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. That raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was ‘zero infection’ among the WIV’s staff and students by SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.”

  In February of this year, the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, told a reporter that “the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

  The Times of London reported that State Department investigators “found evidence that researchers working on these experiments were taken to hospital with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019.” As previously reported in Vanity Fair, some of the information State Department investigators found in 2021 was “sitting in the U.S. intelligence community’s own files, unanalyzed.”

  “Ever since I put out my [May 2020] preprint [research paper] saying that an accidental lab origin was possible, I was criticized as a conspiracy theorist,” said Chan. “If this info had been made public in May of 2020, I doubt that many in the scientific community and the media would have spent the last three years raving about a raccoon dog or pangolin in a wet market.”

  Identifying the first COVID-19 case as a Wuhan Institute scientist overseeing gain-of-function research has significant ramifications for investigators in search of a motive for a cover-up.

  Politicians, scientists, journalists, and amateur researchers for years now have zeroed in on the possibility that Covid-19 may have resulted from U.S.-funded gain-of-function research conducted in China.

  Publications ranging from the Washington Post to the Intercept to the Wall Street Journal have uncovered suggestive details, including the fact that the NIH awarded funding for at least 18 gain-of-function research projects between 2012 and 2020, and NIH scientists in 2016 expressing concern about supposedly paused hybrid “chimera” virus research.

  Had the information come out earlier, governments may have responded to the pandemic differently. After Public shared the information with Chan, she said, “I feel vindicated, but I’m frustrated. If you knew that this was likely a lab-enhanced pathogen, there are so many things you could have done differently. This whole pandemic could have been reshaped.”

  Said Metzl, “Had US government officials including Dr. Fauci stated from day one that a COVID-19 research-related origin was a very real possibility, and made clear that we had little idea what viruses were being held at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, what work was being done there, and who was doing that work, our national and global conversations would have been dramatically different. The time has come for a full accounting.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 22:25

• Government Overreached In Identity Theft Case, Supreme Court Rules Unanimously
  Government Overreached In Identity Theft Case, Supreme Court Rules Unanimously

  Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Supreme Court limited the reach of the federal Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, unanimously rebuffing the Biden administration’s efforts to prosecute a man already convicted of Medicaid fraud with a separate charge of aggravated identity theft arising out of the same fraud case.

  

  The 9–0 opinion (pdf) in Dubin v. United States (court file 22-10) was issued on June 8 and authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Neil Gorsuch filed a separate concurring opinion.

  The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act mandates a two-year prison sentence for violations.

  When then-President George W. Bush signed the law in 2004 he said it established the federal “offense of aggravated identity theft” to ensure someone convicted of that crime would receive jail time “for stealing a person’s good name.”

  “These punishments will come on top of any punishment for crimes that proceed from identity theft,” the 43rd president said at the time.

  The act, Bush added, “raises the standard of conduct for people who have access to personal records through their work at banks, government agencies, insurance companies, and other storehouses of financial data.”

  But the Supreme Court disagreed with the U.S. Department of Justice’s argument that petitioner David Fox Dubin was automatically guilty under the act because a fraudulent Medicaid billing form include the patient’s Medicaid reimbursement number as a “means of identification.”

  Dubin worked as a managing partner for PARTS, a company in Austin, Texas, created by his father, licensed psychologist William Dubin.

  Both men were convicted by a U.S. district court for a scheme to defraud Texas’s Medicaid program.

  Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that serves low-income people of all ages and varies from state to state. It is run by state and local governments within federal guidelines. Each state sets its own rules about eligibility and services.

  Bound by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit precedent, the U.S. district court allowed Dubin’s conviction for aggravated identity theft to stand even though the district court believed the crux of the case was fraudulent billing, as opposed to identity theft. A divided 5th Circuit upheld the conviction in March 2022 despite its acknowledgment that according to the government’s interpretation of the act, “the elements of [the] offense are not captured or even fairly described by the words ‘identity theft.’”

  Dubin’s attorney, Jeffrey L. Fisher, a professor at Stanford Law School, said he was pleased with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

  “We’re grateful for the Court’s decision for Mr. Dubin’s sake and are pleased in general that the Court has reigned in the prosecutorial overreaching the statute allowed,” Fisher told The Epoch Times by email.

  The case goes back to 2013 when David Fox Dubin filed a claim with Medicaid for $540 for services provided to someone identified as Patient L. The government did not dispute that the psychological examination practice treated the patient or had the authority to use the patient’s name in the billing process, according to Dubin’s petition (pdf) that was filed with the Supreme Court in June 2022.

  “Instead, the government’s theory was that [the] petitioner overbilled Medicaid for the services provided,” which was sufficient for a conviction for health care fraud.

  “But the government was not content with that conviction. It also indicted [the] petitioner for aggravated identity theft,” the petition stated. The government’s position was that Dubin violated the identity theft law because he placed Patient L’s “identifying information on the fraudulent Medicaid claim form.”

  Justices pushed back against the government’s arguments that were presented by U.S. Department of Justice attorney Vivek Suri at a hearing on Feb. 27.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 22:05

• Report Alleges Catholic Hospitals Linked To Transgender Surgeries, Abortions
  Report Alleges Catholic Hospitals Linked To Transgender Surgeries, Abortions

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

  The largest Catholic health system in the nation has allegedly funded and performed transgender surgeries and other “gender-affirming” medical interventions, defying traditional Catholic teachings, according to an investigative report released to The Epoch Times.

  

  The report by the Lepanto Institute, a Catholic research and education organization, released on June 12, exposes CommonSpirit Health, a Catholic entity, for its alleged performance and funding of transgender surgeries and therapies,” including prescribing and providing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to patients.

  A promotional video accompanying the report asserts: “The transgender craze has seized the world by the throat and is choking the life out of the bedrock of civilization: the family. And this is happening right under the nose of the Vatican.”

  In the 64-page exposé, “CommonSpirit and the Sex-Change Industry,” author Michael Hichborn, founder and president of the Lepanto Institute, explains the connections within the Catholic health network in the United States and its direct ties to the Vatican.

  Hichborn, a self-described lifelong Catholic, said he is both “saddened” and “horrified” by the moral decline within factions of the Catholic Church, and wants “to make sure that Catholics are Catholics and that those who operate in the name of the Catholic Church do so in line with all of her teachings.”

  

  He claims that these medical interventions are happening in “gross defiance” of official values held by the Catholic Church, which has traditionally rejected transgenderism, homosexuality, abortions, and contraception—all of which the report alleges CommonSpirit is promoting at dozens of hospitals and medical facilities in the U.S.

  “In addition to performing sex-change operations, CommonSpirit provides employee benefits that cover sex-change operations, transgender hormone treatments, and even puberty blockers for kids,” according to the report.

  While it’s not known if CommonSpirit Health has performed transgender surgeries on children, the use of puberty blockers suggests it is treating minors for gender dysphoria in some capacity, Hichborn told The Epoch Times.

  “The horrifying thing when you start getting into the science of the puberty blockers and the transitional hormones, is they do permanent damage to these kids. They talk about how puberty blockers just kind of put a pause on puberty or pubertal development, and that’s a lie,” he said. “It doesn’t put a pause on it; it actually damages these kids to the point that many of them wind up being sterile.”

  CommonSpirit Health derives its Catholic identity from the Catholic Health Care Federation whose authority is granted by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome, the report states.

  “The only authority in the church that has the ability to judge the actions of CommonSpirit is the Vatican,” Hichborn told The Epoch Times. “Because CommonSpirit is a subsidiary of the Catholic Health Care Federation, it is subject only to the Pope and the Pope’s governing bodies in Rome.”

  Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 forms not only confirm that CommonSpirit Health benefits from religious exemption tax breaks, but that the organization is part of the Catholic Church, Hichborn said.

  CommonSpirit has allegedly promoted the LGBT agenda including transgender ideology and transitioning children in its podcasts and at its conferences, has raised funds for sex-change surgical equipment, performed surgical sterilizations, and at least one of its hospitals has reportedly performed elective abortions, the report indicates.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 21:25

• Putin Declares Ukraine's Counteroffensive Failing, Mulls Grain Deal Exit
  Putin Declares Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Failing, Mulls Grain Deal Exit

  In rare, detailed remarks on the state of how the war is going in neighboring Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is failing, stating that Kiev has at this point lost a total of 25 to 30 percent of the military vehicles which had been supplied by the West, including tanks.

  Putin further affirmed that the counteroffensive began on June 4 and has “not been successful in any area” – and claimed that casualties on the Ukrainian side are ten times greater than Russia’s.

  

  The comments came the same day the Russian Defense Ministry released video showing damaged and abandoned NATO-supplied armored vehicles, including a German Leopard 2 tank and American Bradley infantry vehicles. 

  The New York Times seems to somewhat agree with the Kremlin’s assessment that no serious gains have been made by Ukrainian forces, with its headline, “Ukraine Claims More Small Advances in Counteroffensive, but No Breakthroughs”…

  Ukraine claimed small advances on Monday in its counteroffensive in the southeast of the country, hunting for a place to drive a wedge through Russian defenses, a key to its hopes for recapturing wide swaths of territory lost to the Russian invasion last year.

  After a week of fierce combat with infantry, artillery and tanks, across a mostly agricultural landscape, Ukrainian forces, newly armed and trained by Western allies, have retaken seven small villages and settlements, Hannah Malyar, a deputy defense minister, wrote on the messaging platform Telegram, including one that the military said it had captured on Monday.

  The deepest advance was about 4 miles, and “the area of territory taken under control is 90 square kilometers,” about 35 square miles, she wrote.

  NYT adds a couple of the following admissions: 

  Progress is measured in yards, or at most a mile or so, the Ukrainian gains have involved tiny farming villages, and there has been no sign so far of a significant break in the Russian occupiers’ dense network of defenses.

  Horrific scenes of close-up combat, including trench warfare reminiscent of WWI, continue to emerge:

  War up close: Russian units assault an AFU trench.
  -> These trench up close battles terrify me … I hope that stops soon. pic.twitter.com/DfpY3yuBvt

  — Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) June 13, 2023

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

  And tellingly:

  Ukraine has not disclosed losses, but its attacks against Russian trenches, bunkers, minefields and gun emplacements are likely to be taking a heavy toll on its forces, analysts say, and there have been some confirmed losses of both troops and advanced weaponry newly donated by allies.

  Thus in this rarest of moments, in seems that Putin and the NY Times agree on something.

  Putin additionally commented on the UN-backed grain deal on Tuesday, saying Russia is seriously considering withdrawing from the agreement. He stressed Moscow has been “cheated” regarding its own exports.

  “Probably, for the guys who are fighting, it’s not clear why we are letting the grain through. I understand,” Putin told journalists, while explaining that the deal asymmetrically benefits Ukraine and its ability to keep selling primarily to Europe. “We do it not for Ukraine, but for the friendly countries in Africa and Latin America. Because grain should go first and foremost to the poorest countries in the world.”

  That’s when he confirmed: “We are now thinking about whether to leave the grain deal,” also given the persistent Kremlin accusation that Ukraine is using the grain corridor “to launch maritime drones” against Russian naval assets.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 21:05

• The Collapse Just Won't Stop: 10 Weeks Later, Tranheuser Busch Sales Still Cratering, Down A Reccord 27%
  The Collapse Just Won’t Stop: 10 Weeks Later, Tranheuser Busch Sales Still Cratering, Down A Reccord 27%

  The historic, unprecedented self-sabotage at Tranheuser-Busch at the hands of woke, underqualified, virtue-signaling idiot, just refuses stop.

  Ten weeks after the attention-starved Dylan Mulvaney posted an April 1 video on his Instagram account to promote Bud LIght, which was promptly led to a boycott by tens of millions of warm-blooded Americans (and foreigners) who have had it up to here with the tranny lobby shoving itself down everyone’s throat – both literally and metaphorically – (Tr)anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light brand continued to see steepening volume declines, Citi reports, citing the latest weekly US Nielsen data through June 3.

  According to Citi Analyst Simon Hales, the latest weekly US Nielsen data through to 3rd Jun shows that Bud Light volume declines accelerated last week to -29.9% vs -26.1% in the week ending 27th May, and sales worsened to -27.0% from -23.3%.

  

  On a relative share basis, volume share was down -342bps vs -316bps in the previous week and value share was down -280bps vs -263bps implying an acceleration in share losses vs recent weeks.

  

  Moreover, there continues to be contagion to the wider ABInBev brand portfolio, with Budweiser, Busch and Michelob all weaker again. According to Citi, Busch volumes are down by -13.8% vs -12.2% and Stella Artois volumes down -9.9% vs -10.1%

  Meanwhile, Coors Light saw its recent market share gains accelerate over the last two weeks.

  

  The latest data shows little sign that consumers are moving on from the Bud Light controversy and Citi concludes that “aAs such, we expect the Bud Light controversy is likely to continue to dominate news flow and weigh on short-term investor sentiment.”

  More in the full Cit report available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:55

• 10% Of $4.2 Trillion US COVID Relief Was Lost To Fraud, Waste: Report
  10% Of $4.2 Trillion US COVID Relief Was Lost To Fraud, Waste: Report

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

  As much as 10 percent of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has disbursed in COVID-19 relief aid may have been lost to fraud and waste.

  

  A new analysis of COVID relief spending by The Associated Press estimates that fraudsters collected more than $283 billion, while another $120 billion was wasted or misspent. The news outlet expects estimates of pandemic waste and fraud to grow as investigators continue to review additional potential fraud schemes.

  The U.S. government approved about $3.2 trillion in pandemic relief spending under President Donald Trump, and another $1.9 trillion under President Joe Biden. Of the about $5 trillion allocated for pandemic relief, about $1 trillion has yet to be paid out.

  Estimates for pandemic relief fraud and waste already vary widely. The U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General has indicated $191 billion in pandemic-era unemployment insurance (UI) payments may have been improper, while others estimate the total UI fraud and waste could be as high as $400 billion. Researchers have estimated as much as $80 billion of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans had indications of possible fraud.

  Those involved with tracking down the fraud say there was simply too little oversight and too few restrictions on who could apply for relief funds, making it all too easy for fraud to take place.

  While some individuals made off with millions in pandemic relief funds, the pilfering was often wide but not so deep.

  “Here was this sort of endless pot of money that anyone could access,” said Dan Fruchter, head of the fraud and white-collar crime unit with the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. “Folks kind of fooled themselves into thinking that it was a socially acceptable thing to do, even though it wasn’t legal.”

  The overall massive scale of the pandemic relief that went out also obscured multi-billion-dollar mistakes. While the IRS had a 99 percent success rate in handling an $837 billion stimulus check program, its 1 percent error rate amounts to about $8 billion going to “ineligible individuals.”

  In the seven decades before the pandemic, the Small Business Administration (SBA) had distributed $67 billion in disaster loans. During the pandemic, the SBA ended up handling more than a trillion dollars across the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan and PPP loans. As the SBA took on a much larger financial responsibility, it was tasked with rapidly processing loans.

  To speed up the process, the SBA allowed potential borrowers to “self-certify” that their application details were true. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act also barred the SBA from looking at tax return transcripts that could have identified potentially fraudulent or unqualified applicants.

  “If you open up the bank window and say, give me your application and just promise me you really are who you say you are, you attract a lot of fraudsters and that’s what happened here,” said Michael Horowitz, U.S. Justice Department inspector general and chair of the federal Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC).

  Clawing Back Relief Funds

  Hundreds of people have been charged in connection with various pandemic fraud schemes.

  In August 2022, Biden signed legislation to increase the statute of limitations to 10 years from five on crimes involving Economic Injury Disaster and PPP loans.

  Congress hasn’t yet approved a measure that would give prosecutors additional time to go after UI fraud.

  Earlier this year, Department of Labor Inspector General Larry Turner testified (pdf) that he expects his department to be busy investigating pandemic-related fraud through at least September 2026 “when the statute of limitations for most pandemic-related violations will have expired.” Without extending his deadline, Turner warned that people who stole the benefits may escape justice.

  In addition to providing more time to prosecute pandemic fraud, Republican lawmakers requested a return of unspent COVID relief funds during a recent debate over the debt limit increase. In total, Republicans reached an agreement with Democrats to rescind $30 billion in unspent COVID relief funds as part of the final deal to increase the debt limit earlier this month.

  The Associated Press contributed to this article.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:45

• 'Homophobic Statement Of The Decade' – Johns Hopkins Faces Backlash After Changing Definition Of 'Lesbian'
  ‘Homophobic Statement Of The Decade’ – Johns Hopkins Faces Backlash After Changing Definition Of ‘Lesbian’

  Johns Hopkins University has been blasted online this week for erasing women from its definition of the word “lesbian” in its LGBTQ glossary.

  The teaching university’s “Gender and Sexuality Resources” office contains a glossary of LGBTQ identities and terms.

  It includes a definition for the term “lesbian” that makes a point to exclude the word “woman.”

  It reads:

  A non-man attracted to non-men.

  

  But the term “gay man” has no such gender-inclusive phrasing in its definition:

  A man who is emotionally, romantically, sexually, affectionately, or relationally attracted to other men, or who identifies as a member of the gay community. At times, “gay” is used to refer to all people, regardless of gender, who have their primary sexual and or romantic attractions to people of the same gender. “Gay” is an adjective (not a noun) as in “He is a gay man.”

  The university makes a point of explaining its decision to remove ‘women’ from the lesbian definition… inclusivity?

  While past definitions refer to ‘lesbian’ as a woman who is emotionally, romantically, and/or sexually attracted to other women, this updated definition includes non-binary people who may also identify with the label.

  So, just checking – its more inclusive to exclude ‘women’ (which make up 50%-ish of the world’s population?)

  As you might expect, Johns Hopkins was slammed for the change. However, more notably, the abuse was ‘inclusive’ of the entire political spectrum, especially by LGBT commentators, on Twitter.

  “Why is a lesbian a non-man but a gay person isn’t a non-woman? Progressive misogyny,” lesbian political commentator Arielle Scarcella wrote over a screenshot of the glossary.

  What the actual f….? So now we’re not just reduced to being body parts or bleeders or a mere subset of women, we’re now “non-men”. 🤬🤬🤬 https://t.co/NCHAGfFDYZ

  — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) June 12, 2023

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

  “Lesbians are being erased and it’s f***ing tragic,” Jaimee Mitchell, founder of Gays Against Groomers, replied to Scarcella.

  “Gender ideology at its core is deeply homophobic. The two cannot coexist. It’s time for a divorce. #LGBWithoutTheT”

  “Hi @JohnsHopkins,” lesbian journalist E.J. Rosetta tweeted.

  “Congrats! You’re winning ‘homophobic statement of the decade’ by defining lesbians as ‘non men attracted to non men.’ And during Pride month, too! Shame on you. Lesbians are female homosexuals. Put that on a post-it & memorise it. Aren’t you meant to be smart?”

  “Erasure of women continues @JohnsHopkins,” the Parents of Loudoun County tweeted.

  “So men get to keep their spaces and their terms but women don’t? This screams misogyny,” former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan added.

  “Inarguably, modern times are now the stupidest time and universities are leading the way,” Fred Sargeant, co-founder of the first Gay Pride parade, tweeted.

  J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and an outspoken critic of the transgender movement, shared a screenshot with the definitions of both “lesbian” and “gay man.”

  “Man: no definition needed,” Rowling captioned the tweet. “Non-man (formerly known as woman): a being definable only by reference to the male. An absence, a vacuum where there’s no man-ness.”

  Well, @JohnsHopkins gave us John Money so this is all congruent with the brand. https://t.co/BJLIkhP0aW

  — Gad Saad (@GadSaad) June 13, 2023

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

  We give the last word to Matt Margolis, writing at PJMedia.com, who summed up the situation perfectly: It is obvious that this effort of Johns Hopkins to be “inclusive” isn’t merely a shallow attempt to appease the LGBTQ crowd. Rather, it specifically panders to the transgender movement, which has become the most celebrated subset of the LGBTQ community, and sadly, as with everything else about the movement, women are the real victims.

  Margolis concludes, before long, they’ll have no privacy, opportunities, rights, or identity because of the transgender movement.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:25

• The Pandemic of Nuclear Trash Talk: Victor Davis Hanson
  The Pandemic of Nuclear Trash Talk: Victor Davis Hanson

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  After the world escaped a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, it has been generally understood that nuclear-armed nations did not publicly threaten their rivals and enemies with thermonuclear weapons.

  

  Of course, there were occasional lunatic exceptions to the rule. Since 2006, when the unhinged North Korean regime acquired nuclear weapons, the world has periodically dismissed the zany threats from the Kim dynasty. Kim Jong Un has sporadically warned he might strike Japan, South Korea, and the United States—usually in an outrageous and outlandish fashion.

  Kim finally was warned of the consequences of his brinkmanship rhetoric, most famously by Donald Trump in 2018. He reminded Kim that the American nuclear button was bigger than North Korea’s—an eerie counter-warning that for a time led to the cooling of North Korean rhetoric.

  Pakistan went nuclear in 1998. From time to time, its prime ministers have warned India that in any confrontation, what Pakistan lacked in numbers and arms would be made up by the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. But again, Pakistan’s threats, like those of Kim Jong Un’s, were dismissed as the rantings of the insecure and blustering, who were otherwise deterred by much larger nuclear arsenals.

  But the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine opened a new chapter in nuclear trash-talking. The Ukrainian war has proved dangerously unique in a variety of ways. True, there have been prior large land wars involving nuclear powers. The first Gulf War of 1991 saw Britain, France, and the United States combine to help crush Iraq without mention of nuclear arms. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 without such threats. Neither did China mention a nuclear option in 1979, despite a less-than-successful short invasion of Vietnam. Nor did Great Britain, in its 1982 retaking of the Falkland Islands, talk of the bomb, although recently declassified documents revealed that the Royal Navy carried 31 nuclear weapons on its expeditionary fleet—presumably depth charges, bombs, and missiles—to the chagrin of the current Argentine government.

  Yet the Ukrainian war is the first large conventional war on the very doorstep of a nuclear superpower. And additionally, it has become a proxy war between the nuclear-armed NATO alliance and nuclear Russia.

  There are other dangers as well. The old maxim that democratic governments do not pose existential threats to the same degree as their autocratic counterparts suggests that the Putin regime is a bit different, a bit more unfettered than its NATO enemies.

  Another challenge is the fact that the saga of Russian and Ukrainian borders is complex, with long messy histories analogous to the volatility of the Balkans, and especially accentuated with the collapse of the borders of the old Soviet Union.

  Much of western Ukraine was Polish until 1939, when it was gobbled up and never surrendered by Stalin in 1945, who had switched alliances in 1941 to the Allied side. Crimea had been Russian since 1783, when it was annexed from the Islamic Khanate. Much of Ukraine itself was part of Russia from the 18th century until the collapse of the Soviet Union. In sum, autocracy, irredentism, and nuclear war make for a volatile combination.

  But far more dangerous is the notion that Russia was a superpower and in some ways still is one, given its huge land mass, its rich natural resources of natural gas and oil, and its nearly 6,000 nuclear weapons—still the largest such stockpile in the world.

  But most importantly, Putin’s blatant aggression is now checked and stalemated, and thousands of Russians have died. Ukraine is on the offensive, and there have been prior attacks on the Russian Black Sea fleet, strikes inside Russia itself, and apparent drone missions against Moscow suburbs. No one knows who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, but assurances that it was not Russia’s enemies seem increasingly unconvincing, as new narratives emerge of Ukrainian responsibility, with likely Western support and perhaps foreknowledge.

  Ukraine’s stated war aims are not just to push Moscow back to the 2022 prewar border, but to cleanse Ukraine of all Russian troops and restore the 2014 Ukrainian nation, including all of Crimea and the disputed borderlands. That, of course, is a legitimate aim, given Russia’s cruel invasion and targeting of civilian targets. But the expansive agenda poses additional paradoxes and dangers—and what is a militarily sound and necessary strategy can often go out the window when nuclear weapons come into play.

  Putin first invaded Ukraine during the appeasing years of the Obama-Biden Administration. His sudden rashness likely was in response to the 2011 American Libyan misadventure, the empty Obama “redline” rhetoric in Syria, John Kerry’s request for Russia’s reentry into Middle East affairs, and Obama’s eerie “Tell Vladimir” quid pro quo “deal” of “space” for ending missile defense, all caught on a hot mic in Seoul in March 2012.

  In any case, no major Western leader, and especially not Barack Obama, ever had talked of supporting a counteroffensive between 2014 and 2022 to reclaim what had been lost in 2014. That current Western-sanctioned aim apparently emerged in 2023 in response to Russian setbacks and deeper Western supply intervention. Of course, new agendas always arise as a legitimate part of war, and hinge on the pulse of the battlefield. But again, there was no Obama-Biden post-2014 initiative to rally the West then to reclaim what it aims to now.

  A final wrinkle is the massive U.S. and NATO military aid to Kyiv, which in direct shipments, intelligence, and training might already have exceeded $100 billion. If so, Ukraine, in the most recent 12-month period, would have enjoyed the third-largest military budget in the world, behind only the United States and China—and nearly double the annual defense expenditures of Russia itself.

  Stranger still, Ukraine and its Western allies claim that such a staggering sum is insufficient, given that Ukraine needs far more offensive weapons to cut off the Russian supply chain, originating, of course, from inside Russia. That offensive agenda apparently is now to include F-15 and F-16 fighters, the most sophisticated German, British, and American armored vehicles, billion-dollar anti-missile batteries, and the most lethal artillery and missile weapons in the world.

  Add it all up, and what we are witnessing is a once haughty and aggressive dictatorial Russia so far increasing bleeding and humiliated in Ukraine—in large part thanks to the largest shipments of Western military support to any single country since the Anglo-American Lend-Lease supply of Soviet Russia in World War II.

  These weapons, necessary to the defense of an invaded Ukraine, largely explain Russia’s enormous losses, which may have reached or exceeded 200,000 or more dead, wounded, captured, and missing.

  Once-loose talk of incorporating Ukraine into NATO is now de rigeur. Next followed the admission into the alliance of Finland, with its 800-mile-long Russian border, and soon likely Sweden, which likewise possesses an extremely capable military and is a neighbor as well of Russia.

  What does all this mean to a humiliated Russia?

  The Putin dictatorship, which asked for such comeuppance, is flailing. The Russian military has suffered global disgrace. Moscow blames Western powers for ensuring the collapse of its offensive in its own backyard. Western leaders, including the U.S. defense secretary, have boasted that the Ukraine war is a needed proxy conflict in which the West will further weaken Russia and curb its aggression.

  Now Ukraine is targeting sites inside Russia—as traditional military doctrine would advise if its aim is to expel all Russians from its pre-2014 borders. But again, that was not the policy of the West from 2014 to 2021. Many of today’s loudest hawks were strangely silent when the Obama Administration appeasement led to the 2014 Russian invasion, that then was shrugged off as a permanent fait accompli throughout the Obama years.

  Russia is facing internal chaos and war resistance. An ailing Vladimir Putin is reeling. And the result is the largest epidemic of nuclear trash talk since the dawn of the nuclear age, almost all of it blithely dismissed as empty saber-rattling by an ailing thug who got his just deserts.

  Perhaps. But consider that the epidemic of nuclear bluster has exceeded the usual “one-bomb state” nuclear nonsense from theocratic Iran.

  For example, in summer 2022, Putin repeatedly suggested that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons if threatened with destruction. A few prominent Russians openly envisioned thermonuclear war. Alexei Zhuravlev, a member of the Russian parliament, boasted on Russian state television, “I will tell you absolutely competently that to destroy the entire East Coast of the United States, two Sarmat missiles are needed. And the same goes for the West Coast. Four missiles, and there will be nothing left.”

  In September 2022, as Russian fortunes in Ukraine became even more problematic, the threats increased. Former Russian lawmaker Sergei Markov warned of such intercontinental strikes with nuclear weapons, publicly warning London: “In Russia, there’s partial mobilization, and for your British listeners, Vladimir Putin told you that he would be ready to use nuclear weapons against Western countries, including nuclear weapons against Great Britain. Your cities will be targeted.”

  In March, the International Court at the Hague indicted Putin as a “war criminal” for the savageries unleashed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In response, a number of prominent Russians once again threatened a nuclear response. The former president of the Russian Federation and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, warned the justices, “It’s quite possible to imagine a surgical application of a hypersonic Onyx from a Russian ship in the North Sea to The Hague courthouse. So, judges, look carefully to the sky.”

  Margarita Simonyan, of the Kremlin-funded broadcaster Russia Today, likewise threatened, “I’d like to see a country that would arrest Putin under the ruling of The Hague. In about eight minutes, or whatever the [missile] flight time to its capital.”

  When a mysterious unidentified drone hit the Kremlin in early May, there was a chorus of renewed calls for nuclear action: “After today’s terrorist act, no variant remains other than the physical elimination of Zelenskyy and his clique,” once more thundered the megaphone Medvedev. And the chairman of the lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, warned the Ukrainian nation that he would demand “the use of weapons capable of destroying it.”

  Russia’s former space chief Dmitry Rogozin likewise tried to lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use: “According to our [nuclear] doctrine we have the right to use tactical nuclear weapons because that’s what they exist for . . . a great equalizer for the moments when there is a clear discrepancy in the enemy’s favor.” When still more likely Ukrainian drone bombers hit an upscale district of Moscow in late May last year, Medvedev again issued more of his nuclear bombast: “The West does not fully realize the threat of nuclear war . . . There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a preemptive strike.”

  Accordingly, the threshold on nuclear trash-talking and preemptive war in general have been lowered elsewhere. In December 2022, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, explicitly warned Greece that newly acquired Turkish missiles could strike Athens itself—unless “you stay calm.” As Erdoğan more unabashedly defined his threats: “When you say ‘Tayfun,’ [“typhoon”] the Greek gets scared and says, ‘It will hit Athens.’ Well, of course, it will . . . We can come down suddenly one night when the time comes.”

  In December 2022, Iran was again talking of strikes against the Israeli’s nuclear reactor with threats to “raze Tel Aviv.” Tehran released a video showing simulated nuclear missile attacks destroying Israel. China is now in on the act, bragging about the virtual end of a defiant Taiwan, and has issued nuclear threats against both Japan and Taiwan, should they alter Taiwan’s status.

  All this rhetoric again is treated with nonchalance in the West—and occasionally with near glee as welcome symptomology of Russia’s crackup and the impending implosion of the Putin regime.

  Maybe, maybe not.

  Yet with billion-dollar critical pipelines and dams blowing up, we are entering a new phase of the war, in which casual reference to hitting targets inside Russia, of nonstop bragging about the superiority of lethal Western weapons over their inferior Russian counterparts, of schadenfreude over the flailing Russians, and reports of horrendous losses to both Ukraine and Russia are all earning eerie nuclear backtalk that we have not heard in 60 years.

  Is it all just saber rattling, buffoonery, the last braggadocious mutterings of a failed regime? Cheap efforts to obtain deterrence that Russian arms have lost? Perhaps. And then again, perhaps not.

  The key to remember, however, is that there must be a near certainty that nuclear trash-talking is all cheap rhetoric, since the slight chance that it forewarns something deadly serious is . . . quite deadly, indeed.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:05

• NYC's Police Commissioner Abruptly Resigns; Days After Baltimore's Top Cop's Sudden Departure
  NYC’s Police Commissioner Abruptly Resigns; Days After Baltimore’s Top Cop’s Sudden Departure

  In less than one week, the top cops from two major metro areas in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast have suddenly resigned with no explanation. Last Thursday, Baltimore City Police Commissioner Michael Harrison stepped down as the progressive-run city struggles with homicides, a drug crisis, and a troubling rise in violence involving teenagers. Now NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced her resignation on Monday, an abrupt decision that has left “the nation’s largest police department shocked,” ABC7 New York reported. 

  Sewell was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in 2022 after he pledged to nominate a Black woman to head the department with over 36,000 uniformed officers during his campaign. The sudden resignation was announced at City Hall on Monday afternoon. 

  “I want to thank Police Commissioner Sewell for her devotion over the last 18 months and her steadfast leadership,” Adams said in a statement. He added, “Her efforts played a leading role in this administration’s tireless work to make New York City safer.”

  Sewell did not explain her abrupt departure in her resignation letter to the mayor. 

  As Bloomberg suggested, there could have been an internal power struggle between Sewell and Philip Banks III, who was appointed Deputy Mayor for Public Safety.

  Questions have swirled for months about whether Sewell’s authority was being undermined by Adams. He appointed Philip Banks III as deputy mayor for public safety, creating what was effectively another senior-level layer of supervision over the city’s law enforcement agencies. 

  The New York Post also noted an internal ‘power struggle.’ 

  

  ABC7 said, “The mayor was said to be surprised by the news” of Sewell’s resignation. Still, it’s unclear why she is departing. 

  In a recent interview, Sewell was asked about any book she was reading and replied, “stats.” 

  Perhaps out-of-control crime could be another reason for her resignation. New police data shows even though murders have slowed — there has been a jump in felony assaults and car thefts. 

  And as we noted in the beginning, Sewell’s resignation comes right after Baltimore City’s top cop abruptly resigned. 

  Progressive metro areas are realizing they must get a handle on crime after backfiring social justice reforms or risk ending up like imploding San Francisco. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 19:45

• New Jersey Bill Would Deny Funding To Schools If Their Libraries Remove Pornography
  New Jersey Bill Would Deny Funding To Schools If Their Libraries Remove Pornography

  By Dave Huber, Associate Director at College Fix

  Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey have proposed a bill which would deny state funds to schools that “ban” books from their libraries.

  So states a headline from The Philadelphia Inquirer. However, immediately below a sub-headline uses “restrict access” in place of “ban.”

  A subtle, yet distinct, difference.

  Last year there were 13 attempts to “restrict access” to books in New Jersey’s public schools, according to the American Library Association. One effort pertained to “Gender Queer” (pictured) — the ALA’s #1 most challenged book — which the Inquirer describes merely as the “chronicles [of] the author’s sexual identity journey.”

  That journey includes, unfortunately, sexually explicit artwork that isn’t permitted even in magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse.

  The synopsis of Bill S3907 reads “Prohibits public libraries and public schools from banning or restricting access to certain books; permits withholding of State Aid for non-compliance.”

  Thus, elementary and middle schools which “restrict access” to books like “Gender Queer” could lose funding.

  Bill sponsor Andrew Zwicker, who either has never seen what is in “Gender Queer” or believes it’s cool for children to view explicit material, told the Inquirer “I wish we didn’t have to do this. It’s really discouraging to see the number of attempts going on in New Jersey and around the country. It’s so unbelievable divisive and just wrong.”

  Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, a co-sponsor, added “The bigger and larger issue is that this is not something I think school boards should be dealing with. Libraries are sacred.”

  From the article:

  Republican lawmakers say they want to make sure books distributed in public schools and libraries are age-appropriate. State Sen. Ed Durr […] is drafting a bill that would require an age-rating system for books in school libraries, similar to that used for movies, to determine appropriate reading materials.

  “It’s a total misrepresentation for Democrats to say that parents are looking to ‘ban books’ simply for expressing their concerns about the unrestricted availability of content that’s not age-appropriate in their school libraries,” Durr said.

  Nikki Stouffer, leader of the NJ Fresh Faced Schools group, opposes the measure and dismissed it as “the porn bill.” A mother of two, she has shared graphic content from books that her group says should be pulled from schools.

  “This isn’t education at this point,” said Stouffer, of Medford, a bio statistician. “It is not really appropriate for school.”

  Ewa Elliott, president of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, said parents like Stouffer “shouldn’t be pushing the same rules on everybody’s children.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 19:25

• 22 US Troops Injured In Helicopter Accident Over Syria
  22 US Troops Injured In Helicopter Accident Over Syria

  The Pentagon revealed late Monday that on Sunday a major helicopter accident resulted in a large group of US military personnel being injured in northeast Syria. 

  While US Central Command is downplaying it as an aviation “mishap”, there were twenty-two US service members injured in the incident. Importantly, US Central command confirmed in a statement that “no enemy fire was reported.” 

  

  Ten of the wounded had injuries serious enough to be evacuated to hospitals outside of the region, presumably in neighboring Iraq where US personnel have a precent in Irbil in the north.

  The nearly two dozen personnel had “various degrees” of injuries, officials said. It’s unclear whether the presumed crash involved one or more helicopters.

  In April there had been a Department of Defense 24-hour stan-down of all aviation units after a string of deadly accidents, including two deadly mid-air helicopter collisions within a single month time frame.

  “The safety of our aviators is our top priority, and this stand-down is an important step to make certain we are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect our personnel,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said at the time.

  Sunday’s incident over Syria is believed to be a mechanical failure or pilot error, according to some reports. Meanwhile, some are questioning what American troops are still doing in Syria in the first place…

  28 Americans Wounded or Killed in Syria over last two months.

  What for? https://t.co/l3Wjwn96kt

  — Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) June 13, 2023

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

  At least 900 US troops (plus an unknown amount of State Dept personnel, contractors, and intelligence personnel) have occupied northeast Syria for years at this point. They control all of Syria’s main oil and gas fields, which were vital for meeting the population’s energy needs. 

  There have been recent reports of US soldiers and the Pentagon’s Kurdish SDF proxies “looting” Syrian oil, driving it across the border into Iraq. Sporadic drone and rocket attacks on US bases in Syria have resulted in dead and wounded US personnel over the past year, a trend which recently increased.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 19:05

• Tucker Carlson Pinpoints The Exact Moment That 'Permanent Washington' Decided To Send Trump To Prison
  Tucker Carlson Pinpoints The Exact Moment That ‘Permanent Washington’ Decided To Send Trump To Prison

  Tucker has delivered an epic tour de force condemning the Deep State, which over the past 6 years has been focused solely on one goal: to put away the one person who stands in its way, and in the way of countless neocons and war profiteers from attaining their trillions in deadly spoils: Donald Trump.

  Despite a ‘cease and desist’ order from Fox News, Tucker Carlson is back tonight with the 3rd episode of his ‘Tucker on Twitter’ show. After over 115 million views on his first and almost 60 million on his second, tonight’s discussion of the indictment of former president Trump is sure to be the most widely viewed news of the day (despite CNN/MSNBC’s euphoria at the day’s events).

  Reflecting on the day’s events in Miami, Carlson noted that “cable news carried every moment of it… but they weren’t shocked… anybody who’s been paying attention knew this was coming…”

  But, as he continues, “what just happened was always going to happen, it has been inevitable since February 16, 2016… that’s the day that Donald Trump may a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history – the US federal government.”

  How did he make that force an enemy? It wasn’t rapists from Mexico or trade with China – the stories that dominated the news at the time…

  “…what matters to ‘permanent Washington’ then and now is foreign policy – the invasions, the occupations, and proxy wars… the policies that come with trillion-dollar price tags”

  At 2:56, Carlson shows the exact moment that “permanent Washington” decided to send Donald Trump to prison – its from the Republican Candidates’ Debate …

  “we should have never been in Iraq, we have destabilized The Middle East… “

  But it was this line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest…

  “...they lied…they said there were weapons of mass destruction, there was none.. and they knew there were none.“

  That sealed his fate because:

  “That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides…”

  He accuses politicians from both parties, including Hillary Clinton, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pompeo, of betraying Trump’s agenda and working against him from within.

  “…they were all guilty of it… they all knew and they all lied and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.”

  Carlson notes that Trump’s prosecution is seen as both political and ideological, aimed at disqualifying those who criticize wars, criticizing the Washington establishment for prioritizing global interventions and military actions over domestic concerns, and highlighting the disparity between the vast amount of government spending and the deteriorating state of public infrastructure across the country.

  Carlson crescendos with the following…

  “Trump is the only one who dissents from Washington’s long-standing pointless war agenda… and for that, that one fact, they are trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him…

  …and that should upset you more than anything that has happened in American politics in your lifetime...

  …Yes, Donald Trump is a flawed man; but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors.”

  The spectacle of Trump’s prosecution reveals the powerlessness of voters in America, and as Carlson concludes by urging people to preserve democracy: “America’s principles are at stake.”

  Watch the full show here:

  Ep. 3 America’s principles are at stake pic.twitter.com/eJNSUVvvqY

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 13, 2023

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

  Full Transcript below:

  The Biden Administration arrested Donald Trump this afternoon. They had him arraigned and fingerprinted in a Miami Courthouse, like the accused felon he now technically is.

  These were the first steps in a process that is designed to put Donald Trump behind bars for the rest of his life.

  Cable news carried every moment of it live “it’s unprecedented” they told us with what looked like shock. But they weren’t shocked they knew this was coming. Everyone who’s paid attention knew it was what just happened was always going to happen.

  It’s been inevitable since February 16 2016. that’s the day Donald Trump made a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history which would be the federal government.

  Despite what you may remember it wasn’t anything that Trump had said about immigration, or trade with China, or rapists from Mexico – those are the stories that dominated the headlines that year – “Trump’s a racist they scream stop him.”

  But inside Washington that was just noise none of it really rated identity politics doesn’t mean much to permanent Washington what matters – then and now – is foreign policy the invasions and occupations and proxy wars: the decisions that determine which global populations will thrive and which will die. The policies that come with trillion dollar price tags, the ones that over time have made the counties around DC the richest suburbs in the world.

  In Washington that’s what actually matters and it’s obvious when you look carefully. When there’s a debate about anything else for example the debt ceiling, both sides take their assigned positions and they start yelling. But when Congress decides to start a war – no matter how foolish or counterproductive or obviously disconnected from America’s core interests that war may be – when that happens the leaders of both parties automatically jump behind it like circus clowns.

  And then they stay there, sometimes for decades. They defend that war relentlessly against all evidence, until somebody finally Rings the all clear Bell and they can begin to admit that actually maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. We meant well but it just didn’t work out the good news is we’ve learned a lot of important lessons.

  In the end they usually do say something like that, but only after emotions have cooled and the damning details have begun to fade from collective memory. It’s an apology that’s not actually an apology, much less repentance and it’s years too late to matter in any case.

  But until then that’s all you’re getting, until then no dissent is allowed – that’s the first rule of Washington.

  But somehow Trump didn’t bother to follow it. He is from out of town so maybe he didn’t know it was a rule or maybe he just didn’t care. Either way, seven and a half years later we can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. here it is it’s from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville South Carolina:

  “we should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction.”

  We should never have been in Iraq, Trump said. We destabilized the Middle East. Now by the time Trump said that a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion; how could they not. But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest. “They lied” he said, “there were no weapons of mass destruction” and they knew there were none.

  Now when he said that a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in silenced stunned. Can he say that? Well he said it anyway and by saying that he sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side.

  Hillary Clinton was guilty of it, but so was Paul Ryan. All of them were guilty; they all knew, they all lied, and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.

  After that it was pretty clear that even if he did get elected president Trump was going to have a very hard time controlling the federal government he was supposed to be in charge of. Most of permanent Washington decided that thwarting Trump was the single most important mission in their lives. Everything depended on it, many of them said so publicly. But others didn’t say so publicly; in fact the stealthier ones took another path – they ran toward Trump not away from him. They sucked up to him, they ingratiated themselves-  the man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery which Trump is, and they did this in order to subvert his new Administration from the inside.

  There were a number of these and you could spot them immediately: they were flatterers. Invariably the ones who flattered Trump the most hated him the most and disagreed the most strongly with his views. You saw them in the hallways of the White House and at press conferences; they were there slobbering over their boss with elaborate self-abasement as if they were addressing a monarch or a God.

  It was a scene from the ottoman Court – it was filthy and decadent and it was false.  Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Lindsey Graham in the Congress. They all called Trump a Visionary genius… up until the moment he lost power and then they unsheathed their real agenda – as always the neocon war agenda – and they piled on with maximum Force.

  Here’s Mike Pompeo for example on Fox news this morning:

  “President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them. And then when given the opportunity to return them he chose not to do that for whatever reason… when somebody identifies that you got to turn them in. So that’s just inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers sailors, airmen and marines… and if the allegations are true some of these were pretty serious important documents… so that’s wrong“

  May future historians hoping to unlock the mysteries of late empire Washington study that clip, because it will reveal everything. That very same Mike Pompeo – the one who’s sneering at Donald Trump on TV this morning – that guy served Donald Trump as both CIA director and as Secretary of State. Those are the two most powerful jobs in the federal government and as he worked in those jobs, Pompeo promised – in fact he swore – to support the president’s agenda.

  Why? because that’s the way a democracy works: you vote for a candidate in the belief that his appointees will carry out the policies that you voted for. It’s not about the president, it’s about you the voter.

  But Pompeo didn’t do that he didn’t even try to do that. In fact he undermined Trump’s often stated commitment to peace and non-intervention abroad at every turn; his every waking hour was devoted to fomenting war in some Far Away foreign country or other. Iran, Syria Russia, North Korea… the list goes on but rather than telling Trump that he disagree with his ideas as a man would, Pompeo toadied up to Trump – a man he despised – in the oiliest, most over-the-top way imaginable.

  Ask anyone who worked in that white house at the time who is the appointee most likely to tell Donald Trump on a daily basis that he was handsome, virile, sleek and powerful. “Mike Pompeo” that will be the consensus answer. Those of us who saw firsthand Pompeo’s relentless cow Towing will never forget it – it was indelibly repulsive. No one with self-respect could do something like that, but Mike Pompeo did it effortlessly with relish and Verve. Now this same person is telling Fox News viewers that he fears for the safety of our military, our soldiers “Sailors Airmen and Marines” in the approved phrase, because Donald Trump took some classified documents home and didn’t immediately return them to the National Archives.

  What a lie that is: Mike Pompeo knows that’s a lie. He spent his entire life in Washington. Washington is a city where internal memos about Labor Day are classified because everything is classified. Your government has classified more than a billion Federal documents most of them boring and pointless and a danger to no one, and locked them away in secret. You can’t see them because you may be an American citizen, but not really… and therefore you don’t have the necessary clearances to know what’s going on.

  And by the way none of this is done in order to make America safer any more than Covid restrictions were designed to keep you healthy. No it’s a caste system that’s the point, and you’re the Untouchable in this hierarchy.

  Mike Pompeo knows that, everybody who works in Washington knows that.

  How many secret documents do you think Dick Cheney took home with him while he was running the Iraq War? How many did his wife read? She never had a clearance. We’ll never know the answer because there is no chance Dick Cheney will ever be investigated, or his staffers will be told to wear wires in his presence. He will never be indicted for this.

  Of course not: Dick Cheney is a neocon Donald Trump is not. Dick Cheney supports war with Russia, Trump does not. That’s the difference: the rest is just a distraction.

  The prosecution of Donald Trump is transparently political. He’s literally Joe Biden’s main political opponent. He’s polling over 60 percent among Republican voters right now. So Joe Biden is doing what no president has ever dared to do. He’s using law enforcement to lock up his chief rival: that’s happening right now, and anyone who denies it’s happening is lying to you.

  But actually it’s worse than that Trump’s prosecution isn’t just political, it’s ideological. Nobody with Trump’s views is allowed to have power in this country. Criticize our Wars and you’re disqualified, if you keep it up we’ll send you to prison.

  That’s the message Washington is sending, not just the Democratic party is sending but both parties are sending.

  Like so many Republicans, for example, the supposedly conservative governor of Texas Greg Abbott spent yesterday totally ignoring the destruction of the American justice system. Instead, he signed a highly important bill called the crown act which according to the celebratory tweet Abbott sent commemorating it will “prohibit discrimination based on Textures and hairstyles historically associated with race.” In other words in Texas cornrows are now protected by law, having unapproved views about Ukraine is not.

  That’s fine with most elected Republicans: they find Trump tiresome and embarrassing, their donors hate him; they will not be sad if he dies in jail.

  But what about voters: what are they learning from this spectacle? Well mostly they’re learning that they have no power at all because nobody cares about them. 

  But they already knew that. Unlike so many of our elected leaders, they have been to America recently. They know what it looks like. Have you seen it? If you’ve got a few days this summer find out take a road trip and see for yourself Drive 500 miles in any direction and then come home. How are things looking? Well they should look great – the federal government spent six and a half trillion dollars last year. That’s more than any government has ever spent ever. So at the very least you would expect pristine public roads. Oh no that’s not what you see when you drive around this country – there are potholes and Jersey barriers everywhere. Looks like Tegucigalpa before the Chinese decided to rebuild the infrastructure of Honduras. We don’t have China buying our roads so they’re falling apart.

  You’d think the people you would pass on your road trip would look happy and prosperous; again this is a very rich country. But a lot of them don’t. Quite a few appear to be strung out on drugs. You see them shuffling by shuttered storefronts in small towns. And you wonder as you see all of this where did all the money go, it’s certainly not here?

  Well, it’s in Washington, it’s in Fairfax, in Loudoun counties, and in leafy perfectly manicured Northwest D.C. And of course a huge chunk of it went to Ukraine to Zelenski and his friends. Not because you voted for that; you didn’t vote to give it to them you never would, but because Joe Biden and his many allies from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan and every single news anchor on all of Television all of them believe that Ukraine its borders its future its infrastructure are all more important than the town that you live in.

  They sincerely think that, and it’s obvious everyone in power thinks that… except for Donald Trump.

  Whatever else you say about him, Trump is the one guy with an actual shot of becoming president who dissents from Washington’s long-standing pointless War agenda. And for that that one fact they are trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him and that should upset you more than anything that’s happened in American politics in your lifetime.

  Even if you don’t plan to vote for Donald Trump, even if you would die before voting for Donald Trump – which is your right and a lot of good people feel that way – even still, the destruction of our democracy which is the right of Voters to support any candidate they want, even candidates who don’t want war with Russia, the destruction of that should keep you up at night.

  Yes, Donald Trump was a flawed man but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors.

  In this life we don’t get to choose our Martyrs we can only choose our principles… and America’s are at stake.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 18:44

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Burisma Owner Allegedly Recorded Biden Bribe Convos As 'Insurance Policy' — And FBI Covered Up: Grassley
  Burisma Owner Allegedly Recorded Biden Bribe Convos As ‘Insurance Policy’ — And FBI Covered Up: Grassley

  Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Monday dropped yet another bombshell in the recent spate of Biden corruption headlines – that the foreign national who allegedly bribed then-VP Joe Biden kept seventeen secret recordings of both Hunter and Joe Biden as an ‘insurance’ policy.

  

  According to the Washington Examiner, that foreign national is Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky.

  Two of the recordings are allegedly between Joe Biden

  “The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings,” Grassley said during a speech on the Senate floor.

  “These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” he continued. “More than that, the FBI made Congress review a redacted unclassified document in a classified facility. That goes to show you the disrespect the FBI has for Congress.”

  Watch:

  Sen. @ChuckGrassley: “The foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe & Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversation[s], 17 such recordings. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him & Hunter Biden [and]… pic.twitter.com/HCcuqV7SUW

  — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 12, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsSo the FBI covered up the claim that Burisma’s owner had secret recordings between he and the Bidens as an ‘insurance policy,’ according to Grassley.

