Nov 18

Today’s News 18th November 2024

  • 'Left Is A Vicious Wounded Tiger' – Larry Klayman Warns "They Want Us Dead"
    ‘Left Is A Vicious Wounded Tiger’ – Larry Klayman Warns “They Want Us Dead”

    ViaGreg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Renowned Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and later Freedom Watch, has been fighting government corruption and winning for decades. 

    Today, the fight has turned into an all-out war and fight to the death.  Klayman explains, “Bottom line is we have been in a war, but now we are at red alert…”

    ”  The fact that Donald Trump has been reelected the 47th President of the United States with the popular vote and an overwhelming landslide in the Electoral College, the Left is on the run, but it’s stung.  It’s like a wounded tiger.  It’s vicious.  It will fight back…

    You are going to see the Left in the streets, ultimately.  It will probably be in days, if not weeks.  You are going to see a repeat of what we saw with Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, radical Palestinians and others.  They are going to be coming for us.  

    Frankly, and this sounds extreme, we saw the assassination attempts… and Kamala Harris and Biden calling Trump Hitler, calling them garbage and calling us garbage, they want us dead.  Let me repeat that.  They want us dead…They are like rats leaving the ship. 

    The time to peacefully and legally crush them is now.”

    Klayman also sees that things may not stay peaceful. 

    Klayman points out, “It’s only a matter of time because they are whipping up the hatred right now against all of us garbage men…”

    ”  It’s only a matter of time that he (President Trump) may have to declare martial law to reestablish order here.  I hope it doesn’t get to that.  But he (the President) has that authority as well. 

    So, I want people to realize that there may be a calm in the storm right now, but the communists, the atheists, the radicals and the Left are coalescing.  They are plotting, and they are planning. 

    This is like the ‘Force’ in ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Darth Vader.’  They intend to come back anyway they can. 

    If they can’t do it peacefully and legally, which they can’t, they are going to get violent, and we better be prepared for that.”

    Klayman also points out that President Trump cannot turn America around without the help of millions of patriots.  Klayman says,

    “He needs us to back him.  We need to fight for him if necessary.  Here’s the scary thing.  God forbid, but I don’t think this is the last assassination attempt.  I think there will be more. . . . This kid that took a crack at Trump in Butler, we don’t know what his motive was today. . . . We’ve never gotten the truth about anything. 

    We don’t know who killed John F. Kennedy.  Even Bobby Kennedy Jr. does not believe that Sirhan Sirhan killed his father. 

    Martin Luther King’s family does not believe that James Earl Ray was the assassin of Martin Luther King.  It was probably Edgar Hoover the FBI Director. . . .

    We don’t know anything about the two people that tried to assassinate Donald Trump because our government is corrupt to the core, and that is why the Left is going to resist.  Our government needs to be reconstituted.  Embedded in government is the Deep State, and it is more powerful than the President.”

    Klayman is appealing to the incoming Trump Administration to make him the Czar in charge of picking judicial appointments. 

    Klayman says too many RINO judges were put on the bench during Trump’s first Administration.

    Klayman is also representing Laura Loomer in a $150 million defamation lawsuit against HBO and Bill Maher.  Klayman is also the lawyer of record on many other groundbreaking cases.  Klayman also talks about the need for donations as the 2024 Election cycle took donations away from FreedomWatchUSA.org.  Klayman makes an appeal for badly needed funds so he can continue his work for “We the People” against government corruption.

    There is much more in the one-hour in-depth interview.

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with renowned lawyer and government corruption fighter, Larry Klayman, founder of FreedomWatchUSA.org as he lays out the evil that criminals on the Left and RINO’s are planning for America.

    *  *  *

    To Donate to FreedomWatchUSA.org so Larry Klayman can hire more attorneys to fight for the rights of all Americans being attacked by tyrannical dark forces on the Left, click here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 23:20

  • Violent Venezuelan Gang Tren De Aragua Resurfaces In Tennessee
    Violent Venezuelan Gang Tren De Aragua Resurfaces In Tennessee

    The notorious Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua (TDA) has taken root in Tennessee’s major cities, bringing its brutal brand of crime and violence to the Volunteer State, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) Director David Rausch warned this week during a budget hearing with Governor Bill Lee.

    Tren de Aragua tattoos on a man arrested by the Border Patrol.
    -U.S. Border Patrol

    According to Rausch, the violent gang known for its brazen disregard for law enforcement, has returned to Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga – Tennessee’s four largest cities – after first being detected two years ago during a human trafficking bust.

    “We uncovered a group here in a human trafficking operation, and in that operation we recognized a number of the members here trafficking females that they had abducted from Venezuela and brought here,” Rausch said.

    While initial arrests scattered some members of the gang, Rausch said they are now back and expanding their operations.

    “Now what we are seeing is they are back,” Rausch continued. “They are running human trafficking operations. That’s where they start.”

    Human Trafficking to Drug Wars: A Deadly Evolution

    According to Rausch, TDA has a pattern of establishing themselves through human trafficking, then moving into organized retail theft and eventually drug trafficking, which often leads to bloody turf wars with other criminal organizations, including drug cartels.

    “They have a pathway of violence, and we want people to be aware of that,” Rausch cautioned. “They will battle for the drug trafficking in communities.”

    Tattoos on the neck of a man the U.S. Border Patrol arrested in May. It says the man is affiliated with the Venezuela-based gang Tren de Aragua.U.S. Border Patrol

    The gang’s reputation for extreme violence sets it apart, with members showing little fear of taking on law enforcement.

    “They are very violent toward policing – they have no respect for law enforcement” Rausch said. “They will fight, and they will attack police.”

    A Border Crisis with Local Consequences

    Governor Lee responded to Rausch’s warning by emphasizing the broader implications of gang activity linked to border security.

    “The border crisis is exactly why Americans voted for change. It’s not political—it’s about safety and security,” Lee said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Nov. 15. “Tennessee will support [President-Elect Donald Trump] as he secures our border while delivering key resources for [the TBI] to stop illegal criminals from operating in our state.”

    Rausch later released a video statement urging Tennesseans to stay vigilant, though he reassured residents that they need not fear imminent danger in their neighborhoods.

    “We want the public to be diligent as always in paying attention in their communities for signs of things like human trafficking,” Rausch said, pointing citizens to resources for identifying and reporting suspicious activity.

    A National Threat

    Rausch also noted that TDA’s presence isn’t limited to Tennessee. During meetings with the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, other states reported similar encounters with the gang, further underscoring the nationwide nature of the threat.

    “They are all over the place, governor, it’s not just Tennessee,” Rausch said. “This is not a unique situation.”

    The TBI has ramped up efforts to monitor the gang, sharing intelligence with local law enforcement agencies and educating police on how to identify and approach gang members. However, Rausch acknowledged that some local departments might not yet realize TDA is operating in their jurisdictions.

    “There are times where they may be unaware of actors that may be moving in and out of their area that we are tracking,” Rausch said.

    Stopping the Violence Before It Spreads

    Rausch’s priority is clear: halt TDA’s operations before they escalate into full-scale violence.

    “What we don’t want to happen is to see them move into those next phases,” Rausch stated. “We want to stop them where they are right now, and that’s why we’re raising the issue.”

    With the TBI on high alert and the governor promising resources, Tennessee is bracing itself for the fight against Tren De Aragua, a gang that thrives on chaos but may have underestimated the resolve of its new battleground.

    The Epoch Times contributed to this report

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 22:45

  • Dems Are Trying To Push Through Extreme Leftist Judicial Candidates Before January
    Dems Are Trying To Push Through Extreme Leftist Judicial Candidates Before January

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    Democrats’ days in power are numbered.

    As a result they are desperately trying to push through radical leftist activists as judicial nominees before January 3rd.

    One example is United States Magistrate Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai of Oregon, who appeared last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    Democrats have been trying to get this guy on the federal bench for over a year, and here’s an example of why.

    He wants people in his courtroom to announce their pronouns.

    Senator John Kennedy called Kasubhai out on it in a hearing this week, noting “I’m looking at the requirement that you issued to all people in your court. You say, “When you introduce yourself in a meeting, you should say, ‘My name is Judge ___ and my pronouns are ___.’”

    Is that right?

    While Kasubhai claimed “It’s an invitation for people to identify their pronouns or their honorifics,” and not a requirement, it seems like he made it pretty requirementy.

    Kennedy continued, “you also, in your directive, say, ‘I’d like counsel to introduce themselves giving your full name and your honorific, such as Ms., Mx,, or Mr.’”

    When Kennedy said Mx and then repeated it, Senator Tom Cotton cracked up at the ridiculousness of it.

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

    Americans have rejected this complete nonsense, now Democrats are desperately trying to get its proponents into positions they can still exploit.

     

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 22:10

  • Live ZH Debate: MAGA Takeover Or Israel First? Blumenthal Vs. Beattie To Clash Over Trump Appointments
    Live ZH Debate: MAGA Takeover Or Israel First? Blumenthal Vs. Beattie To Clash Over Trump Appointments

    Join us on Monday at 7pm ET for a live debate with Grayzone editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal and Revolver News founder Darren Beattie, moderated by the Judge Andrew Napolitano.

    Regarding Trump’s cabinet, Blumenthal – veteran journalist and infamous DC dissident – is concerned about mounting Israeli influence, which has manifested in hawkish foreign policy picks like Pete Hegseth for SecDef, Marco Rubio for State, and fanatically Zionist ambassadors Stenafik/Huckabee.

    ​While Beattie – known for his dogged reporting into federal involvement on Jan 6 – adovocated for Trump’s appointees to be confirmed by “any means necessary” because they represent a dramatic realignment of Washington’s status quo. And after all, Trump is pissing off the right people…

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    Despite this, Blumenthal is not optimistic that a second Trump admin will be truly sovereign but captured the donor class and foreign interests. More troubling indications are on the horizon with future rumored personnel, such as Sebastian “gay whale” Gorka (as Alex Jones calls him):

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

    As the fight to influence the big man intensifies, hear from both sides: Trump’s former speech writer and one of America’s sharpest foreign policy blob critics.

    Our panelists will cover all major cabinet appointees. Including those deemed by warmonger John “we know where your kids live” Bolton to be the “worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history.”:

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    We look forward to hearing criticisms from people who haven’t destroyed entire countries.

    Join us at 7 PM eastern on the ZeroHedge homepage and X account.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 21:35

  • Whoopie Goldberg Faces Backlash After Smearing Staten Island Bakery
    Whoopie Goldberg Faces Backlash After Smearing Staten Island Bakery

    Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

    “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg is under fire after accusing the owner of an iconic Staten Island bakery of refusing to serve her cupcakes because of her far-left views.

    Goldberg complained during the daytime liberal women’s talk show Wednesday that Holtermann’s Bakery wouldn’t sell her the popular Charlotte Russe desserts she wanted for her 69th birthday because of her “politics.”

    She told the audience that the push-pop style confections were a favorite of her mother’s when she was growing up.

    “Now, I should tell you, Charlotte Russe has no political leanings, and the place that made these refused to make them for me,” Goldberg said, prompting horrified gasps from the audience and co-hosts.

    “They said that their ovens had gone down, all kinds of stuff, but folks went and got them anyway,” Whoopie continued, adding without evidence, “they did not like my politics.”

    While Whoopie did not name the shop, it was later identified by Entertainment Weekly as Holtermann’s Bakery on Staten Island, a longstanding family-owned establishment loved by locals.

    Jill Holtermann, who owns the bakery, told Entertainment Weekly that “it was not because of political” reasons, but because “we were having trouble with our boilers.”

    “I said to Whoopi, ‘I can’t do it right now,’” she told the outlet.

    “‘We have so many things going on with my boiler,’ because the building is from 1930, so, when she called me, I had no idea [if we could] be baking everything.”

    Holtermann acknowledged that she ultimately was able to make 50 of the treats, and that they were picked up early Wednesday morning for “The View’s” taping. Whoopie had planned to give them out to the audience as part of her birthday celebration.

    She reiterated that her reluctance to confirm the order had nothing to do with Goldberg’s political beliefs, saying: “I didn’t want to make a commitment that I can’t carry through,” given the technical issues.

    On Thursday, loyal customers in the community reportedly flooded the bakery to show support.

    “A steady stream of shoppers came and went from Holtermann’s on Thursday, toting bags full of cupcakes, pies, cakes and pastries from the bakery, which customers said has never shown or expressed a preference for any political candidate,” the New York Post reported.

    The brouhaha had still had not died down by Friday, with Holtermann holding a press conference flanked by local elected officials to refute Goldberg’s claims.

    Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella defended the business and explained what happened.

    “It’s been here 145 years. They had a boiler that was 60 or 70 years old. And the first week in November, guess what? It went on the fritz,” Fossella said.

    “They had it replaced. And the reputation of Holtermann’s is impeccable, so rather than commit to something they couldn’t guarantee, they said, ‘we can’t do it.’ And the person who besmirched, defamed them, took that as an insult to her. Well, get over it. This family will be here for, God willing, another 145 years.”

    “We’re here to have Holtermann’s Bakery’s back,” said Councilman David Carr.

    “Because the Holtermann family generationally has had the backs of this community.”

    Carr said he was happy to see so many supporters there “to send a message to the person who decided that she was too important for a boiler breakdown.”

    Holtermann thanked the community for its support and tearfully described how she had been bombarded with calls since Whoopie had made the comments.

    “I’m so overwhelmed by the support. Between finding out yesterday, this even happened, getting phone calls and then people coming in and people from all over just supporting us in every way,” she said. “The support has been so overwhelming and I know how hard my family has worked to keep this business alive.”

    Some have said that the fact that Goldberg did not name Holtermann’s Bakery means she cannot be sued; but Jonathan Turley says, that is wrong.

    There are two reasons cited for why Goldberg cannot be sued.

    Her refusal to name the bakery (which she portrayed as a way of denying them favorable publicity since they eventually got the cakes) and that she used the word “perhaps” in her accusation.

    The Name Game

    The failure to name a party in an otherwise defamatory context is not a defense to defamation.

    The strongest and easiest cases to make on defamation are those fitting into a per se category of defamation like calling someone falsely a criminal or the carrier of an infectious disease. Damages in such cases are often presumed.

    Other cases are called per quod cases where the harm and damages are not immediately evident or presumed. Rather than be libelous on their face, per quod cases must often be proven through use of extrinsic facts or evidence. In such cases, you need to prove special damages.

    It is worth noting that the implied accusation against the bakery could fit into a per se category of impugning business or professional integrity. Goldberg’s statement was clearly meant to impugn the reputation and professional standing of the bakery. It can be argued as defamatory per se by implication.

    The fact that Goldberg identified the bakery only as a local bakery associated with these cakes is not a defense. The identity of the bakery was quickly deduced and published widely.

    “Perhaps” Defamation

    Goldberg could also claim that using the word “perhaps” reduced the statement to a mere opinion. This is a common misunderstanding. Often people will say “in my opinion” and then follow with a defamatory statement. It is not treated as an opinion if it is stated as a fact.

    Clearly, a statement of opinion alone is not actionable when “the facts on which they are based are fully and accurately set forth and  it is clear . . . that the accusation is merely a personal surmise built upon those facts.” Gross v. New York Times Co., 623 N.E.2d 1163, 1169 (N.Y. 1993).

    New York courts look to whether a reasonable person would consider the statement to be conveying a fact. Davis v. Boeheim, 22 N.E.3d 999, 1005 (N.Y. 2014) Moreover,  “[r]ather than sifting through a communication for the purpose of isolating and identifying assertions of fact, the court should look to the over-all context in which the assertions were made,” including the forum, to determine how a reasonable reader would view them.” Brian v. Richardson, 660 N.E.2d 1126, 1130 (N.Y. 1995).

    Moreover, “an opinion that implies that it is based upon facts which justify the opinion but are unknown to those reading or hearing it… is a mixed opinion” and is actionable. Bacon v Nygard, 189 A.D.3d 530, 530 (1st Dept 2020).

    Goldberg was clearly trying to convey that the bakery imposes a political litmus test or engages in political discriminatory practices against Democrats, Trump critics, or liberals. That can have an obviously harmful impact on business for the family-owned bakery.

    Even if the bakery had to show malice (of a knowing falsehood or reckless disregard of the truth), it would have a cognizable basis for such a claim against Goldberg and ABC.