  More via the Examiner;

  The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware is handling the ongoing federal criminal investigation into Hunter Biden. It is allegedly up to U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-appointed holdover, to decide whether to indict the president’s son. In February 2021, Joe Biden asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump for their resignations, with Weiss a rare exception.

  “What is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high-stakes bribery scheme?” Grassley asked Monday.

  Sources previously told the Washington Examiner that the Burisma owner discussed an alleged bribe of $5 million to Joe Biden and of $5 million to Hunter Biden, according to the paid FBI informant who said he heard this from Zlochevsky. The sources said Zlochevsky said he believed it would be difficult to unravel the alleged bribery scheme for at least 10 years because of the number of bank accounts involved.

  Zlochevsky’s alleged reference to Joe Biden as the “big guy” appears independent of the apparent reference to the now-president as the “big guy” by a Hunter Biden business associate during negotiations with Chinese intelligence-linked businessmen. The China-related reference occurred in a May 2017 email not made public until October 2020.

  And as Just the News notes;

  The FD-1023 includes allegations from a confidential human source that the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board in order to use his father’s influence to stifle an investigation from then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin into the firm. Shokin was removed from his post in 2016 and the FD-1023 indicates that two Biden family members received $5 million each for their trouble.

  Also on Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devin Archer, demanding he sit for a deposition this week according to CBS News.

  In a letter to Archer’s attorney, Comer wrote that Archer had “played a significant role in the Biden family’s business deals abroad, including but not limited to China, Russia, and Ukraine.”

  “Additionally, while undertaking these ventures with the Biden family, your client met with then-Vice President Biden on multiple occasions, including in the White House,” he continued.

  Archer’s potential testimony to the GOP House Oversight Committee is a significant milestone in the congressional probe. Archer served alongside Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma, a Ukraine energy company, beginning in 2014. During this period, then-Vice President Joe Biden was deeply involved in Ukraine policy, an era when his opponents say the energy firm was involved in corruption.

  An independent forensic review of Hunter Biden’s laptop data by CBS News confirmed hundreds of communications between Hunter Biden and Archer, specifically, emails that suggest working meals were arranged before or after Burisma board meetings.  Archer is widely believed to have facilitated Hunter Biden’s entry onto Burisma’s board. -CBS News

  Meanwhile, and we’re sure it’s unrelated, Biden had to cancel meetings today to take care of a sudden ‘root canal.’

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 20:40

• Female-Only Spa With Compulsory Nudity Must Admit 'Transgender Women' With Penises: Judge
  Female-Only Spa With Compulsory Nudity Must Admit ‘Transgender Women’ With Penises: Judge

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

  A spa that for years has served only women must admit men if they claim to be women, a judge has ruled.

  

  The constitutional rights of the owners, employees, and patrons of the Olympus Spa in Washington state weren’t infringed when officials in the state ordered the facility to provide services to “transgender women” with male genitalia, Washington District Court Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein said in a June 5 ruling.

  The spa was described by its owners, who are Christian, as being designed based on the belief that “a male and a female should not ordinarily be in each other’s presence while in the nude unless married to each other,” according to a complaint filed by the owners.

  Many services provided by the spa require patrons to be fully naked, and the employees who work on-site are all female.

  Requiring admission of men claiming to be women violates the Constitutional rights to freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, and freedom of association, the spa owners, workers, and patrons asserted.

  Rothstein disagreed, finding that a state law called the Washington’s Law Against Discrimination “does not discriminate on its face, and it does not by its terms favor a particular religion or the non-exercise of religion.”

  That means the law survives if it is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. Rothstein said the law’s legitimate purpose is, as stated in the law, to protect “the public welfare, health, and peace of the people of this state.”

  She also said that the Washington Human Rights Commission, which investigates complaints of violations of the law, in its order to the spa to remove language about only admitting “biological women,” didn’t infringe on the plaintiffs’ rights.

  “The compelled speech to which Olympus Spa points is ‘plainly incidental’ to the [law]’s regulation of discriminatory conduct,” Rothstein said.

  By way of analogy, she quoted a U.S. Supreme Court ruling: “‘Congress … can prohibit employers from discriminating in hiring on the basis of race,’ and ‘that this will require an employer to take down a sign reading “White Applicants Only” hardly means that the law should be analyzed as one regulating the employer’s speech rather than conduct.’”

  The free association claim also failed because the only requirement placed on patrons was that they be female, which is outside the protection based on freedom of association, the judge said.

  “The Court does not minimize the privacy concerns at play when employees are performing exfoliating massages on nude patrons. Aside from this nudity, though, there is simply nothing private about the relationship between Olympus Spa, its employees, and the random strangers who walk in the door seeking a massage,” she said. “Nor is there anything selective about the association at issue beyond Olympus Spa’s ‘biological women’ policy.

  “The Court therefore has little difficulty concluding that the personal attachments implicated here are too attenuated to qualify for constitutional protection.”

  Lawyers for the state and the plaintiffs didn’t respond to requests for comment.

  The spa can file an amended complaint within 30 days, the judge said. She ruled in the federal case because she’s a visiting federal judge. She was appointed by former President Jimmy Carter.

  Alleged Discrimination

  The situation started when Haven Wilvich, a male who identified as a woman and hasn’t undergone sex change surgery, complained to the state commission, alleging the spa’s policy was in violation of the state law against discrimination.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 20:20

• CPI Set For "Historic" Drop Over "Next Two Months"
  CPI Set For “Historic” Drop Over “Next Two Months”

  Earlier today, we said that tomorrow’s CPI print is “the event of the week in terms of potential vol as it could impact final pricing for the FOMC and impact terminal pricing as well” (a full preview is coming shortly). And while the actual inflation number may come in fractionally below or above expectations, what markets are focusing instead on – and the reason for today’s frenzied market meltup which sent risk assets to a fresh 52-week high, is what traders expect will happen not just tomorrow but over the next 2 months. That’s because according to calculations by Credit Suisse chief strategist Jonathan Golub, while tomorrow’s CPI print may come in just above the median consensus forecast, at 4.2%, it is next month’s number that will be the shocker.  According to Golub, the June number (which will be released on July 12) will print at 3.2%.

  

  Should this play out as expected, Golub writes, “this would represent one of the greatest drops  experienced in a 2-month period over the past 70 years. Historically, similar declines have only occurred during periods of economic upheaval, such as the onset of COVID, the Great Recession, and in 1975 during the Great Inflation.”

  

  There is, however, one big caveat: this particular drop will not indicate some economic calamity has been unleashed, instead it merely represents a favorable base effect. As Golub explains, “it is important to note that this expected decline is the result of base effects, rather than a shift in incoming inflation, and should not be extrapolated into the future.” As a result, the now defunct Swiss bank whose research division will soon become part of UBS, does not believe that “this likely decline will result in any shift in Fed policy.”

  

  d

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 20:00

• "Rantings Of A Demagogue" – Parents Angered By Princeton President's Graduation Address
  “Rantings Of A Demagogue” – Parents Angered By Princeton President’s Graduation Address

  Authored by Abigail Anthony via The College Fix,

  A large contingent of parents of graduating seniors who sat through Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber’s recent commencement address described it as hypocritical and a “woke sermon” in interviews with The College Fix.

  

  They scoffed at his claim that the Ivy League institution is a bastion of free speech and bristled at his embrace of all kinds of diversity except intellectual diversity.

  “President Eisgruber’s commencement speech was a disgrace,” a mother of a graduating senior told The College Fix in an email.

  “The primary assault on free speech takes place on every campus in this country – including Princeton.”

  “It takes the form of blocking and shouting down faculty and invited speakers who dare to stray from the liberal orthodoxy,” she said. 

  “…He chose to use his 2023 commencement address to deliver the rantings of a demagogue.”

  Eisgruber told the audience “we must stand up and speak up together for the values of free expression and full inclusivity for people of all identities.”

  “There are people who claim, for example, that when colleges and universities endorse the value of diversity and inclusivity or teach about racism and sexism, they are ‘indoctrinating students’ or in some other way endangering free speech,” he said.

  Eisgruber also criticized Florida legislation without specifying which bills, suggesting students in Florida are now living in fear. He denounced other newly passed laws across the nation that have reined in illiberalism.

  “Some of these bills prohibit discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity. Some prohibit teaching disfavored views about race, racism, and American history. Others seek to undermine the institutional autonomy of colleges and universities or to abolish tenure, thereby enabling politicians to control what professors can teach or publish,” he said.

  More than 10 parents who attended the graduation ceremony expressed their disappointment and anger with Eisgruber’s speech in interviews with The College Fix. Most asked to remain anonymous.

  “I was taken aback by the audacity of [Eisgruber’s speech] and the disingenuousness of it, even the dishonesty of it. As far as I can tell, no one else in the country has done more to undermine the protections that tenure gives to independent thought and independent scholarly activity than he has,” Christopher Nadon, the father of a graduating Princeton student, told The Fix.

  Nadon, a professor at Claremont McKenna College, added that former Princeton Professor Joshua Katz was “stripped of tenure obviously for his political speech.”

  Katz, a longtime classics professor, was fired last year after he published an op-ed criticizing faculty proposals for anti-racism initiatives at the University and criticized a group of far-left black activists.

  Katz had previously faced a fourteen-month investigation for a consensual relationship that occurred over fifteen years ago with a then-undergraduate, for which he had already been disciplined with a one-year suspension without pay. Princeton opened a second investigation after Katz published the op-ed.

  “It was so hypocritical to say, ‘Oh, tenure is being threatened, and books are being censored,’ when voices are being censored and opinions are being censored and run off the campus,” Nadon said.

  Several parents interviewed by The Fix also compared Eisgruber’s speech to a religious address.

  “Eisgruber’s woke sermon was inappropriate for a college commencement and a captive audience that was forced to sit through it,” said a father of two Princeton alumni, one of whom graduated in the class of 2023.

  “As a father, I felt a great deal of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, Princeton University has been very welcoming and generous to my child.”

  “On the other hand, Eisgruber was indirectly condemning Governor [Ron] DeSantis’ Florida law that is aimed to protect their children from physical and chemical mutilation before they reach age 18 and can make a more informed and rational decision,” he added.

  Another parent of a graduating senior told The Fix that Eisgruber’s speech attributed personal political views to the institution, thereby instructing students “what” to think and not “how to think.”

  “Eisgruber gave a very biased, sermon-like, condescending commencement speech that was disrespectful of at least half the audience, both in the student population and in the parent population,” a parent said via email. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there are consequences on the donor front.”

  Robert Gagnon, the father of a graduating senior and a professor at Houston Christian University, wrote directly to President Eisgruber to express disapproval.

  “As a President, you undoubtedly believed that you were exercising your free-speech rights,” he wrote.

  “Yet in doing so you were trampling on the rights of others to free speech by using your office to make those under your authority feel that what would happen to racists would happen to them if they expressed a dissenting view on ‘LGBTQ’ orthodoxy.”

  Gagnon shared his letter to Eisgruber with The Fix.

  “You have a greater obligation at Princeton than all others, precisely because you occupy the highest office, to assure people who disagree with you that they are respected and valued, not that they are the moral equivalent of racists,” Gagnon continued. “You expressed no concern that studies have shown that conservative college students already feel like pariahs and are afraid to express their point of view in the classroom for fear of administrative retaliation, including at Princeton.”

  A parent of a graduating senior in the humanities similarly criticized Eisgruber for espousing an “orthodoxy.”

  “Eisgruber’s commencement remarks were not only disheartening. He delivered a one sided angry polemic from his bully pulpit leaving no doubt about the preferred orthodoxy at Princeton,” the parent wrote.

  “It begged [the question of] who he was pandering too and why? It certainly didn’t seem [to be] a message intended for the students.”

  A recent survey of Princeton students found a majority of self-described “conservative” and nearly half of “moderate” seniors are “very uncomfortable” or “somewhat uncomfortable” sharing their views on campus. By contrast, the survey found that less than five percent of students who identified as “very liberal” reported being “very uncomfortable” or “uncomfortable” sharing political views.

  Another recent survey of Princeton students found 76 percent believe it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker.

  “President Eisgruber’s speech made good points about equality and freedom of expression but was hypocritical,” said a mother whose graduating daughter was the second child to attend Princeton for an undergraduate degree.

  “While he speaks out against censorship in virtuous tones, Mr. Eisgruber’s administration fosters a campus environment where minority viewpoints (conservative, traditional, religious, etc.) are canceled, and those who would express such views are intimidated,” she said.

  “Senior survey results indicate Princeton students feel under a gag order. Practice what you preach.”

  Another parent, who is a teacher at a Christian school, wrote to The College Fix that “President Eisgruber displayed either a shocking lack of comprehension of his audience by assuming that all the students and parents would be on board with such a left-leaning speech or else he simply did not care about offending his audience.”

  “I believe the latter is probably the case. He himself is surrounded by a liberal bubble in which all are convinced that they have the moral high ground and that anyone who does not support their policies is a bigoted danger to society,” the parent continued.

  In addition to parents who attended the ceremonies, undergraduates also criticized Eisgruber’s speech.

  “Any reasonable person observing Eisgruber’s sermon would conclude that its content has no place in the President’s Commencement address,” rising Princeton senior Matthew Wilson, a College Fix alumnus, wrote in the Daily Princetonian. “It was a grave mistake for Eisgruber to offer such ideological and divisive remarks at Commencement — purportedly under the moralizing banner of inclusivity, but in reality with the express aim of excluding, marginalizing, and suppressing the voices of those who dispute his particular account of social justice.”

  Junior Danielle Shapiro wrote in The Princeton Tory, the undergraduate conservative publication, that “Eisgruber’s departing message was misguided for its substantial focus on political activism and its departure from the core purpose of Princeton and universities like it: truth-seeking and the production and dissemination of knowledge.”

  Another aspect of the president’s hypocrisy, according to Nadon, played out in more than  his main speech.

  Nadon also attended the Princeton ROTC commissioning ceremony, where Eisgruber delivered remarks which contrasted what he had said just hours earlier to the entire graduating class and further revealed the president’s hypocrisy, he said.

  “As a student of our country’s Constitution, I find myself inspired by a singular fact about this ceremony every time that I participate in it: each of you will make a solemn promise to defend the Constitution of this United States — not our land, not our wealth, not even our people, but our Constitution,” Eisgruber told the newly commissioned officers.

  “It shows Eisgruber’s political tremor: he’ll say basically whatever is required by the particular audience,” Nadon told The Fix. “For the president of an institution that has a thirty billion dollar endowment to be complaining about people trying to rein in some of the craziness on campus—through a democratic representative process—is just another element of hypocrisy.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 19:40

• As Panama Canal Hit With Draft Restrictions, Goldman Says Shippers Have Three Options
  As Panama Canal Hit With Draft Restrictions, Goldman Says Shippers Have Three Options

  Panama Canal officials have enforced a vessel draft restriction because of a severe water crisis. We noted in a piece weeks ago titled “Panama Canal Hit By Shipping Restrictions As Water Crisis Set To Worsen” that some of the largest vessels in the world had to comply with new restrictions. 

  Goldman’s Patrick Creuset told clients Monday morning that water levels on the Panama Canal are 5% below the five-year average, with forecasts by the Panama Canal Authority that point to a drop of 8% by August. 

  

  Creuset said the average draft needed for the largest neo-Panamax vessels to sail the canal is 50 feet or 15.2 meters. But since the end of May, draft restrictions have been enforced for vessels to maintain 44.5 feet or 13.6 meters, which will likely be reduced to 43.5 feet or 13.3 meters in the coming weeks. 

  “This would mean that the largest neo-Panamax vessels that hold c.14,000 TEU [Twenty-foot equivalent unit] may need to cross nearly half-empty,” Creuset continued. As a result, this would reduce cargo for some of the world’s largest containerships traversing major shipping lines, such as those between Asia and the US Gulf Coast and US East Coast. 

  Unprecedented drought in Panama Canal forcing some ships to offload 40% of their cargo.

  Yet another #supplychain risk likely causing firms to keep considering reshoring. pic.twitter.com/lGiZtGdr79

  — Yuri Khodjamirian, CFA (@YuriKhodjam) June 12, 2023

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  Unlike corporate media, Creuset points to El Nino as the reason for drought conditions across Panama, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

  

  The Goldman analyst said, “The main tradelane that would be affected is the Asia-US East Coast trade, accounting for about half of the cargo capacity crossing the canal.” He added, “Other trades, such as USEC (US East Coast) to LatAm West Coast (2nd largest trade) or LatAm intercoastal, appear less likely to be affected, given the generally smaller vessel sizes deployed.”

  There are three options to deal with the draft restrictions. He laid out the following:

  • The first option is to continue to use the Panama Canal and deploy more ships for the same amount of cargo, while optimizing cargo mix (heavier boxes onto smaller vessels).
  • The second would be to reroute via Suez on even larger vessels (=lower unit costs), however adding c.15% to the voyage time, e.g. from China to the USEC.
  • The third option is to go through US West Coast ports & intermodal.

  However, Creuset pointed out, “This last option, however, looks less certain, given the uncertainty around current labour tensions on the USWC. We therefore see a combination of options 1 and 2 as the most likely.” 

  The average vessel size crossing the canal in 2022 was around 7,000 TEU. Current draft restrictions wouldn’t affect these vessels, though much larger vessels (>9,000 TEU) sailing from Asia to US East Coast would be impacted. 

  “These types of vessels would need to load at least 20% less cargo than normal to comply with the new draft restrictions, and up to 40-50% less for the largest vessels, we estimate,” Creuset said. 

  About 7% of all global container trade crosses the canal. “If the majority of vessels currently transiting had to load between 20-40% less than normal, this could potentially absorb around 2% of world container shipping capacity. Some of this we believe could be cushioned by a shift of services through Suez, where the added voyage distance can be largely offset by the lower unit cost of using of larger vessels,” the analyst noted. 

  Creuset said canal draft restrictions fell to 44 feet in the summer of 2019 without causing major supply chain disruptions.

  

  But with El Nino impacts underway, what disruptions could be sparked later this summer remains to be seen. 

  And the good news:

  Overall, we believe temporary draft restrictions on the Panama Canal alone would not be sufficient to materially alter the supply-demand balance in shipping.

  But he notes supply chain disruptions could emerge if this happens: 

  We think it would likely take a confluence of shocks to create renewed, material supply chain stress. For example, prolonged draft restrictions on the Panama Canal coupled with extensive labour disruption in USWC ports amid a strengthening of consumer & import demand in 2H could be enough to tighten shipping capacity on a regional basis. This could lead to temporarily higher rates on the Pacific and perhaps some long-haul LatAm trades. 

  Keep an eye on the Panama Canal’s situation this summer, as well as any potential supply chain disruptions resulting from additional draft restrictions. 

  More in the full note available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 19:20

• Saudi Arabia, China Ink $10 Billion In Investment Deals
  Saudi Arabia, China Ink $10 Billion In Investment Deals

  Via The Cradle,

  Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment signed $10 billion worth of investment agreements with Chinese companies on June 11, the first day of the 10th Arab-China Business Conference in Riyadh.

  The deals include a $5.6 billion agreement with Chinese electric car maker Human Horizons for automotive research, development, manufacturing, and sales of luxury electric vehicles. Other investment agreements span sectors such as technology, renewables, agriculture, real estate, minerals, supply chains, tourism, and healthcare, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

  

  Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said in a speech at 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.

  The kingdom makes up 25 percent of this volume. According to Bin Farhan, 2022, trade between Riyadh and Beijing reached $106.1 billion.

  The Saudi official stressed that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Riyadh in December 2022 “further strengthened political, economic, investment and trade ties between the two friendly countries.” Several agreements worth more than $50 billion were signed during Xi’s visit, which coincided with the launch of the first China-Arab States Summit and China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit.

  In response to growing discontent over historically lopsided ties between Arab states and the US, China has made significant diplomatic and economic inroads across West Asia.

  In March, Saudi Aramco – the world’s biggest crude exporter – agreed to acquire a 10 percent interest in Chinese producer Rongsheng Petrochemical for $3.6 billion. Under the deal, Aramco would supply 480,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Arabian crude oil to Rongsheng affiliate Zhejiang Petroleum and Chemical Co Ltd (ZPC) under a long-term sales agreement.

  Aramco is also building a 300,000 bpd refining and ethylene-based steam cracking complex in China’s Panjin City with Chinese partners Norinco Group and Panjin Xincheng Industrial Group (PXIG).

  For a decade, US and European officials have been concerned about China’s deepening partnership with Iran. But those concerns have been very overblown.

  Consider that this single deal with Saudi Arabia is larger than the entire Chinese FDI stock in Iran.https://t.co/7lwJTXG4JY

  — Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (@yarbatman) June 12, 2023

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  Beijing is also responsible for securing a landmark rapprochement deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which also led to the restoration of ties between the kingdom and Syria.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 19:00

• Women's Group To Spend "Tens Of Millions" To Boost Kamala's Image
  Women’s Group To Spend “Tens Of Millions” To Boost Kamala’s Image

  In an unprecedented move, a political group has committed to spend waste “tens of millions of dollars” to improve the reputation of a sitting vice president. 

  In a testament to just how big a political liability Harris is, Emily’s List, a group focused on electing pro-abortion, Democrat women, told Politico that it’s going all-out to polish her terrible image during the 2024 election. 

  “We’re going to tell the story about who she is, what she’s done, support her at every turn and really push back against the massive misinformation and disinformation that’s been directed towards her since she’s been elected,” said Emily’s List president Laphonza Butler.

  The prospect of a second Biden term is positively underwhelming to a wide, bipartisan swath of Americans: An April NBC poll found 70% don’t think Biden should run for re-election. For half of those who feel that way, Biden’s age figured as a “major” reason.  

  Of course, it’s not just his age: Seemingly every week, Biden publicly showcases his deepening mental and physical frailty. He would be 86 at the end of a second term. Add it all up, and 2024 voters are going to be intensely focused on the fact that Harris is a heartbeat — or head-banging stumble — away from the Oval Office.    

  BREAKING: President Biden takes a fall on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduationpic.twitter.com/BLef4F8eby

  — The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) June 1, 2023

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  “She is a boogeyman that Republicans can [and will] use when it comes to pushing their message,” said an unnamed senior Republican strategist.

  According to FiveThirtyEight‘s polling composite, Harris has a 56% disapproval rating — slightly worse than Biden — with just 37% approving of her performance. Harris defenders pin the public’s dim view of her on bias against black women and the Biden administration’s mismanagement of her public relations:

  “The White House team themselves didn’t fully understand early on the differences that when you have a woman in this role, it has to look different,” said an anonymous Harris ally. “You have to do it differently. You can’t just do it the way you would with a white man, because again, people have never seen it before.” 

  We think it has a lot more to do with the fact that every time she opens her mouth, Harris sounds like a high school student who’s called on after skipping the reading assignment: 

  This lady is dumber than a bag of rocks

  I present to you Kamala Harris just repeating “the significance of the passage of time” over and overpic.twitter.com/FvGcTWYSfK

  — Gummi Bear (@gummibear737) March 21, 2022

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  What is Kamala Harris talking about? pic.twitter.com/GegCvNtovo

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 13, 2022

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  Kamala Harris truly has a way with words pic.twitter.com/3XKC7hJXW5

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 10, 2023

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  Of course, when she can’t come up with a word salad, there’s always her trademark cackling — which, all by itself is worth at least a 15-point approval-rating hit: 

  Kamala Harris calls Joe Biden a racist during the debates.

  Colbert questions her on it.

  Kamala Harris: “It was a debate”.

  pic.twitter.com/0ixnuvHVZf

  — ❂̷̨̰͍̜̈́̃̓̉̌̔͋̚͘͝ Michael (@OdinAwakens) January 14, 2022

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  The cackle is back! Apparently VP Kamala Harris finds talking about Ukrainian refugees to be funny. pic.twitter.com/MIrX6IJFc9

  — MRCTV (@mrctv) March 11, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 18:40

• Why Boomers Don't Trust Bitcoin (And How To Convince Them To Open Their Minds)
  Why Boomers Don’t Trust Bitcoin (And How To Convince Them To Open Their Minds)

  Authored by Dan Weintraub via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  As with every generation, baby boomers are skeptical of the innovations embraced by youth. But they can’t miss out on Bitcoin…

  

  Trust is a funny thing. Generationally speaking, one could make the argument that it is the job of the younger generation to essentially tell us older folks to go fly a kite (perhaps in more raw terms, and metaphorically of course) when it comes to our values, our norms, our advice, etc. Music provides an apt cultural landscape on which to view this tension.

  THE SAME OLD SONG

  In every generation, emerging and evolving musical forms have been decried by the older, traditional set as being bad music, noise, even not music at all. In the late 1950s, Walter Cronkite referred to jazz as “musical noise,” and his words were not offered as praise. Rockabilly of the 1950s was surely detested by many in the traditional country community. The music of the Summer Of Love was rejected by many parents who likely embraced jazz and bebop. Punk rockers were undoubtedly met with blank stares and utter contempt by their hippie parents, and rap continues to be the object of musical scorn the world over. The point is clear: Tradition hates innovation, mostly because tradition doesn’t understand innovation and feels threatened by this new iteration. And yet, the truth remains; it’s all just music.

  Here’s where things get a bit complicated.

  It’s one thing to not understand, dislike, even personally reject something new. It’s another thing entirely to discredit the new, to actively fight against the new, to try and destroy the new. And within that effort to destroy and to bury the new form of expression, those seeking to kill off the new thing will, in their rather tired and sad desperation, create false narratives and stories to rationalize their adherence to traditional ways. Unfortunately, these narratives can become so powerful, that they lead to the development of institutions and movements guided entirely by falsehood, led by self-serving and power-hungry zealots, armed with all of the cultural weaponry that tradition has at its disposal; shameless and conscienceless, these forces will often go to extreme lengths to kill the thing that they have decided, in their self-concerned ignorance, is evil.

  As much as I hope that, somewhere far in the future, such destructive and reductive forces can be disempowered by truth-informed mechanisms like the Bitcoin protocol, I am not holding my breath. But in the present, the power of verification — that very thing that makes Bitcoin such a revolutionary moment — can be leveraged by the Bitcoin community as a way to bridge the generational gap, to push back against the narratives that baby boomers and others embrace in their rejection of Bitcoin, and to move the protocol adoption curve forward.

  MY BITCOIN PITCH TO FELLOW BOOMERS

  Here’s my point:

  My generation (I’m a youthful 61) has many qualms with Bitcoin. Some of these concerns are valid (old people hate volatility), while others are informed by entirely false narratives and prejudices. And just like with the musical examples above, so many of these false narratives are incredibly difficult to disarm; for embedded within these rejections of something new there exists a desperate clinging to something understandable, something empowering, something unifying in its self-righteous disgust and self-concentered defensiveness.

  Now granted, I’m a boomer, so I have a little more natural validity when I speak with my peers about Bitcoin. I’m not the AirPods-wearing, yoga-mat-toting, entirely-self-absorbed and personal-development-obsessed millennial who my generation loathes so very much (wry smile). But even such affinity does not get me far with Bitcoin. Rejection narratives come hot and they come quickly: environmental degradation, dark web currency, gambling casinos that make TikTok’ers rich, etc.

  My strategy in pushing back against these arguments goes back to music:

  “Look,” I say “You may be right. Bitcoin may be energy intensive and not helpful to the environment. Bitcoin may be used by scammers and defrauders as part of their schemes to get rich. Bitcoin may be the currency, or one of the currencies, of a generation of social-media heads, people who you hold in such contempt. This may all be true. But I would argue three things: One, that you are embracing arguments that you have heard but have not investigated yourself; Two, that you are basing your hatred and rejection of Bitcoin not on the merits of Bitcoin, but on the way Bitcoin shows up in the world (just like our parents rejected our music, because it came with long hair and blue jean jackets); And three, that you are rejecting Bitcoin because you don’t understand it, which is so very much what all older generations do about shit they don’t get.”

  And then I say this:

  “There’s one thing about Bitcoin that makes it different from anything else in the world, and that is the dynamic of verification. Ignore all of the other stuff just for a second, if you can. I am entirely willing to stipulate that, after you do your own research and after you challenge your own prejudices toward those yucky millennials (another wry smile) that you may still reject Bitcoin, but hear me out on this one thing, this one really cool and rather revolutionary element of Bitcoin: Unlike every other human interaction in the world, Bitcoin does not ask us to put our blind trust in anyone else. No one owns it or controls it, so we’re not being asked to trust the words and deeds of bankers or government officials or scammers or anyone; no one can hack it (take some time to learn about why), so it is, even in its volatility as an investment, the most secure network of all time; and no can destroy it, because it is software that runs on millions of computers, all of which are verifying each and every transaction that takes place.”

  And then this:

  “Look, I’m not saying you should invest in bitcoin. And lord knows that in a world replete with greedy people and liars, bitcoin is just as apt to be used by these people as are dollars or gold or real estate or whatever gets them rich. And truth be known, millennials make me roll my eyes as well. But you know what, that’s my generational B.S. It’s my own crap. Just like my parents shook their heads at my Grateful Deadness and my punk rockness, I shake my head toward millennials. But that rigidity and silliness shouldn’t inform my views about an emerging monetary technology and protocol. If it does, then I am guilty of the very thing that we blamed our parents for being guilty of 40 years ago. I don’t want to be part of yet another anti-intellectual generation that rejects stuff it doesn’t understand, or that embraces false narratives about things because those are the narratives we are exposed to the most.”

  And then my closing:

  “All I’m asking is that you take a moment and consider what a world in which verification of truth, rather than trusting someone else’s words, might look like. For example, bitcoin and the Bitcoin network could have totally ended all of the stuff about stolen elections, because within this realm of verification there exists the ability to validate and verify each and every transaction (every vote) beyond any doubt. Also, with the Bitcoin network and protocol, you can say goodbye to things like identity theft and credit card scams and being double charged for stuff you didn’t buy; because with Bitcoin every, every, every transaction is verified on an entirely secure network by tens of thousands of computers running unhackable software. And the thing is, there are so many examples of how verification could make the world in which we live so much better, because when we can verify stuff then we end up trusting the whole process. So all I’m asking is to do a little investigation about this thing before you reject it; you may find, despite yourself, that as you get it more, your appreciation for it changes.”

  We live in a world in which trust is an ever-diminishing construct. As I noted in my first two pieces in this series, as trust continues to erode, we, as a species, are in increasing trouble and distress. I totally grok why my generation doesn’t trust Bitcoin. But I also get that our mistrust is informed by false narratives, by petty prejudices, and by a tenacious adherence to things we understand and know. The thing about Bitcoin that makes it so novel, and so elegant, is that the protocol, by way of example, cuts through all of the falsehood. This I feel is the most powerful thing about Bitcoin, and this I feel is a route toward bringing more and more people into the fold.

  Virtually everyone on the planet, boomers included, is concerned about the direction we are heading as a species. And at the heart of this fear is the fact that we can’t trust anything anymore. Bitcoin changes this through its inviolable verification mechanism. It begins with money, property, assets. Who knows where it ends.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 18:20

• North Korea's Kim Thanks Putin For Implementing "Sacred Cause" Of Fighting "Imperialists" 
  North Korea’s Kim Thanks Putin For Implementing “Sacred Cause” Of Fighting “Imperialists” 

  North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has sent a glowingly supportive message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the occasion of Russia’s National Day.

  Kim has pledged his “full support and solidarity”, according to state media. Celebrated every year on June 12 since 1992, the national day commemorates the creation of the post-Soviet Russian Federation, including the establishment of the Russian presidency and constitution. 

  

  Kim said, according to state media KCNA: “The DPRK people are extending full support and solidarity to the people of your country in their all-out struggle for implementing the sacred cause to preserve the sovereign rights, development and interests of the country against imperialists’ high-handed and arbitrary practices.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 18:00

• Notes From The Memory Hole: The Great Double-Talking Vaccine Scientist
  Notes From The Memory Hole: The Great Double-Talking Vaccine Scientist

  Authored by Matt Orfalea and Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

  Few health figures have been more visible during the pandemic than Dr. Peter Hotez. Interviews by the Director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development are a master class in modern day branding, as the good doctor seldom appears without an instantly recognizable ensemble of lab coat, specs, and bow tie. (If cable TV had a Halloween Party, Hotez-in-a-bag would surely have been one of the most popular get-ups from 2020 on.) Hotez advertises his marketing acumen, making sure every time he appears on air that the shot is crammed with posed copies of his books. He’s become a legit pop culture phenom, appearing with Trevor Noah, TMZ, CNBC, CNN, Fox and beyond.

  Like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Hotez was among the most prominent members of the “Your child will die in shrieking agony if you don’t get the shot” school of pandemic messaging. As Matt Orfalea’s brutal new video shows, however, he accrued more contradictory dosage recommendations on this score than Imelda Marcos had shoes.

  For those of us who wanted to believe authorities, such messaging about the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines, and the necessity of inoculation to save not only our own lives but those of our children and our neighbors’ children, was powerful stuff. “If you wait,” you see him saying, “it’s going to be too late to protect your child.”

  How could you not believe him? He’s in a lab coat! But fear not: “I’m strongly recommending for adolescents to get their two doses of vaccine,” he said. “Two doses of vaccine are fully immunized.”

  As Orf shows, Hotez from there went on to release one sad-trombone update after another. First: “We’re seeing that two doses is not holding up well for emergency room visits.” Then it was, “You need that third immunization, triple the amount… We were always a three dose vaccine.”

  Then the third immunization didn’t “hold up,” either, so: “We have to consider some out of the box things — a fourth immunization.” Next: “A fifth immunization. Five.”

  But don’t worry, “I don’t think we’re gonna need an annual booster like flu,” until he said exactly that, only worse: “Every, you know, few months, we may need another booster.”

  Subscribers to Racket News can read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 17:40

• US Lawmakers File "SEC Stabilization Act" To Fire Gary Gensler
  US Lawmakers File “SEC Stabilization Act” To Fire Gary Gensler

  Authored by Derek Andersen via CoinTelegraph.com,

  United States Rep. Warren Davidson has introduced the “SEC Stabilization Act” into the House of Representatives, announced on June 12. One of the bill’s main provisions is to fire Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler. 

  

  Davidson said in a statement:

  “U.S. capital markets must be protected from a tyrannical Chairman, including the current one. That’s why I’m introducing legislation to fix the ongoing abuse of power and ensure protection that is in the best interest of the market for years to come. It’s time for real reform and to fire Gary Gensler as Chair of the SEC.”

  Davidson declared his intention to introduce the bill earlier this year. He made that announcement in reply to a tweet by Coinbase legal chief Paul Grewal. Rep. Tom Emmer is the co-author of the bill. Emmer said, “The SEC Stabilization Act will make common-sense changes to ensure that the SEC’s priorities are with the investors they are charged to protect and not the whims of its reckless Chair.”

  According to Fox News, the bill would remove Gensler from office and redistribute power between the SEC chair and commissioners. It would also add a sixth commissioner to the agency, disallow any party from holding a majority on the commission and create an executive director position.

  The #SECStabilizationAct explained ⤵️

  ❌ Fires Chair @GaryGensler

  ✅ All rulemaking, enforcement, & investigations conducted by 6 commissioners

  ➕ Creates ED Role for day-to-day operations

  Thank you, @GOPMajorityWhip for helping lead this legislation. pic.twitter.com/QFEHePJh1h

  — Warren Davidson 🇺🇸 (@WarrenDavidson) June 12, 2023

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

  Although the lawmakers did not mention cryptocurrency in their statements, both Davidson and Emmer are known to be pro-crypto and critical of Gensler’s leadership at the SEC.

  Emmer has, for example, called Gensler a “bad faith regulator,” and Davidson is the vice chair of the House Financial Services Committee’s new  Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion.

  An SEC spokesman declined to comment when approached by Cointelegraph. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 17:20

• The Shanghai International Gold Exchange And Its Role In De-Dollarization
  The Shanghai International Gold Exchange And Its Role In De-Dollarization

  By Jan Nieuwenhuijs of Gainesville Coins

  This article is a primer on the Chinese gold market, more specifically the Shanghai International Gold Exchange (SGEI). The SGEI facilitates “offshore” gold trading in renminbi and can play a crucial role in de-dollarization, as it allows countries to use renminbi as a trade currency that can be converted into gold without affecting China’s balance of payments. De-dollarization can be accomplished by using yuan to settle international trade and store surpluses in gold through the SGEI.

  

  Introduction

  In the Chinese gold market two circuits can be distinguished. Simplified, there is gold trading in the domestic market and in Free Trade Zones (FTZs). The domestic market is separated from FTZs and the rest of the world by the Chinese central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), that controls import into and export from the domestic market. Gold import and export between FTZs and the rest of the world is not regulated by the PBoC. The SGEI is located in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (SFTZ) to spur international gold trading in renminbi.

  The Chinese Domestic Gold Market

  Let’s first examine the Chinese domestic gold market with the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) at its core before we discuss the ins and outs of the SGEI.

  Prior to 2002 the PBoC was the primary dealer in the Chinese gold market. With the launch of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) in 2002 the market was slowly liberalized and took over price setting and gold allocation from the central bank. By 2007 liberalization was completed as by then most wholesale supply and demand flowed through the SGE.

  Laws and tax incentives funnel most supply—mine output, imports, and recycled gold—towards the SGE, which for liquidity reasons automatically attracts most demand. The SGE has its own chain of integrity, meaning only certified refineries can load-in gold bars into SGE vaults. To guarantee all metal in the SGE vaulting system is of the right quality, bars withdrawn from the vaults are not allowed to re-enter before having been remelted by a certified refiner. Every month the SGE publishes the tonnage of gold withdrawn from its vaults, which can be interpreted as wholesale demand.

  From the SGE rulebook:

  gold bullion will no longer be accepted into any [SGE] Certified Vault once it has been withdrawn by a member or customer.

  Import into and export from the domestic market is referred to as “general trade,” and in the case of gold it’s controlled by the PBoC. Twenty or so enterprises are authorized to import and export standard gold*, but for every batch they need a new License by the PBoC. Because the Chinese government has a policy of storing gold among the people to strengthen China’s economic security, imports are usually not restricted, as opposed to exports that are more or less prohibited. Panda Coins, for example, will be allowed to be exported from the domestic market, but that’s about it.

  Since 2004 jewelry fabricators and alike located in mainland China can sell their products abroad though “processing trade.” For processing trade no PBoC License is required; under this framework enterprises can freely import into and export gold from FTZs. A fabricator can import raw materials into a FTZ, manufacture products, and export the finished goods. Needless to say, any entity wanting to import gold from a FTZ into the domestic market needs approval by the PBoC.

  

  The Shanghai International Gold Exchange

  To slowly open up China’s financial markets, enhance the connection between the international gold market and the Chinese domestic market, and push renminbi internationalization the SGEI was launched in 2014 in the SFTZ. The SGE is often referred to as the Main Board (MB) and the SGEI as the International Board (IB). The SGEI is fully owned by the SGE (the Exchange hereafter).

  Both foreign and Chinese residents can trade MB as well as IB gold contracts on the Exchange. Though, foreigners can only load-in and load-out gold into and from IB vaults in the SFTZ, while Chinese residents can only load-in and load-out gold into and from MB vaults in the domestic market. The exception is that those eligible to import gold under general trade may sell gold located in IB vaults into the domestic market**. Below is an overview of what privileges which traders have with respect to MB and IB contracts.

  

  Foreigners and Chinese residents can thus add liquidity to MB and IB contracts but can only physically move metal on their own side of the fence. As a result, neither will trade gold on the other side for reasons other than making markets, arbitrage, and speculation. Chinese long-term investors, in example, are not likely to buy metal in the SFTZ as they can’t withdraw that metal. Foreigners wanting to withdraw and repatriate will trade IB contracts.

  Another feature of the Exchange is that it commingles onshore and offshore renminbi, providing a platform for arbitrage between the two.

  China’s Balance of Payments, Cross-border Trade Statistics, and SGE Withdrawals

  To understand everything related to the SGEI, we need to drill a little deeper into international trade. What is often misunderstood is that a country’s current account—part of its Balance of Payments, BOP—is not a reflection of goods and services crossing its border. Current accounts register the value of goods and services exchanged between domestic and foreign residents, wherever these residents are located. Cross-border trade statistics (International Merchandise Trade Statistics, IMTS), on the other hand, record the value of goods physically being moved across borders irrespective of the buyer and seller’s nationalities.

  Should a European bullion bank ship gold from London to an SGEI vault in the SFTZ, this will show up in global IMTS but doesn’t affect China’s BOP. When this batch is bought by an Indian investor, withdrawn from an SGEI vault, and exported to a designation of the owners’ discretion, the trade has circumvented China’s current account although it was settled with yuan. To be clear, for IMTS data it’s irrelevant if goods are shipped into a FTZ or the domestic market, as long as it crosses an international border an import and export are recognized.

  Now we have reached a basic understanding of the SGEI, we need to examine a few additional elements to complete our analysis. Regarding IMTS figures, only non-monetary gold movements across borders are recorded. Monetary gold, which is metal owned by a monetary authority such as a central bank, is exempt from being reported in IMTS. From the United Nations IMTS rulebook:

  Since monetary gold is treated as a financial asset rather than a good, transactions pertaining to it should be excluded from international merchandise trade statistics.

  We could be misled when reviewing Chinese net import, in example, if a bank imports gold into the SFTZ, which is then bought by the central bank of Saudi Arabia (SAMA) on the SGEI, and then invisibly exported as monetary gold. The moment SAMA buys non-monetary gold, the metal is monetized—as prescribed by the IMF—and is subsequently eclipsed from cross-border trade statistics. This is how central banks move gold across the globe under the radar. IMTS would display the non-monetary gold import into China but not the monetary gold export, leading to an overstatement of Chinese net import. The reverse is also true: a central bank shipping monetary gold to the SFTZ would be invisible until it is bought by the private sector and de-monetized.

  In final, the Exchange discloses an aggregate number for the monthly weight of gold withdrawn from SGE and SGEI vaults combined. At the surface, this number is difficult to put into perspective. Total load-out volume could all end up in the domestic market—being a useful reflection of Chinese wholesale demand—or a chunk of it is exported as (non-)monetary gold from the SFTZ. Luckily, I have insider knowledge from a source at the SGEI. In 2015, this person told me that virtually all IB trading was done by Chinese banks for importing gold into the domestic market. More recently he wrote me that little gold withdrawn from IB vaults is exported abroad. Total withdrawals thus mainly relate to Chinese demand.

  Conclusion

  As demonstrated, gold trading in renminbi on the SGEI can be compared to offshore gold trading in the London Bullion Market with US dollars. As such, the SGEI is part of China’s ambitions to internationalize the renminbi to the detriment of the dollar.

  Many commentators in the financial blogosphere state China’s closed capital account is holding back the offshore renminbi market from competing with the Eurodollar (offshore dollar) market. True, though PBoC swap lines promote the international use of renminbi, and as Zoltan Pozsar noted in the In Gold We Trust 2023 report: “China has a swap line with everybody.” With which he meant thirty-two counterparties.

  

  Confirming what we have discussed is a speech by Teng Wei, Deputy General Manager of the Shanghai International Gold Exchange, from 2016:

  The international board uses renminbi for pricing and settlement, which effectively connects the onshore and offshore renminbi market …. It also provides a new channel for the return of funds, which is a useful exploration for expanding the cross-border flow of renminbi and steadily promoting the internationalization of renminbi.

  …

  The journey of the Shanghai International Gold Exchange will epitomize the opening of China’s financial markets to the outside world and play an important part in the internationalization of the renminbi. With Shanghai becoming the third most important market in the world after London and New York, the Chinese gold market will make a great contribution to the internationalization of the renminbi.

  Renminbi reserve currency status is still far away because yuan held overseas can’t freely be invested in Chinese assets such as bonds and other securities due to China’s closed capital account. Renminbi can, however, be converted into gold without limits.

  Last month Russian news outlet TASS reported the BRICS nations are working on a common currency for international payments. “The idea of creating a common currency, although I would probably call it a payment unit inside BRICS countries, is floating around and is being discussed. We also have proposals about using digital financial assets supported by real assets, for example gold stable coins,” Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.

  These gold stable coins are most likely to represent gold held in SGEI vaults, Moscow, or other cities in Brazil, South-Africa, or India. Time will tell if the BRICS will materialize this new payment system that incorporates gold, and if the SGEI will be used more by international players.

  Appendix

  * In China standard gold must be a bar or ingot weighing 50g, 100g, 1Kg, 3Kg or 12.5Kg, with a minimum fineness of 995.0, 999.0, 999.5, or 999.9 parts per thousand.

  ** Technically, an enterprise eligible for import may load-in metal into IB vaults and sell these metals as deliverable on the MB, provided it has a PBoC License. When the buyer wants to withdraw this gold, the Exchange will make sure it will be loaded out from a vault in the domestic market. That is the easy way of explaining it. For the exact rules please read the Detailed Delivery Rules of Shanghai Gold Exchange:

  The Exchange has established a network of Certified Vaults to facilitate physical delivery through the Exchange as well as bullion storage and other transactions by members and customers. Certified Vaults are classified into Main Board Certified Vaults (the MB Certified Vaults) and International Board Certified Vaults (the IB Certified Vaults). MB Certified Vaults provide bullion storage, load-in and load-out services to Domestic Members and Domestic Customers. IB Certified Vaults provide bullion storage, load-in and load-out services to International Members, International Customers, and any Domestic Members and Domestic Customers who are qualified to import and export gold [have a PBoC License], as well as in acting as their agent in making customs declarations for bullion to be transported into or out of bonded zones [FTZs]. IB Certified Vaults shall accept the supervision of the customs authorities of China.

  …

  Authorized International Members and International Customers may deposit International Board bullion into IB Certified Vaults and, subject to relevant approved quota [PBoC License], may deposit Main Board bullion into IB Certified Vaults. No International Member or International Customer is permitted to deposit bullion into MB Certified Vaults.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 17:00

• Watch: McCarthy Destroys CNN Reporter When Asked About Classified Doc Scandal
  Watch: McCarthy Destroys CNN Reporter When Asked About Classified Doc Scandal

  House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may be facing a revolt from Freedom Caucus House Republicans over his Dem-friendly debt deal, but he also may have just earned a few points back obliterating a CNN reporter who asked about former President Donald Trump’s document scandal.

  

  “The idea of equal justice is not playing out here,” McCarthy said, calling it a “real concern to all Americans.”

  “You’re with CNN, right?” McCarthy asks the reporter, who acknowledges that she is.

  “So let’s talk about this even further because when somebody weaponizes government and they actually get removed from government – let’s take Andrew McCabe –“

  As soon as McCarthy mentions McCabe, the reporter gets extremely defensive – cutting him off and exclaiming “but this is a different case! This is a different set of circumstances, right? I mean the former president is accused of misleading law enforcement, of a conspiracy of obstructing justice… that’s a different set of facts. Are you prepared to defend him as the former president..” she regurgitated.

  To which McCarthy shot back – “Are you prepared to defend your network, CNN … [reporter tries to interject] … you can’t put words in my mouth, even though your network can hire Andrew McCabe, who was fired from the FBI for leaking classified documents. Did you remove him from your network? No, you continue to put him on to give judgement against President Trump,” he said.

  “You also hired Clapper…” he continued – only to be cut off once again.

  McCarthy simply ignores the next question and continues his sentence.

  “So your network hires Clapper, who literally lied to the American public, one of 51 other individuals that had briefings and used it politically to tell the American public that a laptop was Russia collusion, even though it had all this information about the Biden administration. Are you prepared to get rid of those people from your network? Because my concern as a policymaker is that when you weaponize government, and now you’re weaponizing networks, that is wrong.”

  “So we will take all of our power to make sure that the legal system in America puts the blinders back on and people are treated fairly. And I have a real problem that your network actually pays people who did classified information and then lied to the American public to try to influence a presidential election – and then you put them on your network to give an opinion about a president…  …what your network has done has weaponized at the same time.”

  Watch:

  McCarthy just LIT UP this CNN reporter about them hiring McCabe and Clapper after they leaked classified information and interfered in 2020 pic.twitter.com/JyZg171M0z

  — Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 12, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMeanwhile in other deep state debacles – Rep. Nancy Mace put Keith Olbermann in his place after he claimed that Hillary Clinton’s team never destroyed government devices with a hammer.

  How it started vs. How it’s going @KeithOlbermann style.

  Facts are a funny thing Keith… pic.twitter.com/7hPaaDCQCw

  — Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) June 12, 2023

  Still waiting on Kinzinger’s community note for doing the same thing.

  pic.twitter.com/aRB28VH3bt

  — Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) June 11, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 16:40

• 11 Signs That Our Economic Problems Are Accelerating A Lot Faster Than Most People Were Anticipating
  11 Signs That Our Economic Problems Are Accelerating A Lot Faster Than Most People Were Anticipating

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  A lot of the “experts” have been telling us that economic conditions are likely to really start deteriorating later in the year, but here we are in June and the economy is beginning to unravel a lot quicker than most of them had anticipated.  The housing bubble is imploding, existing home sales are plunging all over the nation, foreclosures are surging, manufacturing numbers have fallen into contraction territory and jobless claims are rising.  We are building up a tremendous amount of momentum in the wrong direction, and just about everyone agrees that the outlook for the remainder of 2023 is not promising.  So if things are this bad now, what will they look like in six months?

  For a long time, the U.S. economy was “remarkably resilient”, but now things have started to change in a major way.

  

  The following are 11 signs that our economic problems are accelerating a lot faster than most people were anticipating…

  #1 We just learned that foreclosure-related filings were up 14 percent last month compared to the same period a year ago…

  As the cost of living in the U.S. continues to climb, foreclosures are also on the rise.

  May foreclosure-related filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were up 7% from April and up 14% from a year ago, to 35,196 properties, according to the real estate data group ATTOM.

  #2 We are being warned that foreclosure filings are on an “upward trajectory” which suggests “heightened activity” in the months ahead…

  “The recent increase in foreclosure filings nationwide indicates a trend that has been observed throughout the year, and what we have expected to occur,” Rob Barber, ATTOM’s CEO, said in a statement. “This upward trajectory suggests the possibility of continued heightened activity, and with foreclosure completions seeing the largest monthly increase this year, we will continue to monitor the potential impacts this may have on the housing market.”

  #3 As the housing bubble bursts, sales of existing homes are falling all over the nation.  For example, sales of existing homes in central Indiana have now declined for 16 months in a row…

  Sales of existing homes in central Indiana dropped 14.8% in May—the 16th straight month that sales have decreased on a year-over-year basis.

  Closed sales of existing homes in the 16-county area in May totaled 2,901, down from 3,406 in the same month of 2022, according to the latest monthly data from the MIBOR Realtor Association.

  #4 One recent study found that a whopping 8 million Americans currently live in a household that is behind on paying rent.  Many are just barely surviving from month to month like this single mother that was recently profiled in the Los Angeles Times…

  Evelyn Arceo holds down a full-time job as a baker at Universal Studios Hollywood, earning $19 an hour. But even when she gets a few hours of overtime at the theme park, the single mother of four can barely afford the rent of her one-bedroom apartment in Panorama City.

  On her salary, buying a home is out of the question.

  Already, her monthly rent of $1,300 is “just too expensive at this point,” Arceo said, with late fees of $40 to $50 compounding her financial plight. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on time on my rent.”

  #5 The most epic commercial real estate crisis in U.S. history has begun, and we are being warned that the two massive defaults in San Francisco that recently made headlines all over the world could just be the tip of the iceberg…

  News of Park Hotels & Resorts’ plan to surrender ownership of two of San Francisco’s largest hotels is the beginning of what could potentially become a mass exodus of hotels from the city as 30 additional properties are facing massive loans due over the next two years.

  The company behind the hotels announced Monday it had stopped making payments on its $725million loan that is due in November for the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels.

  #6 Major corporate bankruptcies are happening at the fastest pace that we have seen since 2010…

  US corporate bankruptcies crept higher in May over the prior month as higher interest rates and a slowing economy are pushing many companies over the edge.

  S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 54 corporate bankruptcy filings during May, a slight rise from 52 April. In the first five months of the year, 2023 has recorded more filings than any comparable period since 2010.

  #7 Initial jobless claims just rose to their highest level in almost two years…

  Initial jobless claims surged last week to 261k (up from 233k prior and well above the 235k exp) – its highest since Oct 2021.

  #8 According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, during the first five months of this year the number of announced job cuts was up 315 percent compared to the same five months last year.

  #9 U.S. manufacturing has now fallen into contraction territory…

  S&P Global data showed that the US manufacturing sector fell into contraction territory in May. A similar survey released by the Institute for Supply Management showed the industry contracted for the seventh consecutive month in May, at a faster pace than in the prior month.

  #10 European manufacturing has also dropped into contraction territory…

  Among manufacturers in the eurozone, production, new orders and backlogs all fell in May as the sector contracted at a faster pace that month, according to S&P Global figures. The 20-nation currency area’s industrial production fell sharply in March, mostly due to a plunge in Ireland. The indicator measures the output of manufacturers, miners, and utility companies.

  #11 It is being reported that new numbers show that the EU “entered a recession in the first quarter of this year”…

  The euro zone entered a recession in the first quarter of this year, and economists are not optimistic for the coming months.

  The 20-member bloc reported gross domestic product of -0.1% for the first quarter, according to revised estimates from the region’s statistics office, Eurostat, released Thursday.

  What I have just shared with you is certainly quite a bit of bad news.

  But if I am correct, conditions will continue to deteriorate throughout the rest of this year and into 2024.

  We live at such a critical moment in human history, and those that have been waiting for life to “return to normal” can stop waiting.

  The pace of change is picking up speed with each passing month, and most of us are simply not prepared for the craziness that is ahead.

  *  *  *

  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, 06/12/2023 – 16:20

• Bonds, Banks, Bullion, & Black Gold Dip As Mega-Cap Tech Continues To Rip
  Bonds, Banks, Bullion, & Black Gold Dip As Mega-Cap Tech Continues To Rip

  Ahead of a potentially chaotic week with CPI, FOMC, and Quad-Witch OpEx, today was relatively ‘quiet’ on the headline-front.

  Tesla’s stock price rose for the 12th straight day – the longest winning streak in the company’s history…

  

  …now up over 100% YTD…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Apple broke out to a new all-time record high…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And that helped drag Nasdaq to outperform, as The Dow and Small Caps lagged. But all the majors ended green. NOTE the wild swings in Russell 2000 around the cash open…

  

  As Nasdaq continued to reverse last week’s losses relative to Small Caps…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  With 4320 a key level – linked to the JPM Collar – it appears 0-DTE traders aggressively bought puts as the S&P neared that level, but failed to inspire any downside momentum… and in the end being forced to unwind (prompting 0-DTE call-buying)…

  

  Source: SpotGamma

  And today’s winning lottery ticket goes to…

  

  Citizens, KeyCorp, and Truist were all hammered today – weighing on the overall bank index – on margin (NIM) compression, rising charge-offs, and lowered revenue guidance respectively…

  

  Last week’s surge in value relative to growth has now been erased…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  VIX rose back to a 14 handle today (despite the gains in stocks) reverting higher after VVIX’s decoupling…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  VIX1D soared today – just as it did ahead of last month’s CPI…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Treasuries were mixed today with the short-end outperforming. The last hour saw buying across the curve though which left only 10Y and 30Y yields marginally higher…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The dollar ended higher after weakness overnight, with the green back bid thru the US session…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Crypto is down from Friday, after a total SNAFU liquidation on Saturday took the entire asset-class down in minutes…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Gold dropped again today, erasing last week’s spike…

  

  Oil prices tumbled today – not helped by Goldman slashing their year-end forecast – with WTI testing a $66 handle, its lowest close since March…

  

  Finally, stocks continue to look through tightening financial conditions…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  …hoping beyond all rationality for The Fed’s next handout.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 16:01

• Moving To 'Wall Street South' From NYC Can Save You Up To $200k
  Moving To ‘Wall Street South’ From NYC Can Save You Up To $200k

  New York-based investment firms have been moving to the Sunshine State. Firms like Goldman Sachs, Tiger Global Management, and D1 Capital Partners have all announced plans to move offices and executives to “Wall Street South” in South Florida. Those who make the leap from Manhattan to Brickell will find an improved cost of living and lower taxes. 

  The Finance website SmartAsset found those making $650,000 per year in Manhattan could save $195,000 if they move to Miami because of cheaper living costs and lower taxes. Even someone making $150,000 in Manhattan can save upwards of $49,000 per year by moving to Wall Street South. 

  Here are the tax and cost of living savings from NYC to Miami

  

  And why not? The weather is a tropical delight (minus hurricane season), people are friendlier, and progressives have yet to ruin the state. Some things don’t have a price… 

  

  For those in San Francisco earning $650,000, relocating to South Florida may not offer as substantial cost savings as it would for New Yorkers. However, they can still expect to save approximately $153,000. 

  

  Meanwhile, higher earners from Chicago can expect to save very little on the move. 

  

  Despite the minimal cost savings on the move, Chicagoans must consider South Florida isn’t a warzone. Some things in life, like safety, are invaluable and cannot be quantified monetarily. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 15:45

• Can Americans 'Handle The Truth'?
  Can Americans ‘Handle The Truth’?

  Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

  We’re Not Finished

  “You give me a piece of ground and a sword and I am going to take back this country with your help and the help of all the homeless Democrats and Republicans who are Americans first.” 

  – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  If you’re wondering why our country is lost in lunatic raptures of lawless Lawfare and futile MAGAry, it’s because our economy has already collapsed, and our culture and politics with it downstream have also collapsed into spectacular degeneracy. It has already happened. Maybe you don’t know it.

  

  The business model is broken. We’re a shadow of the industrial economy that won a great war and enjoyed a boisterous peace.

  You can’t replace ball bearing factories with theme parks and hedge funds. Sorry. The full faith and credit of the USA is not embodied in those frivolities, so our money is losing its mojo fast.

  But get this: we will go on.

  This is not the end of the world or the end of history. It is the end of an era. Believe it or not, the economy will fix itself, it just won’t be what it was in 1957. It won’t be what the techno-supremacists think, either. (You need a dependable electric grid to run all those server farms and the apps they serve, and the AI supposedly looming.) It will fix itself because when things fail, as they are doing now, a lot of opportunities will open up to do things differently, even very differently.

  When the chain stores fail along with their twelve-thousand-mile supply lines, Americans will figure out how to find stuff, make stuff, move stuff, and sell stuff at a smaller scale, maybe back on your Main Street (if it’s still there). There will be a lot less stuff, of course. But it may be enough stuff, and some of you will be busy making stuff of some kind. Imagine an economy where practically everybody has a useful role to play. Do you know how much more important it is to lead a purposeful, active life than to be lost in leisure and anomie with more stuff than you know what to do with? Which is where we’re at now, even for many who are statistically “poor.”

  When the Happy Motoring colossus tweaks out, we’ll spend less time moving around and more time doing useful things, staying put around the places where we live. We’d be lucky if we could keep some railroads going, but the prospects are not great for that now. Sorry, we blew it. Should have re-started that project in 1970 when the handwriting was on the wall. (We made a lot of bad choices.) Cars and trains require elaborate networks of many interdependent technologies all integrated smoothly at the giant scale — oil, steel, plastics, electronics — and all of that is disintegrating. Pretty soon, you can forget about airplanes, too. That leaves… what? Yes, boats and horses. I know… it sounds inconceivable. Wait for it.

  When our grotesque medical racketeering matrix fails, doctors will practice medicine at smaller scale, probably without advanced pharmaceuticals and techno-diagnostics. They’ll open small local clinics while zombies squat in the broken mega-hospitals. You’ll have to pay in cash, whatever form that comes in. You’ll have to take care of yourself, too, but there will be a whole lot less enticing, engineered, toxic crap available to stuff into your body — Froot Loops, Hot Pockets — and the food markets won’t be all that super. There will certainly be less food altogether, but there will be fewer of us to feed, and more of that fewer-of-us will be busy producing that food, one way or another.

  That’s the reality I see coming. As you’ve seen vividly, the journey from where we were in, say, the year 2000, to where we’re going has been psychologically disordering at the mass scale. These days, people who ought to know better express ideas that would have gotten them laughed out the room in 1999. The catch is that few of you know that this mass disordering grew out of fear of the journey. It was a phenomenon of infectious mass anxiety over something only dimly apprehended. You just thought it was about bad people.

  You’re now faced with the question: how to avoid committing suicide, directly or inadvertently, personally or as a whole society, slowly or quickly? — and its corollary, how to get through the madness in the meantime? Politics happen whether you pay attention to it or not. Politics is concerned with how a society navigates through history. Today, it seems that either A) somebody is steering badly; B) Nobody is steering; or C) some outside force has commandeered the ship’s wheel and is steering for us.

  Any way you look at that, we need somebody to steer.

  Mr. Trump has volunteered to try doing it again. The first time, forces in every quarter of American power set out to bushwhack, sandbag, harass, hector, and hound him. In the process, they just about destroyed the rule of law. Then they simply dis-elected him surreptitiously, something you’re not supposed to say, but there it is, like so much meat on the table. Now they’re trying to hoo-rah him into jail. Whatever you think of his, er, complex personality, you must admire his perseverance through adversity. If he somehow manages to wriggle through the present obstacle course of Lawfare chicanery, his next term would be an extravaganza of retribution. The spectacle would provide much satisfaction but, in the end, it would just be a sideshow, and it is not the same thing as taking care of business.

  “Joe Biden,” of course, the man who is not really even there, is only pretending to run for reelection, or at least a coterie around the Oval Office is pretending for him while they try to figure out what to do. They’re in an awful quandary. They hold all the levers of power and they have no other credible candidate, not a living soul, in their own official hatchery.

  Outside of that ghastly edifice, Robert F. Kennedy is making a determined flanking move, an end-run near the sidelines. The Democratic Party in all its florid and mendacious lunacy is pretending to not notice him, especially their praetorian news media that is the vector for America’s mass mental illness. Mr. Kennedy put it so simply in April when he announced a run to preside over the stupendous mess that is our government. He said his mission is an experiment to see what happens when you tell Americans the truth. Hold that thought. How long has it been since you thought anything like that was possible?

  There’s a broad-based assumption across the land, derived from our fading prime artform, the movies, that Americans can’t handle the truth. Like so much else in our national life, that is probably erroneous… fake truth. And what is so striking in Mr. Kennedy’s performance so far is an absence of fakery. It’s more than refreshing, it’s… startling. Makes you blink, a little bit. Makes you remember what it’s like to not be lied-to incessantly. Makes you want to see more of it because it gives you strength when you thought you were finished.

  Get this now: our world is changing, and deeply, but we’re not finished.

  *  *  *

  Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 15:25

• I-95 Bridge Collapse In Philadelphia Sparks 'Major Traffic Disruption', May Snarl Supply Chains
  I-95 Bridge Collapse In Philadelphia Sparks ‘Major Traffic Disruption’, May Snarl Supply Chains

  Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg warned the I-95 bridge collapse in Northeast Philadelphia would cause “major disruption” for regional transportation and commuters. The stretch of I-95 will be closed for at least a month while the bridge is being rebuilt. 

  On Monday, Buttigieg addressed the American Council of Engineering Companies in Washington. He said his agency is working with state and local officials to rebuild the bridge and will provide financing and technical support. 

  Buttigieg warned summer travel on the I-95 through Philadelphia could be a nightmare:

  “This is not just about commutes.

  “This is also about supply chains, about 150,000 vehicles a day, and a good percentage of that is trucking. For both vehicle passenger traffic, and for goods moving supply chains, this is going to be a major disruption in that region.” 

  I-95 is a major artery for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast and the entire East Coast.

  

  The bridge that collapsed Sunday morning was due to a tanker fire underneath. 

  

  The highway sees, on average, 150,000 vehicles a day. Traffic chaos is already underway:

  

  Tumar Alexander, managing director for the City of Philadelphia, told CBS News that the I-95 closure will have “a significant impact to this community for a while.”

  “95 will be impacted for a long time,” Alexander said. 

  Jana Tidwell, a spokesperson for AAA Mid-Atlantic, told Bloomberg that the I-95 closure comes as peak driving is nearing on a seasonal basis. 

  Also, on Monday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro declared a disaster emergency to tap federal funds to rebuild the bridge as quickly as possible. 

  Shapiro, on Sunday, told reporters the bridge rebuild could take “some number of months.” 

  If you pass Philadelphia this summer, avoid traveling on the I-95 and other highways during peak travel hours. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 15:05

• DOJ Fatigue: Is Special Counsel Smith Singing To An Empty Room?
  DOJ Fatigue: Is Special Counsel Smith Singing To An Empty Room?

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is my column in the Hill on the Trump indictment and why so many citizens have little interest in its content or charges. The reaction of many citizens vividly shows the costs of years of biased and inconsistent decisions involving Democratic and Republican figures. The result is what you now see. The Justice Department has lost the room.

  

  Here is the column:

  When Special Counsel Jack Smith walked before cameras on Friday after the release of the Trump 44-page indictment against former President Donald Trump, he started with arguably his most difficult case to make.

  He declared “we have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone.”

  After years of scandal and documented political bias by key Justice officials, the line likely left many skeptical, assuming many were even watching.

  The indictment was clearly a pitch to the public that this is a prosecution entirely removed from recent history.

  We’re also meant to not think about the fact that the Biden Administration is charging the leading candidate to opposed him in the upcoming election.

  This indictment has merit, but the Justice Department lost the right to expect trust from the citizens years ago — long before the damning Inspector General’s Report and the recent report of Special Counsel John Durham.

  To make matters worse, the same suspects have surfaced to celebrate Trump’s expected demise — and remind the public the perceived double standard in Washington.

  Peter Strzok, the FBI special agent who was fired over his anti-Trump bias in the Russian collusion investigation, cheered the indictment by tweeting a photo of handcuffs with Trump’s image.

  Strzok seems to think that it is a good thing for Smith to remind everyone of how he promised his colleague and lover Lisa Page that she did not have to worry about Trump being elected because they had an “insurance policy” to “stop it.”

  Hillary Clinton went on social media to hawk her line of merchandize mocking the case against her for storing classified material on her personal server and then destroying tens of thousands of emails sought by the Congress.

  She sent out a picture mocking Trump while wearing her “But Her Emails” hat.

  With millions of Americans wondering why Trump is being charged but Clinton was given a pass, Clinton decided to do a victory lap.

  And hey, why not: James Comey is back.

  It was Comey who declined to prosecute Clinton despite finding that she violated federal rules and handled classified material “carelessly.” He then launched a Russian collusion investigation that Durham found lacked minimal support against Trump.

  Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to mishandling classified White House documents that were recovered at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

  Trump unlawfully kept hundreds of documents after leaving office — including papers detailing America’s conventional and nuclear weapons programs, potential weak points in US defenses, and plans to respond to a foreign attack, federal prosecutors charged Friday.

  The 45th president stored boxes containing the documents throughout his estate, including “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room,” according to a 49-page indictment filed in Miami federal court Thursday.

  The indictment against Trump was unsealed hours after the 76-year-old announced he had been charged by Jack Smith, the special counsel tapped in November to examine Trump’s retention of official documents at Mar-a-Lago.

  The indictment is the former commander in chief’s second since leaving office and marks the first time in US history a former president has faced federal charges.

  In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.

  Nevertheless, Comey chose this month to declare that, in the 2024 election, “it has to be Joe Biden.”

  For critics, that is consistent with his views and actions before he was fired as FBI director.

  After Trump was indicted in a raw political prosecution in New York, Comey also went public to declare it a “good day.”

  So in the court of public opinion, past history and hypocrisy may mean that few are swayed about whether they back Trump or not. Which leaves the criminal court.

  This indictment has some devastating elements, including an audiotape in which Trump tells two visitors about a highly classified attack plan on Iran while admitting that it remained unclassified.

  That tape directly contradicts his past claims of declassification and suggests that Trump was using the document as a type of trophy.

  There are also damaging statements from former staff and counsel alleging that Trump actively sought to conceal documents.

  Smith is now left in a battle not with Trump but time.

  There are a variety of challenges expected from the Trump team, including arguing that the government misused the civil statute of the Presidential Records Act to launch a criminal prosecution.

  They are likely to cite a 2012 opinion that Bill Clinton could remove classified tapes with foreign leaders — even if the tapes are designated to be presidential records.

  Amy Berman Jackson declared “the [Presidential Records Act] does not confer any mandatory or even discretional authority on the archivist. Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the president.”

  The Trump team is likely to litigate that and other questions.

  While there are good-faith arguments to make in rebuttal, it will take time.

  And if enough time passes, the ultimate judgment in the case will be the millions of jurors in the coming election.

  Not only can Trump pardon himself, but fellow candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy has also suggested that they will also pardon him.

  Smith’s case could end with a stroke of a pen.

  It seems for both Comey and Smith, it has to be Biden in 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 14:45

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• Iraq Gets US Green Light To Pay $2.76 Billion Gas Bill To Iran
  Iraq Gets US Green Light To Pay $2.76 Billion Gas Bill To Iran

  Via The Cradle,

  The Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce Chairman, Yahya Al-e Eshaq, announced on June 10 that Iraq has released $2.76 billion worth of Iranian funds in gas export money owed by Baghdad. Iraq received a sanctions waiver from the US to make the payment.

  According to an unnamed foreign ministry official that spoke with Reuters, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein got the clearance to make the payment from US State Secretary Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the Riyadh Conference on Thursday.

  

  Eshaq told Iranian media on Saturday that the released funds will meet the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) demands and ensure the purchase of goods needed in the country. He added that the funds could significantly help stabilize the foreign exchange market.

  “Part of Iran’s blocked funds in Iraq has been earmarked for hajj pilgrims, and portions have been used for basic goods,” the Iranian trade official told local media.

  In April, Eshaq said that Tehran and Baghdad had “found several solutions to receive our debt from the Central Bank of Iraq, so Iraq’s outstanding payments to Iran will be cleared gradually within the next three to five months.”

  The US green light to release the money comes following reports that Iranian and US negotiators recently held “proximity talks“ in the Omani capital Muscat, with Omani officials going between them and passing messages.

  According to the sources, the talks aimed to deescalate tensions as a basis for future talks on a new nuclear agreement between the parties.

  In 2015 Iran and several world powers, including the US, signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which placed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

  Washington withdrew from the deal in 2018 and launched a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against the Islamic Republic.

  After months of talks between Iran and the remaining signatories of the JCPOA, last September — under heavy Israeli pressure — the US put an end to any hope of reviving the deal.

  Since then, Iran has restored ties with Saudi Arabia under a Chinese-brokered deal and is reportedly working alongside Gulf countries to form a “naval alliance” to protect the northern Indian Ocean.

  Earlier this week, Iranian media reported that $24 billion of Iran’s frozen assets would soon be released from Iraq and South Korea.

  Due to the sanctions on Iran, Iraq is only allowed to receive Iranian energy imports and pay for them via waivers that extend up to 120 days, a policy implemented by former US president Donald Trump and kept in place by Biden. The sanctions have also hampered Iraq’s payments for imports, putting it in heavy arrears.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/12/2023 – 02:00

• Escobar: The Hegemon Will Go Full Hybrid War Against BRICS+
  Escobar: The Hegemon Will Go Full Hybrid War Against BRICS+

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  U.S. Think Tank Land hacks are not exactly familiar with Montaigne: “On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”

  

  Hubris leads these specimens to presume their flaccid bottoms are placed high above anyone else’s. The result is that a trademark mix of arrogance and ignorance always ends up unmasking the predictability of their forecasts.

  U.S. Think Tank Land – inebriated by their self-created aura of power – always telegraphs in advance what they’re up to. That was the case with Project 9/11 (“We need a new Pearl Harbor”). That was the case with the RAND report on over-extending and unbalancing Russia. And now that’s the case with the incoming American War on BRICS as outlined by the chairman of the New York-based Eurasia Group.

  It’s always painful to suffer through the intellectually shallow Think Thank Land wet dreams masquerading as “analyses” but in this particular case key Global South players need to be firmly aware of what awaits them.

  Predictably, the whole “analysis” revolves around the imminent, devastating humiliation to the Hegemon and its vassals: what happens next in country 404, also known – for now – as Ukraine.

  Brazil, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are dismissed as “four major fence-sitters” when it comes to the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia. It’s the same old “you’re with us or against us” trope.

  But then we are presented with the six major Global South culprits: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.

  In yet another crude, parochial remix of a catch phrase referring to the American elections, these are qualified as the key swing states the Hegemon will need to seduce, cajole, intimidate and threaten to assure its dominance of the “rules-based international order”.

  Saudi Arabia and South Africa are added to a previous report focused on the “four major fence sitters”.

  The swing state manifesto notes that all of them are G-20 members and “active in both geopolitics and geoeconomics” (Oh really? Now that’s some breaking news). What it does not say is that three of them are BRICS members (Brazil, India, South Africa) and the other three are serious candidates to join BRICS+: deliberations will be turbo-charged in the upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa in August.

  So it’s clear what the swing state manifesto is all about: a call to arms for the American war against the BRICS.

  So BRICS packs no punch

  The swing state manifesto harbors wet dreams of near-shoring and friend-shoring moving away from China. Nonsense: enhanced intra-BRICS+ trade will be the order of the day from now on, especially with the expanded practice of trade in national currencies (see Brazil-China or within ASEAN), the first step towards widespread de-dollarization.

  The swing states are characterized as “not a new incarnation” of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), or “other groupings dominated by the Global South, such as the G-77 and BRICS.”

  Talk about exponential nonsense. This is all about BRICS+ – which now has the tools (including the NDB, the BRICS bank) to do what NAM could never accomplish during the Cold War: establish the framework of a new system bypassing Bretton Woods and the interlocking coercion mechanisms of the Hegemon.

  As for stating that BRICS has not “packed much punch” that only reveals U.S. Think Tank Land’s cosmic ignorance of what BRICS + is all about.

  The position of India is only considered in terms of being a Quad member – defined as a “U.S.-led effort to balance China”. Correction: contain China.

  As for the “choice” of swing states of choosing between the U.S. and China on semiconductors, AI, quantum technology, 5G and biotechnology, that’s not about “choice”, but to what level they are able to sustain Hegemon pressure to demonize Chinese technology.

  Pressure on Brazil, for instance, is much heavier than on Saudi Arabia or Indonesia.

  In the end though, it all comes back to the Straussian neocon obsession: Ukraine. The swing states, in varying degrees, are guilty of opposing and/or undermining the sanctions dementia. Turkey, for instance, is accused of channeling “dual-use” items to Russia. Not a word on the U.S. financial system viciously forcing Turkish banks to stop accepting Russian MIR payment cards.

  On the wishful thinking front, this pearl stands out among many: “The Kremlin seems to believe it can make a living by turning its trade south and east.”

  Well, Russia is already making excellent living all across Eurasia and a vast expanse of the Global South.

  The economy has re-started (drivers are domestic tourism, machine building and the metals industry); inflation is at only 2.5% (lower than anywhere in the EU); unemployment is at only 3.5%; and head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina said that by 2024 growth will be back to pre-SMO levels.

  U.S. Think Tankland is congenitally incapable of understanding that even if BRICS+ nations may still have some serious trade credit issues to iron out, Moscow has already shown how even an implied hard backing of a currency can turn out to be an instant game changer. Russia is at the same time backing not only the ruble but also the yuan.

  Meanwhile, the Global South de-dollarization caravan moves on relentlessly – as much as the proxy war hyenas may keep howling in the dark. When the full – staggering – scale of NATO’s humiliation in Ukraine unfolds, arguably by mid-summer, the de-dollarization high-speed train will be fully booked, non-stop.

  “Offer you can’t refuse” rides again

  If all of the above was not already silly enough, the swing state manifesto doubles down on the nuclear front, accusing them of “future (nuclear) proliferation risks”: especially – who else – Iran.

  By the way, Russia is defined as a “middle power, but one in decline”. And “hyper-revisionist” to boot. Oh dear: with “experts” like this, the Americans don’t even need enemies.

  And yes, by now you may be excused to roar with laughter: China is accused of attempting to direct and co-opt BRICS. The “suggestion” – or “offer you can’t refuse”, Mafia-style – to the swing states is that you cannot join a “Chinese-directed, Russian-assisted body actively opposing the United States.”

  The message is unmistakable: “The threat of a Sino-Russian co-optation of an expanded BRICS—and through it, of the global south—is real, and it needs to be addressed.”

  And here are the recipes to address it. Invite most swing states to the G-7 (that was a miserable failure). “More high-level visits by key U.S. diplomats” (welcome to cookie distributor Vicky Nuland). And last but not least, Mafia tactics, as in a “nimbler trade strategy that begins to crack the nut of access to the U.S. market.”

  The swing state manifesto could not but let the Top Cat out of the bag, predicting, rather praying that “U.S.-China tensions rise dramatically and turn into a Cold War-style confrontation.” That’s already happening – unleashed by the Hegemon.

  So what would be the follow-up? The much sought after and spun-to-death “decoupling”, forcing the swing states to “align more closely with one side or the other”. It’s “you’re with us or against us” all over again.

  So there you go. Raw, in the flesh – with inbuilt veiled threats. The Hybrid War 2.0 against the Global South has not even started. Swing states, you have all been warned.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 23:30

• US Musician, Ex-Paratrooper Arrested In Moscow On Drug Charges
  US Musician, Ex-Paratrooper Arrested In Moscow On Drug Charges

  Another American has been arrested in Russia and could be detained for “several years” – CNN is reporting. 

  Statements from the Russian judiciary have identified that “Travis Michael Leek” (the spelling of his name in English statements produced by Russian media have been disputed – and it’s since been corrected in some Western reports to Leake) was detained Saturday on drug-related charges.

  

  Moscow’s courts of general jurisdiction issued a statement on Telegram saying he was arrested after “the Khamovniki District Court of Moscow took a preventive measure against an American citizen.”

  He’s said to be a US veteran, specifically a former paratrooper:

  “The former paratrooper and musician is accused of engaging in the narcotics business through attracting young people,” the Moscow court statement said.

  The district court statement alleged that he “organized the sale of drugs to young people.” He’ll be in custody “until Aug. 6, 2023,” pending possible trial. Specifically he’s accused of selling mephedrone, which has effects commonly described as close to cocaine and MDMA.

  Leake has reportedly lived in Russia for many years and is known as a musician and music producer. His family has said he goes by Travis.

  The State Department in a statement indicated it is “aware” of Leake’s detention, saying “We are aware of reports of the recent arrest of a US citizen in Moscow.” It added: “When a US citizen is detained overseas, the department pursues consular access as soon as possible and works to provide all appropriate consular assistance.”

  Local media reported Leake’s initial statement upon his arrest as follows: “I don’t understand why I’m here. I don’t admit guilt, I don’t believe I could have done what I’m accused of because I don’t know what I’m accused of,” he said.

  Washington is likely to see this as part of Russia’s ongoing crackdown on Americans in its territory amid the backdrop of the Ukraine war and ratcheting punitive economic sanctions from the West.

  Despite the December prisoner swap involving WNBA star Brittney Griner and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, other Americans which Washington declared ‘unlawfully detained’ are still in Russian detention. 

  This includes Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, and school teacher Marc Fogel – the latter who was arrested in August 2021 for possessing medical marijuana. Being caught with drugs also tends to get Americans put under immediate suspicion of “smuggling” or intent to distribute by Russian authorities, which appears to be happening in the case of Travis Leake’s detention.

  Leake is actually well-known in the Moscow music scene, and appeared on Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” in 2014: 

  CNN filmed with Leake in 2014 for an episode of Parts Unknown in Moscow and St Petersburg. Host Anthony Bourdain had personally handpicked Leake to participate in the show.

  In the episode, Leake talked about his frustrations with censorship and relayed an incident involving his band and MTV. “This was a documentary series about musicians standing up and risking their lives in some cases, to stand up against government abuse of power, government corruption,” he said. “And yet, a foreign government was able to editorially control what Americans viewers see on their TV screens. That to me is a scandal of epic proportion.”

  Darya Tarasova, who had produced the episode, said the “band wasn’t that famous but Travis and his friends had been very vocal about the freedom of speech and state oppression in Russia. “Bourdain really liked that interview,” she said.

  Friends of Leake’s have expressed surprise that he chose to stay in Russia even after Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The US has with increased alarm warned Americans to leave Russia.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 23:00

• Eric Peters: "Our Nation's Competitors And Adversaries Are Taking Full Advantage Of Gary Gensler's Hubris"
  Eric Peters: “Our Nation’s Competitors And Adversaries Are Taking Full Advantage Of Gary Gensler’s Hubris”

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “Look, we don’t need more digital currency,” said the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, attempting to somehow justify his agency’s aggressive actions against the crypto industry as a whole.

  “We already have digital currency: it’s called the US dollar. It’s called the euro, or it’s called the yen; they’re all digital right now. We already have digital investments,” continued the regulator, expressing a rather strong opinion for an unelected civil servant leading an agency whose mission is “protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.”

  But of course, the SEC is just one of many US financial regulators, which in aggregate have helped foster the conditions necessary to host the world’s deepest capital markets. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is another regulator. The Federal Reserve too. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The Financial Industry Regulatory Association. And then myriad US state banking, insurance, and securities regulators.

  With such a tangled web of overlapping bureaucracies, there are naturally countless individual ambitions, political agendas, inter-agency tensions, territorial disputes, land grabs, you name it.

  And the whole thing rests upon the great American foundation of democracy, rule of law, property rights, due process, and at least in theory, free market capitalism. Traditionally, such agencies have been agnostic to technologies, recognizing that while the nature of markets and humans are eternal, the tools we invent to connect them advance through time.

  The technologically driven financial market efficiencies made in the past century have been utterly extraordinary, helping fuel American dominance. And yet, here we are, with one of the nation’s most powerful regulators apparently believing it knows better than other regulators and the wisdom of free markets, taking aim at a specific technology and a nascent industry.

  While our nation’s competitors and adversaries take full advantage of the opportunity created by such hubris.

  * * *

  Anecdote

  “The internet now carries the flag of being subversive, possibly rebellious, chaotic, nihilistic,” said David Bowie in a 1999 BBC interview [here].

  “I embrace the idea that there is a new demystification process going on between artist and audience,” continued the visionary, peering over the horizon, glimpsing a world of peer-to-peer connection, synergy, exchange.

  “Up until the mid-1970s, we were still living in the guise of a single and absolute created society, where there were known truths and known lies. And there was no duplicity or pluralism about the things we believed in.” The BBC interviewer remained skeptical throughout, often smug.

  “That started to break down rapidly in the 1970s. And the idea of a duality in the way that we live – there are always two, three, four, five sides to every question. The singularity disappeared,” explained Ziggy Stardust, iconoclast, genius.

  “And I think that has produced a medium such as the internet, which absolutely establishes and shows us that we are living in total fragmentation.”

  The interviewer clung to his small mindedness, a harmless man. Helpful in fact, because such people remind us of the profound dangers we face when allowing such characters to ascend to positions of power, governing our activities, telling us what we can and cannot build, explore, limiting human potential.

  

  “I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable. I think we’re on the cusp of something invigorating and terrifying,” said Bowie. “It is an alien life form. Is there life on Mars? Yes, it’s just landed here,” explained the Space Oddity.

  “The context and state of content is going to be so different to anything we can really envisage at the moment. Where the interplay between user and provider will be so sympatico that it will crash our ideas of what mediums are all about.” Great artists help us imagine our many possible futures, and we then collectively conjure one from the nothingness.

  “It is happening in every form. The idea that the piece of work is not finished until the audience come to it and add their own interpretation, and what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle,” explained Bowie. “That grey space in the middle is what the 21st century is going to be about.”

  Blow Outs

  Binance withdrew its bid to acquire FTX on Nov 9th last year. Sequoia wrote down its $210mm investment to $0 that day. The SEC and DOJ opened investigations. The NYT ran this headline: “Is this Crypto’s Lehman Moment?” Markets plunged. There was no TARP. No lender of last resort. No Fed bailout. In fact, nearly every central bank on the planet was proceeding with a historic rate-hiking cycle. Bitcoin fell to around $15,800 on that scary day in Nov. Ethereum hit $1,100. Basically, the lows. They’re now up 63% and 59% respectively.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 22:30

• Covid-19 Created In Wuhan Lab Through Classified Bioweapons Program: US Investigators
  Covid-19 Created In Wuhan Lab Through Classified Bioweapons Program: US Investigators

  Researchers in Wuhan, China working with the Chinese military were genetically manipulating the world’s deadliest coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus right around the time that the Covid-19 pandemic began, according to the Sunday Times, which has reviewed hundreds of documents, “Including previously confidential reports, internal memos, scientific papers and email correspondence that has been obtained through sources or by freedom of information campaigners in the three years since the pandemic started.”

  

  The Times also interviewed the US State Department investigators, including experts specializing in China, emerging pandemic threats and biowarfare – who conducted what the outlet describes as “the first significant US inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak.”

  [O]ur new investigation paints the clearest picture yet of what happened in the Wuhan laboratory.

  The facility, which had started hunting the origins of the Sars virus in 2003, attracted US government funding through a New York-based charity whose president was a British-born and educated zoologist. America’s leading coronavirus scientist shared cutting-edge virus manipulation techniques.

  The institute was engaged in increasingly risky experiments on coronaviruses it gathered from bat caves in southern China. Initially, it made its findings public and argued the associated risks were justified because the work might help science develop vaccines.

  This changed in 2016 after researchers discovered a new type of coronavirus in a mineshaft in Mojiang in Yunnan province where people had died from symptoms similar to Sars. –Sunday Times

  The Mojiang mineshaft strain which killed several people are now recognized as ‘the only members of Covid-19’s immediate family known to have been in existence pre-pandemic,’ and were transported to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. After that, “The trail of papers starts to go dark,” said one US investigator. “That’s exactly when the classified programme kicked off. My view is that the reason Mojiang was covered up was due to military secrecy related to [the army’s] pursuit of dual use capabilities in virological biological weapons and vaccines.”

  According to US investigators, the WIV embarked on a classified program to make the mineshaft viruses more transmissible to humans, which they believe led to the creation of Covid-19, which then leaked into the city of Wuhan following a lab accident.

  

  “It has become increasingly clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in the creation, promulgation and cover-up of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said one of the investigators, who found evidence that researchers working on said experiments were hospitalized in November 2019 with Covid-like symptoms, just one month before the West became aware of the pandemic. One of the victims’ relatives died as well.

  “We were rock-solid confident that this was likely Covid-19 because they were working on advanced coronavirus research in the laboratory. They’re trained biologists in their thirties and forties. Thirty-five-year-old scientists don’t get very sick with influenza,” said an investigator.

  Meanwhile, a separate analysis reveals that the epicenter of the original Covid-19 outbreak was close to the WIV, not Wuhan’s “wet” wildlife market as previously thought.

  “I interviewed scientists in Asia who have close relationships with the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” said one of the investigators, who said they had evidence that the WIV was also working on a Covid-19 vaccine before the pandemic. “They told me it is their belief that there was vaccine research going on in the fall of 2019, pertinent to Covid-19 vaccination.”

  Rutgers University microbiologist, Richard Ebright, called the experiments “by far the most reckless and dangerous research on coronaviruses — or indeed on any viruses — known to have been undertaken at any time in any location.”

  Humanized mouse tests

  Professor Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina is a pioneer in cutting-edge experiments which use a technique to fuse together different pathogens by combining their genes. To test the effects of these chimeric coronaviruses, Baric created “humanized” mice, which were injected with genes that allowed them to develop lungs and vascular systems similar to those of a human.

  “Ominously, tools exist for simultaneously modifying the genomes for increased virulence [and] transmissibility,” Baric wrote in a 2006 paper. “These bioweapons could be targeted to humans, domesticated animals or crops, causing a devastating impact on human civilisation.”

  Meanwhile, by 2012, campaigners and scientists were beginning to push back against gain-of-function research due to its inherent dangers.

  “About 30 labs now are working with live Sars virus worldwide. The probability of escape from at least one laboratory is high,” wrote Lynn Klotz, a senior fellow at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “Would one in ten escapes lead to a major outbreak or pandemic? One in a hundred? One in a thousand? No one knows. But for any of these probabilities, the likelihood-weighted number of victims and deaths would be intolerably high.”

  In 2013, WIV researcher Shi Zhengli called Ralph Baric to ask for his help in growing sufficient quantities of a Sars-like virus found in a cave, SHC014, in order to conduct testing. Baric agreed, and the WIV provided him with the genetic sequence for the strain so that he could recreate genes from its spike proteins. Baric’s team inserted SHC014s’s “spike gene” into a copy of the original Sars virus they created in North Carolina and tested out the new chimeric virus on humanized mice.

  Meanwhile in May 2014, EcoHealth Alliance was awarded $3.7 million from the US National Institutes of Health – of which over $500,000 went to fund lab equipment purchases at the WIV, and $130,000 went directly towards Shi and her assistant.

  Then, the Obama administration banned gain-of-function research, but a ‘loophole’ allowed the practice to proceed if deemed ‘urgent and safe.’ Baric argued just this to the NIH, which granted approval.

  The results of Baric’s experiment with the genetic sequence given to him by Shi were published in co-authored research in November 2015. The combined Sars copy and SHC014 virus was a potential mass killer. It caused severe lung damage in humanised mice and was resistant to vaccines developed for Sars. The paper acknowledged this might have been an experiment that was too dangerous.

  It caused a big stir. “If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” warned Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. -Sunday Times

  And in May, 2016, Daszak told a New York conference that She was moving “closer and closer” to obtaining a virus “that could really become pathogenic in people.”

  By 2017, She wrote in a paper that her team had sought to create eight mutant coronaviruses based on strains found in the Shitou cave – two of which were found to infect human cells. The research had been carried out in BSL-2 laboratories, while US guidelines for such research require BSL-3 precautions, which include self-closing doors, filtered air and scientists equipped with full PPE while under medical supervision, the Times writes.

  We talk a lot about inequality.

  Well try these numbers:

  20 million people dead.
  1 billion sickened
  8 billion lives put into a deep freeze.

  All because 1 lab wanted to do audaciously dangerous virus experiments.

  And 1 US official insisted on funding it. https://t.co/i5EXAKiDOx

  — Ashley Rindsberg (@AshleyRindsberg) June 11, 2023

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

  Enter smoking gun

  As Shi was creating her eight mutant viruses, the WIV took ‘another perilous leap forward’ with their work on the Shitou cave viruses – in what Ebright describes as the most dangerous coronavirus experiment ever undertaken – which was funded in part by EcoHealth’s grant money.

  The scientists selected three lab-grown mutant viruses, created by mixing Sars-like viruses with WIV1, which had all been shown to infect human cells. These mutants were then injected into the noses of albino mice with human lungs.

  The aim was to see whether the viruses had the potential to spark a pandemic if they were fused together, as they might do naturally in a bat colony. The original WIV1 virus was injected into another group of mice as a comparison.

  The mice were monitored in their cages over two weeks. The results were shocking. The mutant virus that fused WIV1 with SHC014 killed 75 per cent of the rodents and was three times as lethal as the original WIV1. In the early days of the infection, the mice’s human-like lungs were found to contain a viral load up to 10,000 times greater than the original WIV1 virus.

  The scientists had created a highly infectious super-coronavirus with a terrifying kill-rate that in all probability would never have emerged in nature. The new genetically modified virus was not Covid-19 but it might have been even more deadly if it had leaked. -Sunday Times

  In his April 2018 annual progress report the WIV, EcoHealth’s Peter Daszak omitted the mice deaths. He also failed to mention them in his grant renewal application filed with the NIH later that year. In fact, he said they had only experienced “mild Sars-like clinical signs.“

  “What really went on inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid erupted?”

  “Fresh evidence drawn from confidential files reveals Chinese scientists spliced together deadly pathogens shortly before the pandemic, the Sunday Times Insight team report”https://t.co/6P2CzACMLP https://t.co/dfB12nqNTL pic.twitter.com/jdkpZHcjJe

  — Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) June 11, 2023

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

  So Daszak lied, as the experiment had actually killed six of the eight infected humanized mice.

  Daszak eventually came clean, but says that his statement about “mild” illnesses was based on preliminary results (despite the fact that the mice had died months before he issued his statement).

  US State Department weighs in

  As the global lockdowns were coming to an end, the US State Department’s investigators were given access to secret intelligence on China’s coronavirus experiments in the months and years before Covid-19 emerged. Over a dozen investigators, given unparalleled access to “metadata, phone information and internet information” from US intelligence intercepts, published a report in early 2021 which made two assertions; that the WIV was experimenting on a strain, RaTG13, found in the Moijang mine, and that covert military research – including experiments performed on animal test subjects, was being conducted right before the pandemic.

  “They were working with the nine different Covid variants,” said one of the investigators, adding that they think one virus at the WIV was an even closer match to Covid-19 than RaTG13.

  “We are confident they were working on a closer unpublished variant — possibly collected in Mojiang.”

  And of course, others believe that Covid-19 was largely a US production…

  Scientists exposed the US created the COVID virus in a US Lab in the recent COVID Summit. pic.twitter.com/CtsE9mDpKJ

  — Alexander #LM8 (@HaalandGoalKing) June 11, 2023

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

  Either way, there you have it. Apologies from the MSM, fact checkers, social media companies, and the Biden administration can be submitted to tyler@zerohedge.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 22:00

• No Collapse Is The Real Dystopia
  No Collapse Is The Real Dystopia

  Authored by Robert Stark via Substack,

  So far the 2020s seem more chaotic than previous decades. Based upon current events, economic and sociological data, and looking at historical cycles like the 4th turning theory and Peter Turchin’s research, it looks like there will be a major historical crisis this decade. In contrast, the 2010s felt very stagnant, despite the recession at the beginning of the decade, and political movements such as Occupy Wall Street, nationalism and populism in Europe, the Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders movements, and the beginning of the Great Awokening. Looking specifically at years, 2016 was a turning point with the election of Trump, 2017 was somewhat chaotic with political strife between antifa and the alt-right, then both 2018 and 2019 felt very stagnant. Obviously 2020 was a chaotic year with the pandemic, as well as the BLM riots and acceleration in woke politics and cancel culture, with certain moments feeling apocalyptic. However, with the exception of Jan6th, 2021 was another stagnant year, with covid easing and the peak of the stimulus bubble and market euphoria. Also in 2021, the right was totally demoralized and cancel culture had become the new normal. There was some return to chaos in 2022, with the onset of inflation and the Ukraine war. While this year has seen a banking crisis, dept default scare, migrant crisis, more political turmoil such as the inditement of Trump, and increased political instability overseas, overall things feel stagnant again, or perhaps a calm before the storm.

  The perma bulls just won’t give up

  

  Source: Maverick of Wall Street

  It initially seemed that the Silicon Valley Bank crash would put an end to copes about economic recovery. Despite recent fear of a debt default, major vulnerabilities in the financial system, higher interest rates, unprecedented levels of debt, sticky inflation, and the worst yield curve inversion in over 30 years, there is still a lot of bullish propaganda. For instance talk of a mild recession, soft landing, a new bull market, and that we may have even dodged a recession altogether. The bulls’ basis for optimism is a combination of the debt ceiling deal, official unemployment stats still being low, a slight dip in inflation, and hope for a pause in Fed rate hikes. Not to mention the new cope of an AI boom saving the economy and ushering in a new bull market, which is just creating another bubble in stocks, on top of the existing super bubble. This propaganda is in line with Janet Yellen’s infamous statement that we will never have another financial crisis again in our lifetime, the arrogance that the system is perfected to withstand collapse. The cringiest bull take so far, is that the economy is doing great because of the exorbitant prices for Taylor Swift concert tickets, as obviously there are many affluent girls who use Daddy’s credit card to buy tickets. If anything this just further shows the scope of the debt bubble, and high levels of income inequality. The current vibes remind me a lot of January’s bullishness before the banking crash, though we will probably see some repeat of cycles of coming close to the imminent crash, followed by more copes of a recovery, before the inevitable big crash.

  

  Source

  While bears have been vindicated, looking at the overall trajectory of the economy, there have been times over the past few years, when bears appeared wrong or overshot their predictions about the severity of an impending crisis. For starters, expecting that covid would cause a depression, which did not anticipate stimulus propping up the economy, at least for the time being. There was also concern, including from the mainstream media, that the Ukraine war was going to cause a global famine, the worst in modern history, by last fall. However, there was a successful deal, negotiated by Turkey between Russia and Ukraine, to allow the safe shipments of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. The question is whether a prolonged conflict, delaying Ukraine’s planting season, will mean a global famine within the next few years. There were also expectations that Europe would have a catastrophic energy crisis last winter, which also did not pan out. Even Russia limiting oil production did not spike oil prices as high as anticipated. Europe lucked out by having a mild winter, and enough petrol and natural gas saved up in their reserves, and extra help from America, as Biden depleted America’s strategic petrol reserves. Overall it was a combination of certain supply chain issues getting resolved from the pandemic and war, but also a decline in global demand, and just kicking the can down the road.

  In order to have a healthier economy, it is necessary for super bubbles to pop, and a similar case can be made for social and political ills. Since the pandemic mostly exacerbated the worst trends of the 2010s, such as social atomization, the mental health crisis, the sex recession, income inequality, the establishment consolidating power, cancel culture, cultural decay, and overall cringe, the question is whether a severe economic collapse would clear out societal bullshit or just make these problems worse. An economic soft landing or stagnation scenario would likely exacerbate the worst existing trends, so I totally get the doomers and accelerationists who cheer on the collapse. However, dissidents, who are often in despair, or feel that the current system is stacked against them, have this fantasy cope, that when the big collapse occurs, either they or their ingroup will do better or be liberated from systems of oppression, which is incredibly naïve. Dissidents have no institutional power and this doomer mentality is very passive, primarily fulfilling a psychological need. If one’s life and inner psyche is in chaos, one tends to want to see the cold indifferent society around them collapse as well. 

  

  Doomers rely upon this fantasy that one external shock to the system, or Black Swan event, will cause the entire system to come crashing down like a house of cards, but the system has shown itself to be much more resilient than that. California shows that a one party liberal hegemonic system can last much longer than one would think, though it has been sustained by Silicon Valley revenue, and the exodus of the middle class acting as a safety valve for discontent. The financial propagandists who talk of a soft landing are partially correct, in that it is a soft landing or no recession for those at the top. In fact, America is working great for the people who run it, but not for those with no power and influence. The incoming severe recession may just mean more urban blight, homeless encampments, increased deaths of despair, and widening income inequality, but not necessarily a collapse of institutional power.

  

  Anonymous 4chan post from 2013

  The prophet of despair, Michel Houellebecq, has been totally vindicated in his prediction from the beginning of the pandemic that post pandemic life would be “the same but worse.” Collapses are often gradual and not overnight, and not necessarily a Mad Max scenario, but rather collapse just means a lower quality of life for most people. This is even true for third world nations that have collapsed, like Sri Lanka, or with the current high levels of inflation in Turkey and Argentina. “The nightmare is not the “collapse.” The nightmare is that they pull off the End of History, and things just gradually get worse – more crime, more poverty, more degeneracy, fewer services, and a population incapable of anything other than demanding larger doses of the poison,” tweets VDARE’s James Kirkpatrick. Basically a gradual decline in people’s quality of life or a frog in the boiling pan scenario, where people just get used to degradation, and may never actually reach that breaking point but rather merely adjust their expectations and standards. Dissidents rely upon this fantasy of the masses awakening and rebellion, but with lower wages and higher unemployment, there is just greater leverage to those in power and less to the people. The political elite must factor in that some type of economic crash means that people will be desperate enough to work for little or nothing and give up their freedoms and autonomy. The question is whether Americans, especially middle class Whites, can psychologically handle the decline and transition to a post-American order?  

  Federal Reserve Chart of change in Foreign Exchange Reserve

  

  Source

  A probable scenario is where the US economy has a quasi-soft landing but at the expense of the rest of the world, by abusing the reserve currency to export inflation abroad. For instance, nations being forced to play catch up with the Fed’s rate hikes in order to save their currencies. This will accelerate the migrant crisis and increase resentment against America, with the potential for retaliation against the dollar. America would go into a depression, if it lost its reserve currency status, but the dollar still dominates foreign exchange reserves, with no clear competitor. On a similar note, an AI boom could turn the economy around after the recession, perhaps even a period of rapid economic expansion, but would also exacerbate income inequality and gradually erode the value of labor.

  While there will likely not be a debt default anytime soon, the main danger now is the Treasury being forced to sell treasury bills and bonds, which would drain liquidity in the financial markets, thus exacerbating the banking crisis, push commercial real estate over the edge, and cause a pension solvency crisis. Not to mention, exacerbating the financial trap that the Fed is in, where if the Fed pivots or bails out the banks, inflation resurges, but if rates are kept high, there will be a liquidity and debt default crisis. Whether this will be the financial event that causes the big crash is hard to say. Overall, the main vulnerability in the economy is the sheer levels of debt, both public and private, in which the response will likely be inflating the dollar to pay off massive debts.

  The crash has taken much longer than anticipated, like watching paint dry, and I am done trying to guess when this mega crash will occur. Generally I take the view that the economic bubble is just being propped up further, and that the inevitable is being delaying, which will lead to a much worse economic crisis. However, what if this is all part of a successful managed decline, or manufactured stability, which is really depressing and demoralizing. America is in decline but it is a stretch to say collapse, but rather a long term multidecade process, a slow motion decay, analogous to Rome’s decline as a late stage empire, which took a very long period of time to fall. America has both advantages over other nations and major vulnerabilities.

  *  *  *

  Subscribe to Robert Stark’s Newsletter

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 21:30

• 12 Philly Cops Fired For Social Media Posts Can Sue The City, Appeals Court Rules
  12 Philly Cops Fired For Social Media Posts Can Sue The City, Appeals Court Rules

  Police in Philadelphia can keep fighting back over being fired or suspended due to allegedly “racist and violent” social media posts, an appeals court ruled late last week. 