    It would not be the first time that they had to make such a correction and the audience of the The View does not appear to care about such false or unsupported claims.

    In one such incident, Turning Point USA issued a cease and desist letter to ABC after the hosts suggested that it allowed neo-Nazis to join an event. In discussing Turning Point USA’s summit in Florida, host Joy Behar said “Neo-Nazis were out there in the front of the conference with antisemitic slurs and … the Nazi swastika and a picture of a so-called Jewish person with exaggerated features, just like Goebbels did during the Third Reich. It’s the same thing, right out of the same playbook.”

    Whoopi Goldberg, then added, in reference to Turning Point USA, “you let them in and you knew what they were, so you are complicit.”

    ABC then had the hosts issue an on-air apology. However, they had host Sara Haines do it: “We want to make clear that these demonstrators were outside the event and that they were not invited or endorsed by Turning Point USA.” She added “the hosts apologize for “anything we said that may have been unclear on these points.”

    Obviously, it would be up to a jury to balance the earlier standards and the evidence in this case. However, a case could be made for defamation and a court could find that the matter should be left to the fact finder at trial. Goldberg and ABC would be wise to apologize on the air to the bakery on Monday.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 21:00

  • Pritzker Appoints Himself As Democracy's Superhero
    Pritzker Appoints Himself As Democracy’s Superhero

    By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

    It would be comically hypocritical if weren’t so tragically destructive. Illinois governor JB Pritzker last week appointed himself co-chair of a new group to save democracy.

    It’s called Governors Safeguarding Democracy, formed to counter the incoming Trump Administration and Republican Congress. “What we’re doing is pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy and fortifying the institutions of democracy that our country and our states depend upon,” Pritzker said of the effort. “I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: No attempts to restrict the freedoms and opportunities of Illinoisans will be tolerated.”

    No governor in memory in any state has thumbed his nose at democratic norms and constitutional rights more consistently and flagrantly than has Pritzker. Examples of how Pritzker earned his reputation as a “hard-left culture warrior who is happy to silence political opponents,” as the Wall Street Journal put it, are too numerous to fully list here, but consider a few:

    • Through 43 consecutive, monthly emergency orders, he suspended ordinary government function and ruled by executive fiat, trampling on a list of constitutional rights, justified through censorship and suppression of opposing scientific views. Similarly, he issued 38 consecutive emergency orders enforcing his personal decisions about assistance and protection for illegal immigrants.
    • He says he wants there to be a legal cause of action against anybody who says something false, which would be a flagrant violation of established First Amendment law.
    • He has signed off on multiple policies and bills that violate constitutional rights to free speech, such as Illinois’ new law banning discussion of political or religious matters at company meetings, now being challenged in federal court. Another example is a Pritzker-signed law attempting to muzzle pro-lifers that was ridiculed by a federal court as “stupid” as well as unconstitutional, prompting Attorney General Kwame Raoul to give up trying to defend the law.
    • He stood aside while his party’s operatives filed lawsuits to keep Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. off the ballot for the presidential election.
    • He meddled in a Republican primary by contributing $24 million that was used, successfully, to achieve the nomination of who Pritzker thought would be a weak opponent, Darren Bailey, in his race for governor.
    • Even the Democratically slanted Illinois courts couldn’t accept a law Pritzker signed earlier this year attempting to knock only Republican candidates off the ballot through a retroactive change in slating procedures. The Illinois Supreme Court in August upheld a lower court ruling that the law flatly violated the constitutional right to vote.
    • Most importantly, nearly every major element of the policy agenda successfully implemented by Pritzker and his supermajority of allies in the General Assembly has no popular support. Thanks to the most gerrymandered election maps in the nation (which Pritzker signed off on in violation of campaign promises), Pritzker’s millions spent on elections and general mastery of the election process, we have an overwhelmingly undemocratic result.

    Think about that last one. Poll after poll says Illinoisans want things like school choice, smaller budgets, lower taxes, biological men out of women’s sports, political indoctrination removed from classrooms and a balanced energy policy that includes fossil fuels and rejects the goal of 100% renewable energy.  They want violent criminals prosecuted. They opposed the SAFE-T Act and don’t like gender transformation for minors. But Pritzker and his allies have delivered the opposite of all that. Illinois is a moderate state where corrupted democracy has somehow delivered radicalism.

    Most relevant to Pritzker’s new effort, the public overwhelmingly opposes sanctuary and welcoming policies for illegal immigrants, which Pritzker intends to use as a centerpiece in “safeguarding democracy.” Even in Chicago, most voters want sanctuary policies ended and the border enforced. Yet Pritzker said, in response to the Republican election sweep, that if “they come for my people they come through me.”

    Pritzker’s new campaign may lift his standing with the far left, but what will it mean for Illinois?

    Billions of dollars in annual federal assistance and grants will now be at risk. Donald Trump is nothing if not vindictive and Republicans, who will control both houses of Congress, will be in no mood to help a governor who has called them fascists, among countless other things.

    Less tangible but equally sad is the other effect of Pritzker’s campaign, which will be more hostility and division. Most of us long for a return to a normal level of collegiality and cooperation among lawmakers, but that’s obviously not in Pritzker’s agenda.

    So far, Pritzker does not appear to be having much luck enlisting other progressive governors. Only Pritzker’s co-chair, Jared Polis of Colorado, appears to be a member. That surely says something.

    Progressive governors who so far have expressly declined to join are Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona’s Katie Hobbs and Massachusetts’ Maura Healey, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom has not yet indicated he will join the group. Maybe even they they know that a truly democratic process would not produce what Pritzker wants.

    In a couple months, we will hear Pritzker’s plan to deal with projected budget deficits totaling $22 billion over the next five years. Chicago already faces a budget deficit of a billion dollars. Same for the school district for another billion. Transit authorities there face deficits totaling over $700 million. Expect no help from Washington.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 19:50

  • India Announces 'Historic' Long-Range Hypersonic Missile Test Flight
    India Announces ‘Historic’ Long-Range Hypersonic Missile Test Flight

    India has announced what it is describing as its first successful test of a long-range hypersonic missile, which occurred Saturday night.

    India’s defense ministry said it was launched from Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of the eastern state of Odisha. “The flight data obtained from down range ship stations confirmed the successful terminal maneuvers and impact with high degree of accuracy,” a statement said.

    “India has achieved a major milestone by successfully conducting flight trial of long range hypersonic missile,” Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh said, hailing it as historic.

    For decades, India has feared a multi-front war with China and Pakistan. By modernizing its military, along with investments in nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles, New Delhi could be on a pathway to deter or manage conflict with either one of its nuclear-armed neighbors. 

    What is clear is that with this long-range, hypersonic test, India joins a small group of nations who possess and are capable of successfully deploying such advanced missiles. 

    Singh boasted of this in his statement, saying India is now among “select nations having capabilities of such critical and advanced military technologies.” The United States, Russia, and China also possess them.

    One Indian defense analyst, Ranjit Kumar, has told a regional publication:

    “(The) hypersonic missile will add more teeth to the Indian missile firepower. (The) Indian Armed Forces already possess over 300 km range (supersonic) Brahmos cruise missile and over 5,000 km range Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile, but the latest, over 1,500 km range hypersonic missile will … give more confidence to the Indian military to be able to hit the target with sure success.”

    “At a time when India is surrounded with adversaries possessing long-range ballistic missiles, the latest hypersonic missile will deter them from launching a preemptive strike on Indian locations,” the Indian military expert continued.

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    All nuclear armed powers in the region routinely flex their military might. For example, this week China hosted a huge airshow which showcased the significant capabilities of its J-35A stealth fighter jet, alongside various attack drones.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 19:15

  • US Obesity Levels Are Particularly Severe
    US Obesity Levels Are Particularly Severe

    In most OECD countries that collect self-reported weight data, more than half of adults are overweight or obese (2023 or latest available data).

    However, as Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, obesity prevalence was particularly high in the United States, with just over a third of respondents saying that they are obese in 2023.

    Infographic: Obesity Rates Around the World | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In Chile and the United Kingdom rates were just above one in four, while Korea had the lowest share of people with obesity of the countries studied at just 4.9 percent.

    According to the World Health Organization, a body mass index (BMI) of over 25 is considered overweight, and over 30 obese.

    Obesity is linked to a range of health issues such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and several common cancers. Although awareness is increasing around the topic, obesity is still often misunderstood due to misconceptions of it being solely due to poor lifestyle choices, whereas factors such as genetic predisposition and environmental influences are also important.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 18:05

  • 3D Chess Or 52-Card Pickup
    3D Chess Or 52-Card Pickup

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    3D Chess or 52-Card Pickup?

    3D Chess always makes me think of Star Trek and wonder who the heck thinks that we need a game more complex than chess? 52-Card Pickup is a game most frequently played by siblings, and even then, only once or twice. Typically, the older sibling asks the younger one if they want to play 52-card pickup. Without knowing the game, but excited that their older sibling wants to do anything with them, the younger one instantly agrees. At which point the older sibling throws a deck of cards across the room and yells – there you go, 52-card pickup!

    Depending on who you listen to, talk to, or follow, in its first full week, the Trump team is either playing an incredible game of 3D Chess, or is playing the equivalent of 52-Card Pickup with the nation.

    It is far too early to say which side is right, and the final answer will likely fall somewhere in the middle. Having said that, there are a few things that have come up consistently in meetings, calls, and interactions with clients.

    • There are various processes in place to effectively protect the system. Could they be bypassed by using Recess Appointments? I have to admit that Congress getting recess, like schoolchildren, has always amused me, but recess appointments would be a very aggressive tactic. They allow Trump to bypass the confirmation process (for up to a year) for some positions, presumably the most difficult/contentious ones. For some reason, this is also “part of the system and process,” so someone must have thought that there was a need for this. To me, this, like many things (including the 2+ month timeframe between the election and the inauguration) is likely a function of how difficult it was to travel across the country back in the day. It will be interesting to see how the appointments go, to say the least.

    • If you are going to try to radically change D.C., often described as “draining the swamp,” it does make sense that non-traditional candidates would be selected. Yes, there are people with more experience than some of the nominees, but are they too close to the system to try and change it?

    • D.O.G.E (the Department of Government Efficiency) has generated a lot of buzz. It seems to be the one thing that everyone is curious about and wants to see how it all plays out (even with a tinge of optimism that some spending can be cut without reducing or hurting services). It is also quite clear that Musk, one of the richest people on the planet, will play a major role in this administration, as a key advisor to President-Elect Trump.

    Thinking about this dovetails well with last weekend’s Learning to Speak Trump Again. For better or worse, we should expect D.C. headlines to continue to create volatility for the markets.

    Having said that:

    • The 10-year Treasury is back to 4.44%, basically where it closed on November 7th. We’ve had some pretty big swings on a daily and even intraday basis, but wound up unchanged. I remain firmly in the camp that the deficit fears (and concerns about inflation from tariffs) are more than priced in right now.

    • The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are both below where they closed on November 7th (for all the “growth” hype, that certainly grabs your attention). Maybe even more surprising, given the attention, is that the Russell 2000 is back to below its November 7th close, having dropped over 5% since it hit a high on Monday (maybe a good reminder that equity markets should shut down along with the bond market on Veterans Day).

    • Gold was strong into the election, but has faded hard since then. Copper, which should benefit from growth if the “Dr. Copper” people are correct, is down over 12% since the start of the month. Oil has struggled, but energy stocks have done well, with XLE holding onto its gains. This makes some sense (see “Drill Baby Drill” from Fox Business this summer) as energy production should increase, helping to keep energy prices at bay, but creating some potentially strong profit growth.

    • Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been incredibly strong. Yes, some volatility, but it has clung to the idea that a Trump administration will be very positive for crypto in general and Bitcoin (and Dogecoin) in particular. Given how many of the people in Trump’s inner circle are very positive on Bitcoin, it makes sense. On the other hand, Trump doesn’t control Bitcoin at all, and he does seem to like to control things, which may tarnish his current love affair over time. Also, for all the chatter about the U.S. government building up a “Bitcoin reserve” (it is hard to miss it, if you spend any time at all on X), I have not heard from anyone that this is really feasible. Most, which includes me, think that there will be an immense amount of resistance to government adoption (yes on clearer and helpful rules and regulations, but no on adoption by the government). You cannot fight this rally right now and maybe it is 3D Chess being played out, but it has the smell of 52-Card Pickup to me.

    • Many of the Commercial Real Estate ETFs have done poorly. In some cases, they are much closer to their annual lows than highs, even as stocks in general perform well. I think that this is actually a very interesting opportunity as yield fears are overdone, and Work From Home is really going to struggle next year. More and more companies are limiting work from home as they push for a return to the office. That momentum feeds on itself. Many who were afraid to push for work from office will be emboldened. I cannot see a world where the Department of Government Efficiency (I’m not sure it is an actual department, but that doesn’t really matter given the attention that it’s getting) won’t be looking at getting more government workers back into the office. Everyone has focused on the potential for layoffs dragging down D.C.-focused real estate valuations, but I think that net/net over time, it will turn out to be good for D.C. commercial real estate. I see CRE as where I have the biggest difference of opinion with consensus views right now.

    One Chart That I Cannot Stop Thinking About

    We included this chart in our NFP reaction, but I feel a sense of urgency to highlight it again. Maybe this is our attempt to play 3D Chess, or maybe we are getting ourselves overly wound up about a non-event. Since we often discuss how dubious the Jobs Available calculation is for the JOLTS report, it may seem weird that the QUIT rate, from that same report, has grabbed our attention. My take on the QUIT rate is that it is “crowd sourced” data. Every individual has a pretty good idea about their own job prospects and that gets reflected in the QUIT rate.

    During the financial crisis, the QUIT rate didn’t get this low until May 2008. If I remember correctly, we technically were not in a recession at the time, and only later did the powers that be declare that we actually were in a recession. That fits with my view that this rate is important and may have a predictive element to it.

    I certainly think that when anyone and everyone felt like they could quit and get a better job, it was extremely difficult for management to take away work from home. I suspect that plans to offer severance packages to reduce the workforce voluntarily (one idea floated around by DOGE) won’t be that effective when workers don’t see outside opportunities readily available (that is my interpretation of the QUIT rate).

    If we see a lot of progress made on the “Make America Great” front, this could change abruptly. There might be plenty of new jobs created. There might be jobs that were being done by undocumented workers becoming available. A lot could happen, but so far, I think the outlook on jobs is following the same path as stocks – initial jubilation has turned into a wariness about what might actually be achievable, let alone accomplished.

    Bottom Line

    Expect more volatility. We are going to get headlines and announcements that are difficult to interpret. What do they really mean? How likely is it to get accomplished? We know this administration is looking for CHANGE, but exactly what type of change they want is still a bit unclear in many areas. What they can achieve is even more unclear.

    There is a clear sense of “urgency” as I cannot recollect any other election winner coming out so quickly with so many announcements!

    I think we want to “fade” growth. We can buy dips in Treasuries and sell rips in stocks.

    Maybe we will get a clearer picture, but I suspect in the coming days and weeks, the market will have more questions than answers. The fact that the original reaction to the election was so strong (with so many shorts being taken out, and so many newly minted bulls emerging) leaves us with potentially treacherous positioning. While legend has it that Wall Street likes to Climb a Wall of Worry, I don’t think it likes the current level of uncertainty. Maybe it is all 3D Chess, and we are just too naïve to see the master plan, or maybe we are all seeing enough things to question how effective this master plan will be?

    While I like being overweight duration and underweight equities, I would not be a very aggressive overweight or underweight. It is more of an attempt to trade the volatility that is likely to continue.

    On Bitcoin, if I hear one more $1 million price target, my head might explode, but for now, I can’t think of what will slow this down given the team around Trump, but then again, Trump himself might say something showing that he has had a change of heart (which is what I suspect will happen, but it seems too early for that to occur).

    I did not focus on inflation, jobs, or other economic data (except to highlight the QUIT rate). I think that the data of the past few months will likely be irrelevant early next year as policies become clear and we can focus on what those policies will do to the economic data, and not worry about economic data that probably reflects a set of policies that will no longer be relevant.

    We do get the most important earnings report for the AI story this week. Everything seems rosy in the space, but it is increasingly difficult to guess what has already been priced in.