  A Federal appeals court ruled this week that the officers can file a lawsuit against the city claiming their First Amendment rights were violated due to their terminations, according to WHYY. 

  In total, a dozen offers were fired for their social media posts, the report says. Their social media accounts “were included in a database, published in 2019, that catalogued thousands of bigoted or violent posts by active-duty and former police officers in several states”, WHYY reported.

  About 200 officers were disciplined and 15 were taken off the job, the report says. 12 of those 15 ultimately went on to file a civil rights lawsuit against the city, but it was dismissed last year, with the presiding judge ruling that “the officers’ posts had undermined public trust in the department and violated the city’s social media policy”.

  

  U.S. District Judge Petrese Tucker wrote in his ruling last year that the officers “played racist bingo, mocking as many ethnic or religious groups as possible”.

  But on Thursday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was too early to throw out the case, citing “a lack of clarity over the provenance of some of the posts”. The appeals court did, however, write that: “Posts like the officers’ have the capacity to confirm the community’s worst fears about bias in policing.”

  The 3rd Circuit said it doesn’t “condone the officers’ use of social media to mock, disparage, and threaten the very communities they were sworn to protect.”

  The appeals court said the plaintiffs “undoubtedly face a steep uphill climb in ultimately proving their case”, but sent the case back to the lower courts nonetheless. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 21:00

• Can Trump Clean The Augean Stables On The Potomac?
  Can Trump Clean The Augean Stables On The Potomac?

  Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

  Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is as corrupt as Hunter Biden’s laptop. Few people of either party trust it, nor should they…

  

  There is a reason that, since before the time of the emperor Tiberius, treason trials have been a favorite tool of totalitarians. Such proceedings allow them to get rid of nearly anyone they dislike. Successfully brand someone a “traitor,” an “enemy of the state,” and, bang, into the oubliette they go. 

  I think the treason trial is the appropriate heuristic for what is happening, and what has been happening to Donald Trump ever since 2015 when he descended the escalator. 

  The charge that Trump was “Putin’s poodle,” a “Russian asset,” etc., during the Russia collusion hoax was a sort of treason trial. And remember how elaborate it all was, a veritable glass onion, thanks in large part to Hillary Clinton, whose campaign concocted, paid for, and disseminated the infamous fantasy “dossier” fabricated by former MI6 spook Christopher Steele. And it was Hillary, remember, who first broadcast the charge that servers in Trump Tower were secretly communicating with Russia’s Alfa Bank. The Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services—all were in on that game. 

  Trump’s two impeachments were episodes in the long-running treason trial, as was Liz Cheney’s January 6 show trial, as are the still unfolding series of indictments that have dogged his footsteps with increasing ferocity as the 2024 election looms and Trump’s poll numbers stubbornly refuse to recede. 

  A lot of legal hermeneutical ingenuity has been lavished on the current criminal indictment, a 37-count blockbuster revolving around charges that Trump mishandled classified documents he had stuffed away at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach. I think those analyses are mostly beside the point, so much wasted foolscap. The indictment, which histrionically relies heavily on the 1917 Espionage Act, is, when looked at with a sufficiently jaundiced eye, an amusing performance. Macbeth would have said it was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

  You, dear reader, know differently. You know it is the latest writ of attainder pronounced against Trump by the regime. 

  For what, when you come down to it, is Trump’s crime? Please don’t tell me it has something to do with his possession of classified documents or “obstruction” of an official proceeding. Former presidents have very wide latitude with respect to managing documents, as was set forth explicitly by the Presidential Records Act in the late 1970s. 

  It’s a different matter with the 1,800 boxes of documents that Joe Biden glommed onto in his days in the Senate and as vice president. I believe they are still moldering under his Corvette in the garage of his Delaware residence, having wound up there after a trip through D.C.’s Chinatown and the Penn Biden Center, a facility paid for, as was Biden’s $900,000 stipend at the University of Pennsylvania, by China. 

  This is the moment we return to Hillary Clinton and her “home-brew” email server through which she ran all manner of classified correspondence. According to disgraced former FBI Director James “Higher Loyalty” Comey, “no reasonable prosecutor” would go after Hillary, even though she deleted thousands of emails and destroyed mobile phones and hard drives after being subpoenaed. 

  If you are hearing the winds murmur “two-tier system of justice” you are not imagining things. Donald Trump, as president, could declassify anything he wished. Neither Joe Biden nor Hillary Clinton had that authority. Yet Trump has to show up in Court on Tuesday to face criminal charges, while Hillary and (so far) Joe Biden skate. 

  I say “so far” with respect to Biden because things are heating up for the Senescent One. Margot Cleveland, writing at The Federalist, noted the curious timing of the Trump indictment: “The news of the indictment quickly suffocated coverage of a confidential human source’s claim that the Ukrainian founder of Burisma had paid a $5 million bribe to Joe Biden.” Hmm.

  Nothing to see here, gents, move along please. 

  But Cleveland is right. “The entire case [against Trump] was a set-up from the start.” Yet one wonders, set up by whom? And what was the supposed predicate? I ask again, what was Trump’s crime? 

  I think it was a dual manifestation of one crime. His original sin, his unforgivable or eternal sin, was being elected president in 2016. The regime endeavored to expiate that sin by hampering Trump, then by impeaching him. But here he is, persisting in his folly, seeking to commit the same tort again. Conclusion: he must be destroyed. Hence the treason trial masquerading as a legitimate judicial proceeding.

  Reflecting on the latest chapter in the tale we might call “The Persecution of Donald Trump,” the Wall Street Journal noted that this is “a fraught moment for American democracy. For the first time in U.S. history, the prosecutorial power of the federal government has been used against a former President who is also running against the sitting President.”

  Donald Trump is currently, and by a large margin, the front runner of the opposition party in the 2024 presidential campaign. The party in power is attempting to silence him, to take him out of the running, by mobilizing the police power of the state against him. This is the sort of thing one expects from banana-republic regimes in Africa and Central America. It could never happen, one would have said only a few years ago, in America. 

  But here we are. The indictment against Trump was formally brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. But the Journal is right. Smith is just an errand boy. “Americans will inevitably see this as a Garland-Biden indictment,” they noted, “and they are right to think so.”

  Indeed. Elon Musk, no fan of Trump’s, put his finger on an essential element in this saga: “There does seem,” he wrote on June 8, responding to the indictment, “to be far higher interest in pursuing Trump compared to other people in politics.” 

  How’s that for understatement? Almost as good, I’d say, as his deployment of the future tense in his follow-up sentence:

  “Very important that the justice system rebut what appears to be differential enforcement or they will lose public trust.”

  That ship has sailed, I regret to say.

  Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is as corrupt as Hunter Biden’s laptop. Few people of either party trust it, nor should they. What we need now is a bold new Hercules who can cleanse the Augean stables on the Potomac. It seems unlikely, I know, and perhaps supremely ironical, but the name of that cleansing hero may just be Donald J. Trump. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 20:30

• Baby Boomers Are Moving To Vegas And Tampa, Millennials Prefer Austin: America's Great Migration In Real-Time
  Baby Boomers Are Moving To Vegas And Tampa, Millennials Prefer Austin: America’s Great Migration In Real-Time

  Until now, Bank of America would periodically publish a snapshot of consumer spending and retail sales that was based on real-time debt and credit card data, that provided a far more accurate economic picture months ahead the Census Bureau’s distorted, seasonally adjusted (frequently for political reasons) data. Now, it has expanded into geo-tracking, and in a time when we are seeing unprecedented migration patterns across the continental US, the bank has started using internal data on checking, savings, credit and/or other investment accounts to construct near real-time estimates of domestic migration flows, giving the bank and its clients an almost one year of extra insight over and ahead of Census Bureau data.

  Cutting straight to the punchline, BofA finds pandemic migration trends are not reversing and America continues to see faster population inflow into sunbelt cities like Austin and Tampa. But, in a curious twist, BofA also finds that house prices are weakening even in cities with growing populations. Why? In addition to high mortgage rates that are dampening demand in the near term, demographic composition also matters. For example, the data shows that population inflows into Austin skew younger, which might be putting more upward pressure on rents instead of on home prices.

  Looking through the current housing downturn, local housing markets with more Millennial and Baby Boomer residents could see strength as the former enter prime home-buying age and the latter downsize their houses or move after retirement. Bank of America data suggests Baby Boomers are relocating to Las Vegas and Tampa while Millennials prefer Austin. Both groups are leaving the larger cities of San Francisco and New York.

  Let’s dig into the data.

  A key theme that shaped the housing market during the pandemic was domestic migration (i.e., people moving within the US). While data from the Census Bureau is broken down by metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), it is only updated annually and can be outdated for real time analysis.

  Utilizing aggregated and anonymized Bank of America customer data, the bank has constructed near real-time estimates of domestic migration flows and found that pandemic migration trends are not reversing. Data as of 1Q 2023 suggests that cities that saw a large influx of people during the pandemic have still been growing faster than other cities in recent quarters. As Exhibit 1 shows, among the major MSAs, Austin saw the largest net inflow of population both during 2020-2021 and over the past four quarters.

  

  Also high on the list are Tampa and Orlando, both with a net increase of customers of +0.8% between 1Q 2022 and 1Q 2023. Interestingly, while Phoenix and Las Vegas saw strong increases in population during the first two years of the pandemic, the pace of growth has slowed noticeably in recent quarters, up just 0.3% and 0.2% year-over-year (YoY), respectively, in 1Q 2023.

  On the flip side, cities such as San Jose, San Francisco and New York saw the biggest outflow of people during the early years of the pandemic and the rate of decline in 2023 continues to be the highest among major MSAs.

  Note that the  analysis is based on the group of Bank of America customers who had an open consumer checking, savings, credit and/or other investment accounts for every quarter between 4Q 2018 and 1Q 2023. Migration pattern is then extracted based on customer home addresses. This methodology yields a fixed sample size and allows for granularity by demographic breakdowns.

  Macro conditions outweigh population growth in the near term

  Large population inflows usually increase both home and rental prices. However, home prices are slowing rapidly, according to data from Freddie Mac, even in cities with growing populations, including Austin. In Bank of America’s view, many variables are at play in the near term.

  In 2020 and 2021, when both housing inventory and mortgage rates were low, cities with the most inward migration such as Austin and Tampa also witnessed the biggest increase in home prices (Exhibit 2). But, as Fed rate hikes pushed up borrowing costs for these homes, demand dampened despite continued population growth in these popular cities, which has led to a correction in home price appreciation.

  In contrast to home prices, rental prices remain strong in cities with positive inflow of residents. In addition to the fact that population increases lead to higher demand for rental units, low affordability in the home purchasing market has likely also pushed some prospective buyers into the rental market, leading to even more upward pressure on rent levels.

  Exhibit 3 shows that MSAs with large population increases continue to see very strong rent increases. In April 2023, median rent payments for Bank of America customers in Austin, Orlando and Tampa were up 11%, 14% and 14% YoY, respectively. This compares to the national average of 8% and just 3% for San Francisco.

  

  Among major cities, Austin stands out given its steep drop in home prices over the past year – a similar pace to that of San Francisco whose population has been decreasing. One reason for this is that the pace of migration into Austin has slowed noticeably over the past year compared with 2020 and 2021 (Exhibit 4). Excess supply was another factor, with a much higher number of building permits, which tracks the number of units approved for construction, than in other cities with an influx of residents (Exhibit 5).

  Demographic composition also plays a role. Bank of America data shows that the population inflow into Austin skews to the younger side while Baby Boomers have been leaving Austin over the last year. Given the lack of affordability in many housing markets, many younger prospective buyers are staying on the sidelines, which could in part explain the weakness in home prices but relative strength in rent levels in Austin.

  

  Demographic composition matters over the long term

  While the housing market is heavily influenced by monetary policy and macroeconomic conditions in the near term, demographics play a critical role in the long term. The most direct impact is that home prices in cities with net population inflow will see upward pressure from increased demand for housing in the long run. Another important factor to consider, in our view, is the composition of the population. This is because not all generations have the same demand for housing, but two generations are especially important right now: Baby Boomers and Millennials.

  The rise of Boomers as the main homebuyer

  The latest Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report from the National Association of Realtors found that for the first time since 2014, Baby Boomers overtook Millennials as the generation with the biggest share of homebuyers. From July 2021 to July 2022, 39% of surveyed homebuyers were Baby Boomers, followed by 28% of Millennials and 24% of Gen X (Exhibit 6).

  The rise of Baby Boomers as the primary homebuyers can be attributed to three main reasons. First, as this generation retires, they move closer to family and friends. Second, demand for smaller homes increases as their children move out. Last but not least, Baby Boomers hold the greatest wealth across generations at $73 trillion in 4Q 2022, eight times that of Millennials (Exhibit 7). In the current environment of high home prices and interest rates, Baby Boomers are better equipped financially for home purchasing. In fact, only 49% of older Boomers (68-76 y/o) financed their home purchase in 2022, compared with 93% of those aged 33-42 y/o, according to the same National Association of Realtors report.

  

  Given the importance of Baby Boomers in the housing market, where are they moving to?

  The generational breakdown of Bank of America internal data suggests Baby Boomers’ migration patterns over the past few years have been different from other generations. Specifically, while Austin continues to attract inward migration overall, the number of Baby Boomers in the city has declined over the past year. The exodus of the group with the most cash could have added to the downward pressure on Austin’s home prices over the last year.

  Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tampa, and Orlando are among the most popular destinations for Baby Boomers, according to Bank of America internal data (Exhibit 8). Note that the pace of migration slowed for Vegas and Phoenix over the past year, but was relatively unchanged for Tampa and Orlando. This could partly explain the still resilient home price appreciation in Tampa and Orlando relative to other cities.

  Alternatively, Baby Boomers, similar to other generations, are leaving some of the largest cities in the US, including the Bay area, New York and Seattle (Exhibit 9).

  

  Millennials will likely drive home buying in the longer term

  For Millennials, the most popular destination for domestic migration is Austin, with the number of Millennial customers up 16% in 1Q 2023, relative to three years ago, which led other cities by a wide margin. Cleveland, Tampa, and Dallas each saw a 6% increase in Millennial population over the past three years.

  In the near term, many of this cohort are staying on the home buying sidelines. A recent Bank of America Global Research survey found that increasing concerns about affordability are the top reason many Millennials are staying out of the housing market. But hopeful buyers who may be waiting for the market to cool are still forging ahead in their own way. In a separate Bank of America 2023 Homebuyer Insights Report, over half of respondents who are not planning to purchase a home in the near term are still actively scrolling through real estate marketplace apps.

  This means that demand for home purchasing will likely return when we move past the current housing cycle, especially in the case of younger Millennials, who are entering prime home buying age. In 1Q 2023, the home ownership rate for those younger than 35 years old was 39%, 23 percentage points lower than that for 35–44-year-olds.

  Therefore, in the longer term, it is likely that cities with a large inflow of Millennial residents will see a meaningful boost to the local housing market. For now, however, Millennials are leaving the same cities as Boomers. San Francisco, New York and San Jose are high on the list. But the pace for San Francisco and New York has slowed in the past year compared with the early years of the pandemic.

  

  More in the full report available to pro subscribers.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 20:00

• How JFK Would Pursue Peace In Ukraine
  How JFK Would Pursue Peace In Ukraine

  Authored by Jeffrey Sachs via CommonDreams.org,

  Sixty years after Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, crucial lessons must still be learned about how to end dangerous conflicts in a nuclear world…

  

  President John F. Kennedy was one of the world’s great peacemakers. He led a peaceful solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis and then successfully negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union at the very height of the Cold War. At the time of his assassination, he was taking steps to end US involvement in Vietnam.

  In his dazzling and unsurpassed Peace Speech, delivered exactly sixty years ago on June 10, 1963, Kennedy laid out his formula for peace with the Soviet Union. Kennedy’s Peace Speech highlights how Joe Biden’s approach to Russia and the Ukraine War needs a dramatic reorientation. Until now, Biden has not followed the precepts that Kennedy recommended to find peace. By heeding Kennedy’s advice, Biden too could become a peacemaker.

  A mathematician would call JFK’s speech a “constructive proof” of how to make peace, since the speech itself contributed directly to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed by the US and Soviet Union in July 1963. Upon receipt of the speech, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev told Kennedy’s envoy to Russia, Averell Harriman, that the speech was the greatest by an American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and that he wanted to pursue peace with Kennedy.

  In the speech, Kennedy describes peace “as the necessary rational end [goal] of rational men.” Yet he acknowledges that peacemaking is not easy: “I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war—and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.”

  The deepest key to peace, in Kennedy’s view, is the fact that both sides want peace. It is easy to fall into the trap, warns Kennedy, of blaming a conflict only on the other side. It is easy to fall into the trap of insisting that only the adversary should change their attitudes and behavior. Kennedy is very clear: “We must reexamine our own attitude—as individuals and as a Nation—for our attitude is as essential as theirs.”

  Kennedy attacked the prevailing pessimism at the height of the Cold War that peace with the Soviet Union was impossible, “that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made—therefore, they can be solved by man.”

  Crucially, said Kennedy, we must not “see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side.” We must not “see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.” Indeed, said Kennedy, we should “hail the Russian people for their many achievements—in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.”

  Kennedy warned against putting a nuclear adversary into a corner that could lead the adversary to desperate actions. “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy—or of a collective death wish for the world.”

  Kennedy knew that since peace was in the mutual interest of the US and the Soviet Union, a peace treaty could be reached. To those who said that the Soviet Union would not abide by a peace treaty, Kennedy responded that “both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours—and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.”

  Kennedy emphasized the importance of direct communication between the two adversaries. Peace, he said, “will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased understanding will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of the other’s actions which might occur at a time of crisis.”

  In the context of the Ukraine War, Biden has behaved almost the opposite of JFK. He has personally and repeatedly denigrated Russian President Vladimir Putin. His administration has defined the US war aim as the weakening of Russia. Biden has avoided all communications with Putin. They have apparently not spoken once since February 2022, and Biden rebuffed a bilateral meeting with Putin at last year’s G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

  Biden has refused to even acknowledge, much less to address, Russia’s deep security concerns. Putin repeatedly expressed Russia’s ardent opposition to NATO enlargement to Ukraine, a country with a 2,000-kilometer border with Russia. The US would never tolerate a Mexican-Russian or Mexican-Chinese military alliance in view of the 2000-mile Mexico-US border. It is time for Biden to negotiate with Russia on NATO enlargement, as part of broader negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

  When Kennedy came into office in January 1961, he stated clearly his position on negotiations: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.”

  In his Peace Speech, JFK reminded us that what unites the US and Russia is that “we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

  Note: Jeffrey D. Sachs is author of “To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace, Random House: 2013.“

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 19:30

• Pennsylvania Gov. Issues Disaster Declaration After I-95 Bridge Collapse, May Take 'Months' To Rebuild
  Pennsylvania Gov. Issues Disaster Declaration After I-95 Bridge Collapse, May Take ‘Months’ To Rebuild

  Update (1919ET): 

  Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro will declare a “disaster declaration” on Monday to tap federal funds to rebuild a bridge on Interstate 95 in Northeast Philadelphia that was destroyed by a tanker fire, according to NBC 10. 

  

  During a press conference on Sunday evening, Shapiro said the bridge rebuild could take “some number of months.” PennDOT officials and engineers have yet to give specifics on a timeline for reconstruction. 

  “To expedite this process and to cut through the red tape, tomorrow morning I plan to issue a disaster declaration, allowing the Commonwealth to immediately draw down federal funds and move quickly to repair and reconstruct this roadway.

  “I’ve spoken directly to Secretary Pete Buttigeig of the United States Department of Transportation, along with Senator Casey, Congressman Boyle and other federal officials,” the governor said. 

  With regards to the complete rebuild of I-95 roadway, we expect that to take a number of months.

  We will know more about that exact timeline once the engineers and PennDOT have completed their review. pic.twitter.com/WBVb5AOXTU

  — Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) June 11, 2023

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  Shapiro said officials are creating alternative routes for motorists during the rebuild.

  Early this AM a vehicle fire under I-95 in Philly caused part of the highway to collapse.

  While this is still an active scene, I completed an aerial view of the site and was briefed by first responders, law enforcement and transportation experts on the ground with @PhillyMayor. pic.twitter.com/g4rHy5NTMM

  — Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) June 11, 2023

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   I-95 is a major artery for transporting people and goods, and the bridge’s closure is already sparking traffic chaos. 

  *   *   * 

  Interstate 95 in Philadelphia closed on Sunday after a tanker truck burst into flames underneath an overpass, causing a portion of the bridge to collapse. 

  All lanes on 1-95 are shut down in both directions nearing Cottman Avenue exit due to large fire. Smoke is visible. Avoid 1-95 approaching Northeast Philadelphia and expect delays. https://t.co/DydujHbkqr

  — Philadelphia OEM (@PhilaOEM) June 11, 2023

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  NBC’s Randy Gyllenhaal reported the ‘accident’ broke out around 0630 ET on the off-ramp to Cottman Avenue, right underneath I-95, in the Tacony neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia. 

  Major fire on 95 North approaching Cottman @FOX29philly @CBSPhiladelphia @NBCPhiladelphia looks like the grass is on fire pic.twitter.com/PKbUYkrWLn

  — Sgt. Mark Fusetti (Retired) (@MarkFusetti) June 11, 2023

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  All north and southbound lanes are closed for 3 to 4 miles between Bridge Street and Academy Road. Traffic chaos has erupted across that section of the city, as per traffic data via TomTom. 

  

  Gyllenhaal said officials are on the scene and investigating the accident and the state of the bridge. He said the southbound side is “compromised” while there could be structural issues with the northbound section. 

  All lanes of I95 closed in both directions between Woodhaven and Aramingo exits due to fire/road collapse. Other streets closed for the response. Avoid area. Plan and seek alternative travel routes. pic.twitter.com/myNyH0nCiq

  — Philadelphia OEM (@PhilaOEM) June 11, 2023

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  Officials told Gyllenhaal, “The roadway is gone.” 

  The runoff from the tanker is also causing underground explosions, explained Captain Derrick Bowmer of the Philadelphia Fire Department. There have been multiple reports of exploding manholes around the area. 

  “We will be here for awhile,” Bowmer said. “We have fire coming out of those manholes.”

  He said the ‘highways isn’t expected to re-open anytime soon,’ and this could spark significant traffic delays on Monday morning, considering the I-95 highway is a major interstate through the Mid-Alantic corridor. 

  Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro tweeted he has been briefed on the tanker explosion and bridge collapse. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 19:19

• Bud Light Appears In Promotional Material For "All Ages Drag Show Party" In Flagstaff
  Bud Light Appears In Promotional Material For “All Ages Drag Show Party” In Flagstaff

  “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” – could that be Bud Light’s latest genius marketing move?

  The beer brand, still under intense fire and a suffering a sales collapse that came as a result of its embrace of ‘trans’ influencer Dylan Mulvaney, is (or was) reportedly co-sponsoring an “all ages drag show party”, according to a report from Fox News. 

  In what appears to be a full embrace of its new target audience, Bud Light may have co-sponsored an “all-ages Pride event” in Flagstaff, Arizona, Fox News writes. The event is called “Pride in the Pines” and includes drag queens.

  

  Bud Light was previously listed as co-sponsor for the event on posters, which is also being described as a “family festival event” and a family-friendly, “safe space”. Old Navy, Toyota and Coca-Cola USA are also sponsoring the event, Fox News reported. 

  Flagstaff Pride’s Twitter account wrote this week that Bud Light was not a sponsor, despite appearing on a poster for the event: “We put out an incorrect promotional poster which included Bud Light as a sponsor.”

  Meanwhile, Anheuser-Busch commented that “Bud Light is not a sponsor of this event. The event organizers have issued a corrected version of the poster.”  But while Anheuser-Busch appears to be contesting that it is involved in the event, Flagstaff Pride’s website still prominently displayed “Bud Light” as a sponsor as of Sunday morning. 

  

  As Fox notes, its unclear if Bud Light was previously a sponsor and then decided to pull out of the event or if Flagstaff Pride was in error.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 19:00

• George Soros Skips Former 'Heir Apparent' — Hands Reins Of Empire To 'More Political' Son Alex
  George Soros Skips Former ‘Heir Apparent’ — Hands Reins Of Empire To ‘More Political’ Son Alex

  George Soros is handing control of his $25 billion empire to his son Alex – who in recent years has been seen flying around the world to conduct business on behalf of his family’s Open Society Foundation.

  

  In doing so, the 92-year-old Soros is passing over the family’s one-time ‘heir apparent,’ Jonathan Soros, 52 – the third child from George’s first marriage, and a Harvard-trained lawyer who stabilized the Soros investment firm after a tumultuous period saw several investment chiefs come and go.

  “I expected Jonathan to be the one,” said former Open Society Foundation president Aryeh Neier, who ran the organization from 1993 to 2012.

  

  Jonathan Soros thought he was the one as well, telling the Wall Street Journal; “I always knew he could change his mind,” adding “As a trader, it’s the thing he’s most famous for.”

  Their differences upended the succession plan. George was impulsive. Jonathan was analytical and contemplative. Jonathan was respectful of George but pushed back when he disagreed with his father’s decisions, according to people who worked with them. When they butted heads about two senior hiring choices, George felt his authority challenged. Jonathan felt undermined.

  Looking to keep peace in the family, Jonathan left the Soros’s investment business in 2011, he said. His father soured about picking him to lead the foundation. “We didn’t get on on certain points,” George said. “That became evident to both of us, particularly to him, and he wanted to be out on his own.” -WSJ

  “We ended our business relationship on pretty good terms,” said Jonathan of his father. “I was disappointed but not regretful.”

  Enter Alex – the oldest of two sons from George’s 2nd wife, Susan Weber, who was elected chairman of the Open Society Foundation in December and is now responsible for directing political activity as president of Soros’ super PAC.

  

  Alex – once an unlikely choice to lead the family – cared little about finance and instead loved football and philosophy. He’s described by the Journal as a once-introverted fat kid who was embarrassed by his family’s wealth who blossomed into a red-shoe wearing party animal.

  He cared little about finance and couldn’t persuade his father to watch football. Instead, they spent hours discussing ideas and global politics. His thesis topic, “Jewish Dionysus: Heine, Nietzsche and the Politics of Literature,” thrilled his father. For Alex, “it’s football, philosophy and politics, in that order,” said Svante Myrick, one of his friends. -WSJ

  But now, it’s all business.

  “I’m more political” said Alex, who recently met with officials from the Biden administration, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and heads of state such as Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to discuss affairs related to the Open Society Foundation – which donates roughly $1.5 billion per year to various causes and groups around the world.

  Foundation money also goes to universities and other educational organizations. The Soros super PAC, Democracy PAC, has backed the election campaigns of district attorneys and law-enforcement officials seeking to reduce incarceration rates and racial bias in the justice system, among the efforts that have riled the right.

  …

  The selection of Alex, a hip-hop fan and New York Jets devotee, was once a long shot. Early on, Alex barely spoke up in meetings and was best known for his highflying social life. “Gorgeous models, NBA pals and hide-and-seek at his mansion: Welcome to the lavish life of investor George Soros’ playboy son,” said one Daily Mail.com online headline in 2016. -WSJ

  Alex is also the sole Soros on the investment committee overseeing Soros Fund Management – which will migrate most of its $25 billion to the Open Society Foundation in the years ahead. Approximately $125 million has been set aside for the super PAC.

  Between 2004 and 2006, Alex worked part time at the foundation. According to people who worked there, he didn’t make much of an impression – much less as a likely successor.

  “Alex used to come to board meetings, but he hardly spoke,” said Neier.

  Orange Man Bad

  

  According to Alex, he’s concerned about the prospect of Donald Trump retaking the White House in 2024 – and has suggested a ‘significant financial role’ for the Soros organization in the effort to defeat him.

  “As much as I would love to get money out of politics, as long as the other side is doing it, we will have to do it, too,” he said, as if his Super PAC didn’t employ Marc Elias, the Democrat superlawyer who worked tirelessly to change election laws leading up to the 2020 election.

  According to Elon Musk – who recently compared George Soros to supervillain Magneto, the selection of Alex was “just a formality,” as “Alex has been de facto in charge for several years.”

  Just a formality. Alex has been de facto in charge for several years.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2023

  The Journal cites Alex as suggesting that speed had become too constrained on college campuses and elsewhere, saying: “I have some differences with my generation in regard to free speech and other things—I grew up watching Bill Maher before bed, after all.”

  If @AlexanderSoros is serious about freedom of speech, then we have common ground.

  But destroying public safety by electing DAs who won’t prosecute violent criminals needs to stop.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2023

   Not everyone has sharks with lasers on their heads, Alex…

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 18:00

• The Capitalists Who Fear Capitalism
  The Capitalists Who Fear Capitalism

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

  Among the many grim memories of lockdowns were boarded-up local shops.

  Meanwhile, long lines outside the big-box stores like Walmart, Kroger, Whole Foods and Home Depot. For very strange reasons, small business was universally declared to be nonessential whereas the big chains were deemed essential.

  This amounted to a massive industrial subsidy to large companies, which emerged from the pandemic period richer and more bloated than ever. Meanwhile, millions of small businesses were utterly wrecked.

  Nearly every day, my inbox fills with tragic stories of family businesses that were just getting going when the lockdowns came and destroyed everything. Not enough of these stories were ever told.

  Major media were not interested.

  The government loans (PPP), later mostly forgiven, could not possibly make up the difference for the losses from old-fashioned revenue. In addition, their supply chains were wrecked because they were either starved for business or gobbled up by the large companies.

  There are no firm numbers but it is possible 25–40% of small businesses closed permanently. Dreams were shattered and millions of jobs were disrupted or destroyed.

  As a result, retail trade (declared nonessential except for chosen businesses) has yet to recover in employment, despite the frantic hiring. Neither has hospitality. However, the information sector (declared essential across the board) is larger than ever.

  

  A Brutal Attack on Free Markets

  It was a brutal attack on commercial freedom but what a way to gain an industrial advantage!

  The American economy is supposed to rest on competition as an ideal. This was the opposite.

  Lockdowns were the bolstering of industrial cartels, particularly in the information sector. Even today, all these companies benefit from this period in which they were able to deploy their unfair advantages against their smaller competitors. The entire disaster was an attack on property rights, free enterprise and the competitive economy.

  Incredibly, the regulators offered a public-health rationale. They were issuing every manner of edict concerning ventilation, social distancing, plexiglass, silly stickers everywhere and capacity restrictions. Later these companies added vaccine mandates.

  These all benefited the large corporations and exterminated the small businesses that could not afford to comply or could not risk alienating labor with shot demands.

  Consider the capacity restrictions alone. If you are a restaurant that serves 350–500 people, a capacity limit of 50% isn’t going to hit the bottom line too hard. It’s rare even in normal times for these places to fill up.

  But across the street, you have a family-owned coffee shop with seating for 10. It is almost always packed. Cutting that by half is devastating. It cannot survive.

  It was the same with the distancing requirements. Only the largest businesses could implement and enforce them.

  Big Business Is Often the Biggest Enemy

  I can recall standing outside waiting in lines to be chosen to be the next person entitled to go into the store. As I approached the door some masked-up employee would sanitize a shopping cart and push it my way so as to maintain six feet of distance.

  Smaller and local shops could not afford to hire extra employees for such ridiculous jobs and needed to serve everyone who showed up. Only the well-heeled places could afford such antics.

  And that is precisely why the large corporations did not complain too much about lockdowns.

  They watched their bottom lines swell even as their competitors were crushed. It was the perfect embodiment of Milton Friedman’s dictum that big business is often the biggest enemy of genuine capitalism. They far prefer industrial cartels of the sort created during the lockdowns.

  If we look back at 20th-century commercial history, we observe that in totalitarian societies, such cartels thrive. This was true in the Soviet Union, which featured state-owned companies that held a full monopoly not only in its stores but also for the products they would sell: one brand of everything you need.

  The principle of essential and nonessential thrived under Soviet communism like never before.

  The Real Meaning of Fascism

  But it was the same in fascist-style economic structures too. The German economy under Nazi rule privileged the largest industrial players who became agents of state power: This was true for Volkswagen, Krupp, Farben and a host of munitions manufacturers.

  It was the opposite of a competitive economy. It was socialism with German characteristics. Italy, Spain and France did the same.

  Prevailing intellectual opinion in the 1930s celebrated the cartelization of industry as more “scientific” and less wasteful than competitive free markets. Fashionable books at the time cheered on the way such cartels made possible scientific planning for the whole of society.

  Reading through Benito Mussolini’s manifesto on fascism today prompts the question: Once you replace nation with globe, what precisely would the WEF disagree with here?

  Fascism asserts not the rights of commerce but its fundamental duty to serve the state. What can be more consistent with this view than the claim that some businesses are essential to state priorities and others are not?

  This is what was created during lockdowns in the U.S. and around the world. I’ve tended to think that this was all an outgrowth of disease panic and bad thinking. Well-intentioned policy that went very badly.

  But what if it wasn’t? What if the whole point of the industrial segregation and cartel creation was to run a real-time test of the full vision of a corporatist state? It’s not a crazy speculation.

  Amazon Loved Lockdowns

  The case of Amazon is particularly intriguing. It benefited massively from lockdowns. Meanwhile, its founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, had already bought The Washington Post, which very aggressively and daily pushed the lockdown narrative throughout the entire period.

  There is nothing wrong with gratitude for Amazon’s performance throughout but the involvement of its founder and CEO in actively pushing for lockdowns, anxious to prolong them as long as possible, raises alarm bells.

  Or have a look at the March 2020 viral article called “The Hammer and the Dance,” pushed hard by all the major social-media outlets. The man who signed it is Tomas Pueyo, an educational entrepreneur pushing digital learning. He and the industry he represents made a windfall from lockdowns.

  The companies that massively benefited from lockdowns have been forced to pull back in hiring due to higher interest rates, but they are still much larger than they were pre-lockdown. They will cling to their power and market domination through all means fair and foul.

  How to dislodge them and restore competition?

  We Need Another Ludwig Erhard

  The historical precedent is postwar Germany. When Ludwig Erhard took over as finance minister following the destruction of the Nazi government, he worked to dismantle industrial cartels but faced massive resistance.

  The richest and most powerful corporate actors pushed back against his introduction of competition. You can read his story in the great 1958 book Prosperity Through Competition.

  His priority focus was on decentralization, deregulation, cuts and eliminations of taxes that are barriers to business formation, bolstering property rights, ending subsidies, stabilizing the current and otherwise encouraging as much freedom in the economic sphere.

  “Freedom for the consumer and freedom to work must be explicitly recognized as inviolable basic rights by every citizen,” Erhard wrote.

  “To offend against them should be regarded as an outrage against society. Democracy and a free economy are as logically linked as are dictatorship and State controls.”

  His efforts produced the “German economic miracle,” during which time the German economy grew an annual average of 8.5% between 1948 and 1960, and caused the nation to be the most prosperous in Europe. And this happened at the same time that the U.K. was adopting ever more socialist and corporativist forms of governance.

  The point is that industrial cartelization is not an unusual pattern. Big business has traditionally loathed competition and free enterprise. It would be naive to believe that they had no role in the destruction of American liberty and rights in those fateful days of lockdowns.

  Freedom Is the Historical Exception

  The norm in commercial life from the Middle Ages through the modern era has not been competition and freedom but cartelization and despotism, with some exceptions beginning in the late 18th century through the Great War, also known as the great age of liberalism or the Belle Epoque.

  What followed in the 20th century in many countries — coupled with economic crisis and war — was an egregious public-private partnership and the regulatory state that benefited the largest corporate players at the expense of startups and local companies.

  The introduction of digital commerce in the late 20th century threatened a new age of commercial freedom that came to a screeching halt with the lockdowns of 2020.

  In this sense, lockdowns were not “progressive” at all but profoundly conservative in the old-fashioned sense of the term. It was an establishment fighting to preserve and entrench its power.

  Perhaps that was the whole point all along.

  All those crazy mandates, protocols and recommendations served some purpose and they sure weren’t disease mitigation. They benefited those institutions that could afford to implement them while punishing their lower-capitalized competition.

  The response should be obvious: reparations for small business and the restoration of real commercial competition along the lines of postwar Germany.

  We need our own Ludwig Erhard. And we need our own miracle.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 17:30

• Watch: Woman Becomes A "Trans Man" Then Realizes Being A Man Is Too Hard
  Watch: Woman Becomes A “Trans Man” Then Realizes Being A Man Is Too Hard

  The modern social narrative is that men have always held all the cards, held all the control and kept the good life locked up tight behind an almost supernatural barrier of male privilege and patriarchy.  Not only do men hoard power like sleeping dragons hoarding treasure, but they are also supposedly maliciously “toxic”;  driven insane by a dangerous and mysterious radioactive energy called “masculinity.”  They are unstable creatures with a hair trigger, ready to rape and pillage without warning.  Men need to be subdued, observed and conditioned from childhood to be more like women.

  These beliefs have become so ingrained into progressive culture that they are now doctrine.  The patriarchy is a fact, even though they have no proof of its existence.  Male privilege is a fact, even though women have all the same rights as men under the law in the western world.  And all men are violent and vicious towards women if given the chance, though, if that were true then feminism would not stand a chance of survival in America or Europe.  It would not be allowed to exist.

  But what if the leftist perception is actually the opposite of reality?  What if women enjoy far more privileges than they could ever know?

  Libs Of TikTok gives us some insight into the conundrum with a recent post of a woman who “transitioned” into manhood, only to discover that being a man is so hard she now understands why men are much more likely to commit suicide…

  This is really sad. Trans man realizes how hard it is to be a man when you’re really a woman.

  Males and females are different and no matter what you do to your body, you can’t be the opposite sex. pic.twitter.com/Ib2in2vJrb

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 10, 2023

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  The video is revealing on multiple levels.  The woman above tries to express the difficulties of becoming a trans-man while still clinging to the precious victim status of womanhood.  She’s incapable of reconciling the two dynamics, and even suggests at one point that such pain could be solved by people providing even more attention and kindness to women.  

  It is very reminiscent of other female attempts to prove that men “live on easy mode,” such as writer Norah Vincent’s famous experiment in 2006 of living as a man for 18 months.  The project was supposed to last for two years, but Vincent found being a man so difficult and intolerable that she ended it early (the stress of pretending to be someone else was also a factor).  The writer discovered how cold women can be towards men and found she started to develop negative opinions of women as a whole.  Sadly, Vincent would go on to commit assisted suicide in 2022. 

  First and foremost, it’s not enough to wear the costume of a man – Men are fundamentally and biologically different from women in every way, including how they process the world and deal with adversity.  Women enjoy the comfort of collective support and group affirmation, that is how they cope with hardship.  Men are far more likely to deal with the struggle alone; in fact, men often prefer to be alone in order to mentally regenerate.  Here is comedy legend Patrice O’Neil to explain the simple psychological differences between men and women:

  No matter how much a woman wants to become a man due to the illusory privileges she thinks they have, she will never be a man in the head.  It’s not possible.

  A second factor to consider is that men tend to be more isolated and more dangerous for a reason – Men are expendable, by design.  From the beginning of recorded history men have been the cannon fodder for keeping civilization intact.  When the saber-toothed tigers attacked the tribe or the village was threatened by marauding armies it was the destiny of each able-bodied man to risk almost certain death to keep the women and children safe.  To provide and protect is an integral part of almost every man’s circuitry.  

  However, in first world societies government and bureaucracy has taken over the role of provider and protector, with numerous monetary and security safety nets for women.  With men’s primary biological role now treated as peripheral and unimportant, men are left to search for new meaning with very little in the way of social support.  In the feminized west, masculine men are seen as potential powderkegs; walking time bombs without a purpose that could wreak havoc at any moment.

  But the truth is, as soon as disaster erupts and those first world safety nets disappear women come running back to men for safety, expecting them to fulfill their job as cannon fodder once again.  As the venerable Bill Burr notes “There are no feminists in a house fire.”

  At bottom, masculine men end up in leadership roles more often because they are built for the job.  They are inherent risk takers and are more capable of self sacrifice for the good of the tribe.  Feminists believe that women can take on these responsibilities while also enjoying the privileges of collective emotional support and the coddling that modern society provides, but the two things are mutually exclusive.  They can’t have both, and some “trans men” are slowly starting to discover this, to their horror.       

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 17:00

• Bullwhip Effect Cracking US Imports' Peak Season (Again)
  Bullwhip Effect Cracking US Imports’ Peak Season (Again)

  By Henry Byers of FreightWaves

  Last week, we forecast a further decline in U.S. containerized import volumes in the second half of 2023, and a “new” bottom for volumes during this downcycle.

  

  The lingering effects of the “bullwhip effect” on inventories, along with the considerable downside risks that exist to consumer spending, the upcoming months are likely to witness an unprecedented level of caution among importers during this year’s peak season. This caution, combined with a weakening global macroeconomic backdrop, only heightens the risks of declining import volumes.

  

  As we forecast, ocean container bookings in the first half of 2023 (white line) have continued trending right alongside 2019 levels (orange line). This is expected to continue through early Q3,  at which point we will likely begin to see a detaching from 2019 levels to find a “new” bottom, ultimately resulting in a significant drop of 10% to 20% below levels experienced during the 2nd-half of 2019. Below is a chart of what that decline of 10% (orange) to 20% (red) in monthly loaded import TEUs would look like across the Top 10 U.S. ports.

  

  The most recent May report from Logistics Managers’ Index (LMI) data highlights an important nuance in the persistently high inventories. While the supply chain activity reached an all-time low for the third consecutive month in May, inventory levels also contracted for the first time since the early days of the pandemic. However, even though inventory levels decreased by 1.5 points to 49.5 (marking the first time since February 2020 that inventories have entered contraction territory), it’s important to note that downstream retail inventories continue to grow at a rate of 54.4, while upstream manufacturer and wholesaler inventories are contracting at a rate of 46.7, which pulled down the overall figure for May.

  

  With retail inventories still in a period of expansion, retailers that are major U.S. importers can be expected to adopt a cautious approach as they navigate the excess inventories that have accumulated in the supply chain bullwhip. These retailers have been scaling back since recognizing the inventory issue in Q1 2022, but the reality is that high inventory levels persist and could extend the destocking cycle throughout (at least) the remainder of 2023. This will require importers to be increasingly strategic in their reordering efforts in the second half to prevent further inventory buildup and manage costs effectively while addressing any additional shifts in consumer demand.

  As a prime example, Target, one of the major retail players (and the second-largest U.S. importer of containerized goods) entered 2023 with a sense of caution due to its inventory glut and potential shifts in consumer spending patterns. The company’s fiscal year 2022 report highlighted the challenges posed by rapid changes in consumer preferences and supply chain volatility, necessitating careful inventory planning to minimize markdowns. In the most recent quarter, Target has now seen both a decline in foot traffic (down 9% y/y) and sales figures (down 5% y/y) as reported by CitiBank analysts, which has likely only increased Target’s concerns about reordering/restocking. In the report from CitiBank, which downgraded Target’s stock price, the Citi analysts also noted other growing concerns for the retailer, such as the competitive pressure posed by Walmart, which is expected to continue gaining market share (largely due to its strong Grocery segment), potentially impacting Target’s discretionary sales, which account for 55% of its overall sales. With Target serving as a prime example of the issues that major retailers are potentially facing heading into the second half of 2023, it is becoming increasingly evident why the company would be incredibly cautious with bringing in new container volumes.

  

  Looking a little further upstream, wholesalers are also facing larger inventory problems than may be perceived from solely looking at the most recent LMI report. Since November 2022, the inventory-to-sales ratio has been higher than during the worst months of the Great Recession. If sales do not rebound (increasingly unlikely that they will), inventories must undergo substantial reductions in the second half. The imbalance between excessive inventories and only a slight softening of sales is causing significant strain throughout the global supply chain, especially when it comes to major origin countries and production centers for U.S. containerized goods.

  

  This strain is becoming increasingly apparent further upstream into major origin countries for U.S. containerized imports like China, where economic troubles continue to worsen. Jeffrey Snider of Eurodollar.University has been covering this in-depth in recent weeks, and in a recent video post, he pointed out that for the fourth consecutive month, consumer prices have dropped alongside the largest year-on-year decline in Producer Price Index (PPI) and factory gate prices since 2016. In the chart below, we can see that in May alone, China’s producer prices experienced a significant 0.9% decrease, further confirming that China’s reopening has been significantly overstated. These year-on-year declines are especially concerning given the fact that these comparisons are being made during last year when large manufacturing centers in China (i.e. Shanghai) were still largely on lockdown due to COVID restrictions.

  

  Snider also pointed out that China’s economic woes are reverberating throughout Asia, driven by the global recession that has dragged down industries. This widespread contraction is evident in the sharp decline in imports from South Korea and Japan, with both countries experiencing a 26% year-to-date decrease in imports. There has also been a substantial decline in China’s exports. Specifically, the value of goods exported to the U.S. plummeted by 18% year on year in May. This is all supportive of the reality that the reverse bullwhip effect has dealt a large blow to China, resulting ultimately in lower prices while intensifying the global trade recession, which has spread deeper into Europe.

  

  Europe’s PPI has sharply declined, primarily due to falling energy prices, but included a considerable decline in core prices as well. The HCOB Flash Manufacturing PMI for the Eurozone in May 2023 recorded a significant decline to 44.6 from April’s 45.8, far below the forecasted 46.2. This reading indicates the sharpest contraction in the factory sector in three years, with output, new orders, and backlogs of orders all declining at an accelerated pace. Input prices experienced the most substantial drop since February 2016, as manufacturers curtailed their input purchases, leading to a steep decline in inventories. Business confidence, especially within the manufacturing sector, weakened further, and Germany (already in an official recession) witnessed a particularly pronounced decline in manufacturing activity. Factory orders there have plummeted, especially from non-European markets, further indicating weakening global demand.

  

  It is also important to note another major input in the manufacturing process: cardboard box demand. FreightWaves was among the first to cover the concerning signs surrounding cardboard box demand in the article, “Cardboard box demand plunging at rates unseen since the Great Recession.” Demand has remained soft ever since, and in a recent article from Charles Schwab’s chief global investment strategist, Jeffrey Kleintop, he proclaimed that the United States is currently experiencing a “cardboard box recession.” This refers to a situation in which manufacturing and trade experience a global recession while services industries continue to grow. Demand for manufacturing and trade-related goods has declined, as indicated by the decrease in demand for corrugated linerboard.

  

  Circling all the way back to consumers, there are still a number of downside risks facing consumer spending in the 2nd-half, but one of the largest risks is student loan repayments. FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller covered this risk at length in his recent article “An unusually terrible freight market may get a lot worse.” The article points out factors that could worsen the freight market, including the potential end of various stimulus programs that have boosted personal income and freight demand, but specifically, it highlights the potential fallout caused by the impending resumption of student loan payments.

  The end of the student loan deferment program, which allowed consumers to save an average of over $15,000 since March 2020, will have a significant impact on consumer spending. With 64% of the $1.7 trillion student loan debt remaining in forbearance, the resumption of payments will create a cash flow shock for many households, particularly among the 25 million Americans ages 18-44 who have deferred their payments. This demographic plays a crucial role in driving consumer spending, and the sudden increase of approximately $393 per month in loan payments will likely lead to reduced discretionary income and a potential decrease in spending capacity.

  The lingering effects of the “bullwhip effect” on inventories at major U.S. importers, along with the considerable downside risks that exist to consumer spending, the upcoming months are likely to witness an unprecedented level of caution among importers. The prevailing global economic conditions further contribute to the downward risks facing import volumes. While it may not be a sharp drop, it is becoming increasingly probable that U.S. import demand will experience a fresh decline and establish a new low point in the second half of 2023.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 16:30

• Some Dems Uneasy About Cornel West's Third Party Presidential Run
  Some Dems Uneasy About Cornel West’s Third Party Presidential Run

  Leftist firebrand Cornel West launched a third-party presidential campaign last week, and some Democrats are uneasy over his potential to sow Democrat discontent with Joe Biden and potentially play the spoiler in 2024, Politico reports. 

  West is running as the first-ever presidential candidate of the People’s Party, a progressive group formed in 2017 by a former campaign staffer for Bernie Sanders. In a video announcing his candidacy, West said he was running under the People’s Party banner because “neither political party wants to tell the truth about Wall Street, about Ukraine, about the Pentagon, about Big Tech.” 

  I am running for truth and justice as a presidential candidate for the People’s Party to reintroduce America to the best of itself – fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for… pic.twitter.com/u3NYGUbG1S

  — Cornel West (@CornelWest) June 5, 2023

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  The Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party has an affinity for West, who was one of Sanders’ media surrogates during his presidential campaigns, and was named to the 2016 Democratic Party platform committee by Sanders. 

  The sharp-tongued West may have his most profound impact among young voters, who are more prone to embrace far-left politics. Among 18- to 34-year-olds, 56% disapprove of President Biden‘s performance. A former professor at Yale, Princeton and Harvard, West now teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. 

  Biden-backing Congressman Brendan Boyle sounded an indignant alarm about West’s announcement, telling Politico, “Any Democrat who runs an independent or third-party presidential campaign is dramatically helping Republican odds of victory. It’s that simple. And unfortunately, I have seen this play before.”  

  Boyle’s expression of political deja vu seemingly refers to 2016. Many Democrats accuse Green Party candidate Jill Stein of peeling away Democrat votes to an extent that cost Hillary Clinton the electoral votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — and thus the general election.

  

  West’s potential to pull votes away from Biden will be driven in large part by the ability of the People’s Party to qualify to appear on ballots — a complex, labor-intensive undertaking that typically involves collecting petition signatures.

  That will have to be repeated in every state the People’s Party targets, with the potential for the Democratic Party to intervene with legal challenges. Plaintiffs in a third-party ballot access lawsuit in Texas said trying to meet the signature requirement in the Lone Star State alone would cost more than $600,000, with no guarantee of success. 

  Because of those formidable hurdles, some progressives are already discussing a way to amplify West’s ballot presence — by also winning him the nomination of the Green Party, which appeared on 28 state ballots in 2020, and conducted write-in campaigns in 17 more.  

  Pulling votes isn’t the only way West can undermine Biden. A steady stream of his trademark, sharp-edged criticism is certain to dampen Democrats’ already lackluster enthusiasm for Biden, with the potential to put a dent in general election turnout.

  West endorsed the Green Party’s Stein over Hillary Clinton in 2016. He voted for Biden in 2020, but damned him with faint praise, saying he voted for a “mediocre, milquetoast neoliberal centrist because he’s better than fascism, and a fascist catastrophe is worse than a neoliberal disaster.”

  West’s campaign policy stances are a typical progressive mixed bag of horrible and excellent. On the negative side, he wants to “forgive all student debt…guarantee quality education, housing, a living wage [and] health care to all…support unions…end drilling on public lands and invest in clean energy.”

  On the plus side, West says he wants to “stop CBDCs [central bank digital currencies]…end the wars…stop all foreign military aid, close the bases, disband NATO…restore free speech [and] press freedoms…switch to hand-counted paper ballots.” 

  Philosopher @CornelWest calls the Ukraine war a “clash of two empires” between the United States and Russia, stressing the need for a ceasefire. “We’re on the road to nuclear war,” he warns.

  Cornel West just announced he is running for president in 2024 with @PeoplesParty_US. pic.twitter.com/SKu9aUMO99

  — Democracy Now! (@democracynow) June 7, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 16:00

• The Censorship Hegemon Must Be Stopped
  The Censorship Hegemon Must Be Stopped

  Authored by Aaron Kheriaty via The Brownstone Institute,

  One year ago, I joined the states of Missouri and Louisiana and several other co-plaintiffs to file a suit in federal court challenging what journalist Michael Shellenberger has called the censorship-industrial complex.

  While much of the press cooperated with the state’s censorship efforts and has ignored our court battle, we expect that it will ultimately go to the Supreme Court, setting up Missouri v. Biden to be the most important free speech case of our generation—and arguably, of the past 50 years.

  Prior government censorship cases typically involved a state actor unconstitutionally meddling with one publisher, one author, one or two books, a single article. But as we intend to prove in court, the federal government has censored hundreds of thousands of Americans, violating the law on tens of millions of occasions in the last several years. This unprecedented breach was made possible by the wholly novel reach and breadth of the new digital social media landscape.

  

  My co-plaintiffs, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and I were censored for content related to COVID and public health policy that the government disfavored. Documents we have reviewed on discovery demonstrate that government censorship was far more wide-ranging than previously known, from election integrity and the Hunter Biden laptop story to gender ideology, abortion, monetary policy, the US banking system, the war in Ukraine, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and more. There is hardly a topic of recent public discussion and debate that the US government has not targeted for censorship.

  Jacob Seigel, Matt Taibbi, and other investigative reporters have begun to document the anatomy of the censorship leviathan, a tightly interconnected network of federal agencies and private entities receiving public funding—where much of the censorship grunt work is outsourced. The “industrial” in censorship-industrial complex should be understood literally: censorship is now a highly developed industry, complete with career-training institutions in higher education (like Stanford’s Internet Observatory or the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public), full-time job opportunities in industry and government (from the Virality Project and the Election Integrity Partnership to any number of federal agencies engaged in censorship), and insider jargon and euphemisms (like disinformation, misinformation, and “malinformation” which must be debunked and “prebunked”) to render the distasteful work of censorship more palatable to industry insiders.

  Our lawyers were in court last week arguing for a preliminary injunction to halt the activities of the censorship machine while our case is tried. I will spare you a full account of the government’s endless procedural wrangling, obfuscation, attempts to hide, delays, and diversionary tactics in this case—futile efforts to dodge even the most legally straightforward aspects of discovery, such as our request to depose former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki. So far, the government has been caught hiding discovery materials, which the judge chastised them about before ruling against their motion to dismiss, reminding the government that the limited discovery so far would widen once the case went to trial.

  The government’s lawyers were not able to block the deposition of Anthony Fauci, however, who had to answer some pointed questions about his COVID policies for the first time under the threat of the penalty of perjury. Dr. Fauci seemed to suffer from a strange syndrome of “sudden-onset amnesia” during his deposition, as I have described elsewhere.

  Government censorship was far more wide-ranging than previously known

  But aside from these procedural scuffles, the more important aspects of this case are the government censorship activities we have already exposed. For example, our documents demonstrate how a relatively unknown agency within the Department of Homeland Security became the central clearinghouse of government-run information control—an Orwellian Ministry of Truth. My fellow citizens, meet the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency—better known as CISA—a government acronym with the same word in it twice in case you wondered about its mission.

  This agency was created in the waning days of the Obama administration, supposedly to protect our digital infrastructure against cyberattacks from computer viruses and nefarious foreign actors. But less than one year into their existence, CISA decided that their remit also should include protecting our “cognitive infrastructure” from various threats.

  “Cognitive infrastructure” is the actual phrase used by current CISA head Jen Easterly, who formerly worked at Tailored Access Operations, a top secret cyber warfare unit at the National Security Agency. It refers to the thoughts inside your head, which is precisely what the government’s counter-disinformation apparatus, headed by people like Easterly, are attempting to control. Naturally, these thoughts need to be protected from bad ideas, such as any ideas that the people at CISA or their government partners do not like.

  More on Disinformation in America

  In early 2017, citing the threat from foreign disinformation, the Department of Homeland Security unilaterally declared federal control over the country’s election infrastructure, which had previously been administered at the local level. Not long after that, CISA, which is a subagency of the DHS, established its own authority over the cognitive infrastructure by becoming the central hub coordinating the government’s information control activities. This pattern was repeated in several other government agencies around the same time (there are currently a dozen federal agencies named among the defendants in our suit).

  So, what exactly has the government been doing to protect our cognitive infrastructure? Perhaps the best way to wrap your head around the actual operations of the new American censorship leviathan is to consider the vivid analogy offered by our brilliant attorney, John Sauer, in the introduction of our brief for the injunction. This is worth quoting at length:

  Suppose that the Trump White House, backed by Republicans controlling both Houses of Congress, publicly demanded that all libraries in the United States burn books criticizing the President, and the President made statements implying that the libraries would face ruinous legal consequences if they did not comply, while senior White House officials privately badgered the libraries for detailed lists and reports of such books that they had burned and the libraries, after months of such pressure, complied with those demands and burned the books.

  Suppose that, after four years of pressure from senior Congressional staffers in secret meetings threatening the libraries with adverse legislation if they did not cooperate, the FBI started sending all libraries in the United States detailed lists of the books the FBI wanted to burn, requesting that the libraries report back to the FBI by identifying the books that they burned, and the libraries complied by burning about half of those books.

  Suppose that a federal national security agency teamed up with private research institutions, backed by enormous resources and federal funding, to establish a mass-surveillance and mass-censorship program that uses sophisticated techniques to review hundreds of millions of American citizens’ electronic communications in real time, and works closely with tech platforms to covertly censor millions of them.

  The first two hypotheticals are directly analogous to the facts of this case. The third, meanwhile, is not a hypothetical at all; it is a description of the Election Integrity Partnership and Virality Project.

  The censorship activities of the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, which it terms “information warfare,” have turned the FBI, in the words of whistleblower Steve Friend, into an “intelligence agency with law enforcement powers.” But there is no “information warfare” exception to the constitutional right of free speech. Which other federal agencies are involved in censorship? Besides the ones you might suspect—the DOJ, NIH, CDC, Surgeon General, and the State Department—our case has also uncovered censorship activities by the Department of the Treasury (don’t criticize the feds’ monetary policies), and yes, my friends, even the Census Bureau (don’t ask).

  In prior precedent-setting cases on censorship, the Supreme Court clarified that the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution exists not just for the person speaking but for the listener as well: We all have the right to hear both sides of debated issues to make informed judgments. Thus all Americans have been harmed by the government’s censorship leviathan, not just those who happen to post opinions or share information on social media.

  The judge presiding over the case, Terry Dougherty, asked on Friday in court if anyone had read George Orwell’s 1984 and whether they remembered the Ministry of Truth. “It’s relevant here,” he added. It is indeed time to slay the government’s censorship leviathan. I hope that our efforts in Missouri v. Biden prove to be a crucial first step in this project to restore our constitutional rights.

  *  *  *

  This piece originally ran at Tablet and is reprinted by the author’s Substack

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 15:30

• Give War A Chance – A 'War That Even Pacifists Can Get Behind'
  Give War A Chance – A ‘War That Even Pacifists Can Get Behind’

  Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Ron Paul Institute,

  More than a year into Russia’s Special Operation, the initial burst of European excitement at western push-back on Russia has dissipated. The mood instead has turned to “existential dread, a nagging suspicion that [western] civilization may destroy itself,” Professor Helen Thompson writes.

  For an instant, a euphoria had coalesced around the putative projection of the EU as a world power; as a key actor, about to compete on a world scale. Initially, events seemed to play to Europe’s conviction of its market powers: Europe was going to bring down a major power – Russia – by financial coup d’état alone. The EU felt ‘six feet tall.’

  It seemed at the time a galvanizing moment: “The war re-forged a long-dormant Manichaean framing of existential conflict between Russia and the West, assuming ontological, apocalyptic dimensions. In the spiritual fires of the war, the myth of the ‘West’ was rebaptized,” Arta Moeini suggests.

  

  After the initial disappointment at the lack of a ‘quick kill’, the hope persisted – that if only the sanctions were given more time, and made more all-embracing, then Russia surely would ultimately collapse. That hope has turned to dust. And the reality of what Europe has done to itself has begun to dawn – hence Professor Thomson’s dire warning:

  Those who assume that the political world can be reconstructed by the efforts of human Will, have never before had to bet so heavily on technology over [fossil] energy – as the driver of our material advancement.

  For the Euro-Atlanticists however, what Ukraine seemed to offer – finally – was validation for their yearning to centralize power in the EU, sufficiently, to merit a place at the ‘top table’ with the US, as partners in playing the Great Game.

  Ukraine, for better or worse, underlined Europe’s profound military dependence on Washington – and on NATO.

  More particularly, the Ukraine conflict seemed to open the prospect for consolidating the strange metamorphosis of NATO from military alliance to an enlightened, Progressive, peace alliance! As Timothy Garton Ash effused in the Guardian in 2002, “NATO has become a European peace movement” where one could watch “John Lennon meet George Bush.”

  The Ukraine war is portrayed, in this vein, as the “war­ that even former pacifists can get behind. All its proponents seemed to be singing is “Give War a Chance.”

  Lily Lynch, a Belgrade-based writer, argues that…

  …especially in the past 12 months, telegenic female leaders such as the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, have increasingly served as the spokespersons of enlightened militarism in Europe… ”

  No political party in Europe better exemplifies the shift from militant pacifism to ardent pro-war Atlanticism than the German Greens. Most of the original Greens had been radicals during the student protests of 1968 … But as the founding members entered middle age, fissures began to appear in the party – that would one day tear it apart.

  Kosovo then changed everything: The 78-day NATO bombing of what remained of Yugoslavia in 1999, ostensibly to halt war crimes committed by Serbian security forces in Kosovo, would forever transform the German Greens. NATO for the Greens became an active military compact concerned with spreading and defending values such as human rights, democracy, peace, and freedom – well beyond the borders of its member states.

  A few years later, in 2002, an EU functionary (Robert Cooper) could envisage Europe as a new ‘liberal imperialism.’ The ‘new’ was that Europe eschewed hard military power, in favour of weaponising both a controlled ‘narrative’ and controlled participation in its market. He advocated for ‘a new age of empire’, in which Western powers no longer would have to follow international law in their dealings with ‘old fashioned’ states; they could use military force independently of the United Nations; and could impose protectorates to replace regimes which ‘misgovern.’

  The German Greens’ Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, has continued with this metamorphosis, scolding countries with traditions of military neutrality, and imploring them to join NATO. She has invoked Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s line: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” And the European Left has been utterly captivated. Major parties have abandoned military neutrality and opposition to war – and now champion NATO. It is a stunning reversal.

  All this may have been music to the ears of the Euro-élites anxious for the EU to rise to Great Power status, but this soft-power European Leviathan was wholly underpinned by the unstated (but essential) assumption that NATO ‘had Europe’s back.’ This naturally implied that the EU had to tie itself ever closer to NATO – and therefore to the US which controls NATO.

  But the flip-side to this Atlanticist aspiration – as President Emmanuel Macron noted – is its inexorable logic that Europeans simply end by becoming American vassals. Macron was trying rather, to rally Europe towards the coming ‘age of empires’, hoping to position Europe as a ‘third pole’ in a concert of empires.

  The Atlanticists were duly enraged by Macron’s remarks (which nonetheless drew support of other EU states). It could even seem (to furious Atlanticists) that Macron actually was channelling General de Gaulle who had called NATO a “false pretense” designed to “disguise America’s chokehold over Europe.”

  There are however, two related schisms that flowed out from this ‘re-imagined’ NATO: Firstly, it exposed the reality of internal European rivalries and divergent interests, precisely because the NATO lead in the Ukraine conflict sets the interests of the Central East European hawks wanting ‘more America, and more war on Russia’ up and against that of the original EU western axis which wants wanting strategic autonomy (i.e. less ‘America’, and a quick end to the conflict).

  Secondly, it would be predominantly the western economies that would have to bankroll the costs and divert their manufacturing capacity towards military logistic chains. The economic price, non-military de-industrialization and high inflation, potentially, could be enough to break Europe – economically.

  The prospect of a pan-European cohesive identity might be both ontologically appealing – and be seen to be an ‘appropriate accessory’ to an aspiring ‘world actor’ – yet such identity becomes caricature when mosaic Europe is transformed into an abstract de-territorialized identity that reduces people to their most abstract.

  Paradoxically, the Ukraine war – far from consolidating the EU ‘identity’, as first imagined – has fractured it under the stresses of the concerted effort to weaken and collapse Russia.

  Secondly, as Arta Moeini, the director of the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, has observed:

  The American push for NATO expansion since 1991 has enlarged the alliance by adding a host of faultline states from Central and Eastern Europe. The strategy, which began with the Clinton administration but was fully championed by the George W. Bush administration, was to create a decidedly pro-American pillar on the continent, centred on Warsaw – which would force an eastward shift in the alliance’s center of gravity away from the traditional Franco-German axis.

  By using NATO enlargement to weaken the old power centers in Europe that might have occasionally stood up to [Washington] such as in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Washington ensured a more compliant Europe in the short-term. The upshot, however, was the formation of a 31-member behemoth with deep asymmetries of power and low compatibility of interests” – that is much weaker and more vulnerable – than it believes itself to be.

  Here is the key: “the EU is much weaker than it believes it to be.” The outset of the conflict was defined by a cast of mind entranced by the notion of Europe as a ‘mover and shaker’ in world affairs, and mesmerized by Europe’s post-war prosperity.

  EU leaders convinced themselves that this prosperity had bequeathed it the clout and the economic depth to contemplate war – and to weather its reversals – with panglossian sanguinity. It has produced rather, the converse: It has put its project in jeopardy.

  In John Raply and Peter Heather’s The Imperial Life Cycle, the authors explain the cycle:

  Empires grow rich and powerful and attain supremacy through the economic exploitation of their colonial periphery. But in the process, they inadvertently spur the economic development of that same periphery, until it can roll back and ultimately displace its overlord.

  Europe’s prosperity in this post-war era, thus was not so much one of its own making, but drew benefit from the tail-end of accumulations hewn from an earlier cycle – now reversed.

  “The fastest-growing economies in the world are now all in the old periphery; the worst-performing economies are disproportionately in the West. These are the economic trends that have created our present landscape of superpower conflict — most saliently between America and China.”

  America may think of itself as exempt from the European colonial mold, yet fundamentally, its model is…

  …an updated cultural-political glue that we might call “neoliberalism, NATO and denim,” which follows in the timeless imperial mold: The great wave of decolonization that followed WW2 was meant to end that. But the Bretton Woods system, which created a trading regime that favored industrial over primary producers and enshrined the dollar as the global reserve currency – ensured that the net flow of financial resources continued to move from developing countries to developed ones. Even when the economies of the newly-independent states grew, those of the G7 economies and their partners grew more.

  A once-mighty empire is now challenged and feels embattled. Taken aback by the refusal of so many developing countries to join with isolating Russia, the West is now waking up to the reality of the emerging, polycentric and fluid global order. These trends are set to continue. The danger is that economically weakened and in crisis, western countries attempt to re-appropriate western triumphalism, yet lack the economic strength and depth, so to do:

  In the Roman Empire, peripheral states developed the political and military capacity to end Roman domination by force… The Roman Empire might have survived – had it not weakened itself with wars of choice – on its ascendant Persian rival.

  The final ‘transgressive’ thought goes to Tom Luongo: “Allowing the West to keep thinking they can win – is the ultimate form of grinding out a superior opponent.”

  Interesting!

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/11/2023 – 14:30

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• ESG Dystopia: Why Corporations Are Doubling Down On Woke Even As They Lose Billions
  ESG Dystopia: Why Corporations Are Doubling Down On Woke Even As They Lose Billions

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-market.us,

  It’s been a bloodbath for the majority of companies that go overtly woke in the new era of American consumer rebellion, and the establishment is not happy. Corporations like Disney, Anheuser-Busch and Target are plunging in profits and losing billions in market cap after pledging fealty to the trans agenda. In particular, the public is setting out to make examples of institutions that support trans indoctrination of children. Simply put, a line in the sand has been crossed.

  

  With conservative boycotts far more effective than leftist boycotts ever were, the movement makes evident that the political left is a paper tiger and that conservatives and independents have the real majority power in the US.  In response, the media is claiming that this movement is a form of “economic terrorism.” That is to say, if you refuse to support the woke hive mind with your wallet, you should be considered domestic enemy. 

  It took long enough, but average Americans are finally engaging in a culture war which was started years ago, not so much by the political left, but by globalist institutions using leftist activists as enforcers and saboteurs. The key issue that very few people talk about is that activist groups would have NO POWER whatsoever if it weren’t for the unprecedented backing they receive from governments, non-profits, think-tanks and the corporate world. And, a lot of this support has been injected through ESG-style financing as well as DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs.

  ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) is becoming a well known term and is, at bottom, a form of “impact investing” – Meaning, major lenders such as Blackrock or Carlyle Group, or think-tanks like the Ford Foundation, seek to control societal outcomes using lending as leverage. Watch the video HERE featuring the Ford Foundation’s head of “mission investments” to get a basic understanding of what ESG really is:  Social engineering.

  In the past, lenders would base their financing standards on good credit scores and the likelihood of return on investment. If you had a business with a history of solid returns and worthy collateral then you would probably get whatever loans you needed. Today, however, lenders are trying to set political and ideological terms for companies seeking to obtain financing. You must signal your virtue to get access to money, and this includes supporting climate and carbon initiatives, reorganizing your labor based on diversity and inclusion rules, even promoting LGBT activism might be a big factor in your next infusion of cash.

  The higher your ESG score, the more likely it is that you will qualify for access to debt. This is part of the reason why a large array of corporations are increasingly jumping on the “pride month” bandwagon. All they have to do is slap some rainbows on some products or commercials or publicly defend the trans grooming of children and suddenly they are golden for another year of subsidized funds.

  But what happens in a world where consumer loyalty is no longer a guarantee and the public stops buying from chains that promote woke concepts? What happens when going woke also means going broke? Is ESG cash really worth losing half your customers or more?

  Well, not right now it isn’t. As central banks raise interest rates and cut their balance sheets the easy money party that started back in 2008 is ending. After a decade of exponential growth ESG is now in steep decline, and this is directly tied to the policies of central banks like the Federal Reserve. In the past year it is no longer viable to dump money into mostly useless woke projects. Yet, the woke trend continues. Why?

  Twenty years ago, the name of the game in the business world was “brand building.” If you could build your brand and gain market loyalty you could sustain your profit model for decades to come. Now, corporations are actually willing to destroy the very brands they spent so much time and money developing all in the name of political idolatry.

  It seems like pure madness, but what if they know something we don’t? What if they are riding out an engineered economic crisis so that they can be rewarded later with “too woke to fail” riches? My theory is that while ESG lending appears to be dying today, tomorrow ESG lending will be the only way any company will be able to survive.

  We need to start considering the future possibility of globally institutionalized ESG.  The frightening notion of central bank ESG financing has been circulating ever since the early days of the covid pandemic. From the BIS to the Fed to the ECB, numerous programs began to surface with woke connotations. Most of them initially focused on climate change, with central banks suddenly taking an interest in “saving the planet” from a carbon threat that doesn’t exist. Now, there’s a rising chorus of DEI and social equity babble coming from central banks as well.

  Maybe international banks are limited in how they engage in ESG lending, but what about central banks? What if they drop their facade of being “politically neutral” and come out full force in support of the woke mind virus? What if central banks become the foundation of ESG?  Wouldn’t woke lending then become perpetual?

  I believe that this is exactly what is intended to happen, but it would have to be tied directly to an economic crisis as well as the introduction of digital currencies (CBDCs).  A debt crisis (along with stagflation) could force a majority of companies into a corner. With lack of funds, falling consumer spending and a tightening loan market, central banks and stimulus measures would once again become the only official mechanism for rebuilding the economy.

  Governments would also be beholden to central banks as a means to stay afloat, and this means the bankers will have immense influence over how money is distributed (and how wealth is reallocated).

  Unlike the crash of 2008, though, the next stimulus event will not be a fiat free-for-all. Instead, it will be RESET; a highly limited rescue plan with digital money being infused into select institutions. In other words, only a portion of the existing economy will be given a life boat, and guess who will qualify for a spot on the raft? That’s right, companies showing the most devotion to ESG.

  This would explain why so many corporations are refusing to back away from woke marketing even though they’re losing millions of customers; they know what’s about to happen and they’re preparing in advance for the fallout as well as the inevitable digital bailouts.

  Of course, some people will argue that this would require a level of organization and “conspiracy” that doesn’t exist. It would be “silly” to suggest that corporations are colluding to enact a plan to fundamentally upend the current economic paradigm, right? Wrong. At least in terms of coordination, the cabal has already openly announced its presence.

  The collusion of corporations, think-tanks and governments to create an international woke monopoly is not theory, it’s reality. The only question left is when will central banks fully admit they’re a part of the scheme? I would suggest that the signs of banking crisis we witnessed at the beginning of this year are the tip of the iceberg.

  As the Fed and others continue to raise interest rates into economic weakness stress on the system will expand, and eventually something integral will snap. Maybe it will be another Lehman moment, maybe it will be the US dollar losing reserve status or some other disaster. But it’s no coincidence that this invasion of far-left cultism in the business world is escalating at the same time that our economic foundations are struggling. One is related to the other, and it’s my view that the decay of the current system is meant to facilitate the creation of a new and perpetually woke economy.

  The public would thus be trapped into participating in the cult by sheer necessity, unless, the population decentralizes using localized production and localized trade. Our entire way of life would have to change dramatically, drawing from self sufficient ideals that used to be a staple a hundred years ago.

  ESG is not going away on its own. Woke ideology is not going away on its own. These structures will have to be destroyed, but you can’t rebel against a structure you rely on for your daily survival. You would first have to completely separate from it.

  *  *  *

  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, 06/10/2023 – 23:30

• Visualizing The State Of Economic Freedom Around The World In 2023
  Visualizing The State Of Economic Freedom Around The World In 2023

  The concept of economic freedom serves as a vital framework for evaluating the extent to which individuals and businesses have the freedom to make economic decisions. In countries with low economic freedom, governments exert coercion and constraints on liberties, restricting choice for individuals and businesses, which can ultimately hinder prosperity.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop and Joyce Ma show in the map below, using the annual Index of Economic Freedom from the Heritage Foundation, showcases the level of economic freedom in every country worldwide on a scale of 0-100, looking at factors like property rights, tax burdens, labor freedom, and so on.

  The ranking categorizing scores of 80+ as free economies, 70-79.9 as mostly free, 60-69.9 as moderately free, 50-59.9 as mostly unfree, and 0-49.9 as repressed.

  

  Measuring Economic Freedom

  This ranking uses four broad categories with three key indicators each, both qualitative and quantitative, to measure economic freedom.

  1. Rule of law: property rights, judicial effectiveness, government integrity

  2. Size of government: tax burdens, fiscal health, government spending

  3. Regulatory efficiency: labor freedom, monetary freedom, business freedom

  4. Open markets: financial freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom

  The 12 indicators are weighted equally and scored from 0-100. The overall score is then determined from the average of the 12 indicators.

  Here’s a closer look at every country’s score:

  Rank	Country	2023 Score
  #1	🇸🇬 Singapore	83.9
  #2	🇨🇭 Switzerland	83.8
  #3	🇮🇪 Ireland	82.0
  #4	🇹🇼 Taiwan	80.7
  #5	🇳🇿 New Zealand	78.9
  #6	🇪🇪 Estonia	78.6
  #7	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	78.4
  #8	🇳🇱 Netherlands	78.0
  #9	🇩🇰 Denmark	77.6
  #10	🇸🇪 Sweden	77.5
  #11	🇫🇮 Finland	77.1
  #12	🇳🇴 Norway	76.9
  #13	🇦🇺 Australia	74.8
  #14	🇩🇪 Germany	73.7
  #15	🇰🇷 South Korea	73.7
  #16	🇨🇦 Canada	73.7
  #17	🇱🇻 Latvia	72.8
  #18	🇨🇾 Cyprus	72.3
  #19	🇮🇸 Iceland	72.2
  #20	🇱🇹 Lithuania	72.2
  #21	🇨🇿 Czechia	71.9
  #22	🇨🇱 Chile	71.1
  #23	🇦🇹 Austria	71.1
  #24	🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates	70.9
  #25	🇺🇸 United States	70.6
  #26	🇲🇺 Mauritius	70.6
  #27	🇺🇾 Uruguay	70.2
  #28	🇬🇧 United Kingdom	69.9
  #29	🇧🇧 Barbados	69.8
  #30	🇵🇹 Portugal	69.5
  #31	🇯🇵 Japan	69.3
  #32	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	69.3
  #33	🇸🇰 Slovakia	69.0
  #34	🇮🇱 Israel	68.9
  #35	🇬🇪 Georgia	68.7
  #36	🇶🇦 Qatar	68.6
  #37	🇸🇮 Slovenia	68.5
  #38	🇼🇸 Samoa	68.3
  #39	🇯🇲 Jamaica	68.1
  #40	🇵🇱 Poland	67.7
  #41	🇲🇹 Malta	67.5
  #42	🇲🇾 Malaysia	67.3
  #43	🇧🇪 Belgium	67.1
  #44	🇵🇪 Peru	66.5
  #45	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	66.5
  #46	🇭🇷 Croatia	66.4
  #47	🇨🇻 Cabo Verde	65.8
  #48	🇧🇳 Brunei Darussalam	65.7
  #49	🇦🇱 Albania	65.3
  #50	🇦🇲 Armenia	65.1
  #51	🇪🇸 Spain	65.0
  #52	🇧🇼 Botswana	64.9
  #53	🇷🇴 Romania	64.5
  #54	🇭🇺 Hungary	64.1
  #55	🇵🇦 Panama	63.8
  #56	🇲🇰 North Macedonia	63.7
  #57	🇫🇷 France	63.6
  #58	🇷🇸 Serbia	63.5
  #59	🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	63.5
  #60	🇮🇩 Indonesia	63.5
  #61	🇲🇽 Mexico	63.2
  #62	🇨🇴 Colombia	63.1
  #63	🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina	62.9
  #64	🇬🇹 Guatemala	62.7
  #65	🇩🇴 Dominican Republic	62.6
  #66	🇧🇸 The Bahamas	62.6
  #67	🇫🇲 Micronesia	62.6
  #68	🇧🇭 Bahrain	62.5
  #69	🇮🇹 Italy	62.3
  #70	🇻🇺 Vanuatu	62.1
  #71	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	62.1
  #72	🇻🇳 Vietnam	61.8
  #73	🇲🇳 Mongolia	61.7
  #74	🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe	61.5
  #75	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	61.4
  #76	🇵🇾 Paraguay	61.0
  #77	🇲🇪 Montenegro	60.9
  #78	🇽🇰 Kosovo	60.7
  #79	🇱🇨 Saint Lucia	60.7
  #80	🇹🇭 Thailand	60.6
  #81	🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire	60.4
  #82	🇹🇴 Tonga	60.0
  #83	🇹🇿 Tanzania	60.0
  #84	🇧🇯 Benin	59.8
  #85	🇧🇿 Belize	59.8
  #86	🇩🇲 Dominica	59.7
  #87	🇸🇨 Seychelles	59.5
  #88	🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago	59.5
  #89	🇵🇭 Philippines	59.3
  #90	🇧🇹 Bhutan	59.0
  #91	🇲🇬 Madagascar	58.9
  #92	🇰🇮 Kiribati	58.8
  #93	🇯🇴 Jordan	58.8
  #94	🇭🇳 Honduras	58.7
  #95	🇴🇲 Oman	58.5
  #96	🇲🇩 Moldova	58.5
  #97	🇲🇦 Morocco	58.4
  #98	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	58.3
  #99	🇬🇭 Ghana	58.0
  #100	🇫🇯 Fiji	58.0
  #101	🇬🇲 The Gambia	57.9
  #102	🇳🇦 Namibia	57.7
  #103	🇸🇳 Senegal	57.7
  #104	🇹🇷 Türkiye	56.9
  #105	🇬🇾 Guyana	56.9
  #106	🇬🇷 Greece	56.9
  #107	🇸🇧 Solomon Islands	56.9
  #108	🇰🇼 Kuwait	56.7
  #109	🇺🇿 Uzbekistan	56.5
  #110	🇰🇭 Cambodia	56.5
  #111	🇧🇫 Burkina Faso	56.2
  #112	🇬🇦 Gabon	56.1
  #113	🇩🇯 Djibouti	56.1
  #114	🇸🇻 El Salvador	56.0
  #115	🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan	55.8
  #116	🇿🇦 South Africa	55.7
  #117	🇲🇷 Mauritania	55.3
  #118	🇹🇬 Togo	55.3
  #119	🇪🇨 Ecuador	55.0
  #120	🇸🇿 Eswatini	54.9
  #121	🇳🇮 Nicaragua	54.9
  #122	🇲🇱 Mali	54.5
  #123	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	54.4
  #124	🇳🇬 Nigeria	53.9
  #125	🇷🇺 Russia	53.8
  #126	🇳🇪 Niger	53.7
  #127	🇧🇷 Brazil	53.5
  #128	🇰🇲 Comoros	53.5
  #129	🇬🇳 Guinea	53.2
  #130	🇦🇴 Angola	53.0
  #131	🇮🇳 India	52.9
  #132	🇹🇳 Tunisia	52.9
  #133	🇲🇼 Malawi	52.8
  #134	🇲🇿 Mozambique	52.5
  #135	🇰🇪 Kenya	52.5
  #136	🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	52.2
  #137	🇷🇼 Rwanda	52.2
  #138	🇹🇩 Chad	52.0
  #139	🇨🇲 Cameroon	51.9
  #140	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	51.7
  #141	🇱🇸 Lesotho	51.6
  #142	🇳🇵 Nepal	51.4
  #143	🇺🇬 Uganda	51.4
  #144	🇦🇷 Argentina	51.0
  #145	🇧🇾 Belarus	51.0
  #146	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	50.6
  #147	🇱🇦 Laos	50.3
  #148	🇸🇱 Sierra Leone	50.2
  #149	🇭🇹 Haiti	49.9
  #150	🇱🇷 Liberia	49.6
  #151	🇪🇬 Egypt	49.6
  #152	🇵🇰 Pakistan	49.4
  #153	🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea	48.3
  #154	🇨🇳 China	48.3
  #155	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	48.3
  #156	🇨🇬 Congo	48.1
  #157	🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo	47.9
  #158	🇿🇲 Zambia	47.8
  #159	🇹🇱 Timor-Leste	47.2
  #160	🇲🇻 Maldives	46.6
  #161	🇹🇲 Turkmenistan	46.5
  #162	🇲🇲 Myanmar	46.5
  #163	🇸🇷 Suriname	46.1
  #164	🇱🇧 Lebanon	45.6
  #165	🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau	44.6
  #166	🇨🇫 Central African Republic	43.8
  #167	🇧🇴 Bolivia	43.4
  #168	🇩🇿 Algeria	43.2
  #169	🇮🇷 Iran	42.2
  #170	🇧🇮 Burundi	41.9
  #171	🇪🇷 Eritrea	39.5
  #172	🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	39.0
  #173	🇸🇩 Sudan	32.8
  #174	🇻🇪 Venezuela	25.8
  #175	🇨🇺 Cuba	24.3
  #176	🇰🇵 North Korea	2.9
  –	🇮🇶 Iraq	N/A
  –	🇱🇾 Libya	N/A
  –	🇱🇮 Liechtenstein	N/A
  –	Afghanistan	N/A

  Only four countries in the world have a score of 80 or above, Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, and Taiwan, categorizing them as completely free economically.

  Let’s now look at things from a more regional perspective.

  Europe

  

  From a regional perspective, Europe ranks the strongest in economic freedom.

  Despite being a powerhouse within Europe, Germany ranks 10th in the continent, with a score of 73.7. One of the categories Germany scored the weakest in was government spending (28.3/100). Over the last three years, government spending has averaged 49% of GDP.

  Ireland ranks third globally, scoring particularly high in categories like property rights and judicial effectiveness. The country also has no minimum capital requirement—which is typically a banking regulation and corporate law issue determining how many assets an organization must hold—making it attractive for businesses to set up shop on the Emerald Isle.

  Africa

  

  Currently, Africa is the continent with the least economic freedom in the world, however, it is also the region with the highest potential for economic growth. A booming population, and thus, labor force, are promising for future innovation. In fact, it’s anticipated that Africa will see an increase of 2.5 billion people by the end of the century.

  The lowest scoring country in Africa is Sudan, a country under further strain thanks to rife civil conflict. Historically, economic development has been constrained by rampant corruption and a lack of institutional capacity.

  Conversely, Botswana registered the highest score on continental Africa (64.9), ranking higher than countries like France and Italy.

  The Americas

  

  In the Americas, the United States ranks 3rd regionally—25th overall—with a score of 70.6. The report attributes the categorization of U.S. as only “mostly free” to issues like inflation, increasing government debt, and unchecked deficit spending. Public debt currently sits at a figure equivalent to more than 128% of GDP.

  In South America, Chile comes out on top, ranking above many other economic powerhouses like the U.S., the UK, and Japan. However, the 2021 election of a new Constitutional Assembly could risk the current economic state, as it favors a much more socialist approach to the economy.

  East Asia and Oceania

  

  China’s score is among the lowest in East Asia & Oceania, ranking 154th in the world categorizing it as a repressed economy. The ruling Chinese Communist Party routinely exercises direct control over economic activity. China’s protectionist stance towards foreign investment and a plethora of trade tariffs imposed by other nations also factor in here.

  In India, where public debt is equivalent to about 84% of GDP, fiscal health is the worst-scoring category. Additionally, much of the economy remains quite informal; a large share of people work in jobs without tax slips, recorded income, or formal contracts protecting them, which challenges labor freedoms.

  The Middle East and Central Asia

  

  It may come as no surprise that the United Arab Emirates has the highest score in the Middle East. The UAE has implemented various measures and initiatives, such as tax exemptions, duty-free zones, streamlined business registration processes, and flexible regulatory frameworks to encourage entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment. As well, the top individual and corporate tax rates in the country are 0%.

  Türkiye’s lowest scoring category relates to judiciary effectiveness and the rule of law. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has already been in power for two decades, recently won the country’s election, again cementing his authority over Turkish politics. This makes it unlikely that Türkiye’s economic freedom score will recover in the short to medium term.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 23:00

• Why Patriots Shouldn't Pledge Allegiance
  Why Patriots Shouldn’t Pledge Allegiance

  Authored by Brian McGlinchey via starkrealities.substack.com 

  Flag Day is approaching, with the Fourth of July not far behind. No better time for a frontal assault on a cherished American ritual: the Pledge of Allegiance.

  Though conservatives will be most aghast at this undertaking, the open-minded ones will soon discover they should be among the pledge’s greatest critics.

  Before I open fire, a brief explanation for international readers: The Pledge of Allegiance is recited by children across America at the start of start of each school day. It’s also incorporated into many meetings held by federal, state and local governments and private groups as well.

  Standing and facing the flag with hand over heart, one recites: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

  A Government Loyalty Oath Written by a Socialist

  Many who consider the pledge a cornerstone of conservative values will be surprised to learn it was written by a Christian Socialist named Francis Bellamy, who was run out of his pulpit at a Boston church for preaching against capitalism, and who called Jesus Christ a socialist.

  His radical cousin, Edward Bellamy, wrote a popular novel, Looking Backward, which glowingly describes a future in which government controls the means of production and where men are conscripted into the country’s “industrial army” and compelled to work in roles assigned to them by central planners.

  While working for The Youth’s Companion, a children’s magazine, Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892, timed to be introduced in patriotic celebrations accompanying the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival.

  

  According to a summary of Bellamy’s account of his writing of the pledge, he aimed for brevity, as well as “a rhythmic roll of sound so they would impress the children and have a lasting meaning when they became grown-up citizens.”

  Given his beliefs, Bellamy was well-suited for creating a loyalty oath that conditions Americans to subordinate themselves to a powerful central government. Make no mistake — in pledging allegiance “to the republic,” Americans are doing precisely that.

  That’s consistent with Bellamy’s wish for state sovereignty and individual liberties to yield to a centralized national government, but it’s starkly at odds with the founding spirit of the country.

  Central to that spirit are the notions that government should be a servant and not a master, and that all government should be viewed with deep, ongoing wariness — certainly not the reverence demanded by the Pledge of Allegiance.

  Free people have no business pledging loyalty to any government. It is government that has a duty of loyalty to the people, with no more essential demonstration of that loyalty than the protection of the rights of individuals.

  Conditioning America’s Youth for Subservience

  Bellamy didn’t just write the pledge, but also instructions for an accompanying ritual that feels simultaneously religious and militaristic:

  “At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the Flag the military salute — right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it… At the words, ‘to my Flag,’ the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, towards the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.”

  Yes, Bellamy directed civilian children and adults to render a military salute to the flag, perhaps laying the philosophical groundwork for the eventual creation of the socialist “industrial army” his cousin envisioned in his novel.

  

  The arm outstretched toward the flag came to be called the “Bellamy salute,” and it endured for several decades before its striking similarity to the Nazi salute prompted its replacement in 1942 by the familiar hand-over-heart gesture.

  I haven’t always felt this way. Conditioned by 13 years of public school, I continued sincerely reciting the pledge at various functions far into my adult life. Following my U.S. Army service, I’d even stand at attention with heels locked — Bellamy would’ve been proud.

  It was only after learning the true meaning of liberty and the animating spirit of our system of government that my mind was changed. If your experience is like mine, once you begin recognizing the pledge as the authoritarian loyalty oath that it is, you’ll soon develop disdain for its nearly every phrase.

  50 States, Infinitely Divisible

  Two elements of the pledge are especially destructive of a healthy mindset regarding the relationship between the American people and government: “One nation” and “indivisible.”

  First, in creating the United States of America, the founders were not forming a single nation. The U.S. Constitution is a compact of independent states, with the word “states” taking its highest political meaning that puts Virginia, for example, on par with France.

  That compact delegated certain, limited powers to a federal government so it could perform stated functions in service to the separate states. As James Madison wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite.”

  Fifty different sovereign societies exercising numerous and indefinite powers, without regard to the federal government and, whenever necessary, in outright defiance of it. That’s the United States of America.

  With each “one nation” incantation, however, American children and adults are conditioned to view their states as insignificant political subdivisions, while embracing the primacy of the federal government and the centralization of power in Washington, DC.

  However, of the pledge’s 31 words, “indivisible” should give greatest offense to American patriots. The very existence of the United States — created by secession from the British empire — is a testament to political divisibility as a foundational human right.

  The Declaration of Independence explicitly expresses that sentiment:

  “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

  By reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and proclaiming the United States of America “indivisible,” Americans disclaim their human right of self-determination. They also surrender their ultimate means of holding government accountable: Every government should exist under perpetual threat of disintegration.

  Scouring the pledge for positives, one can appreciate that Bellamy rightly referred to the government as a republic and not a democracy—an important yet underappreciated distinction. Likewise, we can all embrace the idea of “liberty and justice for all.” However, the pledge implies that’s the current state of affairs, rather than a far-off ambition.

  That ambition is undermined by the powerful central government advanced by Bellamy’s pledge. Today, it faces a potent new threat from those who, pursuing “equity,” seek to undermine the rights of individuals by imposing new forms of government-sanctioned discrimination.

  Making an Idol Out of Cloth and a False God Out of Government

  Civics aside, it’s worth noting that, since its introduction, the pledge has also sparked objections on religious grounds — and I’m not referring to the 1954 addition of the words “under God,” and its attendant controversy about the separation of church and state.

  Rather, many religious people reasonably view pledging allegiance to a flag as a form of idolatry, or something uncomfortably close to it. Before you scoff at the idea that the U.S. flag has evolved into a “graven image” in the Second Commandment sense, consider that citizens are encouraged to dispose of worn-out flags by burning them and, after a period of silent reflection, burying the ashes.

  

  Other religious individuals are put off by the idea of swearing faith to a government. One such critic quotes the Christian bible’s Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters.” You don’t have to ponder that long to see many profound conflicts between the bible’s values (e.g., “blessed are the peacemakers,” “thou shalt not steal”) and the U.S. government’s.

  An Authoritarian Spectacle That’s Not Going Anywhere

  No matter where the hand is placed in what Gene Healy rightly calls a “slavish ritual of devotion to the state,” it’s safe to say if the Pledge of Allegiance had never existed, and Americans were to observe a similar rite in another country, most would surely recoil at the authoritarian spectacle.

  Alas, there could be no such opportunity: Richard Ellis, author of To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance, looked but couldn’t find another country that has anything like it.

  Created by a socialist and now fiercely championed by those who think they’re conservatives, the Pledge of Allegiance will likely continue warping Americans’ thoughts about the relationship between citizens and government for many more years to come.

  Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 22:30

• In Which Industries Could AI Do Most Of The Heavy Lifting?
  In Which Industries Could AI Do Most Of The Heavy Lifting?

  Ever since the meteoric rise of ChatGPT and other large language models, one of the most pressing questions on many people’s minds – well aside from whether AI will end humanity – has been: “Will AI eventually take my job?”

  And while there is no clear answer to this question – after all, it’s hard to foresee how quickly AI will improve from here – it looks like large language models will at least have a major impact on HOW many people work.

  As Statista’s Felix Richter details below, according to Accenture research based on data from the Occupational Information Network, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 40 percent of all hours worked in the United States in 2021 can be impacted by large language models such as ChatGPT, whether through automation (little human involvement required) or augmentation (more human involvement required). Why is that? Accenture found that tasks related to language account for 62 percent of total worked time in the U.S. and that 65 percent of those tasks have a high potential to be automated or augmented by AI, or more specifically by large language models.

  Thankfully, that doesn’t mean that machines will simply replace humans, as many tasks will still require human involvement and new tasks will emerge. “Success with generative AI requires an equal attention on people and training as it does on technology,” Accenture says, adding that it will be essential to teach people how to work effectively with AI-infused processes. Moreover, new roles will emerge, with prompt engineers, AI editors and AI quality controllers just some of the examples for new career opportunities.

  The following chart shows which industries involve the most tasks that can be automated or augmented by AI, with banking and insurance on top of the ranking.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Accenture found that 66 percent of hours worked in the banking sector have high potential to be transformed by AI, versus an industry average of 40 percent.

  At the other end of the scale, the chemical and natural resources sectors are tipped to be least impacted by AI, with the majority of working time in these industries dedicated to non-language-related tasks.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 22:00

• The Boys Of America Are Suffering – How Can We Help Them?
  The Boys Of America Are Suffering – How Can We Help Them?

  Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times,

  Contrary to popular belief, the patriarchy doesn’t rule with an iron fist. Nevertheless, for some perverse reason, the myth of male privilege still persists. Today, only a fool could look around and honestly say that we live in a man’s world. Every 13.7 minutes, somewhere in the United States, a man takes his own life. For every female that commits suicide, there are four men ending their own lives.

  Millions of boys and men lead lives of quiet desperation, rotting away inside self-imposed prison cells.

  

  What should these men do? See a medical doctor, perhaps? Maybe visit a psychologist?

  As I’ve noted before, the fields of medicine and psychology are, like the men of America, also in crisis. This isn’t to say that all doctors and all psychologists offer nothing of value, of course. This is to say that the institutions creating the doctors and psychologists of tomorrow are, for lack of a better word, damaged.

  In the field of psychology, as the science writer Rolf Degen recently noted, approximately 1 in every 10 citations “across leading psychology journals is completely inaccurate, misrepresenting or even contradicting the cited findings.” Still reeling from the effects of the much-discussed replication crisis, psychology now has a crisis of reputation to wrestle with. To compound matters, the American Psychological Association (APA), the main accreditor for professional education and training in psychology, has, for years, demonized masculinity, labeling admirable qualities such as stoicism and competitiveness “psychologically harmful.”

  As the psychologist Christopher J. Ferguson, a man who has been very critical of the APA in the past, told me, the APA’s “controversial position on men and masculinity is part of a larger problem of ideological capture for the APA, as it increasingly parrots far-left talking points, rather than educating people on the often messy and nuanced science.”

  Sadly, he added, the APA “really stopped functioning as a science organization a long time ago, and its current disparagement of traditional men, in the absence of good data, should properly be viewed as prejudicial and unethical.”

  Strong words. Ferguson, one of the few psychologists brave enough to stand up and speak out against the psychological establishment, knows that psychology, in its current form, isn’t fit for purpose.

  If the men and boys of America can’t rely on doctors and psychologists for support, what should they do?

  As Jordan Peterson’s success has shown us, many men, particularly young men, are looking to individuals rather than institutions for answers. However, as Peterson goes from being a public intellectual to a modern-day superhero intent on defeating the bad guys in Davos, young men are looking for new role models.

  Enter Richard Reeves, an academic whose research focuses on issues pertaining to inequality and social mobility. For years, Reeves has been held up as a “rational” voice, a strong representative for the boys and men of America. However, Reeves, who seems like a very decent man, is affiliated with the Brookings Institution, a research group that The New York Times glowingly refers to as “a pillar of Washington’s liberal establishment” and a “prestigious, left-leaning institution.” In other words, Reeves, like so many other researchers and commentators, is a slave to the liberal machine, the very same machine that has steamrolled over men for years.

  In his latest book, “Of Boys and Men,” Reeves goes to great lengths to praise feminism and the feminist framework of intersectionality. More concerningly, Reeves appears to be rather fond of using the term “cis heterosexual,” instead of using a normal term like “straight.” Is a man who uses such terminology really capable of helping normal, everyday boys who are struggling to find meaning in their lives?

  There’s also Matt Pinkett, the author of the brand new book, provocatively titled “Boys Do Cry.” According to the British teacher and author, schools should provide “lessons in bromance” to address the mental health crisis among boys. However, like Reeves, Pinkett goes to great lengths to smuggle in trans-friendly jargon, even dedicating an entire chapter to the many ways in which masculinity overlaps with LGBTQ+ issues. Also, like Reeves, Pinkett places great emphasis on encouraging boys to be more vulnerable, to embrace the tears, and to cry with pride.

  Although the two authors correctly identify the problems facing boys, their prescriptions leave a lot to be desired. Adam Lane Smith, a psychotherapist who has been commenting on the masculinity crisis for years, told me that “the current education system is built to operate in a way counter to how most boys learn and thrive.”

  “The research is clear,” he said, with “an increasing number of boys being diagnosed by teachers and school staff with attention issues.”

  These teachers and staff, added Smith, “then pressure parents to find a doctor to corroborate that diagnosis and immediately medicate the boy, or else he will be expelled.”

  Even boys without violent tendencies are being pressured into medication or else they face expulsion, Smith told me. Part of this is due to the feminization of schools. In the United States, roughly 75 percent of teachers are female. Many of these teachers, noted Smith, are overworked and lack “the mental energy required to deal with 30+ children for so many hours in a day; the boys will often stick out due to their higher testosterone behaviors.”

  “Many of these female teachers also appear to struggle to engage with male students and consistently grade female students higher to encourage them,” said the specialist.

  Smith appears to be right. Girls perform better when they’re taught by a female teacher; the same, however, isn’t true for boys.

  As studies show, single-sex schooling and especially more hands-on school approaches prove that supposedly “problematic” boys can thrive in environments suitable to their mental functioning. Most teachers learn how to “deal” with boys through various training sessions and workshops. As Smith noted, many of these sessions and workshops have, in recent times, “shifted to encourage teachers to view natural boy behaviors and energy levels as problematic to the profession.”

  “Boys,” he contends, “are now a liability to be managed and pushed through the system as the teachers focus their energies on uplifting and empowering the girls.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 21:30

• New '0% Handgun' Shows Biden's ATF Losing Control Over Regulating 2nd Amendment
  New ‘0% Handgun’ Shows Biden’s ATF Losing Control Over Regulating 2nd Amendment

  In March, Defense Distributed’s Case in US District Court, VanDerStok v Garland — struck down Biden’s ghost gun rule via a preliminary injunction. 

  According to court documents, ATF did not analyze their “Frame or Receiver Rule,” also known as Biden’s Ghost Gun Rule, under the Supreme Court’s NYSRPA v. Bruen decision.

  The case is being litigated in the 5th Circuit, and the injunction allows Defense Distributed to sell ghost gun kits legally.

  While there is evidence to support a likely pro-gun ruling in the 5th Circuit, it’s not a guarantee. Defense Distributed seems aware of this fact and designed a new product to continue the proliferation of privately made firearms regardless of the outcome of VanDerStok. 

  In April 2022, Defense Distributed revealed their 0% Receiver, which using the “Ghost Gunner” CNC machine, mills an AR-15 lower receiver out of a solid block of aluminum. This process saves owners of these items from the “readily converted” language that ATF is currently using in its Frame or Receiver rule to classify 80% frames as regulated items subject to a background check. 

  Building off this format, the newest firearm to receive the 0% treatment from Defense Distributed is the handgun. This new 0% handgun utilizes the Sig Sauer P320 family of handguns originally designed for the US military.

  The SIG P320 series of handguns makes use of a drop-in “Fire Control Unit” or FCU. This allows the user to swap between slides and frames quickly. This FCU is the only component of the firearm that requires a background check to possess. This means that owners of the 0% FCU will find themselves within an already established ecosystem of parts and accessories.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 21:00

• Half Of Americans Disapprove Of Affirmative Action In College Admissions; New Survey Finds
  Half Of Americans Disapprove Of Affirmative Action In College Admissions; New Survey Finds

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  We are awaiting the potential blockbuster ruling of the Supreme Court in the Harvard and North Carolina college admissions cases. 

  

  After decades of conflicting and confusing rulings on the use of race as a factor for admissions, the Court could be close to rejecting the practice. That is why the recent Pew survey is interesting. It shows that half of Americans disapprove of the use of affirmative action in admissions and only 33% approve of the practice. The Pew results are consistent with earlier polls. Indeed, even in the most liberal states like California, voters have repeatedly rejected affirmative action in admissions.

  There is the expected difference between Democrats and Republicans. Some 54% of Democrats favor affirmative action while roughly 75% of Republicans oppose it. What is interesting is that a sizable number of African Americans disapprove of the practice. Less than half of African Americans support the practice. Pew reports:

  Nearly half of Black Americans (47%) say they approve of colleges and universities considering prospective students’ racial and ethnic backgrounds when making admissions decisions, compared with 29% who disapprove (24% are not sure).

  Among Hispanic Americans, identical shares approve and disapprove of these practices (39% each). Both White and Asian Americans are more likely to disapprove of colleges doing this (57% of White adults and 52% of Asian adults) than to approve (29% and 37%, respectively).