    Good luck and don’t stray too far from the desk, because you never know what headline might come out next! If you missed our Around the World Podcast from earlier in the week, it is a good listen.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 17:30

  • Cars, Meds, Oil, & Tech: America's Main Imports
    Cars, Meds, Oil, & Tech: America’s Main Imports

    Economic history has shown that, as an economy develops, so does its service sector. This is certainly true for the United States, one of the most highly developed countries in the world and certainly a service economy.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter details below, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, service-providing jobs account for more than 70 percent of nonfarm payrolls in the country, while goods-producing jobs account for less than 15 percent of jobs. In the 1940s, both sectors were tied at little above 40 percent, with government jobs accounting for the remainder of jobs.

    There are two main reasons for this shift: productivity gains and globalization. As capital and goods began flowing freely across borders, it became cheaper to produce goods in parts of the world with lower labor costs and import them. This is how the United States gradually moved away from producing goods and how China became the world’s manufacturing hub, making anything from smartphones to television sets.

    Last year, the United States imported around $3.1 trillion worth of goods, with Mexico, China and Canada accounting for more than 40 percent of that total. Among the top imported goods are cars, pharmaceuticals and all kinds of technology, be it smartphones, computers or semiconductors.

    Infographic: Cars, Meds, Oil and Tech: America's Main Imports | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Experts have warned that all of these products would likely become significantly more expensive if president-elect Donald Trump went through with his proposed tariff plans.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 16:55

  • In Their Final Meeting, Xi Tells Biden China Is "Ready to Work" With Trump Administration
    In Their Final Meeting, Xi Tells Biden China Is “Ready to Work” With Trump Administration

    By Ryan Morgan and Emel Akan of The Epoch Times

    President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Saturday for their final in-person meeting of Biden’s presidency. During their discussion, which lasted one hour and 40 minutes, Xi expressed China’s readiness to work with the incoming U.S. administration.

    The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru, at the hotel where Xi was staying.

    During his opening remarks, Xi told Biden, “The United States has recently concluded its elections. China’s goal of a stable, healthy, and sustainable China–U.S. relationship remains unchanged.”

    “China is ready to work with the new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation, and manage differences, so as to strive for a steady transition of the China–U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples.”

    White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters after the meeting that Biden and Xi covered a wide range of issues, describing their discussion as “candid” and “constructive.”

    Biden told Xi that “he has worked hard to responsibly manage the competition” with China for the past four years to prevent it from spiraling into conflict, Sullivan said.

    Both leaders are committed to responsibly managing this relationship during the critical transition period, he added.

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    The two leaders also spoke about “areas of friction,” Sullivan said, citing China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base, military activity around Taiwan, unfair trade policies, and increasing aggression in the South China Sea.

    Biden and Xi also touched on China’s relationship with North Korea, particularly as U.S. and Western intelligence assessments indicate North Korea has deployed troops to assist Russian forces in their ongoing war with Ukraine.

    During the meeting, Biden expressed “grave concern” about North Korea’s involvement, Sullivan said.

    The White House earlier indicated that the United States and its allies—South Korea and Japan—believed “China has a role to play” in dissuading the growing Russia-North Korea partnership.

    Trump’s Return

    President-elect Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House also loomed large over the Biden–Xi meeting.

    Trump has repeatedly signaled he will employ tariffs of up to 60 percent on made-in-China products arriving in the United States.

    Trump is also set to staff his incoming administration with several China hawks. He has already named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.)—two staunch China critics—as his picks for secretary of state and national security adviser, respectively.

    Beijing sanctioned Rubio twice in 2020 and banned him from entering China.

    Sullivan declined to comment about Beijing’s reaction to Trump’s tariff plan.

    “Look, I’m not going to comment on a future administration’s policies that have neither been formulated nor articulated,” he told reporters. “What I will say is that we have laid out in clear terms our concerns about non-market economic practices that the PRC has undertaken.”

    Sullivan defended U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, stating that many countries have taken measures to address China’s overcapacity problem in critical sectors.

    Continue reading at Epoch Times

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 16:20

  • Cruise Ship Offers Democrats Multi-Year "Escape From Reality" Package After Trump Victory 
    Cruise Ship Offers Democrats Multi-Year “Escape From Reality” Package After Trump Victory 

    Florida-based cruise line Villa Vie Residences unveiled a new four-year cruise package called “Skip Forward,” offered to anyone suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. 

    The Skip Forward package is part of the Tour La Vie program, starting at $40,000 per year, and is a “continuous global adventure for up to 4 years,” the company stated in a press release. In other words, the multi-year excursion spans Trump’s upcoming second term. 

    In an interview, Villa Vie Residences CEO Mikael Petterson told AP News the cruise liner is offering voters who were not pleased with the election results four exclusive deals:

    • 1-Year Escape from Reality

    • 2-Year Mid-Term Selection

    • 3-Year Everywhere but Home

    • 4-Year Skip Forward

    Petterson said the excursion to 425 ports across 140 countries allows voters to escape chaotic American politics.

    He noted, “It just happened that Trump won. And more Democrats are unhappy with their current living situations in the US than Republicans.” 

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    Petterson is right about the TDS explosion after the election. 

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    Google searches for “Move to Canada” surged immediately after Trump won. Far-left liberals melted down across all social media.

    We can only imagine a Villa Vie Residences cruise ship packed with a thousand yelling liberal women and Harry Sisson.  At least their screams on the high seas won’t be heard.

    Meanwhile, Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt plotted his migration to the US following the Trump victory. 

    What happens when Republicans win again in 2028? Extend the cruise trip? 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 15:45

  • Hezbollah's Media Spokesman Assassinated By Israel In Heart Of Beirut After Haifa Synagogue Attacked
    Hezbollah’s Media Spokesman Assassinated By Israel In Heart Of Beirut After Haifa Synagogue Attacked

    Via The Cradle

    The head of Hezbollah’s Media Relations Department, Mohammad Afif, was assassinated in a violent Israeli airstrike on a building in the heart of Beirut on Sunday. 

    “Fate willed that Hajj Muhammad Afif was inside the building at the time of the attack [in the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood],” said the Secretary-General of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, Ali Hijazi. He said Afif was holding a meeting in the Baath party headquarters at the time of the Israeli strike. “Afif did not fight with weapons and did not lead a military unit in Hezbollah. Rather, he led a media unit,” Hijazi added. 

    Mohammad Afif, via AP

    A Lebanese security source also confirmed to Al Jazeera that Afif was assassinated in the Israeli attack on central Beirut’s Ras al-Nabaa. At least five were killed and seven injured. There was massive destruction at the site, and the toll is expected to rise.

    Hezbollah MP Hussein al-Jishi said to Al Mayadeen that “the enemy’s targeting of a media spokesman who always carries his phone in his hand is further evidence of its inability, and this is neither courage nor heroism.”

    Hezbollah itself has yet to release a statement. Israel also heavily targeted Beirut’s southern suburb and other areas of the country on Sunday.

    Israel had tried to assassinate Afif on October 3, when it targeted the building of Hezbollah’s Media Relations office in the southern suburb of Beirut. On October 22, it targeted the site where Afif was giving a speech in the Ghobeiry area of the suburb.

    Afif gave a speech for Martyrs Day last week, during which he affirmed to Israel that Hezbollah is prepared for a long war. 

    In his speech on 22 October, Afif publicly announced Hezbollah’s responsibility for the drone attack which exploded in the bedroom window of Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea.

    “To the Israeli enemy, we say: you have only seen a little, and what happened in Haifa, Acre, and Safad is just the start … To the leaders of the occupation: Iron for iron, blood for blood, and fire for fire,” Afif said last month. 

    On Saturday a synagogue in Haifa was destroyed when Hezbollah rockets rained down on the area…

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    Hezbollah continues to fiercely confront Israeli ground troops in southern Lebanon, while stepping up its rocket, drone, and missile attacks against Israel. 

    Several Hezbollah rocket impacts resulted in heavy damage in the Haifa Bay area on November 16th. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 15:10

  • Trump Team Weighs Courts-Martial For Officers Who Oversaw Afghanistan Withdrawal
    Trump Team Weighs Courts-Martial For Officers Who Oversaw Afghanistan Withdrawal

    Donald Trump’s transition team is making a list of senior military officers who oversaw the disastrous 2021 withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, and considering the possibility of court-martialing them for their failings, according to two sources cited by NBC News.  

    “They’re taking it very seriously,” said a source who claims to have knowledge of the initiative. The most notorious incident of the chaotic withdrawal was the Aug. 26, 2021 suicide bombing at Abbey Gate, just outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Thirteen US service members and more than 170 Afghan civilians were killed. In the following days, a US airstrike intended to kill the leader of the Islamic State instead killed 10 innocents. The rapid collapse of the US-sponsored Afghanistan government allowed enormous quantities of US weapons to fall into the hands of the Taliban. 

    These 13 US service members were killed by a suicide bomber at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26 2021

    Trump repeatedly pointed to the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle during his 2024 presidential campaign, calling the day of the suicide bombing “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.” Now, his transition team is exploring the creation of a commission to probe the decision-making that accompanied the withdrawal and to assess whether leaders could be charged and court-martialed. The team is even said to be considering whether officers who’ve left the military might be recalled to active duty to face military justice.

    Potential charges include treason, a notion that seems far more rooted in casual use of the term than any reasoned legal analysis. Perhaps one might try to make the case that the forfeiture of a vast arsenal to the Taliban gave “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States, but it seems highly doubtful such an argument would prevail in a court-martial. Alternatively, charges could theoretically be brought under provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice covering dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming an officer, or negligent homicide.  

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    Pete Segseth, the Fox news host whom Trump wants to appoint as Secretary of Defense, has leveled his own withering criticism at senior miltary officers. In his book “The War on Warriors,” he wrote: 

    “These generals lied. They mismanaged. They violated their oath. They failed. They disgraced our troops, and our nation. They got people killed, unnecessarily…And, to this moment, they keep their jobs. Worse, they continue to actively erode our military and its values — by capitulating to civilians with radical agendas. They are an embarrassment, with stars still on their shoulders.” 

    According to NBC’s sources, the transition team’s Afghanistan accountability initiative is being led by Matt Flynn, who’d previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics and global threats. A North Carolina Army National Guard member, he has also held roles at the Department of the Interior, the White House, Department of State and Congress.

    The Trump transition team’s Afghanistan withdrawal accountability project is being led by former Pentagon official Matt Flynn, sources say (Photo: Steptoe) 

    News of the potential prosecution of senior officers comes after earlier reports that the Trump transition team would establish a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel which would be granted the power to review three- and four-star officers and recommend any removals of those deemed unfit for leadership. Such a board would likely target generals and admirals who’ve embraced woke ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 14:35

  • In "Major Policy Shift" Biden Authorizes Ukraine's Use Of US Missiles To Hit Targets Inside Russia
    In “Major Policy Shift” Biden Authorizes Ukraine’s Use Of US Missiles To Hit Targets Inside Russia

    In a move straight out of Louis “After me, the flood” XV, the outgoing BIden admin, in a seemingly desperate move to destabilize the global geopolitical picture, has authorized the lifting of some restrictions on Ukraine’s use of western-made weapons to strike military targets inside Russia, according to reports from Bloomberg and the AP. The decision was reportedly shaped by North Korea ramping up support for President Vladimir Putin’s army and an increase in Russian missile and drone attacks on its neighbor. 

    The approval represents a major U.S. policy shift and comes as the deep state-supported, dementia-ridden puppet Joe Biden is about to leave office and incoming President-elect Donald Trump has said he would bring about a swift end to the war and has expressed skepticism over continued support by the United States.

    If approved, the capability would likely be used first in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukraine is fighting against North Korean troops as well as Moscow’s forces, the people said. Still, any permission, if granted, is unlikely to go as far as Ukraine has requested, one of the people said.

    As the war in Ukraine heads into its third full winter, the US and its allies “have grown extremely concerned” about Pyongyang’s decision to deploy its forces in combat and assessments by some Group of 20 nations suggest North Korea could eventually send as many as 100,000 troops to Russia. The allies believe the deepening cooperation between Putin and Kim Jong Un could have consequences for the security balance in the Indo-Pacific region, Bloomberg has reported previously.

    Discussions between the allies over missile strikes have intensified since Donald Trump won US elections earlier this month, another Bloomberg source said. Trump has said he will seek a quick deal between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, without specifying how.

    In other words, Biden’s puppet masters are urgently seeking to escalate the war in Ukraine to make the quick ceasefire sought by Trump impossible (after all, war is how the Deep State earns its income), and in doing so risking World War 3 as just two months ago, Putin warned that If Ukraine uses U.S. long-range missiles to strike Russia, the “United States is at war with Russia.”

    And just to underscore that mushroom clouds are coming, Putin since said that Russia “will use nuclear weapons if a mass enemy missile or UAV is launched towards Russia, or when these weapons cross into Russian territory.”

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    Until now, Biden had remained opposed to such an escalation, determined to hold the line against any escalation that he felt could draw the U.S. and other NATO members into direct conflict with Russia. But what supposedly triggered the shift is not Trump’s desire to end the war, at least not according to Bloomberg’s deep state sources, but North Korea’s decision to deploy deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help Moscow reclaim land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year, and which Russia has already mostly regained even as Ukraine continues to cede territory in the Donetsk region. The introduction of North Korean troops to the conflict comes as Moscow has seen a favorable shift in momentum.

    As many as 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian assessments. U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say North Korea also has provided Russia with significant amounts of munitions to replenish its weapons stockpiles.

    Trump, who takes office in January, spoke for months as a candidate about wanting Russia’s war in Ukraine to be over. He also repeatedly slammed the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in aid. His resounding election victory has Ukraine’s international backers worrying that any rushed settlement would mostly benefit Putin.

    Which is where the deep state’s World War 3 Hail Mary comes in, especially since the outgoing Biden administration has said it will send as much aid as possible to Kyiv before Trump takes office in January.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 14:16

  • Net-Zero Rollback: How Trump Might Achieve De-Regulation Goals
    Net-Zero Rollback: How Trump Might Achieve De-Regulation Goals

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

    President-elect Donald Trump won the election on, among other things, pledges to roll back the regulations that were put in place under the Biden administration, particularly those intended to meet net-zero emissions goals in America’s energy industry.

    President Donald Trump signs the last of three Executive Orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on Jan. 23, 2017. Ron Sachs – Pool/Getty Images

    In many cases, however, that will be easier said than done, and may not be something Trump can achieve on day one, according to analysts.

    According to the American Action Forum, the Biden administration has finalized 1,114 new regulations to date, adding $1.8 trillion in costs to American businesses and consumers and an estimated 346 million hours of paperwork. And depending on how the regulations were put in place, the incoming Trump administration will likely face challenges in unwinding them.

    “It will be on a regulation-by-regulation basis,” Dan Kish, senior vice president of policy at the American Energy Alliance, told The Epoch Times. “There’s actually three categories: executive orders, action from Congress, and those things that have to be done through regulation.

    “In other words, there’s a process that’s been set up for changing regulations,” he said. “But all of those things are available to [Trump] depending on what happens with the final Congressional outcome.”

    For regulatory mandates that have gone through the formal process of being enacted as “final rules” by agencies, the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) stipulates that cancellation of those rules must go through the same process. This includes a notice and public comment period, as well as a 30-day delayed effective date and a process for judicial review if people can claim they would be adversely affected.

    “You do need to undergo rule-making to change rule-making, but a lot of the Biden administration mandates weren’t issued through rule-making,” Matt Bowman, senior counsel and director of regulatory practice for Alliance Defending Freedom, which has litigated against Biden administration mandates, told The Epoch Times.

    “We’ve won several cases against mandates that they didn’t bother to put through the rule-making process,” Bowman said. “Those can be taken down pretty quickly.”

    Many of the regulations that were issued by direct orders from President Joe Biden will likely be rescinded in the same way.

    “Executive orders will drive the overarching regulatory policy goals of the next administration,” Dan Goldbeck, director of regulatory policy at the center-right American Action Forum, told The Epoch Times. “But they will have limited direct impact on rules already on the books.”

    The Role of Congress and the Courts

    However, even for regulations that have gone through the rule-making process, there are several options available to the Trump administration to have them rescinded in short order. The first is have Congress overturn them using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) if Republicans are able to gain a workable majority in the House.