  That means that more white Democrats (59%) than African Americans (47%) support affirmative action in college and university admissions.

  There remains a sharp divide between voters and both political and educational leaders on this practice.

  Technically, affirmative action was barred decades ago by the Supreme Court. For decades, universities have avoided the type of outright quota the court held unconstitutional in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). Justice Lewis Powell wrote. “Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.”

  However, colleges and universities have continued to use race as a factor and many insist that schools have merely become more sophisticated in hiding the weight given to race in admissions.

  The last time the court dealt with the issue of race in admissions was 2016 in Fisher v. University of Texas. The court upheld the use of race in the admissions process of the University of Texas at Austin by a vote of 4-3. After the decision, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that, if Justice Elena Kagan had not recused herself, it would have been 5-3 and “that’s about as solid as you can get.” At the time, she said that she doubted “that we’re going to see another affirmative action case … at least in education.”

  Ginsburg’s comment notably omitted two additional facts. First, if Justice Antonin Scalia had not died shortly before the release of the opinion, the vote would have been 4-4 (and 5-4 with Kagan). Second, courts change. While she was right about not seeing another such case during her time on the court, this is now a very different court with two of the Fisher majority no longer among its members.

  There is now a 6-3 conservative majority on the court, and Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito previously voted against the University of Texas. To quote Ginsburg, with three justices previously voting against such race-based criteria and the three Trump appointees, “that’s about as solid as you can get” for a major reframing of the controlling case law.

  The court has spent decades issuing often conflicting and vague 5-4 rulings on the use of race in admissions. In 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court divided 5-4 on upholding admissions criteria used to achieve “diversity” in a class at Michigan Law School. However, in her opinion with the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated that she “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” That was 20 years ago.

  In their Fisher dissent, the conservative justices noted that the university was being “less than candid” in addressing its use of race in admissions. They objected to the mantra of achieving a “critical mass” in a class without a clear definition or standards. For critics, that is an understatement. For decades, universities have evaded the impact of court decisions limiting the use of race by avoiding mathematical or threshold criteria that could be challenged. Grutter’s “diversity” rationale used race as one of a number of factors.

  It appears that the majority of voters are more in agreement with Chief Justice Roberts, who has been widely attacked in the media and academia for his stance against affirmative action in admissions. In 2017, he declared: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”  In 2006, Roberts also wrote: “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

  The rulings in Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina are expected soon from the Court.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 20:30

• CEO Talk Of "Shrink" Hits Record On Earnings Calls Amid Nationwide Shoplifting Crisis
  CEO Talk Of “Shrink” Hits Record On Earnings Calls Amid Nationwide Shoplifting Crisis

  Some of the nation’s largest retailers, like Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, and Foot Locker, are being battered by a shoplifting tsunami across major metro areas. The worst theft occurs at stores in crime-ridden Democrat cities as progressive leaders fail to enforce law and order. This has led to the most massive surge ever in the number of times company executives mentioned “shrink” on earnings calls. 

  According to transcript data compiled by Bloomberg, retailer execs mentioned “shrink” – the loss of inventory due to circumstances such as retail theft – about 200 times in the second quarter, making a quarter-on-quarter doubling and the highest ever in the data spanning more than a decade. 

  

  Weeks ago, David Johnston, vice president of asset protection and retail operations for the National Retail Federation (NRF), told FOX Business that retailers are expected to lose a whopping $100 billion this year due to surging theft. 

  “Based on what we’re hearing already from many of these CEOs and based on what we’re experiencing daily in retailers across the nation… I do foresee us to have a much higher loss in 2023,” Johnston said. 

  The extent of the losses is starting to become alarmingly high. Last month, Kohl’s CFO Jill Timm told analysts that theft is surging across many of its stores, projected to produce headwinds. Target recently warned that lost or stolen inventory will hurt profitability by $500 million this year, while Ulta Beauty slashed its full-year margin outlook blamed entirely on theft. 

  

  Walmart US President and CEO John Furner said the theft crisis “has been really challenging” for the entire industry. Even Dollar Tree warned about increasing theft at its stores. 

  The result of out-of-control theft burning holes in retailers’ balance sheets has forced company execs to shutter stores in mainly progressive cities, such as San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, and others. 

  • All Portland Walmart Stores To “Permanently Close” Amid Theft Wave
  • Walmart Abandons Unprofitable Chicago Stores After Investing “Hundreds Of Millions” In City
  • Whole Foods Closes Its “Flagship” San Fran Store After Just A Year Due To Crime
  • Nordstrom Closing San Francisco Stores, Citing “Deteriorating Situation” Amid Crime Crisis

  Why these cities? Progressives who have pushed social justice reform have limited respect for law and order, presenting retailers with no choice but to close their doors. 

  Some retail shops that stay open in these crime-ridden metro areas have utilized security glass that lines aisles to prevent five-finger discounts.

  

  Democrats, particularly those in California, don’t know when enough is enough and have advanced a bill that makes it illegal for store employees to confront thieves. And this will go over poorly with retailers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 20:00

• Academic Journal Editor Faces Cancel Attempt For Allowing Debate On Transgenderism
  Academic Journal Editor Faces Cancel Attempt For Allowing Debate On Transgenderism

  By William Hurley of The College Fix

  Transgender activists come for journal editor because he published research that undermines their arguments

  The editor of a journal on sex and gender is facing calls for his removal because he published an article that undermined claims of the transgender movement.

  An open letter called on the Archives of Sexual Behavior to remove Dr. Kenneth Zucker from his position and retract an article titled “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” by Suzanna Diaz & Michael Bailey. Bailey is on the board of the journal. ROGD is the hypothesis that identification as transgender could be driven by social pressure.

  The article remains live as of June 7 and Zucker remains in his position, however some notes have been added to the paper.

  Zucker (pictured) has previously faced criticism because his clinic encouraged individuals confused about their gender to learn to be comfortable with their biological sex, instead of pushing drugs and surgeries on them.

  

  On May 10, a publisher’s note was added to the article which stated that “readers are alerted that concerns have been raised regarding methodology as described in this article. The publisher is currently investigating this matter and a further response will follow the conclusion of this investigation.”

  A “supplementary information” section was also removed on May 16 “due to a lack of documented consent by study participants.”

  “In recent years, Archives of Sexual Behavior has routinely published articles on LGBTQ+ topics that in our view did not adhere to the highest standards of intellectual integrity and publication ethics, raising concerns over editorial bias. As a result, we have lost confidence in the journal’s editor, Dr[.] Kenneth Zucker,” the open letter stated.

  The open letter was signed by 100 people with various credentials who write or review articles for publication on sexual topics. Five of the organizations that signed are LGBT advocacy groups.

  The signers’ main criticism of the article was that it did not go through an Institutional Review Board process to certify that the study was conducted ethically. Instead, the article’s data was collected beforehand by an “unaffiliated layperson,” referring to Diaz.

  The letter then stated that Zucker should be removed for allowing this and other articles “on LGBTQ+ topics that in [the signatories] view did not adhere to the highest standards of intellectual integrity and publication ethics.”

  The open letter concluded that “[u]ntil an editor who has a demonstrated record of integrity on LGBTQ+ matters and especially trans issues replaces Dr. Zucker as editor, we will no longer submit to the journal, act as peer reviewers, or serve in an editorial capacity.”

  The College Fix reached out to Bailey for comment about his response to accusations about his decision not to obtain IRB approval for his paper and his response to calls for Zucker to be removed from his position.

  Bailey declined to comment on the situation.

  The Fix also reached out over email to Zucker for comments about the situation and if the letter against him indicated any broader problems in the world of academia and publishing. He has not responded to multiple requests for comment in the past several weeks.

  The Fix also asked Suzanne Trimel at PEN America about how academics should react to views they might disagree with, if trying to get an editor removed for publishing research that contradicts their own views is a good path for scholars to take and how else might academics engage with views they have disagreements with, but she has not responded to two inquiries sent in the past two weeks.

  Springer Nature did not respond to multiple requests for comment in the past several weeks on the cancellation campaign and what its criteria is for removing editors.

  Another open letter organized by the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism in support of Dr. Zucker and the article has been signed by over 1,937 people. It stated that Springer’s policies “explicitly allow” for publication of papers without IRB approval. One signer includes Dr. Lisa Littman, who also faced cancellation for popularizing Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.

  “Springer’s policies explicitly allow the Editor-in-Chief the discretion to accept a publication that has not sought IRB approval,” the signers wrote. “The first author of this study was not affiliated with a university and did not need to seek IRB approval.”

  The letter also addressed allegations from those seeking the article’s retraction, who they call activists. The letter noted that studies “commonly” use parental reports and that this is an important topic which needs to be addressed.

  The letter draws a comparison between another study which was put under undue scrutiny, saying “this is not the first time journals and researchers who dare explore the subject of ROGD [Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria] have been targeted for cancellation.”

  Addressing the allegations against the journal editor, the letter responded that “Dr. Zucker has demonstrated neutrality by routinely publishing articles on both sides of this contentious issue.”

  Finally the letter stated that those who are calling for Dr. Zucker to be removed and for the paper to be retracted are not motivated by good science.

  “We fear that just like in the case of the original ROGD paper, the demands for retraction and sanctioning of Dr. Zucker, the Editor-in-Chief are principally motivated by the ideological opposition to Diaz and Bailey’s conclusion,” they wrote.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 19:30

• Visualizing The 'Greatest Wealth Transfer In History' As Boomers Shed Their Mortal Coils
  Visualizing The ‘Greatest Wealth Transfer In History’ As Boomers Shed Their Mortal Coils

  The largest intergenerational wealth transfer in American history has begun, as tens of millions of baby boomers are now beginning to die in larger numbers – the youngest of whom are just turning 60, and the oldest nearing 80-years-old.

  

  Some of course will leave their heirs little to no inheritance, while others will leave hundreds of thousands, or millions (or billions) of dollars to their inheritors, along with houses and other assets.

  As the NY Times notes, in 1989, total family wealth in the US was around $38 trillion. That number has exploded to $140 trillion in 2022. Of that, $84 trillion is projected to be passed down from older Americans to their millennial and Gen X heirs through 2045. Some $16 trillion of that will be transferred within the next decade.

  Visualizing the current state of assets among the citizenry;

  

  What’s more, the transfer has already begun – as older Americans have started transferring money to their children and grandchildren in what’s known as “giving while living,” which includes property purchases, repeated tax-free cash transfers of estate funds, and providing other resources to give their heirs a head start.

  In other cases, older Americans are lending their heirs their own inheritance ahead of schedule through companies such as National Family Mortgage, which facilitates arrangements between family members. In many cases, the parent, or lender, charges an IRS-compliant interest rate to their heirs so that large sums of money changing hands aren’t treated as taxable income.

  Millennial-focused New York financial advisor Douglas Boneparth, 38, told the Times that this is no longer an “oncoming phenomenon.” Instead, the transfer of wealth is “present-day.”

  According to the NY Times (which of course pivots to a focus on inequality), the wealthiest 10% of households will be giving and receiving the majority of the wealth transfer. Of that, the top 1% – which holds as much wealth as the bottom 90% – will dictate how the lion’s share of the funds are used and invested. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households will only account for 8% of the wealth transfer.

  

  The explanation for the wealth? Boomers were able to take advantage of explosive growth in both the financial and the housing markets – as the average price for a house in the United States has jumped around 500% since 1983, when most boomers were in their 20s and 30s. The S&P 500, meanwhile, is up by more than 2,800% (not including dividends) since the beginning of 1983, right around the time index funds became popular as a mainstream investment vehicle for corporate employees and other middle-class professionals. Then of course there’s corporate stock plans and 401(k)s which boomers have benefited from handsomely.

  

  That said, the Times notes that there are ‘many nuances,’ such as ‘A patchwork of lower-wage earners may be able to move into a parent’s paid-off home in a hot housing market — or may receive a small windfall still meaningful enough to pay off debts.’

  And there will be millennials, Gen X-ers and young boomers in the upper middle class set to inherit lump sums — seemingly winners — who will wrestle with the substantial headaches of a “sandwich generation,” dealing with the expense of caring for aging parents and children at once.

  There are few aspects of economic life that will go untouched by the knock-on effects of the handover: Housing, education, health care, financial markets, labor markets and politics will all inevitably be affected. -NY Times

  Then there’s taxes…

  Another major factor in wealth transfers for high-net-worth and ultrahigh-net-worth individuals (those with at least $5 million and $20 million in cash or easily liquidated assets respectively), who constitute 42% of the anticipated volume of wealth transfer through 2045, according to research firm Cerulli Associates. That amounts to roughly $36 trillion as of 2020.

  Per US tax code, individuals can transfer up to $12.9 million to heirs, during life or death, without federal estate tax ($26 million for married couples). Because of this, HNW and UHNW individuals could end up paying taxes of up to $4.2 trillion by 2045.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 19:00

• Trump Indictment Fails Crucial Test: Dershowitz
  Trump Indictment Fails Crucial Test: Dershowitz

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

  The federal indictment against former President Donald Trump fails a crucial test, law professor Alan Dershowitz says.

  “It doesn’t meet what I call the Richard Nixon standard, which was very clear obstruction of justice, destroying evidence, paying bribes,” Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said on Newsmax on June 9 after the indictment was unsealed.

  “This is too close a case to bring against the man running for president, against the incumbent president,” Dershowitz added.

  Two paragraphs in the indictment do appear to meet the standard of the planned prosecution of former President Nixon, according to the law professor.

  

  ‘Highly Confidential’ Plan

  Those paragraphs refer to Trump allegedly showing an unidentified writer, publisher, and staff members a “highly confidential” plan to attack a country.

  U.S. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was quoted in a news story on July 15, 2021, as fighting to stop Trump from ordering an attack on Iran.

  Six days later, Trump showed the writer and publisher what he described as a “plan of attack” from the same general.

  “Isn’t this amazing? This totally wins my case, except it is like, highly confidential,” Trump is quoted as saying in the indictment.

  “As president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t but this is still a secret,” he was also quoted as saying.

  The indictment charges Trump with various crimes, including illegally disclosing national defense information.

  ‘Will Have to Be Explained’

  “We’re going to have to hear an exception from Trump’s lawyers or from Trump as to how we can justify having shown to somebody who doesn’t have security clearance allegedly some information about a plan to attack Iran,” Dershowitz said on Newsmax.

  None of the people shown the document held a security clearance, U.S. authorities say.

  Trump “may claim he didn’t show it to them, just kind of waved it in front of them as part of bragging but that’s something that will have to be explained,” Dershowitz said. “When you have a tape in the voice of the defendant himself it’s hard to dispute, so I think this is a serious indictment on these two charges. Everything else I think was exactly what we expected,” he also said.

  Trump said after the indictment was released that he is innocent and accused the government of corruption. He shared posts on social media noting that a number of top officials possessed classified information, such as former President Bill Clinton, but were not charged.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 18:30

• Newsom Launches Drive For 28th Amendment Focused On Gun Control
  Newsom Launches Drive For 28th Amendment Focused On Gun Control

  Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced a California-led drive to amend the US Constitution to impose new, nationwide restrictions on gun ownership. 

  “The 28th Amendment will enshrine in the Constitution common sense gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support – while leaving the 2nd Amendment unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition,” said Newsom in a statement.

  His claim that such a move would “leave the 2nd Amendment intact” is quite an eye-roller: While the 2nd Amendment’s language may not change, Newsom’s 28th Amendment would clearly represent a frontal assault on the scope of the 2nd Amendment‘s protection of the right of armed self-defense. 

  Newsom didn’t propose specific language, but he did outline five goals:

  • Setting 21 as a national minimum age for buying a firearm
  • Imposing a universal background check regime 
  • Barring sales of “assault weapons that serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time”
  • Imposing a “reasonable” waiting period for every firearm purchase
  • “Affirm[ing that] Congress, states, and local governments can enact additional common-sense gun safety regulations that save lives” 

  It’s worth noting that his “assault weapon” ban would only apply to “civilians.” It seems he’s content for police to have weapons “that serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time.” 

  Regarding his proposed minimum purchase age, Newsom said, “if you can’t buy a beer, you shouldn’t be able to buy a gun.” Of course, the requirement to be 21 years old to buy alcohol is itself a form of tyranny. 

  Gavin and his ilk see mass shootings as opportunities to be exploited.

  California has had multiple mass shootings this year, and already has all the gun laws Newsom would nationalize under the “28th Amendment”, and more. pic.twitter.com/mdGZSFF7pf

  — Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) June 8, 2023

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

  Gun control advocates have been reeling since last summer’s momentous Supreme Court decision that created a new test for determining the constitutionality of gun control measures. Unless a given measure is found to be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” — and specifically, tradition dating to the founding era — that measure is invalid. Courts have been shooting down gun laws left and right. 

  “We’re sick of being on the defense and throwing up our hands,” Newsom told Politico. “We want to go on the offense and be for something and build a movement that’s bottom up, not top down.”

  In collaboration with California state legislators, Newsom is championing a national amendment convention focused on gun control. Under Article V of the Constitution, amendments can be proposed by Congress, or they can be drafted by states in “a convention for proposing amendments.”

  For such a convention to happen, Newsom and other gun control advocates will need two-thirds of the state legislatures to call for a convention. (Governors have no role in the process.) That translates to 34 states, a daunting threshold considering Democrats only control 20 state legislatures.

  Newsom’s announcement looks more like a publicity stunt than a sincere effort to mold the Constitution. He’s funding the push with leftover money from his 2022 reelection campaign. 

  NEW: I’m proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to help end our nation’s gun violence crisis.

  The American people are sick of Congress’ inaction.

  The 28th will enshrine 4 widely supported gun safety freedoms — while leaving the 2nd Amendment intact:

  1)… pic.twitter.com/ZJ7fyfH0Cf

  — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 8, 2023

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

  “Assuming Newsom is serious (which seems highly doubtful), he wants to treat the U.S. Constitution as a vehicle for detailed public policies rather than a framework that constrains those policies,” writes Jacob Sullum at Reason. 

  In branding his proposal as the “28th Amendment,” Newsom assumes no other new amendments will precede it. While the convention-of-states avenue has never produced an amendment, an ongoing, conservative-led drive for a convention crossed the halfway-point to 34 states last summer. Goals for that convention push include congressional term limits, repeal of the income tax, and giving states the power to negate any federal law or regulation with an official rejection by three-fifths of the legislatures.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 18:00

• Top Biden Administration Official Admits To Lying To Congress
  Top Biden Administration Official Admits To Lying To Congress

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

  A top official in President Joe Biden’s administration has admitted to lying to Congress when she claimed not to own individual stocks.

  

  Energy Secretary Jennifer Graholm, a Biden appointee, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on April 20 that she did not own individual stocks, instead owning mutual funds.

  Granholm said in a letter on June 9 to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) that she was not truthful during the Capitol Hill appearance.

  “I mistakenly told the Committee that I did not own any individual stocks, whereas I should have said that I did not own any conflicting stocks,” Granholm wrote in the missive, which was obtained and reviewed by The Epoch Times.

  Granholm said she divested from assets that could be in conflict with her duties as part of being confirmed as energy secretary but that she retained stocks that government ethics officials determined would not conflict with those duties.

  She has since sold those stocks.

  “In order to make my financial holdings consistent with my testimony, on May 18, 2023, I divested my remaining stock holdings which consisted of stock in six companies, even though these assets were deemed non-conflicting,” Granholm said.

  Granholm did not identify the companies. She said they would be identified on her annual disclosure report, which is expected to be available in mid-June.

  The Department of Energy and Manchin, the chair of the energy panel, did not respond to requests for comment.

  “Secretary Granholm lied to the committee about her family’s stock holdings,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the committee, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

  “This comes after her failure to follow basic ethics and disclosure rules. This is a troubling pattern. It is unacceptable,” he added.

  Granholm violated stock disclosure rules by listing stock sales in 2022 months later than required, she acknowledged to the Senate previously. She also violated the Hatch Act when she endorsed Democrats while making an official appearance.

  Granholm did not appear to be under oath when she made the false statement to the panel in April, according to video footage of the hearing. Most witnesses testifying before the Senate are not sworn in.

  One federal law prohibits making false statements under oath that they do not believe to be true. Another law bars “knowingly and willfully” making false statements “in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States.” Violations of either can land a person up to five years in prison.

  The U.S. Department of Justice rarely brings cases against officials who lie, regardless of whether they’re under oath.

  Former President Donald Trump became one of the rare exceptions this week when he was charged with making false statements and other crimes.

  The department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 17:30

• US Homeowner Equity Drops For First Time Since 2012
  US Homeowner Equity Drops For First Time Since 2012

  The housing bull market has peaked for now. Recent home price declines are leading to decreased tappable equity for homeowners.

  A new CoreLogic Homeowner Equity Insights report shows homeowners with mortgages (roughly 63% of all properties) saw their equity decrease by a total of $108.4 billion in the first quarter of 2023 versus the same period last year, a loss of 0.7% year-over-year (or about $5,400 per borrower). Even though it was a small loss of equity, it was the first loss since 2012. 

  

  Home equity trends for the quarter show Hawaii, Florida, and Rhode Island had the most significant gains of $24,900, $24,500, and $23,700, respectively. Meanwhile, thirteen states and one district recorded annual equity losses: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Washington, DC.

  

  Despite the declines, the average US homeowner now has more than $274,000 in equity — up significantly from $182,000 before the pandemic. However, the trend is reversing. 

  In recent months, we’ve noted “US Home Price Growth Slowest In A Decade, San Francisco Crashes” and “US Home Prices Show Annual Decline For First Time Since 2012.” The Federal Reserve has put a chill in the housing market with the most aggressive rate hikes in a generation to combat decades-high inflation. 

  Still, home prices have yet to crash, and that’s a function of tight supply. Those chasing the real estate market during the Covid boom in the western half of the US are experiencing the worst declines in equity and home prices. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 17:00

• Mr. Bean Actor Says The Electric Car 'Honeymoon' Is Over
  Mr. Bean Actor Says The Electric Car ‘Honeymoon’ Is Over

  Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The actor and comedian behind the popular Mr. Bean character has called on drivers to hold off buying an electric vehicle (EV), saying the environmental benefits do not stack up.

  

  Rowan Atkinson, a long-time motor enthusiast with a degree and master’s in electrical engineering, said current EV technology was more harmful to the environment than it was worth.

  “Increasingly, I’m feeling that our honeymoon with electric cars is coming to an end, and that’s no bad thing: we’re realising that a wider range of options need to be explored if we’re going to properly address the very serious environmental problems that our use of the motor car has created,” Atkinson wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

  He pointed to figures released by automotive giant Volvo revealing that greenhouse gas emissions during the EV production process were 70 percent higher than building a petrol car.

  “How so?” Atkinson said.

  “The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all-electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they are estimated to last only upwards of 10 years.

  

  “It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis,” he said.

  He also pointed to current efforts to develop newer technologies, like solid-state batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and synthetic fuels, but noted more time was needed before they became mainstream.

  Atkinson said a bigger problem beyond technology was the current three-year leasing model for car ownership, where owners move onto a new car at the end of the timeframe.

  “This seems an outrageously profligate use of the world’s natural resources when you consider what great condition a three-year-old car is in,” Atkinson said, saying owners could just learn to use their cars for longer instead, effectively lowering demand for new vehicles.

  Another solution, he said, was for those concerned about the environment to simply drive less.

  “As an environmentalist once said to me, ‘If you really need a car, buy an old one and use it as little as possible,’” he wrote.

  

  Comments Spark Fiery Response

  Atkinson’s comments have sparked criticism from media outlets (via “fact-checking”), including the Washington Post.

  Some experts derided the comedian for his apparent lack of recent energy expertise.

  “Love it when a weird, British 90s celebrity who is notably not an energy expert spreads misinformation about EVs on @guardian. Just the best!” Leah Stokes, professor of climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote on Twitter.

  Auke Hoekstra, a Dutch EV researcher, claimed Atkinson had “cherry-picked” key facts.

  “He’s complaining about current batteries and implying we have to wait for better ones. But the current ones will already last the lifetime of the car, and the car will emit 3x less CO2 over its lifetime. (Yes, I’m sure about this, because that is my actual field of study.),” he wrote on Twitter.

  Worldwide Push to Ban Petrol, Diesel Cars

  Atkinson’s comments come as governments of developed countries implement bans on the sale of petrol vehicles amid the global push for net zero.

  The United Kingdom is considering a ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030 and hybrids from 2035. The capital London also has an Ultra Low Emissions Zone that forces drivers of cars that are not powered by either hydrogen or batteries to pay a 12.50-pound daily charge.

  Meanwhile, in the United States, the California Air Resources Board is pressuring the federal government to approve a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035.

  While authorities in the Australian Capital Territory—home to the nation’s capital Canberra—are also moving to establish a similar “zero-emissions” zone like London.

  In fact, the ACT’s pledge follows a global agreement by the C40—a grouping of the world’s biggest cities—to only operate zero-emission buses from 2025 and to establish a “zero-emission” zone within their cities by 2030. The pledge was signed by cities like Auckland, Austin, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Seattle, and Vancouver.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 16:30

• Majority Of US Cities With Most Murders Are Governed By Democrats
  Majority Of US Cities With Most Murders Are Governed By Democrats

  The Finance website Insider Monkey used the latest homicide data to find which US cities have the highest number of murders so far this year. It is no surprise that many of the most dangerous metros are run by Democrats. 

  Insider Monkey compiled a list of 30 US cities using the FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report and police department data. For simplicity reasons, we’re only concentrating on half of the list — so 1-15. 

  And what we discovered is that metros between 1-15 were all controlled by Democrats. Not shocking whatsoever, considering their social justice reform policies are backfiring and turning many metro areas into crime-ridden hellholes. 

  

  Here are the top five most murderous cities so far this year: 

  1. Chicago, Illinois: Murders in 2023: 166

  2. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Murders in 2023: 165

  3. Phoenix, Arizona: Murders in 2023: 137

  4. Dallas, Texas: Murders in 2023: 126

  5. Baltimore, Maryland: Murders in 2023: 112

  And the rest… 

  6. Houston, Texas: Murders in 2023: 109

  7. Los Angeles, California: Murders in 2023: 102

  8. New York City, New York: Murders in 2023: 100

  9. Indianapolis, Indiana: Murders in 2023: 96

  10. Kansas City, Missouri: Murders in 2023: 96

  11. Detroit, Michigan: Murders in 2023: 89

  12. Washington, DC: Murders in 2023: 89

  13. Louisville, Kentucky: Murders in 2023: 89

  14. Memphis, Tennessee: Murders in 2023: 81

  15. St. Louis, Missouri: Murders in 2023: 65

  The best thing law-abiding Americans can do if they’re fed up with out-of-control crime spurred by Democrats’ failed social justice reforms is to issue recall votes. That’s exactly what San Francisco residents did with Soros-backed District Attorney Chesa Boudin last year. People can take it one step further and boycott these cities. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 16:00

• More Than 100 Young Children Suffered Seizures After COVID Vaccination: Study
  More Than 100 Young Children Suffered Seizures After COVID Vaccination: Study

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

  More than 100 young children suffered seizures after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new study.

  

  One hundred and four children under 6 years old suffered a seizure within 42 days of a COVID-19 shot, researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other institutions found.

  Others suffered strokes, blood clotting disorders, and appendicitis, the researchers said.

  They analyzed health records from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a CDC-funded network that features sites operated by Kaiser Permanente, Marshfield Clinic, Health Partners, and Denver Health.

  The researchers examined events that fit one or more of 23 prespecified outcomes, including seizures and myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, following messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccination.

  The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines both utilize messenger RNA technology.

  Children were studied if they received a vaccine dose from June 18, 2022, to March 18, 2023; 247,011 doses were administered to children under 6 during that time. Researchers examined the events that occurred within 42 days of vaccination.

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first authorized Pfizer’s vaccine for children younger than five and Moderna’s vaccine for children younger than six on June 17, 2022, despite efficacy estimates against infection being substandard or unreliable and there being no or negative evidence of protection against severe disease.

  The study was published by Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics journal, on June 6.

  Type of Analysis

  Eric Weintraub of the CDC and the other researchers for the new study conducted a type of examination called rapid cycle analysis. It involves comparing outcomes among the vaccinated within 21 days of a shot with outcomes among the vaccinated between 22 and 42 days of a shot. Events on the same day as vaccination were excluded.

  The first window of time—1 to 21 days—is described as the “primary risk interval,” or the most likely period of time for the vaccinated to suffer adverse events. The latter time period was deemed a comparison interval.

  The idea for the events that occur in the latter period is that “it’s too late for them to be associated with a vaccine,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the study but who has worked closely with the CDC, told The Epoch Times.

  The researchers did not compare the vaccinated with the unvaccinated, despite indicating they would do so in the protocol (pdf) for Vaccine Safety Datalink monitoring. They have in some other studies. A request for comment to the corresponding author returned with an away message, and another author did not respond to an inquiry.

  The researchers reviewed medical records for each case identified in either of the intervals, and also calculated rates to see whether any were more common in the earlier window.

  What They Found

  In absolute terms, researchers found a number of serious problems after vaccination, including the seizures.

  The following events were detected in at least one young child one to 42 days following vaccination:

  • Appendicitis
  • Bell’s Palsy
  • Encephalitis, myelitis, or encephalomyelitis
  • Guillain-Barre syndrome
  • Immune thrombocytopenia
  • Kawasaki disease
  • Pulmonary embolism
  • Stroke, hemorrhagic
  • Transverse myelitis
  • Venous thromboembolism

  The numbers were also higher in the initial window of time for some outcomes.

  In the first 21 days, for instance, 38 Pfizer recipients experienced seizures and 23 Moderna recipients experienced seizures. In the second window, 24 Pfizer recipients experienced seizures and 19 Moderna recipients experienced seizures.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 15:30

• Software VP Fired For Using 'Assigned By God' As Preferred Pronoun Sues Employer
  Software VP Fired For Using ‘Assigned By God’ As Preferred Pronoun Sues Employer

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

  A software engineer fired for putting “Assigned By God” as the preferred pronoun on his employee profile has filed a civil rights lawsuit against his company.

  

  Chard Scharf was fired by the software company Bitwarden, an online storage service for sensitive information. Scharf served as Vice President of Software Engineering at the Jacksonville, Florida, location.

  The lawsuit alleges that Bitwarden violated Scharf’s Title VII rights against religious discrimination by allowing other employees to post preferred pronouns on their employee profiles, but prohibiting Scharf from using his preferred pronoun based on his religious beliefs.

  “Had Chad set aside his religious beliefs and acquiesced to Bitwarden’s promotion of gender ideology, he would not have been fired,” Scharf’s attorney Jennifer Vasquez told The Epoch Times, “which means his religious beliefs were the cause of his termination.” Vasquez is with the Florida law firm Campbell, Trohn, Tamayo & Aranda.

  Neither Bitwarden nor its attorney B. Tyler White of Jackson & Lewis, responded to multiple inquiries from The Epoch Times about Scharf’s lawsuit. The company has not yet filed a response to the federal complaint.

  “Bitwarden violated Title VII when it placed Mr. Scharf into a disfavored class by promoting its gender ideology, when it failed to approve his reasonable request for accommodation, and when it terminated his employment,” the lawsuit states.

  According to the lawsuit, Scharf was repeatedly pressured to add his preferred pronouns to his Slack employee profile under his company’s “inclusivity initiative.” Slack is a platform utilized for intra company communication.

  When Scharf added “Assigned By God” to his employee profile page, he was told to remove it, his complaint alleges.

  Scharf, a Catholic, told his company he would not participate in its request to choose preferred pronouns because it was part of a gender ideology that went against his religious beliefs.

  He told Bitwarden executives that it was his belief that there are only two sexes and “that gender cannot be changed, chosen, or manipulated,” and that it was the company discriminating against him for failing to  accommodate his beliefs.

  Vasquez said correspondence shows that the company pushed the completion of the gender field on his employee profile and not Scharf.

  According to the lawsuit, two employees in the company’s human resources department complained that they felt harassed by Scharf’s religious statements.

  Scharf was also reprimanded for not using the preferred pronouns in notes based on an interview he conducted of a job application whose preferred pronouns were different from their biological gender. In the lawsuit, Scharf claims he avoided using any pronouns during the interview and that he only used the applicant’s biological pronouns in internal notes.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 14:30

• ChatGPT: Students And The Wealthy Lead The Way
  ChatGPT: Students And The Wealthy Lead The Way

  Yesterday, the S&P 500 moved into bull market territory (+20.04%) from its lows in October, with (or rather because) most big banks – Goldman, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley – still extremely bearish (because their flow desks are accumulating everything their institutional clients have to sell).

  But one thing is certain: as DB’s Jim Reid notes, It couldn’t have done it without the AI hype as over this period the NYFANG+ index is up +65.6% and up +79.7% from its November lows seen close to the launch of ChatGPT at the end of that month.

  Six months after its viral launch, ChatGPT has now reached a fresh milestone: according to Reid, a staggering half of people in the US and the major European markets now saying they’ve heard of OpenAI’s chatbot, indicating that the future of generative alternative intelligence may be as much in the hands of consumers as in companies.

  The DB strategists notes that 52% of the respondents in the bank’s exclusive Digital Infrastructure Group (dbDIG) survey of 10,000 global households said they were aware of ChatGPT in May, up from 38% just two months earlier.

  

  Interestingly, at the moment students…

  

  … and higher income groups seem to have some of the highest usage.

  

  There is also some evidence from the survey that lower income groups have used it more than those of middle income.

  Clearly it’s too early to make sweeping conclusions but there is some evidence that the former group could be a big beneficiary relative to those in the middle.

  You can find out more on the survey from Adrian Cox’s report “End of the essay crisis as students embrace ChatGPT: dbDIG survey” (available to pro subscribers here).

  Red concludes with a rhetorical question: “if 50% of global  if 50% of global households have now heard of it, where will AI-related stock prices be when 100% have?”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 06/10/2023 – 14:00

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• Moving Toward A Global Empire: Humanity Sentenced To A Unipolar Prison & A Digital Gulag
  Moving Toward A Global Empire: Humanity Sentenced To A Unipolar Prison & A Digital Gulag

  Authored by David Skripac via Off-Guardian.org,

  “COVID is critical because this is what convinces people to accept, to legitimize, total biometric surveillance.”

  Yuval Noah Harari, World Economic Forum

  Using the fake “COVID virus” narrative as cover, the privileged, power-mad parasites who pilfer the world’s wealth have sharply accelerated their longstanding plan to create a single global empire that is completely under their command.

  

  This single global empire will ultimately employ the services of all the transnational institutions on the planet in order to regulate and control every aspect of human life.

  It is a global empire run by an exclusive club, perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 strong, whose members do not pledge allegiance to any national flag, who snobbishly view themselves as superior to their countrymen, and who are indifferent to political ideology so long as they can control the political structure from within. They aim to erase all national borders and are well on their way to shredding the constitutions of every nation-state.

  It is a global empire that, unlike days of yore, needs no standing army to wage war on a battlefield against an opposing empire. For, in this era of the single global empire, the enemy being subdued is each and every one of us.

  That mission is being accomplished through a sophisticated information warfare campaign, which is designed to monitor and manipulate our every thought, word, and deed.

  Importantly, this offensive attack on us is intended to suppress and stamp out freedom in every aspect of our lives—economic freedom; political freedom (particularly the freedom to impart and receive information and to accept or reject information); physical movement freedom; healthcare decision freedom; and, above all, the independence to think for ourselves—what can be called mental freedom.

  Before I expose this global empire in more detail, I would like to share with you, dear reader, a story about my parents. It serves to contrast the 1950s’ version of mass surveillance and harsh restrictions on individual freedoms in certain parts of the world with the 2020s version of repression, wherein all of humanity—regardless of where one lives—is steadily and surreptitiously being herded into an omnipresent totalitarian control grid.

  HARKING BACK TO 1955

  In 1955, my parents, Maida and Janko, risked everything to leave their homeland, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was not a decision they took lightly, for it meant losing everything—possibly even their lives—if Yugoslav authorities ever found out that my parents had no intention of ever returning after visiting neighboring Austria for what they told border guards was simply a fun weekend excursion.

  Since the end of the Second World War, Yugoslavia had been ruled by the communists under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. Although Tito’s government tried to improve the living standards of the average person, his apparatchiks’ authoritarian rule left a lot to be desired.

  For instance, a major impediment to progress was the entrenched corruption at every level of the Yugoslav government. Members of the Communist Party received privileges and favors, while everyone else waited months on end for basic necessities, such as foodstuffs and housing. Among party members, kickbacks and bribery were commonplace. Advancement up the social and political ladder was based on party allegiance and on who you knew, not on merit.

  Another major drawback under Tito’s reign was the curtailment of individual freedoms. My parents had witnessed firsthand an erosion of their basic rights—their right to assemble; their right to speak freely; their right to travel; and their right to own a business. If anyone bravely spoke out, either publicly or privately, against these injustices, the state would monitor and track his every move. One could even be watched by a nosy neighbour, who might well be working as a snitch for the government.

  The surveillance net cast over Yugoslav society and the restrictions imposed on civil liberties became worse as the rift between Belgrade and Moscow intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Starting in 1948, the Soviets actively tried to interfere with Yugoslavia’s domestic political affairs. They even sought to overturn the Yugoslav government, for Moscow disapproved of Tito’s desire to chart an independent course, separate from the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc.

  In June 1948, for example, the Soviets addressed the Yugoslav people with a call to overthrow their government. Yet, despite Moscow’s shadow permeating all levels of Yugoslavia’s internal political affairs, Tito’s communists managed to retain power. The USSR and its Eastern European allies refused to retreat, though. They still threatened to invade upon any pretext.

  At Stalin’s behest, the Soviets tried to assassinate Tito on several occasions. Meanwhile, once-friendly neighbors like Hungary and Romania, now in the grip of the USSR, blocked Yugoslavia’s borders and shot at—and sometimes killed—Yugoslav border guards.

  

  Against this backdrop, my parents made the fateful decision to leave their homeland. For years, they had been hearing through the grapevine about the “Promised Land”: the continent of North America. A land where the post-war economy was booming. A land of endless possibilities and countless opportunities. A land where, if one were willing to work hard, anything could be achieved. It was time for them to make their move.

  Fortunately, my mother had stayed in contact with Franc Kopitar, a close friend of her family since childhood. Franc, after having served with Tito’s partisans (his partisan code name was Silvo) during the Second World War, had joined the Yugoslav state tourist and transport agency Putnik. (The agency was later renamed Kompas—a name it holds to this day.)

  Although Franc was a patriot, ready to do whatever was necessary to defend his nation against an invading military force, he deeply distrusted the communists. Thus, he was willing to secretly help my parents escape Tito’s iron fist to seek a better life.

  In 1955, through his connections in the government, Franc was able to secure the requisite visa and travel documents that enabled my parents to visit Graz, Austria, on a “temporary weekend pass.” The documents were the real deal: They bore the required stamps of authorization and other markings that would mislead the authorities into believing that my parents would return after their weekend sojourn in neighboring Austria.

  Franc had instructed my parents to fully furnish their apartment with newly purchased furniture before they left. He knew this would mislead anyone who might be prying into my parents’ travel plans. After all, why on earth would anyone spend all of their meagre earnings to buy brand new furniture for their apartment if they planned to permanently leave the country?

  With the deceptive scene of decorated rooms set in place and their deceptive scheme set in motion, my by-now-virtually-penniless parents packed everything they treasured into two small suitcases and set out for the Ljubljana train station on a cold January afternoon in 1955.

  Filled with hope and trepidation, they boarded the train that would take them to the Yugoslav/Austria border. Not knowing how this momentous day would end, three questions weighed heavily on their minds:

  Who and what was waiting for them at the border?

  If their papers were not in order, were they going to be taken to prison and interrogated for days on end?

  Worse, if their papers were not in order or their demeanor seemed suspicious, would they be hauled off the train and escorted to a nearby forest, never to be seen again? They knew such a tragic end had befallen many unfortunate souls who had tried to escape Tito’s reign.

  The train reached the border with Austria by nightfall. (Austria at the time was divided into four Allied occupation zones: British, American, French, and Soviet.) Before it was allowed to cross into the British occupation zone, Yugoslav military authorities boarded in search of anyone who looked remotely suspicious or was suspected of traveling without authorization.

  My parents had been instructed by Franc to look the soldiers straight in the eye and smile when asked to present their documents for inspection. It was imperative to make eye contact. If you were perceived to be avoiding the authorities’ direct gaze or if you looked nervous, you would immediately be ordered to disembark.

  But making eye contact was easier said than done. My parents watched helplessly as a passenger interrogated ahead of them was removed from their railway car and dragged into the adjacent forest. Within seconds, they heard the echo of gunshots.

  Years later, my parents told me it was one of the most difficult moments they ever had to endure. They recalled feeling morbid fear and dread as they forced themselves to sit calmly and not perspire—while their insides were turning to jelly.

  To their enormous relief, when it came time to have their documents examined, everything was found to be in order. Nothing about their papers, their countenance, or their actions betrayed their secret. And so they were allowed to remain on the train and proceed into Austria.

  Once they reached the Graz train station, they had no idea what to do or where to go. So they stood on the platform until a man in a grey trench coat approached and asked, in perfect Croatian (though with a British accent), “Are you visiting or escaping?”

  After hearing their answer, the man chaperoned them to a processing centre, where they were provided with food and water by the Catholic relief agency Caritas Internationalis. From there they were transported by bus, along with other refugees, to a Displaced Person Camp (DP Camp Nr. 1001) located in Wels, Austria, in the American occupation zone.

  There, my parents were interrogated and processed by American officials and then shown to their tight-but-blessedly clean accommodations in the crowded camp.

  

  Although the camp was crammed with refugees from all over Eastern Europe, everyone made a point of getting along. My parents met many wonderful people of every neighboring nationality—Hungarian, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian—and from all walks of life during their stay at the camp. In the evenings, everyone played cards and shared stories—always full of intrigue and often pathos—about their harrowing journey from Eastern Europe.

  After spending three months at the DP camp, my parents were invited to move into the home of a wonderful Austrian family as part of the Austrian government’s refugee sponsor program, which was coordinated through the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The program was intended to help refugees learn the German language while providing them with a trade so that they could better assimilate into and contribute to Austrian society. (On average, about ten percent of all refugees would end up permanently staying in Austria, while the remainder would move abroad.)

  Despite having forged an enduring bond of friendship during their sixteen months of lodging with the Austrian family, they nonetheless made the bold decision to voyage across the North Atlantic to the Port of Montreal, Canada, in 1957.

  And the rest, as they say, is history.

  ADVANCING TO 2023

  Lately I’ve asked myself: If my parents lived today in the region now known as the former Yugoslavia and if they sought to move to a country that promised them an opportunity to improve their fortunes, where would they go?

  If they were looking for a place in which the inherent, inalienable rights of citizens are respected by the government, could they find such a place on any continent?

  Would they still travel to the Commonwealth country of Canada?

  Would they venture as far as the two southernmost Commonwealth nations—New Zealand and Australia?

  Would they flee to the ostensibly free United States? Or to a US-controlled European Union country?

  How about moving to one of the BRICs—say, to Brazil, Russia, or India? (No, they probably wouldn’t be tempted by China!)

  One way to answer these questions is to take a look at the current political and economic conditions in the aforementioned countries—and ascertain the “freedom factor”—or lack thereof—in each.

  As we make our way from country to country, we will examine the actions of their governments over the past three years and reach a conclusion on behalf of my parents.

  Let’s start with the country they adopted and the country I was born and raised in: Canada.

  A 2023 LOOK AT CANADA

  When my parents immigrated to Canada in 1957, it was indeed a land of opportunity and of plenty. It was possible for a middle-class, single-income family with two children to own a house, a couple of vehicles, and perhaps a summer cottage.

  My parents had only a sixth-grade education, but they were willing to work hard. In a span of two years, they earned and saved enough to start their own business—a beauty salon. By 1963, they were able to buy their first detached home for $10,000, with a $5,000 down payment. Five years later, they managed to pay off the mortgage from the proceeds of their modest income. Looking back, I find their determination and savings skills incredible!

  Now, imagine what that same scenario would look like today. The average selling price of a Canadian detached home in January 2023 was $612,204. If we apply what my parents did, putting down half the price, we would shell out a whopping $306,000 up front then pay off the remaining $306,000 over the next five years.

  That works out to approximately $61,200 in annual mortgage payments, not including interest. If we calculate the cost of food, clothing, and fuel—another $40,000 per year for an average four-person family—we would have to earn around $100,000 a year plus another $100,000 or so to cover property and income taxes and mortgage interest.

  Thus, we would have to earn around $200,000 in pre-tax annual income to live a fairly moderate lifestyle, afford our mortgage, taxes, and basic costs of living—all to achieve what my parents were able to do in the early 1960s on an at-the-time much more modest income.

  Does such a scenario seem even remotely possible today? I think not.

  The truth of the matter is that in Canada, as in most of the world, the cost of living has skyrocketed. The broad middle class that existed in Canada and most of the Western world from the 1950s through the 1980s, three decades when the average worker could own his own home, is being squeezed out of existence.

  Rapid inflation has eaten away the purchasing power of both Canadian and US dollars even as housing costs have helium-ballooned up, up, and away. Making matters worse, rising energy, food, household goods, and healthcare prices have contributed to spiraling inflation, which is aggravating an already serious decline in real wages.

  On the political scene, the present conduct of the Canadian government is virtually unrecognizable compared to the conduct of its predecessor government in the 1950s. The current regime in Canada, like most of the so-called “Western liberal democracies,” has shown disdain for truth and for individual freedom ever since the pseudopandemic was unleashed on the world in March 2020.

  Like most countries, Canada’s federal and provincial governments implemented reprehensible COVID measures—lockdowns, physical distancing, masking, quarantines, QR codes, and experimental mRNA gene therapy mandates—to combat the alleged “deadly COVID virus.”

  When Canadians from all walks of life revolted peacefully against the assault on their inalienable and constitutional rights by forming and participating in the Truckers Freedom Convoy, the regime retaliated. Full of spite, the thuggish Trudeau found an extreme way to remove protesters’ right to peacefully assemble. On February 14, 2022, he invoked the Emergencies Act—the first time it had ever been enacted in Canadian history.

  The invocation of the Emergencies Act enabled Ottawa police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to forcibly dismantle the four-week-long, thousands-strong peaceful demonstration in the nation’s capital. Despite being orderly, respectful, and nonviolent, these unarmed citizens were beaten by brutal, rifle-wielding officers. Two elderly protesters were trampled by police horses, and journalists were pepper-sprayed and shot.

  Using the pretext of the Emergencies Act, the federal government even went so far as to freeze the bank accounts of some Canadians who had either organised or financially supported the convoy.

  Then, on April 27, 2023—more than a year after the protest was broken up—Bill C-11, officially known as the Online Streaming Act, became law. Cowardly Canadian senators voted for it despite all their previously recommended amendments to it having failed. The new law will enforce sweeping internet censorship legislation that silences everyday Canadians on social media platforms.

  In sum, Canada has completely lost its sense of humanity. The compassion and kindness that Canadians are known for throughout the world still exists, but it is being suppressed and buried under a mountain of lies propagated by the government and its handlers, who are part and parcel of the aforementioned global dictatorship.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s Canada.

  We’ll now take a peek at three other Commonwealth of Nations countries.

  *

  A 2023 LOOK AT AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, AND THE UK

  The rulers of the other fifty-five nations in the Commonwealth couldn’t engineer an excuse for following Canada’s freeze on bank accounts, but some of them adopted especially savage measures to eradicate an alleged novel disease called COVID-19.

  The Australian government not only mandated curfews, masking, physical distancing, and the shutdown of the economy through lockdowns, but it ordered the army to patrol city streets during the lockdowns. In the Northern Territories, soldiers forcibly removed residents who were suspected of having the dreaded disease and transported them to Quarantine Camps.

  In two major Australian cities, the political puppets controlled by the global oligarchs may not have frozen the bank accounts of lockdown protestors, but they did order police in riot gear to attend protests in Melbourne and Sydney, where they shot rubber bullets at unarmed fleeing people and pepper-sprayed the face of a 70-year-old woman who had fallen and was lying helpless in the street.

  

  New Zealand, likewise, turned into a full-fledged police state, enforcing home detentions and citywide quarantine zones. Whoever was found breaching the government’s draconian lockdown orders faced arrest and even a prison sentence. In March 2023, for example, Pastor Billy Te Kahika and his colleague, Vincent Eastwood, were sentenced to four months and three months imprisonment, respectively, for illegally organising and attending a protest in front of TVNZ.

  Aside from implementing ruthless COVID measures similar to Australia’s, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arbitrarily mandated “vaccination” for public health officials, pharmacists, barbers, teachers, and community support service employees. (More on Ardern below.)

  The UK government, while not as harsh as its Aussie or Kiwi counterparts, nonetheless behaved repressively and reprehensibly in its anti-COVID efforts. Police were ordered to enforce a limit on gatherings of no more than six people in pubs, restaurants, cinemas, and outdoor spaces.

  Like its Commonwealth partners, Britain didn’t shy away from using dubious tactics to manipulate a subset of its population. Its “nudge unit,” set up by the Cabinet Office in 2010, has been applying behavioural science principles—aka the pressure of propaganda—to steer public policy on everything from paying taxes to insulating homes. During the scamdemic, this unaccountable and unethical “nudge unit” scared, shamed, and scapegoated the public into taking the COVID jab.

  We mustn’t forget that the UK is home to one of the world’s leading technocrats, the newly crowned King Charles III. In January 2020, then-Prince Charles returned to Davos for the first time in thirty years to speak at a World Economic Forum annual meeting—this one was celebrating the WEF’s 50th anniversary. And what subject did this pseudo-environmentalist address?

  Why, of course, his passion for adopting decarbonization and other sustainable development initiatives, which he had to know were designed to further impoverish the poor and further enrich His Royal Highness and his avaricious buddies around the globe.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s Commonwealth of Nations countries.

  *

  We’ll pause here to inquire: Who are the actors reading their lines from the same worldwide script and performing identical roles as enforcers for the emerging global government?

  In Canada, the most notable cast members are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Both are lackeys of Klaus Schwab and graduates of his Young Global Leaders (YGL) academy—the indoctrination arm of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

  Other characters in this unfolding drama—YGL graduates all—include New Zealand’s dictatorial former Prime Minister-turned-Harvard-fellow Jacinda Ardern, France’s equally despotic President Emmanuel Macron and tech tyrants Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. According to one source, there are approximately 3,800 YGLs—and counting.

  The YGLs’ chief raison d’être, it would appear, is to carry out the WEF’s Great Reset/Fourth Industrial Revolution initiatives. The WEF agenda is being aided and abetted by the secretive Bilderberg Group, by Malthusian depopulationists at the eugenical Club of Rome, and, most notably, by the globe-wide organization that fathered the WEF: the United Nations.

  Through its deceptive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its sinister Agenda 2030—the latter saddled with admirable-sounding-but-actually-imprisoning Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the UN has put in place a system designed to subjugate the entire population of the planet by transforming every human being into a feudal serf and a technocratic slave and a bug-and-synthetic-meat-eating transhuman—or topsoil!

  As I write this, Agenda 2030’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are being instituted across the globe through the WEF’s Great Reset and its transhumanist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

  And, as I write this, the installation of those SDGs is being abetted by numerous central banks—most notably the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank (ECB), the People’s Bank of China (PBC), the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR), and the US Federal Reserve (the Fed). These and other nations’ central banks are coordinating their efforts with what Tragedy and Hope author Carroll Quigley called the “apex” of the central bank network, the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

  The central bankers intend to unleash, eventually in every nation on earth, the most extensive, oppressive social control mechanism ever devised: the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). (In the beginning, each country will have its own CBDC, but it makes sense that ultimately they would be merged into a single global digital currency.)

  The implementation of CBDCs, combined with the rollout of a digital ID system, country by country, will spell the end of human freedom. Both the CBDCs and the digital IDs will be sold by the central banks to the unsuspecting public as a safeguard to protect the user’s anonymity and data. However, that pitch will be a deception designed to obscure the malicious intent and dictatorial bent of this monumental control grid.

  Of the 208 nations with central banks, 119 of them are currently developing their own form of digital currency.

  And that brings us to the United States of America, its all-seeing, all-knowing, all-controlling Federal Reserve Bank, and its other forms of imprisonment and enslavement.

  A 2023 LOOK AT THE US

  In addition to the planned rollout of the Federal Reserve-issued CBDC, there is movement afoot to launch a nationwide digital ID in the US.

  US Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming have introduced Senate Bill 884, also known as “the Improving Digital Identity Act of 2023.”

  If this bill passes both chambers and is signed into law, it will require all Americans to have a valid digital ID if they want to connect to the internet, open and maintain a bank account, obtain a passport, and gain access to medical care. In essence, it will mimic the social credit score system the government of China uses to track and control its citizens. It is the very vehicle that the WEF is so eager to deploy across the rest of the world.

  SB 884 is the latest, most obvious, and most concerning evidence of the US government’s ongoing public-private partnership with Big Tech. It points to the intent of the corporate-controlled, highly centralized and security-conscious government to surveil the movements of the entire US population.

  Of course, the panopticon created by the Improving Digital Identity Act will allow US federal and state agencies to not only monitor everyone’s actions but also to block, silence, and sideline dissenters who disagree with the official narrative. All layers of government will be able to openly, actively, legally censor citizens and ignore their rights as codified by the constitutions of the US and its 50 states.

  This is exactly what Google and its YouTube, Meta and its Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have been doing to their users in their attempts to silence anyone who presents inconvenient facts about COVID or any other politically sensitive agenda.

  For those of you who think the State of Florida is a shining example of preserving liberty and human rights, think again.

  Gov. Ron DeSantis has just sidelined Florida’s Senate Bill 222, the Protection of Medical Freedom Bill. SB 222 would have ended all discrimination against the unvaccinated, ended all existing and future vaccine mandates, and ended all existing and future vaccine passports for all Floridians, regardless of the vaccines being mandated by the federal government or by the eugenicists at the World Health Organization (WHO)—which, like the WEF, is allied with the UN.

  In its place, Gov. DeSantis is promoting SB 252, which would end vaccine mandates and passports only for existing “COVID-19 vaccines.” Under SB 252, citizens in Florida would not be protected from future “pandemics,” future vaccine mandates, or future vaccine passport requirements.

  Therefore, in the future, when the director (read: dictator) of the WHO declares a new pandemic under the vague requirements stipulated in the upcoming new global “Pandemic Treaty”—without even a shred of evidence of the existence of a contagious disease—Floridians would be required to surrender their bodily autonomy to an entirely new set of draconian mandates.

  In some ways, the US is the worst in the world when it comes to stripping citizens of the right to make their own healthcare decisions and safeguard their mental and physical sovereignty. For, besides working intimately with the transhumanist ideologues at the WHO, the Rockefeller Foundation, the WEF, and other UN agencies for several years, the US federal government has been at the epicenter of development, testing, and deployment of the experimental mRNA gene therapy “countermeasures.”

  This research and the resulting products have adversely affected the lives of not only Americans but of people throughout the world.

  Looking back, we recall that in early 2020 the US government, as part of Operation Warp Speed (OWS), worked hand-in-hand with the Department of Defence (DoD) and its US Army Contracting Command branch, plus the National Security Council (NSC) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), to award clinical development and manufacturing contracts to each of the “vaccine” manufacturers—Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax,

  AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Janssen—even before deployment of the dangerous COVID-19 experimental gene therapies to the 50 states and the rest of the world could proceed.

  The DoD went so far as to design, oversee, and organise the highly sensitive clinical trials for these experimental products. These steps are typically taken by the vaccine manufacturers themselves. They traditionally take years and years to complete, compared to the few weeks in which the COVID-19 trials were apparently conducted.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s United States of America.

  But what if my parents decided to move to today’s Germany or the German part of Switzerland?

  Or what if they chose to join the defiant anti-Macron protesters in France instead of departing, as they did, from the port at Le Havre on a ship bound for the Port of Montreal?

  Or what if they felt for—and elected to fight side-by-side with—the persecuted farmers in The Netherlands?

  Or what if they opted to stay put in 2020s’ Austria?

  Would they find any aspect of freedom left in the European Union countries…?

  *

  A 2023 LOOK AT THE EU

  The simple answer: No! The EU is a premeditated economic, political, and social failure.

  In fact, the EU was an idea dreamed up not by the citizens of any nation in Europe but by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and David Rockefeller’s Club of Rome. Their rationale for creating the EU was painfully obvious: It’s easier for intelligence agencies and avowed eugenicists to control one larger, dependent, compromised, and impotent entity than to control numerous smaller, still-independent, sovereign nation-states.

  The leaders—if they can be called that—of the European nations are EU sock puppets and shills. As such, they are doing everything in their power to deindustrialise and destroy their respective economies. As I just said, weakened national and regional governments are much easier to fold into a global empire than are strong, independent ones. The leaders of Germany, France, Austria, Spain, et al. have to know this, which means they have been corrupted to the core.

  Here’s a prime example. The so-called heads of state in Europe insist they are protecting their own country’s national sovereignty and security by imposing economic sanctions on Russia—at Washington’s behest. They pretend the sanctions are meant to injure the big bad bear who dared attack NATO-controlled Ukraine.

  But this is not true. The sanctions are actually decimating their own economies and peoples. The energy shortages, rising prices of goods, food shortages, and climbing interest rates throughout Europe are all intended results of those sanctions. I repeat: The leaders of Germany, France, Austria, Spain, et al. have to know this, which means they have been corrupted to the core.

  They also pretend that the structure of the EU’s central government in Brussels is a “representative democracy.” No, it isn’t. Not even close. At its heart is the European Commission (EC)—the EU’s executive body—which is made up of unelected officials. The current EC President, notoriously corrupt Ursula von der Leyen, sets policy for the entire EU behind closed doors. Once the EC formulates a new policy, it’s just a matter of time before the bureaucrats in the European Parliament give it their rubber stamp of approval.

  Secrecy, non-transparency, and no accountability are the name of the game. The EC is a farce and a failure through and through.

  Similarly, the purported independence of the European Central Bank (ECB) is a sham. Although its website says the ECB is not “allowed to seek or take instructions from EU institutions or bodies, from any government of a Member State or from any other body,” the ECB is heavily influenced by the bank that created it in 1999: the BIS.

  And, like the BIS, the ECB’s day-to-day operations are kept secret. It never releases a press release after a monetary policy meeting of its Governing Council, despite the European Parliament passing repeated resolutions demanding that it do so. Moreover, its structure, method of operation, and lack of accountability mirror that of the BIS.

  In short, it’s hard to imagine a more undemocratic institution than the ECB. Yet this is the bank that Eurozone nations are asked to blindly trust when it comes to formulating their monetary policy. Simply mind-boggling!

  With such an autocratic structure already in place, it was oh-so-easy for EC members to go along with the “pandemic” narrative by making backroom deals with the pharmaceutical companies to purchase millions of doses of the COVID-19 “vaccine” and by recommending that all member states implement the criminal COVID-19 measures.

  Likewise, it was a snap to persuade EU member states to stand by in silence after Washington, the real power behind NATO, carried out a blatant act of war against them by destroying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

  We spoke earlier of a few graduates of Klaus Schwab’s YGL academy, mentioning one European alumnus, France’s Macron, by name. Other Young Global Leaders who have advanced through the political ranks in Europe include former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Not to be left out: EU President Ursula von der Leyen, who sits on the WEF’s Board of Trustees.

  Not surprisingly, the EU member states are following the US lead in pressing ahead with a digital ID system and basing it on China’s enslavement/imprisonment model.

  Croatia (once part of Yugoslavia), where my father, Janko, is from, plans to be the first EU member to roll out the digital ID system for travelers flying between Zagreb and Helsinki this summer. The “pilot project” is using the UK-based company Verify 365 to merge the electronic identity of passengers with the new MyID Digital Wallet system. As always, the scheme is being promoted to the public as “a safe, secure and convenient way to prove who you are.”

  Thankfully, some citizens in EU countries are rising up in defiance of the ruling oligarchy. In the Netherlands, for instance, thousands of Dutch farmers revolted against their government’s insane plan to cut nitrogen emissions by permanently closing more than 11,000 farms. The farmers created their own political movement, the Farmer-Citizen Movement—or BoerburgerBeweging (BBB)—which recently triumphed in regional elections after months of widespread tractor protests.

  Then we have the millions of disgruntled citizens who have been regularly flocking to the streets of Paris and other major French cities to protest various economic and political “reforms.” Their initial complaint about higher fuel taxes (remember the yellow vest movement in 2019?) has evolved into a revolt against “Monarch” Macron’s decision to increase the legal pension age from 62 to 64. Macron’s invocation of Article 49.3—for the 11th time in his “reign”—allowed him to bypass the National Assembly (France’s lower house of Parliament). On May Day, protests against that perceived injustice got ugly.

  To be sure, these massive demonstrations and the BBB’s encouraging victory are positive steps. No major liberation of Europeans from their own governments will take place, however, until the entire edifice of the EU is torn down. Most importantly, Europe will not be fully emancipated until NATO is dismantled. Only then will the people of each European nation be truly freed from the shackles of the Washington establishment that dictates every aspect—military and economic and otherwise—of their lives.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s European Union countries.

  In all fairness, we must point out that totalitarian control and surveillance mechanisms, such as digital IDs and CBDCs, are not unique to Western countries. Venturing into the Eastern countries, we would encounter the exact same control grid being developed, with the same globalist, imperialist players at the helm, all of them ensuring that the East, like the West, remains under their domination.

  One group of nations that is neither geographically East nor West but that has formed a bloc to counteract the dominance of the US and its allies is what Goldman Sachs ex-chief economist Jim O’Neill coined the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

  I wonder: Would my parents ferret out a haven of freedom in any of the BRICS nations? We’ll soon find out.

  *

  A 2023 LOOK AT THE BRICS NATIONS

  Countless pundits and journalists in the alternative media have opined that the BRICS nations—particularly Russia, China, and India—are leading the charge in an anti-globalist, anti-global-governance, anti-single-global-empire crusade.

  On the contrary, nothing could be further from the truth.

  Here are some proofs that they misunderstand the geopolitical reality:

  All of the BRICS nations are firmly onboard the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution and the UN’s Agenda 2030—notably its SDGs.

  The central banks of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are all forging ahead with plans to roll out their programmable CBDCs as soon as possible. Among those five central banks, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are considering putting expiration dates on their CBDCs.

  The BRICS are not challenging Western economic hegemony. Their financial initiatives are deeply connected to the World Bank and the IMF. Therefore, they must be seen as closely connected to the Washington establishment, not clashing with it (despite appearances to the contrary).

  When it comes to COVID-19, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have been leading the pack in enacting a biosecurity surveillance state.

  Indeed, ever since the scamdemic scare was announced in early 2020, the Kremlin has been complicit, just like the collective West, in carrying out harmful anti-human, anti-health measures under the direction of the WHO’s health tyranny.

  For example, President Putin and his Minister of Health (and WHO executive board member) Mikhail Albertovič Murashko have been promoting mass vaccination.

  Their Sputnik V injection is virtually identical to the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s injection. In fact, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF)—the Kremlin fund that finances Sputnik V—signed a memorandum of cooperation with AstraZeneca in December 2020.

  Moreover, Russia has introduced vaccination mandates for certain regions of the country and mandatory jabs for the military.

  Because Russia has no equivalent of the US CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), it’s difficult to ascertain exactly how many Russians are being injured or murdered by their experimental Sputnik V jab. Nevertheless, thanks to Argentina’s Ministry of Health, we do know that, of the three “vaccines” the Argentinian government has adopted for use—Sputnik V, AstraZeneca, and China’s Sinopharm—the Sputnik V injection has been the leader of the pack when it comes to causing adverse reactions, beating the other two contenders by a huge margin.

  

  Russian doctors are well aware of health risks associated Sputnik V, but they are labeled “terrorists” and are threatened by the state with excessive fines and prison time if they voice their concerns. Afraid of the consequences, most of them self-censor.

  If you think biometric surveillance is unique to China and the West, you are wrong. Herman Gref, the CEO of Russia’s Sberbank and a member of the WEF’s Board of Trustees (with Ursula von der Leyden, you will recall), has teamed up with Russian telecom titan Rostelecom to form Digital Identification Technologies JV, which will create a unified biometric system for all of Russia.

  Soon, the poor propagandized and punctured people of Russia will not be able to access any government services unless they hand over their biometric data—bypassing the need for pesky QR codes altogether.

  Should we be surprised that Putin and his functionaries are no more curbing individual freedoms than are the West’s tyrants? Why would we be? What would prevent Putin from following in the footsteps of his predecessors? Nothing I know of, unless the people of Russia begin to mobilise and protest in a big way, as their French brothers and sisters have done in Paris.

  Consider: When Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the former Soviet Union, he was avowed member of the globalist-eugenicist Club of Rome. He also partnered with Canadian globalist-eugenicist Maurice Strong to establish the Earth Charter global sustainability project in conjunction with Agenda 21. Both Gorbachev and Strong were leading figures in the UN’s early steps toward global governance.

  Just because the Soviet Union petered out and Gorby and Strong are no longer with us is no reason to assume that Russia’s ruler of twenty-four years has not been pursuing the same globalist ends. Indeed, Putin hardly seems the type to let other world leaders hog the limelight, take all the marbles, or grow dangerously bigger and stronger than he is.

  Truth be told, BRICS bloc members Russia and China are simply another version of the same totalitarian control grid set up by the technocrats in the West. Neither of them offers any out—any salvation from the harms of biologics, biometrics, and biosecurity—to their people.

  In fact, China has been the test bed for all of the totalitarian mechanisms that either have been or will be let loose on the rest of the world. During the pseudopandemic, China launched a series of vicious COVID-19 measures—inhumane lockdowns, mandatory QR codes, ubiquitous biometric surveillance, mass compulsory vaccination, forced—and enforced—masking rules, and constant testing. In short, China is a full-fledged scientific dictatorship, aka technocracy.

  And what about the other three BRICS nations: Brazil, India, and South Africa?

  Besides being onboard the WEF bandwagon, the WHO bandwagon, the CDBC bandwagon, the World Bank and IMF bandwagon, and thus the entire Western hegemonic bandwagon, have these three countries installed any politicians or policies or programs that are freedom-oriented and that would make my parents want to flee to them?

  First, Brazil. The largest South American country is now under the thumb of the globalist cabal with the election of Luiz Inácio Lulada Silva (commonly known as “Lula”), Brazil’s 39th President. Unlike his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who refused to sign an international pandemic treaty and resisted certain aspects of the scamdemic scheme, Lula fully embraces the monolithic, world-dominating agenda of the WHO, GAVI, and the WEF.

  To wit: In February 2023, Lula declared that for families to remain eligible for the famous Bolsa Family Program (BFP), a social program for the poorest of the poor families, they must vaccinate their children—specifically with the COVID-19 experimental gene therapy. Otherwise, they lose the benefits afforded them under the BFP.

  Next, India. Contrary to what both the mainstream and the alternative media have been claiming, the Gates Foundation never got “kicked out” of India. In fact, the opposite is true. In 2006, for example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan, launched the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI).

  Over the years, the PHFI received funding from pharma companies (e.g., GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson), from “philanthropists” (e.g., the usual suspects: Bill and Melinda Gates and the Rockefellers), and from NGOs (e.g., the World Bank and USAID). When the WHO declared the “pandemic” in early 2020, members of the PHFI were perfectly poised to create, advise, and direct the Indian government’s national COVID Task Force. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to conclude that the PHFI was pivotal in steering all COVID-19 measures and COVID-19 injection-related policies in India.

  Last, South Africa. Working closely with the nation’s servile mass media, the South African government, headed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, imposed one of the longest, most severe lockdowns on the continent. The impact of closing small businesses on a populace that largely depends on weekly subsistence wages was catastrophic. Because the state failed to deliver subsides to the poor and self-employed for over a year, nearly one quarter of all small businesses went under, and unemployment skyrocketed.

  Brian Pottinger, writing for UnHerd, outlines what the consequences were for those brave individuals who dared challenge the South African government’s insane lockdown restrictions:

  An entire section of the population was effectively criminalised: in the first four months of the outbreak, 230,000 citizens, 0.4% of the population, were charged with infringement of the Disaster Regulations for breaking the restrictions, 311 of them policemen. All the charges were later dropped: the criminal justice system simply could not cope.

  Thus, there is no way to justify calling the BRICS economic model a non-globalisation alternative to the West’s globalisation push when, in reality, it is just another form of globalisation—a different approach to globalisation.

  Like the Western model, the BRICS model is structurally inflationary. Like the Western model, the BRICS model is not free market-based, but, rather, industrial policy-based. And, significantly, the BRICS model is part and parcel, as is the Western model, of the new international world order. They are the same dysfunctional plan, just with different brandings.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in any of today’s BRICS nations.

  *

  Granted, there are great power rivalries taking place on the world stage. To the average person, it may actually look as if we are indeed living in a multipolar world, where the weakened nations of the West—led by the fading US empire—on one side of the divide are battling to retain supremacy over the energized nations of the East—led by Russia and China—on the other side of the divide.

  “But examples of multipolarity abound,” you insist.

  I understand: There’s the conflict in Ukraine, where innocent people on both sides are suffering and dying needlessly.

  I understand: Tensions are brewing off the coast of China, where the American Empire is trying in vain to prevent China’s inevitable takeover of Taiwan.

  I understand: That same slowly dying American Empire is feverishly trying to prevent European-Russian economic integration by blowing up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, thus enabling Washington to maintain its temporary grip on that region until its inescapable economic collapse is complete.

  Despite the veneer of multipolarity, however, there is—as I mentioned at beginning of this article—a single global empire operating at a higher level. Or, you could say, at a deep state level. The unipolar empire exists outside of the general field of perception of the majority of the world’s populace. It transcends not only the East-West partition but all other divides between nations. We will now find out how this is so.

  THE GLOBAL EMPIRE: A UNIPOLAR PRISON, A DIGITAL GULAG

  At the top of the global empire is “the central bank of all central banks”—the highly secretive and unaccountable Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Its task is to direct and coordinate monetary and fiscal policy for all the central banks around the globe. This is how the BIS directly controls the world’s money supply and indirectly controls trade and national economies.

  By holding such an influential and prominent position, the BIS forms the apex of a pyramid-like structure that consists of a ladder-like hierarchy of organizations and institutions comprising the global empire. All of them are run by what I call the parasite class.

  

  [click to enlarge]

  Per this Global Public-Private Partnership (G3P) chart created by UK researcher and journalist Iain Davis, the global empire’s structure is designed so that the chain of command flows from the BIS to the world’s central banks and from them to…

  …the policymakers at the think tanks. These include various Rockefeller funds and foundations, plus the Rockefeller-founded Club of Rome, the Rockefeller-founded Trilateral Commission, and the Rockefeller-founded Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Some of these think tanks actually have non-Rockefeller roots, among them the CFR’s UK equivalent, the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA), and the hardcore eugenicist Chatham House, founded by British diplomat Lionel Curtis in the aftermath of World War One.

  The think tanks work in partnership with the BIS and the central banks to set international public-private policy objectives. Once these big-picture objectives are formulated, they are sent to…

  …the policy distributors, such as the Rockefeller-founded United Nations, the UN’s WHO and IPCC, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, ostensible philanthropists (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation comes to mind), global corporations, and NGOs.

  As their name implies, the distributors are tasked with disseminating the policies far and wide, to all corners of the world. They make sure the policies also get into the hands of officials on the next ladder rung down, who are called…

  …the policy enforcers. Their ranks include the various military branches, the judiciary, police and security forces, and any other enforcement arms built into all layers of government (national, provincial, state, local).

  These governmental law enforcement bodies work in conjunction with selected “scientific” authorities, such as…

  …the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).

  All of these agencies and authorities must justify the policies they are required to enforce. They often write rules and regulations and ordinances and codes for the policies and then pass them down to the organizations on the lowest rung of the ladder. Iain Davis calls them…

  …the “policy propagandists”—or, in polite terms, the perception managers.

  These media and public relations outfits, consisting of the mainstream media (“Establishment” newspapers, magazines, and television and radio stations), social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter), and fact checkers (Full Fact, PolitiFact, Snopes, AP Fact Check, Poynter, etc.), work alongside hybrid warriors (77th Brigade and HutEighteen, for example) and anti-hate campaigners. The latter include the US-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

  The propagandists’ job is to persuade the public—us billions of ordinary folks who stand beneath the ladder-like pyramid—to unthinkingly accept the lies we are being fed and to automatically acquiesce to the repressive policies.

  In summary, humanity has never in its entire history faced such an all-pervasive totalitarian, technocratic system of governance.

  The purpose of this despotic empire is to curtail, if not remove, humans’ fundamental freedoms, steal our wealth, sap our physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual strength, separate us from our friends and families, and thus control us from head to toe, from here to there and everywhere, all day and all night.

  Working behind the scenes, the BIS and the central banks are already causing some sizable banks (think Signature, Silicon Valley, and First Republic banks) to collapse. From here on in, the number of bank failures will only increase. Soon the biggest banks (think JPMorgan Chase & Co.) will start gobbling up not just large and mid-sized competitors but also smaller regional and local banks.

  Once the central banks have completely implemented their planned AI-controlled digital monetary and financial system, we will all be held hostage in their global empire, sentenced to their unipolar prison, confined in their digital gulag.

  The ailing American Empire will continue to exist for the time being. But that’s only because the parasite class that has been feeding off America’s wealth for centuries still needs the American military to do its bidding—its dirty work—abroad. Once the corporate controlled US Empire has served its purpose economically and militarily and is no longer a viable host, those same greedy parasites will have a feast to end all feasts—with the aim of draining that once-strong, swaggering nation to the last drop. No empire has withstood the generations of blood-suckers.

  Putin, too, is dispensable and disposable in the parasitic globalists’ eyes. He cannot curry their favor simply by playing along with their agenda, even though he may perceive himself to be one of them. If Russia is not careful, it will be dismembered, piece by piece. Its valuable resources will be snatched and sold off. It will be turned into a land of warring fiefdoms. Parasites are equal opportunity feeders.

  Even common folk like you and I are not immune from the parasitic class, which attaches itself to and absorbs anyone willing to be its host. Regardless of our location, we are all, in varying degree, already living within reach of the tentacles of the parasites’ global empire.

  FINAL CONCLUSION

  And that brings us back to the question I asked at the start of this article: If my parents had stayed in their place of birth, the region now known as the former Yugoslavia, for the last 58 years and if only now, in 2023, they decided they’d had their fill of the technocratic state’s suppression of their rights, where would they go to find freedom?

  My 96-year-old father answered that question when I posed it to him recently.

  “Knowing what the world is like today,” he replied, “I would probably not go anywhere. Yes, Belarus holds the gold standard when it comes to not complying with the COVID narrative, but I would most likely stay in my home country of Croatia. I would join a network of likeminded people—someone like journalist Andrija Klarić of Slobodni podcast—so that together we can find solutions to this nightmare.”

  This article is written in memory of my mother, Maida, and in tribute to her childhood friend Franc, who saved her and her husband, Janko, from a life of repression in Yugoslavia and from possible death by firing squad during their escape.

  It also honors my father, Janko, who persuaded me to open my eyes to the ugly, if hidden, realities of the world. With perseverance and patience, he pounded into my teenage head that all is not as it appears to be. He told me to always question everything, to get as many different perspectives as possible when looking into any subject, and, above all, to “follow the money trail, for it never lies.”

  They would want me to expose and reject the global empire and its nefarious agenda. They would welcome a truly multipolar world. A world in which “we the people” live in peace, respect everyone’s God-given right to freedom, privacy, and individual sovereignty, and work together in ways that benefit all of humanity and bless our beautiful, abundant earth.

  Originally published by Global Research

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 23:40

• Colorado Bans Court-Ordered "Brainwashing" Camps For Abused Minors
  Colorado Bans Court-Ordered “Brainwashing” Camps For Abused Minors

  Colorado has become the first state in the nation to ban court-ordered camps where children are ‘reunified’ with a parent who has been accused of abusing them.

  

  These reunification camps are used by family court judges to settle private custody disputes or divorces involving minors. As part of the order, camp workers are sometimes given temporary custody of the children so they can legally take them from their homes. While at the camp, children are forced into what some have described as a “brainwashing technique” that the camps call “reunification therapy.”

  According to Tina Swithin, Founder of One Mom’s Battle, forcing children back into a relationship with an abusive parent is essentially “court-ordered child trafficking,” the Epoch Times reports.

  Evita Tolu, an attorney in Missouri where she has represented children forced into reunification counseling with an abusive parent, called the practice “kafkaesque”—a term based on German novelist Franz Kafka who wrote stories about characters who were subject to severely bizarre bureaucratic powers.

  The Epoch Times reached out for comment from the three major court-ordered reunification camps: Family Bridges, Turning Points for Families, and Lynn Steinberg’s reunification camp. None responded.

  Some children sent to the camps have described being dragged out of their homes by transport workers, being handcuffed, and transported to an unknown place. Some children have alleged undergoing degrading punishments if they don’t say they love the parent who allegedly abused them. -Epoch Times

  “I was so terrified, I couldn’t stop shaking,” said one former ‘inmate’ of such camps, Allyson Bender, who recounted her experience in 2017 when she was 16-years-old.

  More via the Epoch Times;

  The Colorado law, which now bans judges from ordering children to attend reunification camps against their will came on the heels of a string of tragic murders of children within a month by Colorado parents awarded custody despite having either convictions or pending allegations against them.

  It also followed the results of a state audit that turned up evidence that at least one custody evaluator admitted he dismissed 90 percent of child abuse claims without investigating them.

  The main trigger for ordering children to attend reunification camps is an allegation that they have made false allegations of child abuse against their parent as part of the other parent’s plot to alienate them from the accused parent.

  As The Epoch Times and other media outlets have reported, family court judges have been found in a high number of cases to refuse to consider evidence of child abuse against a parent.

  In some cases, the judges have ordered the suppression of criminal convictions of child abuse against a parent. Some parents who brought up past convictions have themselves been accused of parental alienation.

  As part of the practice, the parent accused of “alienation” is often stripped of custody and children are ordered to undergo reunification therapy.

  Court-ordered reunification has been denounced by several organizations including the American Psychiatric Association. Insurance companies will not insure the camps or the therapy administered. The therapy costs an average of $5,000 a day, according to bills shared with The Epoch Times by parents.

  The length of the stay in the camps averages 90 days. But as one parent told The Epoch Times in March, his two girls were kept “indefinitely” at the reunification camp. They were forcibly transported by “transporters” in California under a family judge’s court order.

  “Family court judges are basically doing whatever they want with our kids,” Riley, who says he went broke paying for the camps, told The Epoch Times.

  In addition to the Colorado legislation, Swithin’s group has filed a class action lawsuit against the Turning Points for Families reunification camp and its owner Linda Gottlieb on behalf of several children who say there were abused at the camp.

  Gottlieb did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times.

  On its website, the camp, which operates nationwide, bills itself as “a therapeutic vacation” and refers to parental alienation as child abuse.

  On its website, the caption under a picture of a child’s hand reaching out to an adult’s hand reads, “It is anti-instinctual to reject a parent—even an abusive parent.”

  Other states are considering legislation similar to Colorado’s recently passed ban on courts ordering children to attend reunification camps.

  Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire have tried repeatedly to pass legislation banning reunification therapy.

  The lawmakers recently got the child and family law committee to form a special committee to study the state’s family court system.

  The committee has so far held four hearings. Parents and advocates for court reform have been held to a strict five minutes to speak, while judges and other supporters of the court have been allowed to speak for up to an hour.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 23:20

• Dozens Of Capitol Police Riot Helmets Were Confiscated Just Before Jan. 6, Former Lieutenant Says
  Dozens Of Capitol Police Riot Helmets Were Confiscated Just Before Jan. 6, Former Lieutenant Says

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

  Days before violence broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a U.S. Capitol Police captain ordered the confiscation of dozens of riot helmets from officers without the knowledge of Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, a former USCP lieutenant told The Epoch Times.

  

  Former Capitol Police Lt. Tarik K. Johnson said he was ordered to collect “20 to 30” helmets by his immediate supervisor, Capt. Ben Smith. Johnson said there was no explanation for the order, but he assumed the equipment was past its expiration date.

  The collection was done within the two weeks prior to Jan. 6, most likely the week of Dec. 28, 2020, to Jan. 1, 2021, Johnson said.

  “Now, did they tell me that the helmets were expired? Nobody told me that they were,” Johnson said in an interview with The Epoch Times. “But if they were perfectly good helmets, why would you take them?”

  After receiving a list of officers from Smith, Johnson said, he had sergeants announce the helmet collection at roll call. He said officers brought their helmets to his office.

  Johnson said he first reported the helmet confiscation to the office of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) during a meeting on Jan. 11, 2021.

  Johnson said he served on Leahy’s Capitol Police protective detail for more than two years. Leahy retired from the U.S. Senate in January after nearly 50 years in office.

  

  Johnson said the day after he met with J.P. Dowd, Leahy’s chief of staff, he received notice of suspension from U.S. Capitol Police. The Epoch Times reached out to Dowd regarding the meeting, but did not receive a response by press time.

  More recently, Johnson reported the helmet issue to the GOP-controlled Committee on House Administration, which oversees Capitol Police. Committee staff asked him for a meeting to discuss Jan. 6 issues, he said. That meeting could take place within the coming days.

  A Committee on House Administration staff member contacted by The Epoch Times declined to comment on the helmet issue or Johnson’s possible testimony.

  The Epoch Times contacted Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and USCP Director of Communications Tim Barber for comment on Johnson’s allegations, but they did not respond by press time.

  ‘Why the Urgency?’

  Johnson and Sund said the proper procedure would have been for the USCP Property Asset Management Division to handle the collection of the old equipment and issuance of new helmets.

  “I don’t do property inventory,” Johnson said. “So even when they were bringing me the helmets, there’s no mechanism for me to give them a receipt anyway because we never do that. I’ve never seen that done. I’d been there a lot of years, and I never had to take helmets.”

  Sund, who was forced to resign as chief on Jan. 7, 2021, said he would not have issued a confiscation order—especially so close to a major protest scheduled for the National Mall and Capitol grounds.

  “TK [Johnson] bringing this up is the first I’ve heard of them taking back helmets,” Sund told The Epoch Times.

  “These helmets could have expired a year, two years ago,” Sund said. “Well, why the urgency to collect them now? That’s what I just don’t know. I just don’t know when they expired, if, indeed, they expired.”

  

  Sund said that in the fall of 2020, he obtained a $320,000 budget to purchase helmets. The goal was for every sworn officer to have head protection. Supply-chain delays due to COVID-19 hindered the fulfillment of the USCP order, he said.

  Riot helmets are designed to protect officers from blunt impact from objects like bats or pipes, and projectiles such as stones, bricks, or water bottles. Flip-down face shields are also meant to protect from chemical agents such as pepper spray.

  The department secured the delivery of 104 helmets on Jan. 4, 2021. Those helmets were intended for officers who were not part of the Civil Disturbance Unit (CDU), Sund said.

  “I was pushing to get helmets in and get helmets distributed,” Sund said. “To hear TK [Johnson] say they’re pulling helmets back and not doing a one-for-one [exchange], that’s very concerning.

  “If they were concerned about the helmets being expired, why be concerned right then, right before January 6?” Sund said. “How long ago did the helmets expire? Did they expire a year ago? Why all of a sudden the urge, the rush to haul them in?”

  Photographs and video from the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 show dozens of Capitol Police officers outside the building wearing USCP baseball caps or knit winter hats. Some of the officers worked at police barricades where violence broke out.

  Videos show most of the USCP officers guarding the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol did not have helmets or face shields. Agitators attacked Capitol Police with pepper spray and projectiles before the crowd entered the Columbus Doors that lead into the Rotunda.

  ‘Mine Was Also Taken Away’

  The chairman of the Capitol Police Labor Committee said he blew the whistle on confiscated safety equipment months before Jan. 6 and long before Johnson was ordered to collect riot helmets.

  “Helmets were taken from USCP officers way before Jan. 6th, as were gas masks.” Gus Papathanasiou told The Epoch Times in an email. “I was aware, as mine was also taken away.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 23:00

• Iranian Drone Factory To Be Built Outside Moscow, White House Says
  Iranian Drone Factory To Be Built Outside Moscow, White House Says

  Ever since Iranian-supplied suicide drones began being used by Russia to attack Ukrainian cities, the White House has been warning allies with growing alarm of the increasing military coordination between Moscow and Tehran, both which are under expansive US sanctions.

  But for the first time, the Biden administration’s Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday that Iran is helping Russia build a new manufacturing plant for Iran-designed drones outside of Moscow.

  

  The location was identified as in Alabuga special economic zone, east of the Russian capital, with Kirby qualifying that the plant “probably will be built” and could be operational as soon as next year.

  Already, NATO officials have said Iran has provided Russia hundreds of its Kamikaze ‘Shahed’ for use in the war in Ukraine.

  The White House further on Friday released what Kirby described as satellite imagery of the industrial location where the plant is expected to be constructed. The imagery was captured in April. According to more via The Associated Press:

  Kirby said that U.S. officials also have determined that Iran continues to supply the Russian military with one-way attack drones made in Iran: The drones are shipped via the Caspian Sea, from Amirabad in Iran to Makhachkala, Russia, and then are used by Russian forces against Ukraine.

  Other defense items, including ammunition, is also being shipped from Iran using the same Caspian Sea routes, the statement added.

  “This is a full-scale defense partnership that is harmful to Ukraine, to Iran’s neighbors, and to the international community,” Kirby said in the Friday briefing. “We are continuing to use all the tools at our disposal to expose and disrupt these activities including by sharing this with the public — and we are prepared to do more.”

  Satellite image of Russia’s Alabuga special economic zone, which the US says is where Iranian drones are likely to be made. And the route used to transfer Iranian drones to Russia and then to airfields where they are launched into Ukraine.https://t.co/deHqir4u6z
  📸 Maxar/US Gov pic.twitter.com/EtNTb00V58

  — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) June 9, 2023

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

  Throughout the invasion which started February 24, 2022, Russia has proven itself able to circumvent Washington sanctions and attempts to isolate Moscow globally with ease by deepening partnerships with other ‘official enemies’ and rivals of the US like China and Iran.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 22:40

• Snowden Warns Today's Surveillance Technology Makes 2013 Look Like "Child's Play"
  Snowden Warns Today’s Surveillance Technology Makes 2013 Look Like “Child’s Play”

  Authored by Julia Conley via CommonDreams.org,

  “We trusted the government not to screw us,” said Edward Snowden.

  “But they did. We trusted the tech companies not to take advantage of us. But they did. That is going to happen again, because that is the nature of power.”

  

  With this week marking 10 years since whistleblower Edward Snowden disclosed information to journalists about widespread government spying by United States and British agencies, the former National Security Agency contractor on Thursday joined other advocates in warning that the fight for privacy rights, while making several inroads in the past decade, has grown harder due to major changes in technology.

  “If we think about what we saw in 2013 and the capabilities of governments today,” Snowden told The Guardian, “2013 seems like child’s play.”

  Snowden said that the advent of commercially available surveillance products such as Ring cameras, Pegasus spyware, and facial recognition technology has posed new dangers.

  As Common Dreams has reported, the home security company Ring has faced legal challenges due to security concerns and its products’ vulnerability to hacking, and has faced criticism from rights groups for partnering with more than 1,000 police departments—including some with histories of police violence—and leaving community members vulnerable to harassment or wrongful arrests.

  Law enforcement agencies have also begun using facial recognition technology to identify crime suspects despite the fact that the software is known to frequently misidentify people of color—leading to the wrongful arrest and detention earlier this year of Randal Reid in Georgia, among other cases.

  Last month, journalists and civil society groups called for a global moratorium on the sale and transfer of spyware like Pegasus, which has been used to target dozens of journalists in at least 10 countries.

  Protecting the public from surveillance “is an ongoing process,” Snowden told The Guardian on Thursday. “And we will have to be working at it for the rest of our lives and our children’s lives and beyond.”

  In 2013, Snowden revealed that the U.S. government was broadly monitoring the communications of citizens, sparking a debate over surveillance as well as sustained privacy rights campaigns from groups like Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Fight for the Future.

  “Technology has grown to be enormously influential,” Snowden told The Guardian on Thursday.

  “We trusted the government not to screw us. But they did. We trusted the tech companies not to take advantage of us. But they did. That is going to happen again, because that is the nature of power.”

  Last month ahead of the anniversary of Snowden’s revelations, EFF noted that some improvements to privacy rights have been made in the past decade, including:

  • The sunsetting of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which until 2020 allowed the U.S. government to conduct a dragnet surveillance program that collected billions of phone records;

  • The emergence of end-to-end encryption of internet communications, which Snowden noted was “a pipe dream in 2013”;

  • The end of the NSA’s bulk collection of internet metadata, including email addresses of senders and recipients; and

  • Rulings in countries including South Africa and Germany against bulk data collection.

  The group noted that privacy advocates are still pushing Congress to end Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications, and “to take privacy seriously,” particularly as tech companies expand spying capabilities.

  “Despite calls over the last few years for federal legislation to rein in Big Tech companies, we’ve seen nothing significant in limiting tech companies’ ability to collect data… or regulate biometric surveillance, or close the backdoor that allows the government to buy personal information rather than get a warrant, much less create a new Church Committee to investigate the intelligence community’s overreaches,” wrote EFF senior policy analyst Matthew Guariglia, executive director Cindy Cohn, and assistant director Andrew Crocker.

  “It’s why so many cities and states have had to take it upon themselves to ban face recognition or predictive policing, or pass laws to protect consumer privacy and stop biometric data collection without consent.”

  “It’s been 10 years since the Snowden revelations,” they added, “and Congress needs to wake up and finally pass some legislation that actually protects our privacy, from companies as well as from the NSA directly.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 22:20

• Watch: Japan's Parliament Erupts In Scuffle Over Immigration Reform
  Watch: Japan’s Parliament Erupts In Scuffle Over Immigration Reform

  Several scuffles broke out in Japan’s parliament on Friday after a bill to revise the country’s immigration law was passed – enabling authorities to quickly deport foreign nationals seeking refugee status in the country.

  

  Left-wing political leader Taro Yamamoto, a former actor, attempted to block passage of the bill by using physical force – flinging himself toward other lawmakers to try and stop the vote.

  Here is some longer footage of the scuffle from NHK: pic.twitter.com/tN0Xs0s6gp

  — Jeffrey J. Hall 🇯🇵🇺🇸 (@mrjeffu) June 8, 2023

  Yamamoto later told supporters that his actions were driven by concern over loss of life.

  The immigration reform was passed by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s governing coalition and other conservative parties.

  The bill allows Japan to deport foreign nationals who have applied for refugee status more than twice and have failed to provide legitimate justification for doing so. Currently, foreign nationals applying for asylum are protected from deportation, however the government said people have abused the system in order to remain in Japan for extended periods of time.

  The revision will also allow foreign nationals facing deportation to stay outside of detention facilities, provided they are under the supervision of relatives or supporters. The decision on whether to allow detained foreigners to live outside detention facilities under the supervisory system will be reviewed on a three-month basis.

  However, opponents have raised concerns that the revision could lead to the repatriation of individuals who may face persecution or even risk losing their lives if they were to be returned to their home countries.

  Dozens of protesters stood outside the parliament building on Friday holding banners and shouting, “Stop bad revision!” and “Scrap the bill!” Inside parliament, opposition lawmakers took turns making protest speeches. –Epoch Times

  “The amendment bill does not contain sufficient procedural safeguards to ensure that refugees are not returned to countries in which they would be in probable danger of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, as required under refugee law,” said Human Rights Now (HRN) in a statement.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 22:00

• How 'Child-Friendly' Drag Events Can Expose Children To Sex Offenders
  How ‘Child-Friendly’ Drag Events Can Expose Children To Sex Offenders

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

  Drag events targeting children can be a hunting ground for sexual predators, according to a therapist with a long career in treating sexual predators.

  A relatively recent phenomenon “Drag Queen Story Hour,” which first appeared in San Francisco, now is happening around the nation—at public libraries, in eateries, at performance venues, in parades, and even at schools.

  These events often include men in women’s clothing performing erotic dances, wearing skimpy or suggestive costumes, and telling sexually charged jokes.

  These shows sometimes mask sexual predators and facilitate the sexual grooming of children, experts told The Epoch Times.

  

  ‘Significant Risk to Women and Children’

  Jon Uhler, a therapist who treats sex offenders, says that in his experience if a man feels comfortable performing sexual dance in a skimpy women’s outfit for children, he’s likely extremely sexually deviant and “poses a significant risk to women and children.”

  Uhler told The Epoch Times that men who want to perform for kids in sexy women’s outfits have likely watched hundreds of hours of deviant pornography that reshapes the brain to become a sexual predator.

  Men don’t become sexual predators all at once, Uhler said.

  Sexual deviancy requires a slow descent over time into deeper and deeper levels of evil, he said.

  “The issue is deviance,” Uhler said. “It always has been throughout human history.”

  Uhler draws his experience from 15 years spent treating hundreds of sex offenders, working with more than 4,000 sex offenders in several contexts, and spending more than 13,000 clinical contact hours with sex offenders.

  He said he has treated sex offenders both inside and outside of prison.

  All the men he has worked with eventually admitted they did porn, he added.

  It Starts With Porn

  Viewing increasing amounts of “deviant” pornography supercharges the journey into perversion, Uhler said.

  People aren’t born sexual predators, Uhler said. Instead, they become remorseless abusers through a process that starts with pornography, he asserted.

  People on the way to deviance move from simple lust, to objectification, to power and control, to defiling, to increasingly warped behavior.

  Every stage of deviance pulls abusers into increasingly warped behavior, he said.

  Uhler said that men who enjoy wearing drag tend to get that way because they watch huge amounts of porn, he said.

  Anyone can sink down this scale, and sexual deviancy destroys the brain’s capacity for empathy, Uhler said.

  That leads to psychopathy, and psychopaths tend to be callous, detached, manipulative, remorseless, parasitic, sexually promiscuous, and without the capacity for guilt.

  “A psychopath’s brain is very different than a normal person’s brain,” Uhler said. “And there’s no going back.”

  The Epoch Times found no comprehensive list of drag performers in the United States.

  Ru Paul’s New York DragCon event drew a record 50,000 visitors this year. But not all of these people were drag queens, and some came from outside America, the group’s Facebook page shows.

  Not all drag queens perform at “child-friendly” events but verifying the criminal history of a large number of performers would be nearly impossible without a nationwide drag group’s cooperation.

  Drag performers usually use stage names, wear flamboyant costumes that disguise their identity, and put on heavy makeup that further camouflages their normal appearance. Their real names rarely appear in promotional materials.

  The Epoch Times emailed all 28 American chapters of Drag Queen Story Hour and the national hub to ask how many members they have, and whether performers have their backgrounds checked before being scheduled to read with children.

  None of them responded to requests for information.

  Convicted Sex Offenders

  In the past four years, at least eight American drag performers accused of sexual crimes have worked with children, The Epoch Times has found. Seven of these men have been convicted of child sexual abuse, child pornography, and prostitution.

  Three of these men participated in Drag Queen Story Hour events for children. Two took part in a reality TV competition. One taught children as a dance instructor. Another mentored young boys wanting to learn how to perform in drag. Yet another performed in “all-ages” drag shows.

  One drag performer was arrested in 2012 for running a child sex-trafficking operation. He became a transgender activist in prison.

  A man charged with sexual crimes was president of an activist group that facilitated Drag Queen Story Hours.

  It’s important to remember that these men are only the ones who got caught, Uhler said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 21:40

• Robusta Coffee Prices Soar To New Record As El Niño Sparks Supply Fears
  Robusta Coffee Prices Soar To New Record As El Niño Sparks Supply Fears

  Vietnam and Indonesia, some of the top-producing coffee countries, are experiencing extreme weather that could worsen a shortage of robusta beans. This has pushed robusta coffee prices to a record high, making it more expensive for buyers to obtain cheap beans, Bloomberg reported. A confirmed El Niño ahead of a Northern Hemisphere summer could worsen the shortage and perhaps explain why prices are skyrocketing. 

  Just weeks ago, “Robusta Prices Hit 12-Year High As El Niño Threat Sparks Shortage Fears,” and fast forward to Friday, robusta bean prices per ton have jumped to $2,790, the highest since the contract started trading 15 years ago. 

  

  Due to dwindling supplies, prices have surged more than 50% since the start of the year. Also, the anticipated El Niño weather pattern, which is now confirmed, has supported prices. El Niño means hotter, drier conditions for top suppliers Vietnam and Indonesia that will crimp yields. 

  Bloomberg explains robusta demand has been increasing:

  The switch was first observed among roasters who increased the amount of robusta used in commercial blends to offset higher arabica costs and energy bills. Then, double-digit inflation in many parts of the world saw grocery bills surge to the highest in decades, forcing some consumers to trade down to cheaper options.

  And then warned:

  As roasters increase the amount of robusta in their coffee blends, growers struggle to keep pace. A combination of higher fertilizer costs and drought has slashed crop yields. That’s set to keep the global coffee market in a deficit for a third straight season in 2023-24.

  As we started to see El Niño probabilities increase in April, we informed readers, “El Nino Watch Initiated As Ag-Industry In Crosshairs.”

  And on earnings calls, the number of corporate executives discussing weather-related impacts has surged to multi-year highs.

  

  The global economic impact of El Niño could be in the trillions of dollars over the next several years. It appears the ag space is seeing the brunt of the first impacts. 

  So, what does this mean for consumers when they go to the supermarket? Well, brace yourselves because the rise in food prices is far from over. In particular, coffee prices are set to rise even more, making that morning cup of joe even more costly. The good news: egg prices have collapsed. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 21:20

• Russia's Gasoline Exports Have Surged By 37% This Year
  Russia’s Gasoline Exports Have Surged By 37% This Year

  By Charles Kennedy of OIlPrice.com

  Despite the Western sanctions, Russian oil companies boosted their gasoline exports by 37% between January and May compared to the same period in 2022, Russian daily Kommersant reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the data.

  

  The Russian Energy Ministry last month asked oil companies to reduce their exports and raise supply on the domestic market, according to Kommersant’s sources.

  After a sharp rise in wholesale gasoline prices in May and recommendations from the Energy Ministry to oil firms to curb exports, Russia’s daily gasoline exports in the first six days of June were four times lower than the levels at the end of May, Kommersant reports. 

  Russia has stopped reporting official data about oil production and exports, much to the frustration of its OPEC+ partners, as the leader of the pack, Saudi Arabia, is reportedly looking to boost oil prices to at least $80 per barrel—the estimated breakeven price for its budget for 2023.

  Russia has redirected both crude oil and petroleum product exports after the EU embargoes on imports of seaborne Russian oil. The EU banned crude imports in early December 2022 and embargoed fuel imports from Russia as of February 5, 2023.

  Russian gasoline exports surged in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2022, as Moscow placed growing volumes of fuels with African customers after the EU embargo on seaborne imports of Russia’s fuels. Russian gasoline exports were estimated at 1.9 million tons in the first quarter of 2023, up compared to 1.3 million tons exported in the same period of 2022, per Refinitiv data cited by Reuters.

  The trade shift in Russian oil flows also benefits Moscow’s Middle Eastern allies in the OPEC+ pact as the biggest Arab Gulf oil producers, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), scoop up Russia’s fuels at discounted prices.    

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 21:00

• Baltimore's Top Cop Abruptly Steps Down, Leaves Crime-Fighting Plan In Limbo 
  Baltimore’s Top Cop Abruptly Steps Down, Leaves Crime-Fighting Plan In Limbo 

  Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison stepped down this week as the progressive-run city struggles with homicides, a drug crisis, and a troubling rise in violence involving teenagers.

  “I have been truly blessed to serve this city of Baltimore… and this opportunity to serve as your police commissioner is one that I will always cherish,” Harrison said Thursday at a news conference. 

  Harrison’s abrupt exit as Baltimore’s top cop marks the 11th change in leadership since 2000. He was the longest-serving police commissioner in the metro in more than two decades. After nearly three decades in the New Orleans Police Department, he joined the Baltimore Police Department in 2019.

  If you missed yesterday’s BREAKING NEWS on @wbalradio from @BaltCityHall Here are a few of my videos & pics of @MayorBMScott’s press conference that I was one of the reporters here as we learned of changes atop @BaltimorePolice with Michael Harrison “out” & Rich Worley “in” pic.twitter.com/zE9bCqN22T

  — Scott Wykoff (@ScottWykoffWBAL) June 9, 2023

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

  Harrison told local news WBAL TV in an interview in April that progress in making reforms and rebuilding community trust has been seen over the four years: 

  “We’re totally different than we were four years ago, but we’ve made all these improvements. Let me be the first to say we have a long way to go,” he said. 

  The only difference Baltimore City has seen in the last four years is that it descended quicker into a hellhole of shootings, homicides, and other violent crimes as teenagers run amuck. Troubled youth has become so bad that the city’s Democrat mayor, Brandon Scott, has placed a curfew on teens this summer. 

  Baltimore’s top cop had more than 1.5 years left on his contract. An abrupt exit is a sign the crime-fighting plan by the police department and the mayor might be failing to reduce crime. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 20:40

• "We Don't Have To Hide": The Rise Of Conservative Brands
  “We Don’t Have To Hide”: The Rise Of Conservative Brands

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Multiple brands touting conservative values have been launching and gaining market share amid the current economic climate where an increasing number of consumers are reacting harshly to—even boycotting—companies promoting progressive ideologies, especially transgenderism.