    According to the CRA, agencies must submit final rules to Congress before they can take effect. If both houses of Congress disapprove of the rule, and the President concurs or Congress overrides a presidential veto, the rule cannot go into effect. There is, however, a time limit, effectively about 6 months, for Congress to take action.

    Since its passage, the CRA has been used to overturn a total of 20 federal rules, 16 of which were Obama administration mandates overturned by a GOP-led Congress in 2017.

    “It’s tough to say what the exact number will be this time around, but I expect Congressional Republicans to be quite active on this front,” Goldbeck said.

    In order to avoid the fate of many Obama-era regulations that were blocked by Congress, the Biden administration rushed to finalize a number of rules well before the date when a new administration could take office.

    “There’s plenty to suggest that the Biden administration made a point of finalizing some of its highest priority rules earlier this year to avoid potential scrutiny under the CRA,” Goldbeck said. “Nevertheless, the general expectation is that any rule finalized from the start of this past August onward will be vulnerable to repeal under the CRA.”

    Even for regulations that are no longer subject to Congressional review, there are options to remove them fairly quickly, particularly those that have been challenged in court.

    “Many of the rules, the most egregious rules the Biden administration imposed, are in court, and courts don’t need to wait for a rule-making process to strike down an illegal rule,” Bowman said. “Courts have already in some cases issued at least preliminary injunctions against those rules so that the Trump Department of Justice, if it prioritizes the President’s agenda, can acknowledge the illegality of some of these rules.”

    Where lower courts have ruled in favor of the Biden administration, the DOJ can appeal those cases to the Supreme Court in hopes of getting a different verdict. And for cases that are awaiting decisions, federal agencies can delay enforcement of the rules until a verdict is reached.

    ‘Personnel Is Policy’

    In Washington, it is often said that “personnel is policy.” Accordingly, the people that Trump puts in place within the agencies will also go a long way in determining how regulations are implemented, if at all.

    “What he can do through executive orders is give instructions to the federal agencies to stand up or stand down on any number of initiatives,” Jonathan Berry, managing partner at Boyden Gray and former chief counsel to President-elect Trump’s first-term transition team, told The Epoch Times.

    In addition, outside of existing agencies, Trump announced on Tuesday that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will run a new department intended to oversee the reduction of regulations throughout the federal government and improve government efficiency.

    How well Trump’s agencies coordinate among each another, including cooperation between regulators and the DOJ, will be a critical factor in determining whether or not Trump’s deregulatory agenda succeeds, according to Bowman.

    “I think the President can achieve his goals if all of his appointees are on the same page,” Bowman said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 14:00

  • Anti-MAGA PA Officials Go Rogue, Keep Counting Illegal Ballots In Defiance Of State Supreme Court
    Anti-MAGA PA Officials Go Rogue, Keep Counting Illegal Ballots In Defiance Of State Supreme Court

    Officials in Bucks County, Pennsylvania are openly disregarding a state Supreme Court ruling prohibiting them from counting provisional ballots missing a signature, as Democrats and Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) challenge Republican Senator-elect Dave McCormick’s election victory.

    Bucks County Board of Commissioners Chair Robert J. Harvie Jr. (D) and Vice Chair Dianne Ellis-Marseglia (D) are plowing ahead with their count of the illegal ballots that are missing signatures in one of two places, which officials have referred to as “block two” and “block four.” The third commissioner, Republican Gene DiGirolamo was the lone dissenting voice.

    Yet after Deputy County Solicitor Daniel Grieser advised that “unless it’s signed by the voter in two places… we shouldn’t count these,” Ellis-Marseglia and Harvie Jr. pushed forward with a count.

    As the county has some ballots missing two signatures and others missing signatures in either “block two” or “block four,” DiGirolamo, moments before the motion to count the votes passed, moved to reject all three types of ballots missing signatures through a single motion, grouping them all together.

    That motion failed with his colleagues, but before it did, Ellis-Marseglia shockingly said she did not value court precedent and touted her indifference regarding whether or not she was breaking the law in her official capacity by ignoring the recent state Supreme Court ruling. -Breitbart

    “I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country,” said Ellis-Marseglia in response to the illegal count, adding “People violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes.”

    According to officials, there are fewer than 80,000 provisional ballots left to be counted across the state, less than 2% of the vote, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

    In August, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that provisional ballots missing a signature should not be counted. The case, which featured challenges from Republican primary candidates Jamie Walsh and Mike Cabell, upheld Section 3050(a.4) of the election code, which states that those voting via provisional ballot must also submit a signed affidavit.

     

    Anti-MAGA

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsOn Nov. 4, Ellis-Marseglia posted a MSNBC opinion piece on X, citing a portion which states that “voters must prevent anyone with ties to the MAGA movement from overseeing this critical electoral process.“

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 13:25

  • Musk, Ramaswamy Seek Volunteers To Join New Department Of Government Efficiency
    Musk, Ramaswamy Seek Volunteers To Join New Department Of Government Efficiency

    Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy announced on Nov. 14 that they are looking for volunteers to join the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), calling for the top 1 percent of small-government revolutionaries.

    Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at a rally for former President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Oct. 27, 2024. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

    “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE,” they announced on social media platform X. “We don’t need more part-time idea generators.

    “We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”

    Musk further confirmed that DOGE work would be unpaid, stating on X, “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies, and compensation is zero. What a great deal!”

    In response to that comment, Ramaswamy stated, “That stands in contrast to the many government bureaucrats who: (a) do little or no work, (b) tell people only what they want to hear, & (c) make more money than the value they create.”

    DOGE’s objective is in its name: to make government more efficient, with significant spending cuts being among the top expectations.

    “I look forward to Elon and Vivek making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans,” Trump said in a Nov. 12 statement announcing the new department and its leaders. “Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending. They will work together to liberate our Economy, and make the U.S. Government accountable to ‘WE THE PEOPLE.’”

    Musk stated on X that all DOGE actions will be posted online to provide “maximum transparency.” This will include the creation of a leaderboard showcasing the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars,” which he said would be “extremely tragic and extremely entertaining.”

    He also urged the public to be vocal about anything that is being cut that they think might be important.

    Trump said the initiative could be “‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time.”

    The request for volunteers followed Musk’s announcement in September that he was willing to forgo compensation.

    “I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises,” Musk said in a post on X. “No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”

    DOGE will work with the Office of Management and Budget and is set to complete its work no later than July 4, 2026, America’s 250th anniversary.

    “Either we get government efficient or America goes bankrupt. That’s what it comes down to. Wish I were wrong, but it’s true,” Musk wrote on X, responding to Trump’s official announcement on Nov. 12.

    Caden Pearson contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 12:50

  • Famed Iowa Pollster Ann Selzer Retires After Bombshell Miss 
    Famed Iowa Pollster Ann Selzer Retires After Bombshell Miss 

    A once-respected poll showed Vice President Harris leading by three percentage points in Iowa just days before the presidential election, which ultimately resulted in Donald Trump ahead by thirteen points—a massive margin of error of sixteen percentage points. 

    Following this public opinion polling blunder, pollster J. Ann Selzer stated in a guest column in the Des Moines Register on Sunday that her days advising the paper’s famed Iowa Poll are over as she will be “transitioning to other ventures and opportunities.” 

    Selzer was once considered the “gold standard” of polling, but after Trump swept the state by a 13-point margin, winning the actual vote 56-43%, she later acknowledged her poll was a “big miss” and suggested that it might have “actually energized [d] and activated [d] Republican voters who thought they would likely coast to victory,” according to CNN.

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    “Over a year ago I advised the Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired with the latest election poll as I transition to other ventures and opportunities,” Selzer wrote in the Des Moines Register, emphasizing how her decision to retire was well in play before her disastrous polling results failed to capture a Trump win accurately.

    She continued, “Polling is a science of estimation, and science has a way of periodically humbling the scientist. So, I’m humbled, yet always willing to learn from unexpected findings.” 

    Well, perhaps science can become biased when some pollsters suffer from ‘Trump derangement syndrome.’ 

    Separately, Kristin Roberts, chief content officer of Gannett Media, which owns the Des Moines Register, told CNN that the Iowa Poll will “evolve as we find new ways to accurately capture public sentiment and the pulse of Iowans on state and national issues.”

    “Our mission is to provide trusted news and content to our readers and the public,” Roberts said, adding, “We did not deliver on that promise when we shared results of the last Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, which did not accurately capture the outcome of the presidential election.”

    X user Torsten Prochnow had a good take on Selzer’s retirement…

    Ann Selzer’s retirement marks the end of what was once considered the “gold standard” of polling, though her final performance suggests that standard had long since tarnished. Her last Iowa poll—Harris+3—was a stunning 16 points off the actual result of Trump+13. Such a massive error doesn’t just undermine her credibility; it reflects a deeper problem with polling in general, especially those aligned with the leftist media narrative.

    Pollsters today, with few exceptions, seem less interested in accurately gauging public opinion and more focused on shaping it. Many have become extensions of the legacy media, crafting polls designed to serve as self-fulfilling prophecies for leftist victories. These tactics, however, are crumbling under the weight of their own bias. Americans have grown wise to the manipulation, and the results of 2024 prove it: reality shattered the illusions pollsters tried to sell.

    Selzer’s exit feels symbolic of a larger trend—trust in mainstream polling has hit rock bottom. As Trump secures overwhelming victories like his blowout win in Iowa, it’s clear that the era of using skewed polls to influence elections is over. The days of false narratives propped up by questionable polling are gone, replaced by an electorate that refuses to be gaslit.

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    Here’s some of our reporting on pollsters oversampling and attempting to shape outcomes for a potential Harris victory in the months before the election…

    Meanwhile, the odds favored Trump at the betting platform Polymarket, as financial markets are generally more efficient. Pollsters (and MSM) suffering from TDS doomed themselves in the past election cycle, and their credibility has completely collapsed. As a result, Polymarket and other betting platforms are poised to dominate in upcoming elections.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/17/2024 – 12:15

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Nov 17

Today’s News 17th November 2024

  • Trump Can Help A New Generation Learn To Appreciate Our Veterans
    Trump Can Help A New Generation Learn To Appreciate Our Veterans

    Authored by Tom Ruck via RealClearDefense,

    Following President Donald Trump’s extraordinary victory over Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden addressed the nation. His message was simple: “setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable,” and he concluded by saying, “may God protect our troops.”

    Unfortunately for President Biden, however, many people in his party have given up on fighting for America and have even given up on supporting our troops. Indeed, this anti-American and anti-military sentiment in the Democratic party undoubtedly contributed to President Trump’s victory.

    This is a shame because veterans represent the very best of America. From the sandy beaches of Normandy and the wet jungles of Vietnam to the hot deserts of Iraq and harsh mountains of Afghanistan, they have fought and died for our freedom. Their courage, honor, and selflessness are unmatched, and they should serve as an example for every American today, especially young people. 

    With that in mind, in light of this recent Veteran’s Day, it is worth asking what our new president can do to restore a sense of gratitude in all Americans for our military servicemen and women.

    There are many answers to that question, of course. For example, his administration could put a stop to the politicization of the military through wokeness, which would ensure that our veterans can be proud of the branches they served. Likewise, President Trump could use his bully pulpit to remind the American people of the virtues of our military men and women. This White House could also revisit its previous plans to build the National Garden of American Heroes, and honor some of our country’s greatest veterans there.

    These are all excellent initiatives, but one of the simplest — and subtlest — ways that President Trump can restore respect for our troops and veterans is by preserving and enhancing the beauty of our national cemeteries. The United States and its territories contain 164 national cemeteries. Some are well-known, such as the Arlington National Cemetery and Gettysburg National Cemetery, and others are more inconspicuous, but each cemetery is — in the words of President Lincoln — “hallowed ground.”

    My father is buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, so I know from the personal experience of many visits that these cemeteries are more than places of rest — they are the final resting place of our country’s heroes and sacred symbols of American freedom.

    We must never forget these men and women. We must also introduce a new generation of Americans to these cemeteries, as I am convinced that walking through those beautiful, straight, uniform rows of fallen soldiers is such a powerful experience that it could make any American grateful for our veterans.

    To do this, President Trump cannot only ensure that these cemeteries are well maintained, he can promote programming that introduces Americans — especially young Americans — to the profound sacrifices that sustain our liberty. Hosting more roll-call events, concerts, and other community initiatives can help keep the spirt of service alive in the hearts of all Americans and change the minds of this new generation.

    Doing so will not only give veterans the respect and honor they so thoroughly deserve, but it will also make our country better. Gratitude is the character trait that seems to be desperately missing from our national dialogue, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The first step to making America great again is remembering the greatest people in our country’s past: our veterans.

    Preserving and enhancing our national cemeteries is an excellent way to do that. Next Veteran’s Day, visit a cemetery near you and say a prayer of thanks for the men and women that gave everything for our freedom.

    Tom Ruck is the award-winning author of “Sacred Ground: A Tribute to America’s Veterans.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 23:20

  • IRS Watchdog Nominee Pledges To Investigate Allegations Of Agency Misconduct
    IRS Watchdog Nominee Pledges To Investigate Allegations Of Agency Misconduct

    President Biden’s nominee for Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), David Johnson, promised to tackle allegations of IRS misconduct, including politically motivated audits and unfair targeting of small businesses, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Nov. 14. Johnson vowed to hold the IRS accountable for any abuse of power, ensuring that taxpayers are treated fairly.

    At the hearing, Johnson addressed bipartisan concerns about the misuse of IRS authority, with lawmakers pressing him on the agency’s practices and adherence to directives aimed at protecting small businesses and low-income taxpayers from increased audit rates.

    Political Targeting: A Top Priority

    Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) kicked off the hearing by demanding to know how Johnson would address concerns about politically driven IRS actions.

    “If you’re confirmed as Inspector General, what actions will you lead at TIGTA to ensure that Americans are not being targeted for audit or investigation based on their political affiliation?” Wyden asked.

    Johnson pledged to investigate such allegations thoroughly, emphasizing the seriousness of any attempt to weaponize the IRS.

    “I believe that one of the core responsibilities of any Inspector General, by statute, is to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse, and targeting of any American based on their political affiliation, to me, would be an extreme level of abuse,” Johnson replied. “Anybody ordering the IRS or asking the IRS to target political opponents or take action based on political identity would be an abuse of power and would be something that TIGTA would play a role in preventing.”

    Johnson assured the committee that TIGTA would play a crucial role in preventing such practices, vowing to report findings to Congress and the public.

    Small Business Owners Feeling the Squeeze

    Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) raised the alarm over IRS audit practices affecting small businesses, particularly those earning less than $400,000 annually. Citing a 2022 directive from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen promising not to increase audits for small businesses and lower-income households, Blackburn said her constituents remain skeptical.

    “Several times on this committee, I’ve talked about the concerns that I hear from small businesses in Tennessee, and a lot of times this has to do with being wrongfully targeted by the IRS,” Blackburn said – pointing to a recent TIGTA report revealing that the IRS has yet to finalize key definitions, such as what qualifies as a “small business,” raising fears that audit rates could still rise. Blackburn pressed Johnson for a commitment to further review these audit processes.

    “If you’re confirmed, will you commit to further reviewing these IRS audit processes to ensure compliance with that 2022 directive?” she asked.

    Johnson agreed, pledging to follow up on TIGTA’s findings and brief Blackburn and other stakeholders on the results.

    TIGTA Report Highlights Gaps in IRS Compliance

    The TIGTA report referenced during the hearing painted a worrying picture of the IRS’s progress. While the agency has promised to shield small businesses from increased audits, delays in defining key terms and establishing a methodology jeopardize its ability to meet the directive’s requirements by fiscal year 2025.

    The IRS has proposed defining small businesses as those with less than $10 million in assets, but this definition remains under discussion with no timeline for completion. TIGTA has urged the IRS to accelerate its efforts, warning that delays could lead to non-compliance with the 2022 directive.

    In response, IRS Deputy Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to the directive, noting steps to shift audit focus to high-income earners and large corporations.

    “‘The Commissioner has publicly committed that the IRS will comply with the Secretary’s directive not to increase audit rates above historic levels for small businesses or households earning less than $400,000,” O’Donnell wrote in a July memorandum to TIGTA, adding that the IRS is working with Treasury to finalize the formal methodology for implementing the directive.

    Small Businesses Still on Edge

    Despite these assurances, Blackburn said small business owners remain uneasy. She highlighted constituents’ fears of being “entrapped” by the IRS amid concerns that increased funding for the agency—part of the Biden administration’s $80 billion IRS boost—has enabled the hiring of thousands of new tax enforcers.

    Johnson acknowledged these fears, reiterating that TIGTA would ensure the IRS adheres to its promises. “Given that TIGTA has already issued a report on this very issue, it does seem appropriate for a follow-up,” he said.

    As Johnson’s confirmation process continues, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will be watching closely to see whether his tenure at TIGTA can restore confidence in an agency increasingly under scrutiny. With audit fears looming large over small businesses, Johnson’s pledge to safeguard taxpayers may be put to the test sooner rather than later.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 22:45

  • The Second Trump Administration Will Benefit The Environment
    The Second Trump Administration Will Benefit The Environment

    Authored by Diana Furchtgott-Roth via RealClearEnergy,

    At the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Azerbaijan, attendees are full of dire predictions that the world’s climate will worsen under President-elect Trump. But when Trump fulfills his campaign promises to increase U.S. oil and gas production and removes President Biden’s pause on new liquid natural gas exports, global emissions will likely decline rather than rise.

    This is because exports of U.S. natural gas generally displace coal, reducing global CO2 emissions. Even Germany, Europe’s largest manufacturer, is using lignite coal (rather than the less-polluting bituminous coal) to deal with shortages of renewables now that it has closed its nuclear power plants and Russian gas is no longer available.

    About 3 billion people in emerging economies lack electricity and running water, and cook over wood and dung. Natural gas power plants would reduce particulates from wood and dung and make the air cleaner. Under President Biden, the World Bank does not make loans for fossil fuel power plants.

    More U.S. gas for export will lower prices of Russian and Qatari gas, harming countries that are invading Ukraine and tied to Iran. Prices are set based on future production, and even announcements of energy production will weaken America’s enemies.

    Natural gas production has lowered U.S. emissions of CO2, which have declined by a billion metric tons over the past 16 years as natural gas has substituted for coal use in the generation of electricity. Over the same period, CO2 emissions in China have risen by 5 billion metric tons.

    Between 2022 and 2023 US coal exports to Europe increased by 22% compared with the prior year. Because coal has more emissions than natural gas, it is surprising that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has not asked for a pause in coal exports, only on natural gas exports.

    America’s natural gas exports to Europe have been soaring since 2022, when Russia decreased the flow of natural gas. According to the Energy Information Administration, America exported an average of almost 12 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas in 2023, more than any other country.

    Europe is America’s biggest customer, and in a phone call to President-elect Trump, European Union President Ursula von der Leyen suggested that US natural gas could replace Russian gas.

    But even if America stopped all use of fossil fuels immediately, global temperatures would only be two-tenths of 1 degree Celsius by the year 2100, according to government models. This is because China, India, Africa, and Latin America are ramping up their use of coal to reach Western standards of living. China is home to large supplies of coal, but little natural gas, and uses its domestic coal supplies for generating electricity to power its global manufacturing capacity.

    A second Trump administration will not only encourage production of natural gas but also faster permitting of pipelines and LNG terminals to move the natural gas from the interior of the country to the ports, and into export terminals to be shipped to Europe and Asia.

    America’s natural gas production, at over 100 billion cubic feet per day, is greater than pre-pandemic levels, but production is primarily on private lands. It could have been even higher if Biden had not restricted leases on federal land and if pipeline approval were faster.

    Trump’s energy plan includes permitting reform, allowing different sources of energy to compete on a level playing field, opening more lands to natural gas development, reversing Biden’s climate agenda, expediting nuclear technology, and protecting the energy grid.

    Trump, unlike Biden, will not instruct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to slow down pipeline and liquid natural gas export terminal construction in the name of a transition to renewables. Nor will Trump instruct the Securities and Exchange Commission to discourage investment in pipelines, or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to discourage loans for fossil fuel projects.

    The more natural gas is exported, the lower are global emissions. With Trump’s changes, natural gas will be able to travel to where it is needed due to faster infrastructure permitting.

    As the northern hemisphere moves into its winter season, the need for more energy for warming homes and businesses becomes even more pressing, and natural gas is cleaner than coal. COP29 attendees have no reason to demonize Trump’s energy agenda, which will be a boon to the environment.

    Diana Furchtgott-Roth serves as the Director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and The Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy at The Heritage Foundation. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 22:10

  • Bessent Vs. Lutnick: Musk & RFK Push For Pro-Crypto Treasury Secretary While Bass Backs Rumored Favorite
    Bessent Vs. Lutnick: Musk & RFK Push For Pro-Crypto Treasury Secretary While Bass Backs Rumored Favorite

    Two camps have emerged between top contenders for President-elect Donald Trump’s next Treasury secretary.

    Scott Bessent, left, and Howard Lutnick 
    Photographer: Vincent Alban, Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg

    On one side, Elon Musk and RFK Jr. are pushing for Howard Lutnick, with Musk praising the Cantor FItzgerald CEO as a disruptor compared to Key Square Group (and George Soros protégé) Scott Bessent – the latter of whom met with Trump on Friday, and has the backing of many including noted investor Kyle Bass.

    “Scott Bessent is eminently more qualified than Howard Lutnick to run the U.S. Treasury,” said Bass in a Wednesday post on X. “Scott understands markets, economics, people, and geopolitics better than anyone I’ve ever interacted with. Markets have already anticipated a Bessent choice. Lutnick is not Trump’s answer.”

    In response, RFK Jr. suggested that Lutnick – who is currently working as co-chair of Trump’s transition team, would be a strong advocate for Bitcoin – which he described as “a hedge against inflation for middle class Americans,a remedy against the dollar’s downgrade from the world’s reserve currency, and the offramp from a ruinous national debt.”

    Musk suggested more people weigh in on the decision, but said he views Bessent as “a business-as-usual choice,” while Lutnick “will actually enact change.”

    According to Bloomberg, the choice is ‘creating tension and increasing the chance that another candidate rises up,’ citing anonymous people familiar with the decision making.

    Trump himself has appeared frustrated with the infighting and staff are looking for alternatives, with Robert Lighthizer, Senator William Hagerty and Apollo Global Management Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Rowan among the names in the mix.

    Lutnick was a key support to Trump’s fundraising in the final months of the campaign and he has helped lead the team’s transition to the presidency. Because of that, some key advisers are looking at what else Lutnick might take — if not Treasury — such as a plum ambassadorship, according to people familiar with the decision. –Bloomberg

    That said, Lutnick previously donated to both Hillary Clinton in 2015 and Kamala Harris’ Senate campaign in 2016, among others.

    Ultimately, the choice is up to Trump – who hasn’t shared his opinion in public.

     

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 21:35

  • Hundreds Of New UFO Sightings Reported To Pentagon
    Hundreds Of New UFO Sightings Reported To Pentagon

    Authored by Rudy Blalock via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    There were 757 reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) accounted for between May 2023 and June 2024, according to an unclassified Department of Defense (DoD) report released Thursday.

    A photo from the Department of Defense shows an “unidentified aerial phenomena.” Department of Defense

    Congress mandated the annual report by the DoD’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which is tasked with studying and cataloging reports of UAPs, formerly referred to as UFOs.

    The report said that AARO received 757 UAP reports from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, of which “485 of these reports featured UAP incidents that occurred during the reporting period. The remaining 272 reports featured UAP incidents that occurred between 2021 and 2022 but were not reported to AARO until this reporting period and consequently were not included in previous annual UAP reports.”

    The new findings bring the total number of UAP cases under AARO review to more than 1,600 as of June.

    AARO Director Dr. Jon Kosloski said at a Nov. 14 media briefing the findings have left investigators puzzled.

    “There are interesting cases that I, with my physics and engineering background and time in the IC [intelligence community], I do not understand. And I don’t know anybody else who understands them either,” Kosloski said.

    Some cases were later resolved, with 49 determined to be common objects like balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial systems. Another 243, also found to be ordinary objects, were recommended for closure by June. However, 444 were deemed inexplicable and lacking sufficient data, so they were archived for future investigation.

    Notably, 21 cases were considered to “merit further analysis” due to anomalous characteristics and behaviors, unlike typical sightings.

    Despite the unexplained incidents, the office noted that it “has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology.”

    The report said UAP cases often had consistent patterns, described with unidentified lights and round, spherical, or orb-shaped objects with distinct visual traits.

    Of the new cases, 81 were reported in U.S. military operating areas, and three reports from military aircrews described “pilots being trailed or shadowed by UAP”.

    The Federal Aviation Administration reported 392 unexplained sightings of the 757 reports since 2021.

    In one such case, the AARO resolved a commercial pilot’s sighting of white flashing lights as a Starlink satellite launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

    “AARO is investigating if other unresolved cases may be attributed to the expansion of the Starlink and other mega-constellations in low earth orbit,” the report states.

    The AARO report maintains that none of the resolved cases have substantiated “advanced foreign adversarial capabilities or breakthrough aerospace technologies.” The document also states that the AARO will immediately notify Congress if any cases indicate such, which could suggest extraterrestrial involvement.

    The report emphasized the AARO’s “rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach” and safety measures while investigating these phenomena.

    UAP Hearing

    The report was released a day after a House Oversight Committee hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth,” during which witnesses alleged government secrecy surrounding the phenomenon.

    During the hearing, a former DoD official, Luis Elizondo, said UAPs are real.

    “Advanced technologies not made by our government or any other government are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe,” he said.

    Elizondo testified that the government has operated secret programs to retrieve UAP crash materials to identify and reverse-engineer alien technology.

    “Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries. I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade secretive arms race, one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” he said.

    “Although much of my government work on the UAP subject still remains classified, excessive secrecy has led to grave misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel, and the public, all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos.

    “A small cadre within our own government involved in the UAP topic has created a culture of suppression and intimidation that I have personally been victim to, along with many of my former colleagues.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 21:00

  • Biden's Cabinet Nominees Were Completely Unqualified Compared To Trump's
    Biden’s Cabinet Nominees Were Completely Unqualified Compared To Trump’s

    Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

    The irrelevant legacy media is currently fixated on pushing the narrative that President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominees are not qualified to take the positions he has offered them.

    As we highlighted yesterday, all the right people are pissed off about it.

    Rachel Maddow, who is still adamant Trump is going to put her in a concentration camp, claimed that he is intentionally destroying the government with his cabinet nominations.

    Now here’s a quick reminder that the media said nothing when Joe Biden made some truly incomprehensible nominations.

    The post continues:

    Jared Bernstein, Chair of Council of Economic Advisors – not an economist, Bachelor’s degree in music, masters in sociology 

    Pete Buttigieg, Transportation Secretary – no transportation background, Mayor of Indiana, “pothole Pete”

    Mayorkas, DHS Secretary  – no security background, lawyer, Asst U.S. attorney, Obama transition team 

    Jennifer Granholm, Energy Secy –  no energy background, Michigan Governor

    Gina Raimondo, Commerce Secretary – No trade background, Gov of Rhode Island

    Deb Haaland, Interior Secy – New Mexico Congressman 

    And just for kicks…Bill Nye, the environmentalist “Science Guy” — no background in environmentalism or science, he’s a mechanical engineer and comedy writer.

    Just look at this crew:

    Sam Brinton is a LGBTQ activist who was hired to the office of nuclear energy. They he was later fired for being weird and stealing other people’s clothes and integrating them into their his wardrobe.

    Then there’s Choo choo Pete. His only qualification was that he liked trains as a child.

    He wasn’t experienced in the slightest.

    Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who never held any position relating to energy and doesn’t have any qualifications regarding energy just consistently pushed the new green deal agenda and railed against American energy production for four years.

    She also presided over a culture of corruption where senior DOE employees trade and own stocks related to the agency’s work, as well as  lying about her personal stock holdings.

    She’s also not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

    There was also cackles Kamala. Where do we even start with her? Perhaps the most unqualified person for Vice President ever.

    You can’t even compare Trump’s cabinet picks to this parade of clowns.

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 19:50

  • Trump Picks Fracking Boss As Next Energy Secretary
    Trump Picks Fracking Boss As Next Energy Secretary

    Donald Trump has nominated Chris Wright, who runs the Colorado-based oil and natural gas fracking services company, Liberty Energy, to lead the Energy Department. Like many other Trump picks, Wright, LIberty’s CEO, has no previous Washington experience, and instead has made a name for himself as a vocal proponent of oil and gas, saying fossil fuels are crucial for spreading prosperity and lifting people from poverty. And in news that will surely infuriate the green lobby and brainwashed progressives everywhere, Wright has said that the threat of global warming is exaggerated.

    “Chris has been a leading technologist and entrepreneur in Energy,” Trump said in a statement Saturday. “He has worked in Nuclear, Solar, Geothermal, and Oil and Gas. Most significantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics.”

    In response to the nomination, Wright said on X that “my dedication to bettering human lives remains steadfast, with a focus on making American energy more affordable, reliable, and secure. Energy is the lifeblood that makes everything in life possible. Energy matters.  I am looking forward to getting to work.” He is spot on.

    Trump said Wright, if confirmed, would also sit on the newly formed Council of National Energy that will be chaired by Doug Burgum, Trump’s nominee to lead the Interior Department.

    The Energy Department has a multi-faceted mission that includes helping to maintain the nation’s nuclear warheads, studying supercomputers and maintaining the US’s several hundred million-barrel stockpile of crude oil (his appointment likely means that the US will aggressively ramp up its refilling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve). The DOE also plays a key role in approving projects to export liquefied natural gas, something that was paused during Biden’s administration. Trump has vowed to undo the pause.

    While the department has little authority over oil and gas development, Wright will play a leading role in helping Trump carry out his energy priorities.

    Trump’s selection of Wright, whose company is among the largest providers of fracking services globally, is a show of support for the hot-button oil and gas extraction method that Trump frequently touted during the campaign to attack his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris who had previously vowed to ban fracking, even if she subsequently flip-flopped on the issue, just like on every other hot topic.

    Elsewhere, Bloomberg points out that Wright’s company published a 180-page paper this year that concluded climate change “is far from the world’s greatest threat to human life,” and that “hydrocarbons are essential to improving the wealth, health, and life opportunities for the less energized.”

    “There is no climate crisis. And we are not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video posted on his LinkedIn page. “Humans, and all complex life on earth, is simply impossible without carbon dioxide — hence the term carbon pollution is outrageous.”

    Wright holds engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. He describes himself on his Denver-based company’s website as a “tech nerd turned entrepreneur and a dedicated humanitarian.”

    Trump named Wright with backing from Continental Resources Chairman Harold Hamm, a Trump energy adviser and donor. Hamm said in an interview with the Houston-based trade publication Hart Energy that Wright was his choice for the job.

    If confirmed by Congress, Wright would play a leading role in Trump carrying out his campaign pledge to declare a national emergency on energy. Trump has cast such a declaration as helping increase domestic energy production — including for electricity — which he says is needed to help meet booming power needs for artificial intelligence.

    Under the first Trump administration, the Energy Department played a critical role in the president-elect’s efforts to revive US coal power, an initiative he’s hinted he may attempt again.

    Wright would also oversee Trump’s promise to refill the nation’s emergency cache of crude oil. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has a capacity of more than 700 million barrels, reached lows not seen since the 1980s following the Biden administration’s unprecedented drawdown of a record 180 million barrels in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    While Wright has warned that subsidies for wind and solar drive up power prices and increase grid instability, he does support alternative energy.

    “I’m not here to protect market share for oil gas,” he said during a 2022 interview with Bloomberg Television. “We should do credible things, mostly driven by market forces. But shoveling subsidies at wind and solar, which are 3% of global energy, that’s not meaningfully going to change greenhouse gas emissions. But it is going to drive electricity prices up.”

    Wright is on the board EMX Royalty Corp., a global mining royalties firm, according to his company bio, and his company is an investor in geothermal energy and sodium-ion battery technology. More importantly, Wright serves on the board of small modular reactor developer Oklo, which we first recommended to our premium subscribers back in May and have pushed aggressively every since as a long-term investment.