  

  NBA player Jonathan Isaac, for example, announced the launch of his UNITUS apparel brand in a tweet on June 2. Pitched as an “alternative” to retail brands that are going woke, UNITUS is scheduled to launch in August. “UNITUS is a sports and apparel company, and the basis of it for me is freedom. You have companies that are in that field who have made a conscious decision to either attack or undermine Christian values, conservative values, and things like that,” Isaac told Prager U’s Amala Ekpunobi for the documentary “Unwoke Inc.”

  “And I think they have the free choice to do so, as much as I disagree. But I feel that we also have the freedom to create what we want to create,” the NBA star sadi to make his position clear.

  Isaac said that the UNITUS brand is aimed at giving parents who want to buy their kids sneakers and clothes the option to give their money to a company that “they know is going to work toward bolstering their values.”

  “We can be proud of what we believe in. We don’t have to hide or be ashamed of it … As the day continues to get darker and darker and crazier and crazier, you standing up for what you believe in is only going to get harder. But it’s only going to become more and more necessary,” Isaac said.

  Conservative Beer

  A business looking to capitalize on conservative anger against woke companies is beer brand “Ultra Right.” The brand was launched in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding Bud Light hiring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a promotion campaign.

  Ultra Right began selling its beer around mid-April, and was on its way to exceeding $1 million in sales in just 12 days, according to an April 26 report by Fox News. By that time, the business had garnered more than 10,000 customers.

  In an April 25 video posted to Twitter, Ultra Right CEO Seth Weathers said that “we’re a movement of people that are speaking up and saying no to the woke nonsense. Ultra Right beer and this movement will never be stopped, no matter what they throw at us.”

  Back in April, Anheuser-Busch, the company which owns Bud Light, sent beer cans to Mulvaney featuring the trans-activist’s face—a move criticized as pushing transgenderism. People began boycotting the beer brand and sales numbers subsequently crashed.

  Between April 3 and May 30, the market capitalization of Anheuser-Busch fell from $132.06 billion to $108.19 billion—a decrease of over 18 percent.

  New Firms and Some Old

  The Daily Wire team launched a new razor company in March called Jeremy’s Razors after razor firm Harry’s pulled out ads from the media outlet in 2021.

  “After we said that boys are boys and girls are girls, they [Harry’s] publicly condemned our views as ‘inexcusable’ and dropped their ads because of what they called ‘values misalignment,’” stated the Jeremy’s Razors website.

  “You’re damn right our values are misaligned. We embrace masculinity and the courage to uphold it. And since no other razors out there did … we built our own.”

  Jeremy’s Razors notched up 15 million views for its first ad across social media platforms by the end of March, selling 45,000 razor subscriptions as well.

  While companies like Bud Light advocate for leftist agendas, other firms have existed for years without having to resort to such measures.

  For instance, Black Rifle Coffee Company, which promotes support for law enforcement, veterans, and first responders, saw a 29 percent revenue growth in 2022.

  Mixed martial arts promotion company UFC has been doing far better than competitors like Bellator and Professional Fighters League. Goya Foods is the biggest Hispanic-owned food company in America. Goya’s CEO is a Trump supporter, and has insisted that the results of the 2020 presidential election were not legitimate.

  The company has supported initiatives to end child trafficking, showing that there are multiple other avenues for brands to give back to the public instead of relying on LGBT causes. However, the primary reason for many companies to support such causes is to align with the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) framework.

  ESG principles make companies look beyond making market demand and profits, and focus on taking actions related to issues like climate change, racism, and sexual identity, among others. It is adopted by firms mainly to appease large investors like BlackRock that use these metrics to evaluate whether to invest or not.

  With many companies increasingly pushing woke ideologies, shoppers are shifting more toward brands that align with their traditional values, choosing not to remain passive in an increasingly politically charged climate. More brands are expected to hit the marketplace in the near future.

  In the end, companies need to make profits, boycotts hurt, and competitors catering to market demand will take up market share.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 20:20

• Why Is The Establishment So Scared Of RFK Jr.?
  Why Is The Establishment So Scared Of RFK Jr.?

  Authored by Marie Hawthorne via The Organic Prepper blog,

  The OP has suffered a lot from deplatforming, as Daisy has documented. This has been very difficult financially, but we’re far from alone. One of the biggest public figures regularly getting shut down is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an official presidential candidate. RFK is constantly getting banned and smeared as an “anti-vaxxer.” But is he really that crazy?

  

  Some background on RFK Jr.

  RFK Jr. was born famous and privileged, except, of course, for his father and uncle getting assassinated in his childhood. For a long time, RFK Jr. was best known as an environmental lawyer. He became involved in cleaning up the Hudson River in the 1980s as part of court-mandated community service from a heroin arrest. His community service inspired him to work with multiple groups dedicated to cleaning up the Hudson, and he eventually founded Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999.

  His environmental hero status didn’t last, however. In 2005, he entered the vaccine debate after being contacted by parents of vaccine-injured children. Since then, it has been hard to find an article about RFK Jr. that doesn’t begin by describing him as an “anti-vaxxer.”

  For about fifteen years, most people (myself included) were content to dismiss him and the anti-vaccine movement in general as cranks. I raised my children with all their shots, trusting the medical profession to keep us healthy.

  Until Covid.

  As the “two weeks to flatten the curve” turned into months and sometimes years, many people began to realize there was something deeply wrong with many of our formerly-trusted institutions. We saw businesses get shut down and livelihoods ruined. Decisions were not being made in the best interests of normal Americans, those who ran small businesses and relied on institutions like the public schools.

  When the jabs came along, things got weirder. Natural immunity was totally ignored and the nation was expected to submit itself as guinea pigs for this treatment that had never been tested for long-term effects. When vaccine mandates began to be implemented, RFK Jr.’s advocacy for parental choice regarding medical treatments started to sound a lot more reasonable.

  It became obvious that there was a lot of lying and manipulation going on. I became increasingly suspicious of “official” voices and more willing to listen to figures like RFK Jr. I bought his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, almost as soon as it was available.

  I read the whole thing. All 492 pages detailing one scam after another. You may not agree with RFK Jr. on every issue, but no one can deny that he knows his material. And no one has sued him for libel or slander, which makes me think the book is mostly accurate.

  The Real Anthony Fauci sold over a million copies and has more than 23,000 reviews culminating in 4.8 stars, yet garnered no book reviews from legacy media.

  So, why are the Democrats so afraid of him?

  On pages 142-142, RFK Jr. recounts going from a sought-after guest speaker whose articles were regularly featured in legacy media to a total outcast. His status changed abruptly once he turned from cleaning up waterways to pharmaceutical companies. However, he has deep pockets, he’s got the Kennedy name, and he hasn’t gone away.

  As the public, in general, became more and more distrustful of the Covid response, people became more willing to listen to non-mainstream voices like RFK Jr. His non-profit, Children’s Health Defense, saw its profits double in 2020.

  His “Defeat the Mandates” rally in January 2022 was attended by over 30,000 people.

  After The Real Anthony Fauci was published, Tucker Carlson hosted RFK Jr. more regularly. The two men had an interview on April 19, the day RFK Jr. announced his plan to run as a Democratic presidential candidate. On April 24, five days later, Fox fired Tucker, leading to speculation that Tucker’s willingness to give RFK Jr. a large platform was part of the reason for his dismissal.

  RFK Jr. has been interviewed by the likes of Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson. Despite being endlessly labeled “crazy” and “extremist,” after watching him interact with a variety of hosts, he comes across as anything but.

  After immense social pressure, Instagram had to reinstate his original account as well as his campaign account once he announced his presidential bid. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has endorsed RFK, much to the outcry of the MSM. He’s proven difficult to silence.

  He would be very impressive in a presidential debate.

  Rather than name-calling, if RFK Jr. is so dead-wrong about vaccines and children’s health, why doesn’t anyone actually engage him?

  People refuse to engage in arguments with RFK Jr. because they can’t. He’s a long-time trial lawyer, so he’s good at arguing, and he’s also very, very intelligent. He’s comfortable reading scientific material and understands much of the debates around childhood health and vaccines in a way that many people, even many college-educated people, just don’t.

  For example, in The Real Anthony Fauci, on pages 285-286, he discusses the debate between Louis Pasteur and Antoine Bechamp back in the 19th century. To simplify: Pasteur is the guy who realized that germs spread diseases. He posited that, by keeping environments germ-free, we could avoid infections. Obviously, there is a lot of truth in this. It is the model Western healthcare runs on.

  Bechamp, however, who lived at about the same time as Pasteur, argued that it wasn’t so simple. He thought we could never kill every imaginable germ, nor should we try to. Instead, Bechamp thought our time would be better spent focusing on optimal nutrition and basic sanitation so that our bodies would be best able to fight off whatever harmful germs came along. We know, at this point, that there is truth in this as well, and RFK Jr. uses Bechamp’s line of thinking to posit that maybe we should focus more on higher-quality food and a healthier environment for children rather than more pharmaceutical products.

  There is nothing crazy about this, and in fact, the more we uncover about the importance of the microbiome in our intestines, the more it makes sense. In David Quammen’s book The Tangled Tree, featuring the lifetime work of microbiologist Carl Woese, he puts forth the recent research indicating that we understand the microscopic world far less than we think we do. Simply lumping microscopic life forms into “good” and “bad” categories, and then trying to kill off all the “bad” ones, cannot work when the lines between the species are fairly blurry.

  Many scientifically-literate individuals understand this to varying degrees, and this is part of the reason that PhDs displayed the most persistent suspicion around the Covid vaccines. Time has proved them correct, as we find that the jabs were, at best, fairly ineffective and, at worst dangerous for certain groups.

  Controversial or not, he gets the word out.

  And this all goes to prove that RFK Jr. understands issues at a level that most public figures just don’t. His stances are definitely debatable, but they are not unhinged and they don’t come out of nowhere. However, because understanding his point of view well enough to engage in serious argument requires an understanding of both science and history, most pundits find it far simpler to just call him crazy and refuse to let him speak.

  But RFK Jr. gets his message out anyway, finding alternative outlets, doing his best to expose the inner workings between Big Government and Big Business.

  And this is probably why RFK Jr. is such a thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment. He doesn’t play along with most of the big donors he’s supposed to play along with. He has watched the Democratic Party go from being anti-war, anti-corporate, and pro-free speech to being the party of lockstep conformity. No other family represents the old Democratic Party the way the Kennedy clan does; he is in a unique position to point out the ways in which the Democratic Party has morphed into something completely different than it was even twenty years ago.

  RFK Jr. also has a pulse on using media in a way that most establishment figures don’t. During his recent interview with Jordan Peterson, he referenced the first televised presidential debate back in 1960, when young, handsome John F. Kennedy mopped the floor with Richard Nixon.

  The way in which his uncle used the newest form of media to his advantage sixty years ago obviously made an impression on RFK Jr. He said that Trump won the 2016 election, in part, because he used Twitter to his advantage, even though legacy media treated his campaign as a joke. RFK Jr. believes that the 2024 race will be hugely influenced by podcasts, and he has a real advantage here because, unlike so many other candidates, he is ready and willing to sit down and debate for two or three hours at a time.

  He’s an interesting candidate.

  I should make it clear, again, that I disagree with RFK Jr. on plenty of issues. I used to work in oil and gas, and I think his characterization of “clean” wind and solar is way off. I could argue with him on that.

  But I’m happy he’s out there, throwing rocks at establishment windows and forcing powerful figures to either explain themselves or prove by their silence that they have something to hide.

  *  *  *

  Support The Organic Prepper blog via PayPal or Patreon

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 19:40

• MbS Threatened 'Major' Economic Pain On US While Pursuing Saudi-Russia Concord In OPEC+
  MbS Threatened ‘Major’ Economic Pain On US While Pursuing Saudi-Russia Concord In OPEC+

  A US intelligence document revealed and analyzed by The Washington Post shows what’s really behind the Saudis no longer playing ball with the Biden administration with its decision slash oil output amid already high energy prices, which also won’t bode well for the Democrat incumbent in the fast-approaching 2024 election…

  Polite but firm public pronouncements from the kingdom aside, the Post wrote this week that “in private, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman threatened to fundamentally alter the decades-old U.S.-Saudi relationship and impose significant economic costs on the United States if it retaliated against the oil cuts,” based on the classified intel document.

  The document leaked by 21-year-old National Guardsman Jack Teixeira cited the crown prince as asserting “he will not deal with the U.S. administration anymore,” vowing that there will be “major economic consequences for Washington.”

  

  This is perhaps why (along with little leverage/few cards to play) the White House has refrained from imposing any costs or consequences on the longtime close Gulf ally. Biden last year warned of “consequences” coming, but still no bite.

  The Biden administration has been quick to downplay the intel document and Washington Post’s reporting: 

  A spokesperson with the National Security Council said “we are not aware of such threats by Saudi Arabia.”

  “In general, such documents often represent only one snapshot of a moment in time and cannot possibly offer the full picture,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence matter.

  “The United States continues to collaborate with Saudi Arabia, an important partner in the region, to advance our mutual interests and a common vision for a more secure, stable, and prosperous region, interconnected with the world,” the official added.

  So it seems the man who Biden once called a “pariah” after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is defiantly in the driver’s seat vis-à-vis Washington, also while American officials have since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war been scrambling for untapped energy resources, even beginning to bring the Maduro regime of Venezuela “in from the cold”. But Riyadh is currently provoking Washington by itself reaching out to Maduro of late.

  Meanwhile, Middle East news source The Cradle writes that Saudi-Russian concord is the secret behind OPEC+ in the below analysis [emphasis ZH]…

  * * *

  A curious thing happened in Vienna on Sunday just as the 35th Ministerial Meeting of OPEC+ was about to start at its headquarters. Three princely western news organizations – Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal – were barred from entering the OPEC premises. When asked about it, pat came the reply: “This is our house.” 

  Indeed, OPEC officials were left with no option other than an unorthodox way of “mood setting,” given their heightened sensitivity about the wild stories disseminated in the western media about disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two high flyers in OPEC+. 

  To be sure, OPEC+ touches raw nerves in Washington even seven years after the group took shape as the brainwave of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). The two leaders intended that they would have more control over the global crude oil market. The impetus to realism on the part of Moscow and Riyadh has only grown since 2016, and will crystalize further after the US-led G7 inserted itself into rule making in the world oil market last year, threatening to fragment the entire ecosystem. 

  Saudi Arabia’s BRICS aspirations

  Neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia can afford a break-up of OPEC+. In fact, had there been no OPEC+ today, there would be an urgent need to create one, as both Moscow and Riyadh have, in different ways, come under US pressure on account of their global pre-eminence as energy producers. 

  Their potential to be key players in the emerging multipolar world is giving Washington the jitters. Saudi Arabia has formally applied for BRICS membership and sought to join the New Development Bank, the multilateral development bank established by the BRICS states and headquartered in Shanghai, China.

  In fact, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud was present in Cape Town last week for the BRICS ministerial meeting. On the sidelines, Bin Farhan met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Russian readout underscored the depth and profundity of the current level of relations between the two counties. 

  Saudi Arabia is tiptoeing toward BRICS at a historic juncture when the group is reportedly all set to create its own currency at its forthcoming summit in Durban, South Africa. This, of course, will be a calamitous development for the petrodollar – the pillar of the western banking system – and holds the potential to create a new global oil market. 

  

  Russia-Iran oil cooperation

  To digress a bit, on May 18, Russia and Iran signed 10 documents for cooperation in the oil industry, comprising six memorandums of understanding, two contracts, one agreement, and a roadmap related to bilateral cooperation in the fields of industry, transfer of technology, and oil recovery enhancement.

  These agreements allow Russia (together with China in separate agreements) to have its companies present in any oil and gas field in Iran that Moscow chooses. Following the signing ceremony in Tehran, the visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who is also the co-chair of the Permanent Russian-Iranian Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation, stated that the two countries held negotiations on banking interactions and using their national currencies in the bilateral transactions.

  Quite obviously, Iran’s strategic ties with Russia is a spectre that haunts the administration of US President Joe Biden. In that context, Saudi Arabia’s gravitation toward BRICS adds to the angst in the western mind. It is hardly surprising that feverish US attempts are afoot to undermine OPEC+. 

  Agreement on oil production cuts

  No sooner than the OPEC+ ministerial at Vienna ended, Deputy PM Novak made clear that Russia and Saudi Arabia were in lockstep on the OPEC+ deals:

  “No, there were no [Russian-Saudi] differences. We always find common solutions. For years, our agreements have been in force in the interests of the market, in the interests of the countries participating in the agreement, and in the interests of both exporters and producers. We always find common solutions with Saudi Arabia. Naturally, we always have preliminary discussions, but nevertheless we always reach concord.” 

  In Moscow on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The Russian Federation is a member of the joint understanding (in Vienna). The OPEC+ format continues its work, there are common agreements that, of course, everyone will follow. Of course, this format retains its importance and its significance for ensuring stability in international energy markets.” 

  The decisions taken by the OPEC+ ministerial after seven hours of talks amply bears out the Saudi-Russian “concord”: An agreement on pegging the 2024 baselines at 40.46 million barrels a day, against which the production cuts are to be measured; reduction of overall production targets from 2024 by a further 1.4 million bpd in total; the deep cut by Saudi Arabia to its output in July on top of a broader OPEC+ deal to limit supply into 2024 as the group seeks to boost flagging oil prices; Russia’s extension of its voluntary oil production cut by 500,000 barrels daily till end-December 2024, which will be calculated from the 2024 quota, which in turn has now been reduced to 9.828 million barrels a day as part of the deal. 

  OPEC+ seeks ‘stability and market balance’

  Novak told Russian TV on Sunday that OPEC Plus nations have taken “an important decision to extend the voluntary cuts announced by the countries from 1 May, 2023 in order to balance the market. This is 1.66 million barrels a day on top of what was announced last October … So, in aggregate terms, it is 3.66 million barrels undertaken by the OPEC+ countries to ensure stable market operation.” He continued: 

  “The agreement is in force until the end of 2023, that is why we discussed the issue of its possible extension until the end of 2024 for quite a long time today. Two major decisions have been passed: first, to extend the existing agreement until the end of 2024, and, second, to extend throughout 2024 voluntary cuts by 1.66 million barrels a day starting 1st May undertaken by nine countries.” 

  “This will make it possible to have long-term forecasts of the effect of our agreement for 18 months ahead. These are key decisions we discussed and passed today… Naturally, we have possibilities to adjust our decisions. If necessary, we will do so to ensure the market stability so that it is balanced and clear for investors, buyers, and exporters. For all market players.” 

  Indeed, as the Saudis have sought, oil prices rose on Monday, with global benchmark Brent oil climbing toward $78 a barrel. On the whole, if there has been any “winner” in the OPEC+ talks on Sunday, it must be the UAE, which gets a boost to its production limit for next year at the expense of some African members who were asked to give up part of their unused quotas. 

  The finely balanced OPEC+ decisions “to achieve and sustain a stable oil market, to provide long-term guidance for the market, in line with the successful approach of being precautious, proactive, and pre-emptive,” – to borrow from the OPEC press release on Sunday – have only been possible due to the trust and mutual confidence among the key players within the group, Russia and Saudi Arabia, in particular. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 19:20

• Panicked LGBTQ Group Declares 'National Emergency' As Fed-Up Americans Pose Threat To Its Institutional Power
  Panicked LGBTQ Group Declares ‘National Emergency’ As Fed-Up Americans Pose Threat To Its Institutional Power

  Authored by Jarrett Stepman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The institutional Left senses that its dominance over our societal mores faces a sudden and unexpected challenge. It is responding with predictable derangement.

  

  The Human Rights Campaign, a powerful and well-funded left-wing advocacy group, declared a “national emergency” for “LGBTQ+” people on Tuesday.

  “LGBTQ+ Americans are living in a state of emergency. The multiplying threats facing millions in our community are not just perceived—they are real, tangible, and dangerous,” HRC’s president, Kelley Robinson, said in a press release.

  “In many cases, they are resulting in violence against LGBTQ+ people, forcing families to uproot their lives and flee their homes in search of safer states, and triggering a tidal wave of increased homophobia and transphobia that puts the safety of each and every one of us at risk.”

  Just over two months ago, a person who was “identified” as transgender engaged in a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The Human Rights Campaign had nothing to say about the targeting and killing of Christians in that case, despite a clear increase in attacks on churches in the past few years. Most of the media pivoted to explaining how a terrorist attack on Christians is really a threat to the LGBTQ+ community.

  The Biden administration followed suit.

  If the Human Rights Campaign is worried about violence, maybe it should say something about incidents like this:

  “One day, somebody is going to shoot you in the head.”

  At the @dallasprideorg event on June 3, a group of pride participants confronted conservative group @protecttxkids_ and one person made a death threat on camera. pic.twitter.com/sxeoFHI1eM

  — Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) June 6, 2023

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  The evidence that the group has produced to prove its case of an LGBTQ+ “national emergency” was that many states passed bans on so-called gender-affirming care for children, prohibited gender-neutral restrooms, and prevented biological males from competing in female sports.

  Most of these laws are broadly popular.

  That, of course, is the real crisis for the Human Rights Campaign.

  The “crisis” is that the American people will pass laws limiting the group’s demands on society and that the laws will be widely accepted.

  Its declaration is obviously hyperbolic. However, it’s understandable why it’s in a moment of panic.

  There’s been a noticeable vibe shift to begin this year’s “Pride Month”—the holiest of times in the secular Left’s liturgical calendar.

  It’s clear that many Americans have become fed up with the insanity. They are fed up with the Rainbow Mafia dominating our society, and most of all, they are fed up with the extreme demands of the LGBTQ+ movement attempting to bend every institution to its will.

  What was once a distinct counterculture in America has taken over to become the dominant strain of what’s defined as the public good. The Human Rights Campaign and its allies have browbeaten corporate America into submission—which was easy, given how higher education has conditioned upper-middle-class Americans to accept their values to begin with.

  But the LGBTQ+ movement got ahead of its skis. It assumed that the war had been won, the courts were on its side, and it could impose its version of the public good on society without restraint—shoving aside the old Christian ethos that used to dominate.

  The countercultural Left, which always preaches about the open society and “tolerance,” is paradoxically and savagely intolerant of those who cling to the belief that there is an absolute truth and that some behaviors are inherently good or bad. As the left gains power, it as become increasingly become totalitarian. Those who disagree are punished by law or subjected to woke struggle sessions.

  Now, there’s resistance.

  Perhaps it’s the complete departure from truth and endangering women and children that has stirred up the most opposition. Whatever the impetus, it does appear that something is changing as of late—and it certainly is late.

  A “drag queen in every school” has replaced a “chicken in every pot” as the focus of the managerial ruling elite.

  In response, fed-up Americans are using the power of the purse and democracy to short-circuit the Human Rights Campaign—one of the biggest drivers of corporate wokeness—and its political allies.

  Stocks for major companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Target have been hit hard after embracing woke, LGBTQ+ promotional campaigns. It’s particularly impressive to see Target’s downturn. After all, this isn’t an inexpensive beer brand with countless—and mostly better—options on the market. It’s a major retail chain with a large and diverse shopping base.

  Going woke hasn’t always meant that a company will go broke. With “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) investments and in some cases government involvement, companies have been able, from time to time, to anger their customers, yet keep making money. But even those wells might dry up as red states begin the process of banning ESG rules for public pension funds.

  It seems corporate America will back down after all.

  Whereas “celebrating Pride” in the past came with minimal commitment and risk, Americans opposed to the new institutional moral paradigm are more relentlessly boycotting the brands that promote it. More importantly, they are passing laws and refusing to allow woke corporations and groups such as the Human Rights Campaign to decide what the rules of society are.

  The cultural Left continues to have enormous institutional strength. For decades, all it has had to do is play the equivalent of a “prevent defense,” and it ultimately got its way.

  Now, there is a real movement and momentum to circumvent that power. The Human Rights Campaign and its friends are trying to gin up as much hysteria as they can in the hope that they can mute that movement just enough to let it burn out.

  The Right needs more than a few successful boycotts to “win.” To capitalize on this moment, it needs a governing agenda and leadership to play the long game and create lasting institutional and societal change.

  That’s how we go from winning a few culture battles to winning the culture war.

  Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

  Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 19:00

• California Advances Bill To Help Shoplifters Steal
  California Advances Bill To Help Shoplifters Steal

  Shoplifting in California may get a lot easier, after the state Senate passed a controversial bill on May 31 that would make it illegal for store employees to confront thieves.

  

  SB 553, authored by Democrat Senator David Cortese (San Jose), requires employers to maintain violent incident logs, provide active shooter and shoplifter training, and to discard policies requiring workers to confront suspected active shoplifters, the Epoch Times reports.

  According to Cortese, the bill is intended to “help employers keep employees safe at work.”

  The bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 29 to 8, is pending further review by state Assembly committees.

  According to the California Realtors Association (CRA), the bill will apply to all industries – not just retail, if passed. CRA president and CEO Rachel Michelin told Fox2/KTVU that the bill “goes way too far.”

  “I think it will open the doors even wider for people to come in and steal from our stores,” she said.

  According to the CRA, most retailers already prohibit regular employees from approaching someone who is shoplifting. These situations are handled by employees specially trained in theft prevention instead.

  If employees trained in theft deterrence are not allowed to do their job per the bill, “What does that mean? We are opening up the door to allow people to walk into stores, steal, and walk out,” Michelin added. -Epoch Times

  According to a position letter from the California Chamber of Commerce, the bill “takes a regulation written for hospitals related to workplace violence and applies it to all workplaces, regardless of size of resources.”

  “Substantively, SB 533 does not change the realities around workplace violence—namely, that it is a criminal matter that employers are not well-equipped to prevent.”

  In recent years, shoplifting has become a serious problem, with retailers such as Target anticipating a $1.3 billion hit due to “theft and organized crime.”

  In Downtown San Francisco, Target employees told the San Francisco Standard that they’re experiencing at least 10 thefts a day.

  

  The Target store at 1690 Folsom St initially locked up most of its merchandise to deter shoplifting, but quickly changed to only locking up more valuable goods.

  As shoplifting plagues the San Francisco Bay Area, confronting thieves could be dangerous, even for trained professionals.

  Whether to confront or not confront shoplifters has become a hot topic, especially after a security guard shot and killed a suspected shoplifter at a Walgreens store in downtown San Francisco.

  San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins decided not to charge the guard, Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, after reviewing the surveillance video and Anthony’s testimony. -Epoch Times

  It’s unclear whether SB 553 applies to security guards.

  Meanwhile, in 2014 California voters passed Prop 47, which downgraded certain thefts and drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Its most well-known statute raised the minimum amount of stolen goods from $400 to $950 for a theft case to be classified as a felony, which critics consider to be the main cause of a rise in petty theft across the state.

  It also allowed felons serving prison terms to petition for resentencing under the new classifications. Those who have already served their terms can also have their past convictions reclassified as misdemeanors.

  Thanks to Prop 47 thefts under $950 will not be prosecuted, so cops will not bother showing up. Just a reminder that you get what you voted for, California! pic.twitter.com/jWUPdJzy0A

  — Adam Carolla (@adamcarolla) July 20, 2021

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

  As the Times notes, weeks before the fatal Walgreens shooting, a 26-year-old Home Depot employee, Blake Mohs, was shot and killed attempting to stop an active robbery at a store in Pleasanton when he grabbed a DeWalt box out of the hands of the suspected shooter, Benicia Knapps. Knapps reportedly grabbed the box again after shooting Mohs, and got into a car driven by her boyfriend, David Guillory. She was later apprehended by Alameda Country Sheriff’s Deputies following a pursuit.

  Apparently the answer to incidents such as the above is to allow shoplifters to simply walk out without confrontation.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 18:40

• Russiagate: The Scandal That Became Business As Usual
  Russiagate: The Scandal That Became Business As Usual

  Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Wire,

  Special Counsel John Durham may have issued his final report last month, but the Russiagate scandal is far from over. This is not because there is no more to learn about the years-long effort by the Democratic Party, the FBI, CIA, and major news outlets to advance the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump teamed with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election.

  

  Rather it’s because Russiagate never ended. Unlike political scandals of the past – from the XYZ Affair to Watergate and Iran-Contra – it is not a discrete set of events with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, it has become a form of governing in which the entrenched forces of the Washington bureaucracy punish their enemies, protect their friends and interfere in elections with impunity.

  A continuous thread connects the schemes to deny the results of the 2016 election, to cover up the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes during the 2020 election, and the ongoing effort to tar President Biden’s opponents as extremists or racists.

  Ironically, all of this is especially dangerous because it is out in the open. The profound misdeeds are not hidden in the dark web; they are part of the public record. And yet, none of the major malefactors – including Joe Biden, former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James B. Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan, among others – have been held to account. Rather, they are lionized, and in some cases employed, by leading media organizations.

  The breadth of these machinations is so extensive that I would need a book, rather than a column, to detail it. But here is a brief recap that can serve as a reminder of key events of this dark period of our history.

  On July 28, 2016, then CIA Director John Brennan informed President Obama about intelligence reports indicating Hillary Clinton’s campaign “plan” to tie Donald Trump to Russia in order to distract the public from the growing controversy over her use of a private email server while Secretary of State. Notes in the margin – “JC,” “Susan,” and “Denis” – almost certainly refer to then FBI Director James Comey, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough.

  On July 31, Comey’s FBI launched a counterintelligence probe into whether the Trump campaign was conspiring with Russia to damage Clinton through the release of her emails.

  On Jan. 3, 2017, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer warned the president-elect not to challenge the intelligence community’s claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

  On Jan. 5, 2017, in his finals days in office, Obama held an Oval Office meeting with Brennan, Comey, Rice, Vice President Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and others to strategize responses to alleged Russian election interference and Trump’s victory.

  On Jan. 6, Comey briefed President-elect Trump about the Steele dossier – a series of absurd and salacious memos paid for and disseminated by the Clinton campaign that sought to tarnish Trump’s character while tying him and his campaign associates to the Kremlin.

  On Jan. 10, CNN used a leak it received about Comey’s briefing to broadcast the dossier’s smears, fueling a partisan feeding frenzy that led to the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Trump/Russia ties. Buzzfeed News published the entire dossier the same day.

  On Jan. 28, after assuring Trump privately that he wasn’t under investigation, Comey wrote a memo recounting that he’d boasted to the new president, “I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves.” He then went to his car and typed up his version of the conversations. When Trump fired him on May 9, Comey immediately leaked the memos, in violation of FBI rules, to a sympathetic college professor in hopes, he conceded later, of prompting the appointment of a special prosecutor. On May 17, Robert S. Mueller III, a longtime Comey friend and ally, was appointed special counsel to investigate potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

  On April 18, 2018, the New York Times and Washington Post shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for their “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.” This work, much of which was based on leaks from anonymous government sources, was filled with “false and misleading claims” which, my RealClearInvestigations colleague Aaron Maté reported, the newspapers have still refused to correct.

  On March 22, 2019, Mueller submitted a report on his investigation which “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Mueller, however, claimed that the source of these falsehoods was beyond his mandate, so he did not look into the role Clinton, Comey, Brennan, Obama, and other high-ranking Democrats played in ginning up charges of treason against a duly elected U.S. president.

  On May 13, it was reported that Attorney General William Barr had appointed John Durham to examine the origins of the Russia probe. Barr upgraded Durham to a Special Counsel role on Dec. 1, 2020. Durham’s final report, issued last month, detailed the Clinton campaign’s central role in the Russiagate conspiracy while concluding that “the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election” because it relied on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.” Durham’s investigation also undermined the other pillar of the Russia hoax, endorsing earlier findings that there was no conclusive evidence that the Russians had hacked DNC servers. Like the Trump/Russia collusion theory, this claim also originated from associates of the Clinton campaign.

  On Sept. 24, the Mueller report a bust, House Democrats began proceedings to make Trump just the third president in history to be impeached based on the claim that he sought foreign influence in America’s elections by holding up aid to Ukraine for a short period to pressure the country into looking into its potential connection to the Russiagate hoax and the Biden family’s work in Ukraine. The aid package was later delivered, and no investigation was undertaken. Nevertheless, the House approved two articles of impeachment on December 18, 2019, along party lines – all Republicans and three Democrats opposed the measure – and sent them to the GOP-controlled Senate, which acquitted Trump on Feb. 5, 2020, on another party-line vote (only Republican Mitt Romney crossed party lines to convict Trump on a single charge).

  On Oct. 14, 2020, the New York Post reported “that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.” The article, based on email from a laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop, suggested an influence-peddling scheme while flatly contradicting Joe Biden’s claim that he never discussed his son’s foreign business dealings.

  On Oct. 17, Biden campaign official and future Secretary of State Antony Blinken discusses the laptop with former acting CIA Director Mike Morell.

  On Oct. 19, Politico reported that a letter signed by Morell and 51 other former intelligence officials – including Brennan and Clapper – claimed that allegations in the Post article had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Echoing the false Russiagate claims, the letter continued, “For the Russians at this point, with Trump down in the polls, there is incentive for Moscow to pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win.” Major news outlets and social media companies relied on this letter to downplay and suppress the revelations. The FBI, which had taken possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop in December 2019, refused to comment on its authenticity.

  On Oct. 22, Joe Biden invoked the letter in his final debate with Trump to dismiss the laptop as “a Russian plant.” On November 3, Biden became president through razor-thin margins in key swing states.

  On March 30, 2022, the Washington Post reported that it had authenticated thousands of emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop. CBS News subsequently verified almost all the contents of the laptop.

  On May 15, 2023, the New York Post reported that the Internal Revenue Service removed “the entire investigative team” in its years-long tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden at the behest of President Biden’s Department of Justice. This purge came after several whistleblowers stepped forward claiming the probe was being slow-walked. The move also came after a series of revelations showed how the Biden family used a series of shell companies to funnel millions of dollars from foreign sources to at least nine family members – including Joe Biden’s young grandchildren. As Andrew C. McCarthy recently noted in the National Review, it is still not clear what the Bidens provided in exchange for this money, other than access to Joe.

  On June 4, former FBI Director Comey, noting the long string of cases being brought against Trump by Democratic officials, told MSNBC that “it’s a crazy world that Donald Trump has dragged this country into, but he could be wearing an ankle brace while accepting the nomination at the Republican convention.”

  J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 18:20

• GOP "Wrecking Ball" Erodes Support For Woke ESG Shareholder Proposals
  GOP “Wrecking Ball” Erodes Support For Woke ESG Shareholder Proposals

  Conservatives have been a “wrecking ball” to the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing movement, as well as other trends, including DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and CRT (critical race theory). A growing number of Red states have pulled billions of dollars from BlackRock’s management as they disapprove of the world’s top asset manager’s ‘woke’ investing policies. Now investor support for ESG proposals slides to a six-year low, a wake-up call for BlackRock’s Larry Fink. 

  A recent count of votes compiled by the Sustainable Investments Institute through the end of this week shows the average backing of resolutions centered around ESG, DEI, and CRT has dropped to about 22% at annual shareholder meetings, down from a peak of 33% in 2021, according to Bloomberg. Support for sustainable investing is at the lowest level since 2017. 

  

  Heidi Welsh, who runs Sustainable Investments, described Republican opposition to ESG initiatives as a “wrecking ball.” She said support for ESG is sliding “across the board.” 

  Elon Musk has called out ESG on Twitter, and many Republican lawmakers want to cancel it. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill last month barring the use of public money for ESG investing. A growing number of anti-ESG bills are springing up in GOP-controlled states while these states also pull billions of dollars from BlackRock. 

  GOP lawmakers have argued that ESG gives Wall Street too much control over companies, allowing woke asset managers to ram through radical corporate policies via shareholder votes. “We are concerned that taxpayers’ best long-term economic interests might have become subordinated to environmental, social and political interests,” a group of state chief financial officers wrote in a letter to 20 asset managers on May 15. 

  The Center for Active Stewardship found support for climate-related proposals has been halved to 23% this year versus two years ago. Activist investors have been more “aggressive” in environmental resolutions this year, and that’s led to a higher rejection rate, said Nolan Lindquist, executive director of the group. 

  “Before, investors were merely asking for reports disclosing emissions goals and energy-transition plans.

  “Recent proposals are much more specific about executing on those plans,” Lindquist said. 

  Waning ESG, DEI, and CRT support at the corporate level follows a massive backlash among consumers who have unleashed boycotts of companies that promote the ultra-radical woke movement, some of which have targeted children. 

  BlackRock’s Fink warned earlier this year about the ‘demonization‘ of the ESG narrative.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 18:00

• If We're Not Careful, The AI Revolution Could Become The "Great Homogenization"
  If We’re Not Careful, The AI Revolution Could Become The “Great Homogenization”

  Authored by Aleksandar Svetski via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  As artificial intelligence grows, so do attempts to control it. But, if we can differentiate the real risks from the fake risks, this technology could be used to encourage diversity of thought and ideas…

  

  The world is changing before our very eyes. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a paradigm-shifting technological breakthrough, but probably not for the reasons you might think or imagine.

  You’ve probably heard something along the lines of, “Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is around the corner,” or, “Now that language is solved, the next step is conscious AI.”

  Well… I’m here to tell you that those concepts are both red herrings. They are either the naive delusions of technologists who believe God is in the circuits, or the deliberate incitement of fear and hysteria by more malevolent people with ulterior motives.

  I do not think AGI is a threat or that we have an “AI safety problem,” or that we’re around the corner from some singularity with machines.

  But…

  I do believe this technological paradigm shift poses a significant threat to humanity — which is in fact, about the only thing I can somewhat agree on with the mainstream — but for completely different reasons.

  To learn what they are, let’s first try to understand what’s really happening here.

  INTRODUCING… THE STOCHASTIC PARROT!

  Technology is an amplifier. It makes the good better, and the bad worse.

  Just as a hammer is technology that can be used to build a house or beat someone over the head, computers can be used to document ideas that change the world, or they can be used to operate central bank digital currencies (CDBCs) that enslave you into crazy, communist cat ladies working at the European Central Bank.

  The same goes for AI. It is a tool. It is a technology. It is not a new lifeform, despite what the lonely nerds who are calling for progress to shut down so desperately want to believe.

  What makes generative AI so interesting is not that it is sentient, but that it’s the first time in our history that we are “speaking” or communicating with something other than a human being, in a coherent fashion. The closest we’ve been to that before this point has been with… parrots.

  Yes: parrots!

  You can train a parrot to kind of talk and talk back, and you can kind of understand it, but because we know it’s not really a human and doesn’t really understand anything, we’re not so impressed.

  But generative AI… well, that’s a different story. We’ve been acquainted with it for six months now (in the mainstream) and we have no real idea how it works under the hood. We type some words, and it responds like that annoying, politically-correct, midwit nerd who you know from class… or your average Netflix show.

  In fact, you’ve probably even spoken with someone like this during support calls to Booking.com, or any other service in which you’ve had to dial in or web chat. As such, you’re immediately shocked by the responses.

  “Holy shit,” you tell yourself. “This thing speaks like a real person!”

  The English is immaculate. No spelling mistakes. Sentences make sense. It is not only grammatically accurate, but semantically so, too.

  Holy shit! It must be alive!

  

  Source: Author

  Little do you realize that you are speaking to a highly-sophisticated, stochastic parrot. As it turns out, language is a little more rules-based than what we all thought, and probability engines can actually do an excellent job of emulating intelligence through the frame or conduit of language.

  The law of large numbers strikes again, and math achieves another victory!

  But… what does this mean? What the hell is my point?

  That this is not useful? That it’s proof it’s not a path to AGI?

  Not necessarily, on both counts.

  There is lots of utility in such a tool. In fact, the greatest utility probably lies in its application as “MOT,” or “Midwit Obsolescence Technology.” Woke journalists and the countless “content creators” who have for years been talking a lot but saying nothing, are now like dinosaurs watching the comet incinerate everything around them. It’s a beautiful thing. Life wins again.

  Of course, these tools are also great for ideating, coding faster, doing some high-level learning, etc.

  But from an AGI and consciousness standpoint, who knows? There mayyyyyyyyyyy be a pathway there, but my spidey sense tells me we’re way off, so I’m not holding my breath. I think consciousness is so much more complex, and to think we’ve conjured it up with probability machines is some strange blend of ignorant, arrogant, naive and… well… empty.

  So, what the hell is my problem and what’s the risk?

  ENTER THE AGE OF THE LUI

  Remember what I said about tools.

  Computers are arguably the most powerful tool mankind has built. And computers have gone through the following evolution:

  1. Punch cards

  2. Command line

  3. Graphical user interface, i.e., point and click

  4. Mobile, i.e., thumbs and tapping

  

  Source: Author

  And now, we’re moving into the age of the LUI, or “Language User Interface.”

  This is the big paradigm shift. It’s not AGI, but LUI. Moving forward, every app we interact with will have a conversational interface, and we will no longer be limited by the bandwidth of how fast our fingers can tap on keys or screens.

  Speaking “language” is orders of magnitude faster than typing and tapping. Thinking is probably another level higher, but I’m not putting any electrodes into my head anytime soon. In fact, LUIs probably obsolete the need for Neuralink-type tech because the risks associated with implanting chips into your brain will outweigh any marginal benefit over just speaking.

  In any case, this decade we will go from tapping on graphical user interfaces, to talking to our apps.

  And therein lies the danger.

  In the same way Google today determines what we see in searches, and Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram all “feed us” through their feeds; generative AI will tomorrow determine the answers to every question we have.

  The screen not only becomes the lens through which you ingest everything about the world. The screen becomes your model of the world.

  Mark Bisone wrote a fantastic article about this recently, which I urge you to read:

  “The problem of ‘screens’ is actually a very old one. In many ways it goes back to Plato’s cave, and perhaps is so deeply embedded in the human condition that it precedes written languages. That’s because when we talk about a screen, we’re really talking about the transmission of an illusory model in an editorialized form.

  “The trick works like this: You are presented with the image of a thing (and these days, with the sound of it), which its presenter either explicitly tells you or strongly implies is a window to the Real. The shadow and the form are the same, in other words, and the former is to be trusted as much as any fragment of reality that you can directly observe with your sensory organs.”

  And, for those thinking that “this won’t happen for a while,” well here are the bumbling fools making a good attempt at it.

  THE ‘GREAT HOMOGENIZATION’

  Imagine every question you ask, every image you request, every video you conjure up, every bit of data you seek, being returned in such a way that is deemed “safe,” “responsible” or “acceptable” by some faceless “safety police.”

  Imagine every bit of information you consume has been transformed into some lukewarm, middle version of the truth, that every opinion you ask for is not really an opinion or a viewpoint, but some inoffensive, apologetic response that doesn’t actually tell you anything (this is the benign, annoying version) or worse, is some ideology wrapped in a response so that everything you know becomes some variation of what the manufacturers of said “safe AI” want you to think and know.

  Imagine you had modern Disney characters, like those clowns from “The Eternals” movie, as your ever-present intellectual assistants. It would make you “dumb squared.”

  “The UnCommunist Manifesto” outlined the utopian communist dream as the grand homogenization of man:

  If only everyone were a series of numbers on a spreadsheet, or automatons with the same opinion, it would be so much easier to have paradise on earth. You could ration out just enough for everyone, and then we’d be all equally miserable proletariats.

  This is like George Orwell’s thought police crossed with “Inception,” because every question you had would be perfectly captured and monitored, and every response from the AI could incept an ideology in your mind. In fact, when you think about it, that’s what information does. It plants seeds in your mind.

  This is why you need a diverse set of ideas in the minds of men! You want a flourishing rainforest in your mind, not some mono-crop field of wheat, with deteriorated soil, that is susceptible to weather and insects, and completely dependent on Monsanto (or Open AI or Pfizer) for its survival. You want your mind to flourish and for that you need idea-versity.

  This was the promise of the internet. A place where anyone can say anything. The internet has been a force for good, but it is under attack. Whether that’s been the de-anonymization of social profiles like those on Twitter and Facebook, and the creeping KYC across all sorts of online platforms, through to the algorithmic vomit that is spewed forth from the platforms themselves. We tasted that in all its glory from 2020. And it seems to be only getting worse.

  The push by WEF-like organizations to institute KYC for online identities, and tie it to a CBDC and your iris is one alternative, but it’s a bit overt and explicit. After the pushback on medical experimentation of late, such a move may be harder to pull off. An easier move could be to allow LUIs to take over (as they will, because they’re a superior user experience) and in the meantime create an “AI safety council” that will institute “safety” filters on all major large language models (LLMs).

  Don’t believe me? Our G7 overlords are discussing it already.

  Today, the web is still made up of webpages, and if you’re curious enough, you can find the deep, dark corners and crevices of dissidence. You can still surf the web. Mostly. But when everything becomes accessible only through these models, you’re not surfing anything anymore. You’re simply being given a synthesis of a response that has been run through all the necessary filters and censors.

  There will probably be a sprinkle of truth somewhere in there, but it will be wrapped up in so much “safety” that 99.9% of people won’t hear or know of it. The truth will become that which the model says it is.

  I’m not sure what happens to much of the internet when discoverability of information fundamentally transforms. I can imagine that, as most applications transition to some form of language interface, it’s going to be very hard to find things that the “portal” you’re using doesn’t deem safe or approved.

  One could, of course, make the argument that in the same way you need the tenacity and curiosity to find the dissident crevices on the web, you’ll need to learn to prompt and hack your way into better answers on these platforms.

  And that may be true, but it seems to me that for each time you find something “unsafe,” the route shall be patched or blocked.

  You could then argue that “this could backfire on them, by diminishing the utility of the tool.”

  And once again, I would probably agree. In a free market, such stupidity would make way for better tools.

  But of course, the free market is becoming a thing of the past. What we are seeing with these hysterical attempts to push for “safety” is that they are either knowingly or unknowingly paving the way for squashing possible alternatives.

  In creating “safety” committees that “regulate” these platforms (read: regulate speech), new models that are not run through such “safety or toxicity filters” will not be available for consumer usage, or they may be made illegal, or hard to discover. How many people still use Tor? Or DuckDuckGo?

  And if you think this isn’t happening, here’s some information on the current toxicity filters that most LLMs already plug into. It’s only a matter of time before such filters become like KYC mandates on financial applications. A new compliance appendage, strapped onto language models like tits on a bull.

  Whatever the counter-argument to this homogenization attempt, both actually support my point that we need to build alternatives, and we need to begin that process now.

  For those who still tend to believe that AGI is around the corner and that LLMs are a significant step in that direction, by all means, you’re free to believe what you want, but that doesn’t negate the point of this essay.

  If language is the new “screen” and all the language we see or hear must be run through approved filters, the information we consume, the way we learn, the very thoughts we have, will all be narrowed into a very small Overton window.

  I think that’s a massive risk for humanity.

  We’ve become dumb enough with social media algorithms serving us what the platforms think we should know. And when they wanted to turn on the hysteria, it was easy. Language user interfaces are social media times 100.

  Imagine what they can do with that, the next time a so-called “crisis” hits?

  It won’t be pretty.

  The marketplace of ideas is necessary to a healthy and functional society. That’s what I want.

  Their narrowing of thought won’t work long term, because it’s anti-life. In the end, it will fail, just like every other attempt to bottle up truth and ignore it. But each attempt comes with unnecessary damage, pain, loss and catastrophe. That’s what I am trying to avoid and help ring the bell for.

  WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALL THIS?

  If we’re not proactive here, this whole AI revolution could become the “great homogenization.” To avoid that, we have to do two main things:

  1. Push back against the “AI safety” narratives: These might look like safety committees on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper, you realize they are speech and thought regulators.

  2. Build alternatives, now: Build many and open source them. The sooner we do this, and the sooner they can run more locally, the better chance we have to avoid a world in which everything trends toward homogenization.

  If we do this, we can have a world with real diversity — not the woke kind of bullshit. I mean diversity of thought, diversity of ideas, diversity of viewpoints and a true marketplace of ideas.

  An idea-versity. What the original promise of the internet was. And not bound by the low bandwidth of typing and tapping. Couple that with Bitcoin, the internet of money, and you have the ingredients for a bright new future.

  This is what the team and I are doing at Laier Two Labs. We’re building smaller, narrow models that people can use as substitutes to these large language models.

  We are going to open source all our models, and in time, aim to have them be compact enough to run locally on your own machines, while retaining a degree of depth, character and unique bias for use when and where you need it most.

  We will announce our first model in the coming weeks. The goal is to make it the go-to model for a topic and industry I hold very dear to my heart: Bitcoin. I also believe it’s here that we must start to build a suite of alternative AI models and tools.

  I will unveil it on the next blog. Until then.

  *  *  *

  Aleksandar Svetski is the founder of The Bitcoin Times and The Amber App, author of “The UnCommunist Manifesto,” “Authentic Intelligence” and the up-coming “Bushido Of Bitcoin.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 17:40

• Putin Reveals New Details On Positioning Tactical Nukes In Belarus
  Putin Reveals New Details On Positioning Tactical Nukes In Belarus

  Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has given new details concerning his order to move tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus. Prior and somewhat ambiguous statements from Putin as well as top Kremlin and Belarusian officials had suggested that nukes could already be in Belarus. These past statements have also been subject of widespread speculation and misinterpretation in Western press reports, which was perhaps purposeful on the part of Moscow, or part of strategic ambiguity.

  But on Friday Putin clarified the timeline, after he first announced all the way back in March that Russian tactical nukes would be stationed in close neighboring ally Belarus. He told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at a meeting Sochi that tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus after hosting facilities are ready on July 7-8.

  

  “So everything is according to plan, everything is stable,” Putin said according to a Kremlin readout.

  “Preparation of the relevant facilities ends on July 7-8, and we will immediately begin activities related to the deployment of appropriate types of weapons on your territory,” Putin said, to which Lukashenko responded, “Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich.”

  Reuters points out the relevant context as follows:

  More than 15 months into the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two, Putin says the United States and its Western allies are pumping arms into Ukraine as part of an expanding proxy war aimed at bringing Russia to its knees.

  Only a mere months ago mainstream media sources and the major news networks, echoing top US officials, rejected the idea that the conflict is indeed a major proxy war pitting NATO against Moscow, with Ukrainians in the middle.

  But now the tone of MSM reporting has clearly shifted and changed to that of belatedly acknowledging the US-NATO’s outsized role in determining the course of the war…

  Biden administration acknowledges it keeps crossing Putin’s red lines because he hasn’t launched a nuclear response yet. https://t.co/bmNOu3Ifzf

  — Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) June 1, 2023

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

  As for the early July timetable on the arms transfers, reportedly the land-based short-range nuclear missiles will remain under Russian control and oversight while being hosted at Belarusian bases.

  Starting months ago, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov blasted what he described as America’s hypocrisy for long stationing tactical nukes in Europe: “For the last 60 years Washington has been playing a key role in NATO’s nuclear sharing missions by supporting deployment of its tactical nuclear weapons in five non-nuclear weapon states – Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey,” he said previously.

  The Russian ambassador had further cited a proverb: “If your face is crooked, do not blame the mirror,” in reference to this charge of US ‘nuclear hypocrisy’. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 17:20