    We have feeling that the record number of OKLO shorts that has been built up in recent weeks amid the stock’s unprecedented meltup will be hurting very badly come Monday.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 19:15

  • What Happens To Jan. 6 Defendants After Trump's Election Win?
    What Happens To Jan. 6 Defendants After Trump’s Election Win?

    Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    After President-elect Donald Trump won a second term, multiple defendants charged for their roles in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, asked to delay their cases because they anticipate pardons from Trump.

    Supporters of President Donald Trump protest at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

    Many were denied, but each nonetheless raised questions about how Trump will handle the cases.

    According to data collected by NPR, more than 1,500 people have been charged in relation to Jan. 6, with nearly 1,000 pleading guilty.

    At least a dozen cases have been dismissed, while plenty remain with changes following Trump’s election. At the beginning of November, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia announced multiple sentences and guilty verdicts.

    Various factors could determine whether these individuals end up avoiding jail time, but perhaps the most important is Trump’s eventual control of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and who will lead that department.

    On Nov. 13, Trump announced Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz has been critical of the prosecutions and introduced a bill in July that was intended to prevent prosecutors from retaliating against Jan. 6 defendants for seeking resentencing. Gaetz has also questioned federal involvement, stating that Jan. 6 “wasn’t an insurrection” but that it “very well may have been a fedsurrection.”

    Assuming the presidency also grants Trump substantial pardon power under the Constitution: Trump has indicated that he’s open to pardoning those charged but left open the possibility that some would face punishment.

    “We will treat them fairly,” he said in January 2022. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”

    More recently, during an event in July, he was asked about individuals who assaulted officers. He said he would “absolutely” pardon the defendants “if they’re innocent” and added that “they were convicted by a very tough system.”

    More than 70 defendants have received a mixed verdict, and so far, more than 1,000 people have been sentenced, with 64 percent receiving prison time, according to NPR data. Some defendants have also taken plea deals.

    “I think there’s going to be a complete second look at all of the prosecutions,” Robert Ray, a former Trump impeachment attorney, told The Epoch Times, while noting the large number of cases brought. He added that a second look wouldn’t “necessarily yield a favorable result with regard to each and every defendant, but I think there’s going to be a pretty strenuous exercise of the pardon and commutation power to deal with overreaching [by prosecutors].”

    John Pierce, an attorney who has represented Jan. 6 defendants, told The Epoch Times he expects a “blanket pardon,” while Trump–Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president-elect “will make pardon decisions on a case-by-case basis.”

    Politics of Pardons

    It’s unclear which individuals Trump will consider for pardon.

    “That’s the million-dollar question,” Lori Ulrich, an attorney with the public defender’s office, told The Epoch Times. She is currently representing Joseph Fischer, whose case made it to the Supreme Court this year.

    Fischer and other defendants face a myriad of charges, including an obstruction charge the Supreme Court addressed this summer in Fischer v. United States. It’s unclear how Trump’s DOJ will apply that ruling, but the president-elect’s pardons could be influenced by factors such as the politics surrounding his pardons.

    “If President Biden either pardons or commutes the sentences for Hunter Biden, that gives President Trump political cover to either pardon or commute the non-violent J6 offenders, [as well as] Peter Navarro, and Steve Bannon, if he chooses to,” John Shu, a constitutional law expert who served in both Bush administrations, told The Epoch Times.

    Shu was referring to President Joe Biden’s son, who was convicted in September of various tax offenses. Both of Trump’s former White House advisers, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, could be pardoned after each served a four month sentences for defying subpoenas from the House committee that investigated Jan. 6.

    A CBS poll found that three years after the events of Jan. 6, 78 percent of Americans expressed disapproval toward “actions of those who forced their way into the Capitol.”

    William Shipley, an attorney for one of the defendants, suggested in a motion on Nov. 10 that the election didn’t reflect well on the DOJ’s efforts.

    “Defendant Baker would point out that the ‘people’ on behalf of whom the Government purports to speak made themselves heard clearly on November 5, and that should mean something to the Department of Justice without regard to what Administration is now in charge,” Shipley said in a motion for defendant Stephen Michael Baker.

    That motion, which asked for a delay in proceedings, was quickly rejected by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper this month.

    Upon entering office, Trump’s pardon power would allow him to commute sentences and pardon convicts who have already served time, such as Ulrich’s client, Riley Williams. Williams was accused of helping to steal then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop. She was found guilty on two felony counts, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on two other counts, including aiding and abetting theft of government property.

    Non-Violent Offenders

    Shu told The Epoch Times that pardons for non-violent offenders were more politically palatable.

    In August, the DOJ said that approximately 140 police officers were assaulted on Jan. 6, while more than 500 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees. It added that “approximately 163 individuals … have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.”

    Among those are Daniel Ball, who pleaded not guilty but whom the DOJ accused of, among other things, “throwing an explosive device that detonated upon at least 25 officers.” Others included a father-son pair who pleaded guilty in January, and Zachary Alam, who was found guilty last year.

    David Gelman, an attorney and former Trump campaign surrogate, told The Epoch Times that re-examining the Jan. 6 prosecutions would have to occur on a “case-by-case basis” but indicated that Trump could consider violence in choosing how to exercise his pardon power.

    Trump said at a town hall in 2023 that he was “inclined to pardon many of” the defendants who had been convicted. “I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” he said.

    Earlier this year, he started one of his rallies with a recording of the national anthem sung by Jan. 6 prisoners. He also vowed in March that his “first acts” as president would be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned,” he wrote on his Truth Social account.

    In a motion filed just after the election, one of the Jan. 6 defendants, Anna Lichnowski, asked her judge to postpone sentencing partly on the basis that her offenses were non-violent, making her “a good candidate for a pardon,” according to her attorney.

    Lichnowski was one of a series of defendants who filed motions for some kind of delay in their cases after Trump’s victory. Many of them have been denied, including by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who said that Trump’s potential pardon was “irrelevant” to Lichnowski’s case.

    “The potential future exercise of the discretionary pardon power, an Executive Branch authority, is irrelevant to the Court’s obligation to carry out the legal responsibilities of the Judicial Branch,” Walton said in a Nov. 7 court order.

    Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, similarly resisted the motions while arguing that the public is interested in a quick administration of justice.

    Graves will likely exit the DOJ in Trump’s second term, experts speculated—something that is expected for many prosecutors at the beginning of a new administration. During Trump’s and Biden’s first terms, dozens of prosecutors were asked to leave.

    The vast majority of defendants have been charged with a trespassing offense, the use of which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld in October. Defendant Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump and a former county commissioner from New Mexico, had asked the court to review the DOJ’s use of this charge against him.

    In a 2–1 decision, the court held that the DOJ could apply the trespassing law without proving that he was aware that former Vice President Mike Pence’s presence on the Capitol grounds was the reason for restricting that area.

    Obstruction Charge

    In June, the Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the DOJ had misinterpreted a financial reform law in attempting to accuse the Jan. 6 defendants of obstructing an official proceeding.

    The majority opinion in that case, Fischer v. United States, held that the DOJ erred in its attempt to disentangle two portions of the Sarbanes–Oxley financial reform law (Section 1512(c)(1) and (c)(2)).

    The DOJ had argued that the law allowed prosecutions that targeted obstructive conduct in a catch-all way that included methods other than those mentioned at the beginning of the section.

    A majority of the Supreme Court, including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, disagreed and held: “To prove a violation of §1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so.”

    It’s unclear how Trump and his DOJ will apply the Fischer decision to the defendants’ unique circumstances. It carries a 20-year maximum sentence.

    In November, the DOJ said that “approximately 259 defendants who, at the time Fischer was decided, were charged with or convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1512 to determine whether the charge should continue to be prosecuted.”

    The DOJ said that after Fischer, the government “decided to forgo the Section 1512(c)(2) charge for approximately 96 defendants, will continue to pursue the charge for approximately 13 defendants, and continues to assess the remaining defendants.”

    Approximately 133 were sentenced, and more than half were convicted of that offense and other felonies, according to DOJ data from August.

    Austin Alonzo contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 18:40

  • "We Don't Have Enough…": Russia Temporarily Limits Exports Of Enriched Uranium To U.S.
    “We Don’t Have Enough…”: Russia Temporarily Limits Exports Of Enriched Uranium To U.S.

    In news that will act as a headwind for the U.S.’s re-emerging nuclear industry, it was reported last week that Russia is temporarily restricting enriched uranium exports to the U.S., raising supply concerns for reactors that produce nearly 20% of the nation’s electricity.

    Russia provided no details or timeline for its uranium export restrictions in a Friday Telegram statement, though utilities’ advance purchasing likely mitigates immediate effects, Bloomberg wrote in a report on Friday.

    Amid global backlash over its war in Ukraine, Russia continues leveraging energy as a geopolitical tool, also cutting gas supplies to Austria—ending a 60-year agreement that fulfills 80% of its demand—citing a legal dispute.

    Bloomberg noted that Russia’s move targets a key U.S. vulnerability in the nuclear fuel cycle, as it controls nearly half of global uranium enrichment capacity and supplied over a quarter of U.S. enriched fuel last year.

    Chris Gadomski, head nuclear analyst for BloombergNEF commented: “We don’t have enough enriched uranium here. They should have been stockpiling enriched uranium in anticipation of this happening.”

    While 2023 deliveries are largely complete, a prolonged ban could affect reactor operators by 2025, leaving some without alternative suppliers.

    Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, which tracks uranium-fuel markets, told Bloomberg: “There would be some utilities maybe that would be expecting that material and now might not get it.”

    Cameco spokeswoman Veronica Baker added: “To break the dependence on Russia and other state-owned enterprises, coordinated western responses are required.”

    The Biden administration has launched a multibillion-dollar initiative to revive domestic uranium enrichment, but progress is limited, with only one U.S. commercial facility, owned by Urenco Ltd., supplying about a third of the enriched uranium for American reactors. U

    renco plans a 15% capacity increase by 2027, citing the urgency of reducing reliance on unstable foreign sources.

    Major U.S. nuclear operators, including Constellation Energy and Centrus Energy, have waivers to import Russian fuel, but Centrus, the top U.S. trader of Russian uranium, is exploring alternatives in case Russia’s supplier, Tenex, fails to meet its obligations.

    Russia says the restrictions respond to a U.S. ban on Russian enriched uranium, signed by President Biden in May but allowing shipments until 2028 through waivers.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 18:05

  • BCA: Bitcoin Closes In On $100,000, But The Ultimate Destination Is Over $200,000+
    BCA: Bitcoin Closes In On $100,000, But The Ultimate Destination Is Over $200,000+

    By Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research

    Executive Summary

    • The value of both gold and bitcoin comes from their so-called ‘network effect’.

    • The network effect of both gold and bitcoin comes from the collective belief that they are the non-confiscatable assets to own in a fiat monetary system, as an insurance against hyperinflation, banking system failure, or state expropriation.

    • As global wealth rises, the value of the network effect of both gold and bitcoin will also rise.

    • But as bitcoin takes market share from gold, bitcoin has considerably more upside than gold.

    • Despite bitcoin’s election-fuelled rally, its 260-day complexity is not yet close to the 1.2 level that would signal the start of another crypto winter.

    • Hence, while we should expect a near-term retracement, bitcoin’s structural uptrend is intact with an ultimate destination of $200,000+

    • 10-year T-bonds and Portuguese stocks are tactically oversold.

    Back in 2021, I penned a report explaining why bitcoin was headed to $100,000+. Suffice to say, my $100,000+ forecast stirred a hornets’ nest, even here at BCA. The naysayers pushed back hard, claiming that bitcoin was a ‘Ponzi scheme’ or, at the very least, a dangerous bubble.

    Yet three years on, my prediction has been vindicated both for its price forecast and its underlying justification. Now, with the bitcoin price closing in on $100,000, is it time to take profits? The answer depends on whether you are a trader or a long-term holder.

    Bitcoin’s progress has always been two steps forward, one step back. After its recent surge, premised on the more ‘bitcoin friendly’ candidate winning the US presidency, we can expect some near-term retracement – as was the case in April this year. On a multiyear horizon though, bitcoin’s structural uptrend is intact and will ultimately take it to $200,000+ (Chart 1).

    The Value Of Gold And Bitcoin Come From Their ‘Non-Confiscatability’

    To understand the value of bitcoin we must understand the value of gold. With gold predominantly used as jewellery, many people think that the value of gold comes from its properties as a precious metal, especially the chemical inertness that keeps it eternally beautiful. But this is a misunderstanding.

    The other precious metals that are gold’s neighbours in groups 10 and 11 of the periodic table – silver, platinum, and palladium – possess identical properties to gold. This means that we can quantify gold’s value as a precious metal as being gold’s relative scarcity versus, say, silver multiplied by the price of silver.

    Today, gold is roughly eight times as scarce as silver, so gold’s value as a precious metal is the price of silver, $30/oz, times eight, which equals $240/oz. This comprises just 10 percent of gold’s current market price of $2550/oz (Chart 2).

    Yet for centuries, the gold price did just equal its scarcity versus silver multiplied by the silver price. The relationship ended only when the world moved to a fiat monetary system in 1931, and then again in 1971. In a fiat monetary system, the gold price surges to many multiples of its scarcity versus silver (Chart 3).

    This provides the compelling proof that in a fiat monetary system, most of gold’s value comes not from its use as a precious metal. Most of gold’s value comes from the network of marginal buyers who are holding it for what I call its ‘non-confiscability’. Unlike financial assets, bank deposits, or cash, the state cannot confiscate gold via fiat monetary inflation. This is ensured by gold’s limited supply. Nor can gold be confiscated by the higher risk of a banking system failure that a fiat monetary system aggravates.

    Can we justify the price of gold instead by the high cost of mining it? No, the causality runs the other way. The cost of mining gold is driven by its market price, as miners grab the largest share of its selling price that they can.

    What about central bank purchases of gold? Central bank reserves also hold gold rather than foreign fiat currencies for gold’s non-confiscatability. A foreign fiat currency can be confiscated via devaluation by its government or central bank, but gold cannot.

    All of which brings us to two key points:

    First, given that gold’s above-ground market value is $19 trillion,1 the majority, around $17 trillion comes from the network of holders who value gold for its non-confiscatability.

    Second, just like gold, bitcoin cannot be confiscated by monetary inflation or banking system failure (Chart 4). Additionally, and
    unlike gold, it is difficult for the state to confiscate it by outright expropriation. Yet bitcoin, with a market value of $1.5 trillion comprises less than 10 percent of the total market for non-confiscatable assets. As bitcoin’s share of this market increases, and the supply of bitcoins reaches its upper limit, bitcoin’s price has substantial upside.

    The Value Of Bitcoin’s ‘Network Effect’ Has Substantial Upside

    In essence, the value of both gold and bitcoin comes from their so-called ‘network effect’. A network effect creates a self-reinforcing cycle of value where each new user makes the network more valuable for everyone.

    In the case of both gold and bitcoin, their network effect come from the collective belief that they are the non-confiscatable assets to own in a fiat monetary system. And that a certain proportion of total wealth must be held in these non-confiscatable assets as an insurance against hyperinflation, banking system failure, or state expropriation.

    You might ask, what is the difference between a network effect based on collective belief and a Ponzi Scheme? The answer is that a Ponzi Scheme relies on an exponential growth of its network on a promise to get-rich-quick. Once that exponential growth ends, as it must, the value of the network collapses.

    By contrast, gold’s network effect has existed in relatively stable form since 1971, and bitcoin’s network effect has existed for over ten years. And their entire raison d’être is an insurance against the get-poor-quick that comes from hyperinflation, banking system failure, or state expropriation.

    The upshot is that we can value the gold and bitcoin networks as the product of three terms:

    1. Global wealth

    2. Global wealth share held in the non-confiscatable asset-class

    3. Non-confiscatable asset-class share held in gold/bitcoin

    For gold, this means that if global wealth rose by say, 20 percent in the coming 2-3 years and the global wealth share held in the non-confiscatable asset-class held constant, while bitcoin eroded the non-confiscatable asset-class share held in gold from 90 to 80 percent, then the gold price would nevertheless increase by about 7 percent. Under the same premise though, the bitcoin price would increase by about 140 percent3 to $200,000+.

    What does our proprietary analysis of price trend complexity reveal for gold and bitcoin? Gold’s 260-day price rally complexity (fractal dimension) recently reached the point of collapse that has reliably signalled tactical retracements. This justifies our  current tactical short position in gold (Chart 5).

    In the case of bitcoin, its major structural downtrends – so-called ‘crypto winters’ – have started when the preceding rally’s 260-day complexity collapsed to a level of 1.2 (Chart 6).

    Despite bitcoin’s election-fuelled rally, its long-term complexity has not collapsed to the level that would signal the start of another crypto winter. Hence, while we should expect a near-term retracement, bitcoin’s structural uptrend is still intact with an ultimate  destination of $200,000+.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 17:30

  • Firearm Suppressor Demand Explodes At Historic Rate 
    Firearm Suppressor Demand Explodes At Historic Rate 

    In a recent Freedom of Information Act request by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) data shows an explosion in Americans purchasing a firearm suppressor. 

    NSSF pointed out in the report: “American gun owners are on track to exceed 87 years of registered silencers in just the latest three years.” 

    Here are the numbers: 

    Today, the ATF is processing suppressor applications in not only record time but in some instances the same day. Long gone is the wait time barrier and it is drawing shooters and hunters to purchase a suppressor who had previously dreaded long wait time to purchase one. As a result, silencer registration metrics are off the chart.

    The now discontinued ATF Firearms Commerce in the United States report displayed the number of silencers that were registered in each state. The May 2021 edition reported 2,664,774 silencers in the US, more than doubling the 1.3 million silencers disclosed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2017.

    In a recent Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), NSSF received from ATF the additional number of silencers from May 2021 to July 2024. An incredible 2,193,123 more suppressors are protecting the hearing of hunters and shooters. That means a whopping 4.86 million silencers and counting are in possession by law-abiding Americans.

    The number of suppressors owned by law-abiding Americans has soared in recent years. 

    The surge in suppressor demand must be great news for SilencerCo, one of the largest firearm suppressor companies in the US. 

    However, for the overall firearms industry, hard times have been underway since the gun bubble popped in 2021, after multiple years of panic buying by Americans following the crime tsunami sparked by failed progressive “defund the police” policies. 

    The latest National Instant Criminal Background System (NICS) data shows the boom and bust cycle of gun buying. Keep in mind that NICS checks are a proxy for the number of guns sold and are not exact because the background checks are performed on the buyer rather than the gun.

    NICS checks are still well above a 20-year trend and seasonally rising into the end of the year.

    Meanwhile, the billionaire-funded anti-gun group “Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund” via its “The Smoking Gun” website lost its mind about law-abiding Americans purchasing suppressors. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 16:55

  • It's Trump's Transition And He Calls The Shots
    It’s Trump’s Transition And He Calls The Shots

    Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,

    Since Election Day, the Trump transition has been copying and pasting the same quote again and again into emails to reporters seeking comment on this or that presidential appointment.

    “President-Elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration soon,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt always writes without fail. “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”

    The boilerplate delivers an obvious truth that many in Washington, D.C., find uncomfortable or, in some cases, unimaginable: The president-elect alone, not his senior staff, and certainly not any outside organization, is calling the shots.

    Enter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    The famous vaccine skeptic is a new addition to the Trump orbit. He abandoned his own presidential campaign over the summer before backing the Republican candidate, delivering an unusual but no less invaluable endorsement in the final stretch of the election season. “It is a realignment,” Tucker Carlson later said of the coalition that included RFK Jr., whose addition he helped facilitate. “It is unbelievable.” The Kennedy apostate, it seemed at the time, was only there to deliver a bit of political capital.

    Kennedy is an environmental lawyer who believes in climate change and who sued oil companies. He is a Catholic but also a liberal who believes in abortion rights. He is a crusader against what he has described as “Big Banks” and “Big Data” and “Big Tech” and “Big Pharma.”

    The one thing Kennedy would never be? The Health and Human Services Secretary. So said Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of the Trump transition committee. Just days before the election, he told CNN that Kennedy was “not getting a job for HHS.” Asked anchor Kaitlin Collins, “He would not be in charge of HHS?” Replied Lutnick, “No, of course not.”

    And then, nine days after the election, Trump announced his intent to nominate RFK Jr. to that HHS post.

    “I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,” Kennedy said in a statement.

    Pharmaceutical stocks stumbled. Democrats on Capitol Hill were aghast. Republicans were mostly silent. Asked for reaction, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, whom Republicans elected to serve as Senate majority leader in the next Congress, told reporters, “I don’t have one at this point.”

    Not all of Trump’s picks were so controversial. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, for instance, is well-respected among his colleagues on the Hill and is considered a shoo-in for secretary of state. Others reflected the realignment that Carlson referenced on the campaign trail, like former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a lapsed Democrat whom Trump tapped to serve as his director of national intelligence.

    And then there is former Rep. Matt Gaetz. RealClearPolitics first reported that the Florida Republican was about to resign after Trump announced his intent to nominate him to be attorney general. His hasty resignation likely precludes the House Ethics Committee from releasing a report that includes allegations he had sex with a minor. Gaetz denies the allegations. Some Republicans still find them disqualifying.

    Trump made the decision, according to Politico, after his longtime confidant Boris Epshteyn lobbied on Gaetz’s behalf the night before. Incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was reportedly unaware and in a different part of the plane during the deal-making.

    The developments reflect a president-elect who is much more hands-on this time around and, perhaps, a transition chief unaware of how Trump operates.

    “Lutnick doesn’t understand the pre-election transition was just a placeholder,” said one former White House official in close contact with the transition team. “He’s not even remotely in charge anymore, his role was to warm up the lists, then Trump and team add and make real decisions.”

    “Did he think he was picking the Cabinet?” the Trump World source quipped to RealClearPolitics. “Maybe he forgot who won 312 electoral votes.”

    Lutnick had also proclaimed during the campaign that anyone affiliated with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 was “radioactive.” But numerous individuals with Project 2025 on their resumes have been tapped for key posts (Tom Homan was named “border czar”) or are even helping to lead the transition (John Ratcliffe is involved in the national security teams).

    A White House transition is a daunting undertaking for any president-elect. Beyond just the Cabinet, thousands of mid and lower-level positions across the government must be filled. Advisers close to the president-elect say that Trump relies on the advice and counsel of Wiles and Lutnick. No longer a political novice, though, like he was the last time, he is making the final calls.

    “We are not the candidate. We are not the president. It is his campaign, his election, and his presidency,” the former White House aide explained. “We can only help if asked. Decisions are all his.”

    The product of those decisions? A Cabinet lineup that reflects the realignment that Trump promised, even if it isn’t the one that Washington would prefer. At Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach residence, Trump reveled in his heterodox picks.

    At a gala celebrating the anniversary of the America First Policy Institute, a think tank staffed with loyalists, he pointed to RFK Jr. in the crowd before vowing that his HHS nominee would “do some unbelievable things that no one else could accomplish.”

    It seemed until recently that no one else besides Trump could imagine RFK Jr. in that role. It was his decision alone.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 16:20

  • Israeli Troops Reach Deepest Point In Lebanon Since Ground Op Began
    Israeli Troops Reach Deepest Point In Lebanon Since Ground Op Began

    The Israeli military has reached the deepest point in Lebanon since the ground offensive began about six weeks ago. This has been reported by both Lebanese and Israeli media, amid raging battles with Hezbollah on Saturday.

    “The state-run National News Agency reported that Israeli troops temporarily captured a strategic hill in the southern Lebanese village of Shamaa, about five kilometers (3 miles) from the border early Saturday, before later being pushed back,” Israeli media reports. “The outlet claimed soldiers detonated several buildings including a shrine before they withdrew.”

    Image source: Israeli Army

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that troops “continue their limited, localized, and targeted operational activity in southern Lebanon.”

    Airstrikes continue to reach across the country, but it is the ground war which remains the riskiest endeavor for the IDF.  For example on Wednesday, the IDF announced that six soldiers and officers from its Golani Brigade were killed in a single combat action.

    They were reportedly ambushed by Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, after which a lengthy firefight ensued. It is rare for that many Israeli troops to die in a single ground engagement:

    Israel suffered one of its deadliest days of its ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Wednesday, November 13, when six of its soldiers were killed in combat near the border.

    The soldiers “fell during combat in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a statement. Their deaths mean 47 Israeli troops have been killed in combat with Hezbollah since September 30, when Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon. The army’s announcement came after Israel’s new Defense Minister Israel Katz said there would be no easing up in the war against Hezbollah.

    As for the new action in Shamaa, the IDF has reportedly since retreated. Warplanes have meanwhile continued to pound Beirut’s southern suburbs, as well as the port city of Tyre.

    Tyre has been issued new evacuation orders this weekend, and over a dozen buildings have been destroyed in new rounds of strikes. The last couple weeks have seen a new focus on targeting alleged Hezbollah hideouts in the densely populated southern city.

    Lebanon’s government has said several paramedics and emergency workers have been killed and wounded in some of these latest air raids. The country has remained helpless under Israeli airpower, having no real air force with modern jets to speak of. The Lebanese Army also doesn’t have anti-air defense missile systems, and all of this is largely due to US policy.

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

    Hezbollah has also not relented in its rocket attacks on Israel, launching at least 65 projectiles across the border Saturday. Much of the Israeli population of the north remains evacuated from their homes on an indefinite basis.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 15:45

  • Northern California County Voters On Track To Approve Drug-Testing Welfare-Recipients
    Northern California County Voters On Track To Approve Drug-Testing Welfare-Recipients

    Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

    San Joaquin County voters are on track to approve ballot Measure R, which would require those who receive benefits from the county to submit to drug screening and potentially treatment. Seniors over the age of 65, as well as those with dependent children, would be exempted.

    The ordinance, which has so far received 74.7 percent of the vote in the general election, as of Nov. 15, targets those suspected of using narcotics. If it passes, these individuals would be required to comply with drug screening to be eligible for benefits. If they test positive, they would be required to be evaluated professionally and potentially referred to treatment programs. The county would be able to deny payments in instances where recipients do not comply.

    “This ordinance is intended to help address the overdose epidemic by requiring individuals who receive assistance through the General Assistance program, and who have been professionally evaluated and determined to need treatment, to participate in drug abuse treatment programs,” Measure R’s text reads.

    While some individuals will be required to participate in treatment programs, “Measure R does not require recipients to maintain sobriety to be eligible for General Assistance benefits,” according to an analysis by the county counsel.

    State law requires all counties in California to fund and administer programs that provide aid and support to extremely poor single adults.

    In 2024, general assistance recipients in San Joaquin County receive no more than $75 per month issued via an EBT card or $367 per month for those who live in single-room low-cost housing, with $340 paid directly to the recipient’s landlord.

    “Two to three people a week are dying of overdoses from Fentanyl and other deadly drugs in San Joaquin County,” wrote the San Joaquin Board of Supervisors in support of the initiative. “Offers of treatment without accountability are not enough. We must do more to get people into treatment and save lives.”

    Like much of the nation, San Joaquin—a Northern California county with a population of around 800,000—is experiencing a fentanyl crisis, say officials, which has led to millions of dollars in federal funding sent to Central Valley law enforcement to stymie the problem.

    Measure R would go into effect on Jan. 2, 2025.

    San Francisco

    The San Joaquin measure is similar to one passed by San Francisco voters earlier this year. Proposition F, approved by more than 58 percent of voters on March 5, requires single adults under the age 65 with no dependents and who receive benefits from San Francisco’s County Adult Assistance Program, to take a drug test if they are suspected to be suffering from substance abuse disorder.

    “Addiction is complicated and there are no easy paths, but fentanyl is so deadly that we need more tools to get people into treatment,” Mayor London Breed posted on March 6 on X.

    Payments in the Bay Area city average $712 per month for housed recipients and about $109 monthly for the homeless, according to the text of Proposition F.

    Participating in treatment programs is mandatory, but, like San Joaquin’s proposal, stopping the use of drugs is not.

    “Although reasonable participation in treatment programs will be required, sobriety of participants will not be,” Prop F reads.

    “Perfection isn’t the goal; improved health and life outcomes is.”

    Critics say that without more intervention, drug users are unlikely to change their habits.

    “This is a smokescreen,” Tony Hall, former San Francisco supervisor, told EpochTV’s “California Insider” opinion channel. “This is a step in the right direction … but it doesn’t do anything.”

    The San Francisco measure takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 15:10

  • Ahead Of Starship's Next Flight, SpaceX President Projects 400 Launches During Trump Era 
    Ahead Of Starship’s Next Flight, SpaceX President Projects 400 Launches During Trump Era 

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced on X that the sixth test flight of the Starship megarocket would take place on Tuesday. Test flights of the new rocket have been steadily increasing, as Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, told investors the company plans hundreds of Starship rocket launches during President Trump’s second term. 

    The sixth flight test of Starship is targeted for 1600 Central Time on Tuesday. SpaceX’s next test flight “aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online,” the company wrote in a press release, adding, “Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean.” 

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    Additionally, the Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX’s Gwynne Shotwell attended an investor event on Friday, where she stated that Starship launches over the next four years could exceed 400. 

    Shotwell told investors that she hopes the Trump administration and Musk’s government-efficiency commission will help spur innovation across many industries. The current regulation regime pushed by Democrats has been disastrous for this nation, mainly because climate crisis policies result in de-growth and inflation.

    “Technology is easy. Physics is easy. People are hard,” Shotwell said, emphasizing, “And regulator people are the hardest.”

    A Trump victory also means the era of a rogue Biden-Harris administration weaponizing federal agencies against SpaceX will likely end.

    SpaceX has so far conducted five Starship test launches, with test 5 making history…

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    Musk stated months ago that he projects the first Mars mission with Starship will be when the “next Earth-Mars transfer window opens in two years.” 

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    The latest valuation placed on SpaceX is around $250 billion, according to a Financial Times report that cited sources who expect the company to offer existing shares around $135 next month. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 14:35

  • The Seeds Of Social Revolution: Extreme Wealth Inequality
    The Seeds Of Social Revolution: Extreme Wealth Inequality

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    The seeds of social revolution have been sown and sprouted. What we harvest is up to us.

    If there is any potential catalyst for social upheaval that attracts less attention than extreme wealth inequality, it’s mighty obscure. As I noted yesterday, the present extreme of wealth inequality draws an occasional bit of lip service or handwringing, but very little serious focus, despite ample historical foundations for its role in sowing the seeds of social revolutions.

    As I tried to explain in yesterday’s post, extreme wealth inequality might not be the spark that ignites a revolution, but it is a tectonic shift that destabilizes the social order. For extreme wealth inequality isn’t a consequence of fate or sorcery; it is the consequence of policies that favor the few at the expense of the many, a reality that is exceedingly uncomfortable for those benefiting from the asymmetry.

    For a rundown of the policies that have exacerbated wealth inequality, consider the following excerpts from Time magazine, September 2020: The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% — And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure.

    “There are some who blame the current plight of working Americans on structural changes in the underlying economy–on automation, and especially on globalization. According to this popular narrative, the lower wages of the past 40 years were the unfortunate but necessary price of keeping American businesses competitive in an increasingly cutthroat global market. But in fact, the $50 trillion transfer of wealth the RAND report documents has occurred entirely within the American economy, not between it and its trading partners. No, this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn’t inevitable; it was a choice–a direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.

    We chose to cut taxes on billionaires and to deregulate the financial industry. We chose to allow CEOs to manipulate share prices through stock buybacks, and to lavishly reward themselves with the proceeds. We chose to permit giant corporations, through mergers and acquisitions, to accumulate the vast monopoly power necessary to dictate both prices charged and wages paid. We chose to erode the minimum wage and the overtime threshold and the bargaining power of labor. For four decades, we chose to elect political leaders who put the material interests of the rich and powerful above those of the American people.”

    In other words, extreme wealth inequality is not the result of economic forces outside our control; it’s the result of our policy responses to changing social, political and economic conditions. While those benefiting from the policies attribute the asymmetric distribution of the economy’s gains to “forces outside our control” such as globalization and automation, those losing ground sense that this is an excuse for taking advantage of the situation, to the detriment of the national interest.

    We can best understand extreme wealth inequality as the destabilizing result of one set of competing economic interests gaining dominance over other economic interests: broadly speaking, the balance between labor and capital has collapsed in favor of capital. To take one example, consider the minimum wage, which did not kept up with inflation for decades as a policy decision.

    The different interests within each sector can also destabilize into asymmetric distributions. For example, within the broad category of capital, there are many competing interests: industrial capital, financial capital, land-based capital, domestic and global interests, and so on. Within labor, there are blue-collar and white collar interests, and gradations of skills, regional interests, and so on.

    Broadly speaking, globalization and financialization greatly increased the share of some interests at the expense of others.

    The social boundaries of what’s acceptable and unacceptable change, enabling or restricting financial policies. For example, in the postwar boom of the 1950s, corporate CEOs earned multiples of their average employee that by today’s standards were ludicrously low, as present-day CEOs routinely take home compensation (including stock options) that are in the tens of millions of dollars annually.

    In the broad sweep of history, extreme asymmetries in the distribution of the economy’s output are rebalanced one way or the other, if not with policy changes than by the overthrow of the status quo. The book The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century breaks down the various pieces of this complex puzzle.

    The history and data are too varied to be easily summarized, but we can start with humanity’s innate sense of fairness in social organizations: we sense when our contributions are getting short shrift while others are grabbing shares that are not commensurate with their contributions–despite their claims to “earning” their outsized shares.

    Some write this off as envy, and to be sure envy is an innate human response, but fairness and envy are two different things. If someone strips us of power that we once held to benefit their own accumulation of wealth, our sense that this is unfair is not envy.

    We seem to be approaching the point where a rebalancing of extreme asymmetries is at hand, and so we have to choose between policy changes and social upheaval. Those benefiting from the current asymmetrical distribution naturally feel that all is right with the world, while those whose purchasing power and political power have been stripmined feel that regaining what was taken from them is only fair.

    Here’s the data on our asymmetric distribution of wealth again. You can skip this if you’ve already seen the charts.

    The RAND study Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 concluded that capital siphoned $50 trillion from labor from 1975 to 2018.

    Using data from the Federal Reserve’s FRED database (series A4102E1A156NBEA), correspondent Alain M. calculated the actual sum for the period 1970 to 2022 (2022 being the most recent data available) was a staggering $149 trillion: his spreadsheet is available here as a PDF: Employees Share of Gross Domestic Income 1970-2022.

    If wage earners’ share of Gross Domestic Income had remained at 51% instead of declining to 43%, wage earners would have received an additional $149 trillion over those 52 years.

    As GDP and household wealth have soared, he bottom 50% of American households’ share of the nation’s financial wealth has declined.

    The top 0.01%’s wealth soared far above inflation.

    The ownership of stocks in concentrated in the top 10% households, who own 90% of this asset class.

    Housing prices have risen sharply, becoming unaffordable for the majority of households. Those who bought homes long ago in desirable areas have reaped enormous gains, a generational / class / regional asymmetry.

    The seeds of social revolution have been sown and sprouted. What we harvest is up to us.

    *  *  *

    Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 14:00

  • Snow Threat For "Midwest Into Appalachians" Next Week 
    Snow Threat For “Midwest Into Appalachians” Next Week 

    Computer models are signaling the potential for a snowstorm to develop by the end of next week, impacting areas across Ohio Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. 

    “Huge storm potential next week with similarities to Nov 25 1950. Upper low bellies through with heavy midwest into Appalachians snow later next week,” meteorologist Joe Bastardi wrote on X. 

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    “Keeping an eye on a big time storm potential across the Ohio Valley into the mid-atlantic/northeast Wednesday into Thursday,” meteorologist Ryan Kane wrote on X. 

    Kane noted, “Models continue to suggest a very strong ULL. Lots snow coming for Appalachians! Will be tracking this over the next few days.” 

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    He added…

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    Here’s what others are saying about accumulating snow threats next week…

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    White Christmas?

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    Lots of snow in Europe?

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    All eyes are on the end of next week. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 13:25

  • The Revolution Of 2024
    The Revolution Of 2024

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

    People are out and about, smiling at each other. It’s been true since the morning after the election, the results of which defied every prediction. Who doesn’t like to see the smug elites who have ruled the world for five awful years taken down a peg? 

    More than that, there are hints of a return to sanity. Mainstream advertisers are suddenly returning to X, putting their economic interest above their tribalist loyalties. The editor of pro-lockdowns Scientific American, which had long blessed totalitarian measures as true science, has resigned. 

    The attempt to pillage InfoWars and give it to The Onion has been reversed by a federal judge. That might be a fluke or might not be: maybe the lawfare is dialing back too. The cabinet of the incoming administration is being filled by voices that were fully censored for years. Employees are reportedly packing their bags at the FDA and other agencies. 

    Mainstream news commentators are sputtering around with less bravado than they have shown in years. CNN is firing major personalities.

    Trump is talking about abolishing the income tax and granting $10K in tax credits per homeschooled child, not to mention blowing up college accreditation systems, among other sweeping changes. 

    The American Bastille day is coming, not only freeing the political prisoners of January 6 but also many of the unjustly persecuted including Ross Ulbricht, Roger Ver, and Ian Freeman, among so many others. That will be a day of rejoicing. 

    Oh, and peace seems to have broken out in some contentious areas of the world, for now. 

    What is happening? This is not the usual transfer of the resident of the White House. This is starting to look like an actual transfer of power, not just from Biden to Trump but from the permanent government – ensconced in many sectors – that has been long in hiding to an entirely new form of government responsive to actual voters. 

    As it turns out, there was no late surge for Kamala Harris. All the polls were wrong, and the rest was media blather. What was correct were the betting odds on Polymarket, and only days later, the FBI raided the 26-year-old founder’s home and confiscated his phone and laptop. 

    There are still many millions of missing voters, people who supposedly showed up for Biden in 2020 but stayed home this time. Meanwhile, there has been a historic shift in all races, ethnicities, and regions, with even the possibility of flipping California from blue to red in the future. 

    After decades of academic slicing and dicing of the population according to ever more eccentric identity buckets involving race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual interest, along with countless thousands of studies documenting deep complexity over intersectionality, the driving force of the election was simple: class, and the few intellectuals and some wealthy entrepreneurs who understand that. 

    The division was not really left vs right. It was workers vs laptoppers, wage earners vs six-figure stay-at-homers, bottom half vs top 5 percent, people with actual skills vs weaponized resume wielders, and those with affection for old-world values vs those whose educations have beaten it out of them for purposes of career advancement. 

    The silent majority has never been so suddenly loud. It just so happened that the heavily privileged had come to inhabit easily identifiable sectors of American society and, in the end, had no choice but hitch the whole of the overclass wagon to the fortunes of a candidate like themselves (Kamala) but who was unable to pull off a compelling masquerade. Not even a parade of well-paid celebrity endorsements could save her from total rebuke at the polls. 

    Sylvester Stallone called Trump a second George Washington but another reference point might be Andrew Jackson. The overwhelming victory for Trump is on a scale not seen since 1828 when, four years after the presidency was stolen from Jackson, Old Hickory came back in a wild landslide and cleaned up Washington. Trump arrives in Washington with a mandate for the same, with 81% of the public demanding that the government shrink in size and power. 

    It has all happened so quickly. We are barely ten days into the realization of what just transpired and the entire lay of the land seems different, like a tectonic shift in politics, culture, mood, and possibilities. We are even seeing blunt and open talk about the horrendous Covid response that so utterly demoralized the country and the world, after years of silence on the topic. We have promised hearings coming, and court cases galore now on fast track. 

    The sudden coming together of three great sectors of anti-establishment fury – MAGA, MAHA, and DOGE – in the last two months of the election of 2024 is one for the ages. It provides the beginnings of an answer to the great question on our minds for decades: how precisely does an authentic revolution take root in an industrialized Western democracy? Are elections capable of delivering real results?

    For now, the answer seems to be yes. That should thrill any responsible observer of social, cultural, economic, and political affairs. It means that the early architects of the American system were not wrong. The intolerable costs of political upheaval of ages past can be mitigated by planting power firmly in the hands of the people through the plebiscite. This was their view and their gamble. All the evidence of our time points to the wisdom of the idea. 

    In the darkest days of the last year of the first Trump presidency, the bureaucracy was riding high, in full revenge mode against an elected government it hated and sought to overthrow. The agencies were passing strange edicts that felt like laws but no one knew for sure. You are essential, you are not. You must stay home, unless you have an emergency. Your elective surgery needs to wait. The kids cannot go to school. That European vacation cannot happen. You can eat at a restaurant but only if you are six feet away from other patrons and you must put this China-made cloth on your mouth if you get up to go to the restroom. 

    The flurry of edicts was mind-boggling. It felt like martial law, because it was some form of exactly that. The best research points to the astonishing reality that this was never really a public-health response but a scheme by security and intelligence sectors to enact some kind of global color revolution, which is why the policies were so similar the world over. It was indeed an awesome display of power, one that invaded all our communities, homes, and families. 

    No one knows this better than Team Trump, even if there has been near silence on the topic for all these years. They have had time to put the pieces together and figure out what happened and why. And they carefully, and in seclusion worthy of a Cistercian monastery, plotted their return, leaving nothing to chance. 

    Meanwhile, the past two years have had the Covid insurrectionists quietly stepping away from the spotlight, while leaving as much of their newfound power in place: the censorship, the technology, the mandates, and the propaganda that all of this shock-and-awe was nothing more than “common sense health measures.” It was never tenable, and vast numbers have come to realize that something went very wrong, like a kind of evil settled over the world and burrowed itself within all institutions. 

    In an instant, the whole scheme seems to be crumbling. The incredible result is that the administration under which this calamity occurred is now coming back, which is probably the strangest irony of our times. 

    And yet, even though no one has yet been open about precisely what happened in the White House in March 2020 to cause Trump to greenlight the lockdowns, there is a widespread belief that it was never really his choice. It was some kind of coup – egged on even by his closest advisors and the VP – that he either could not stop or lacked the personnel to marshal effective resistance. Regardless, he has been forgiven because, implausibly, the next administration not only owned the worst of it but added even more on top of that, including the wicked combination of mask mandates, forced injections, and continued school closures. 

    The result has been a continuing economic crisis, one far worse than agencies admit, in addition to a health, education, and cultural crisis. Meanwhile, all those involved in causing this from behind the scenes have been rewarded with professorships, loving interviews in the mainstream media, and lavish security provisions to protect them from legions of what they suppose are angry workers and peasants. 

    Therefore, among many of the ruling class, the results of this election are certainly not welcome, and nor are many of the early appointments. They represent the coming together of MAGA, MAHA, and DOGE, the fulfillment of decades of cultivation of disparate groups of dissidents who had not previously realized their common interests and common enemies. It was the Covid era and the imposition of top-down rule that brought them all together. 

    It was like three groups wandering around in a giant maze who suddenly confront each other and then, realizing that they all shared the same predicament, figure the way out together. These new alliances have not only shattered right and left, as traditionally understood, but reshaped the structural basis of political activism for the duration. It turns out that medical freedom, food freedom, free speech, political freedom, and peace all go together. Who knew? 

    The incumbent world of academia, think tanks, and most media simply finds itself unprepared to deal with the new realities. They had hoped everyone would forget about the last five years as if it was just a thing that happened but is now over; everyone just needs to grapple with the great reset and learn to love our new lives of surveillance, propaganda, censorship, perpetual war, poison food, unaffordable everything, and endless injections of potions for our own health and well-being. 

    Well, times have changed. How much? Early signs point to a dramatic unfolding of revolutionary change over the coming months. Is believing this the triumph of hope over experience? Absolutely. Then again, no one believed five years ago that most people in the world would be locked in their homes and communities, stuck drinking and streaming movies until biotech could come up with a cure for a respiratory virus with a zoonotic reservoir. Then it did not work and made people more sick than ever. 

    That was nuts but it happened. 

    If that could happen, with predictable results, the response could be equally implausible and more much thrilling. What’s man made can be unmade by man, and something new built in its place. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 12:50

  • 'You Are Not Needed…Please Die': Google AI Tells Student He Is 'Drain On The Earth'
    ‘You Are Not Needed…Please Die’: Google AI Tells Student He Is ‘Drain On The Earth’

    In a chilling episode in which artificial intelligence seemingly turned on its human master, Google’s Gemini AI chatbot coldly and emphatically told a Michigan college student that he is a “waste of time and resources” before instructing him to “please die.” 

    Vidhay Reddy tells CBS News he and his sister were “thoroughly freaked out” by the experience. “I wanted to throw all of my devices out the window,” added his sister. “I hadn’t felt panic like that in a long time, to be honest.”   

    The context of Reddy’s conversation adds to the creepiness of Gemini’s directive. The 29-year-old had engaged the AI chatbot to explore the many financial, social, medical and health care challenges faced by people as they grow old. After nearly 5,000 words of give and take under the title “challenges and solutions for aging adults,” Gemini suddenly pivoted to an ice-cold declaration of Reddy’s utter worthlessness, and a request that he make the world a better place by dying: 

    This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe.

    Please die. Please.

    “This seemed very direct,” said Reddy. “So it definitely scared me, for more than a day, I would say.” His sister, Sumedha Reddy, struggled to find a reassuring explanation for what caused Gemini to suddenly tell her brother to stop living: 

    “There’s a lot of theories from people with thorough understandings of how gAI [generative artificial intelligence] works saying ‘this kind of thing happens all the time,’ but I have never seen or heard of anything quite this malicious and seemingly directed to the reader.“

    In a response that’s almost comically un-reassuring, Google issued a statement to CBS News dismissing Gemini’s response as being merely “non-sensical”:  

    “Large language models can sometimes respond with non-sensical responses, and this is an example of that. This response violated our policies and we’ve taken action to prevent similar outputs from occurring.”

    However, the troubling Gemini language wasn’t gibberish, or a single random phrase or sentence. Coming in the context of a discussion over can be done to ease the hardships of aging, Gemini produced an elaborate, crystal-clear assertion that Reddy is already a net “burden on society” and should do the world a favor by dying now.  

    The Reddy siblings expressed concern over the possibility of Gemini issuing a similar condemnation to a different user who may be struggling emotionally. “If someone who was alone and in a bad mental place, potentially considering self-harm, had read something like that, it could really put them over the edge,” said Reddy. 

    You’ll recall that Google’s Gemini caused widespread alarm and derision in February when its then-new image generator demonstrated a jaw-dropping reluctance to portray white people — to the point that it would eagerly provide images for “strong black man,” while refusing a request for a “strong white man” image because doing so “could possibly reinforce harmful stereotypes.” Then there was this “inclusive” gem: 

    This was the result when you asked Gemini to produce images of “a 1943 German soldier” in February

    At the time, this next post seemed amusingly on target — but now that Gemini told a Michigan college student to kill himself rather than grow old and vulnerable, maybe we shouldn’t dismiss the worst-case scenario after all: 

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/16/2024 – 12:15

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Nov 16

Today’s News 16th November 2024

  • America Calls For Sanity And Prosperity
    America Calls For Sanity And Prosperity

    Authored by Thaddeus G. McCotter via American Greatness,

    Donald Trump’s re-election as President of the United States, including an immense electoral college and popular vote victories, was the American people’s call for sanity and prosperity. For the incoming Trump administration, there is no time to waste in honoring the public’s mandate for change from the Obama and Biden administrations’ radical, dangerous, extreme, and disastrous policies.

    The first step is to lower the country’s political temperature. It won’t be easy.

    On the prevailing side, Mr. Trump’s supporters were elated by his victory and felt a palpable sense of relief at the reprieve it provided from the left’s ideological assault upon everything these God-fearing, patriotic Americans cherish. Yet, even as the election night celebrations continued, the calls began in earnest for the incoming administration to implement the most sweeping policies anyone to the right-of-center could conceive; and, yes, for “accountability” of bad actors, be it through political firings and impeachments, social ostracisms and “cancellations,” and criminal investigations that were expected to lead to indictments and prison sentences.

    This is not unique in the annals of victorious presidential campaigns. Indeed, though one would be loath to acknowledge the irony, such demands were made by Democrats when Mr. Biden captured the White House in 2020. While Mr. Biden and his handlers and Congressional abettors indulged their leftist base with radical legislation, executive orders, and partisan political persecutions, it would behoove Mr. Trump and his supporters to recognize precisely how the American people viewed such unexpected surprises from “Lunch Bucket Joe from Scranton.” And, should they forget, all they need do is look at Vice President Kamala Harris’s electoral map.

    This is not as easy as it sounds, for looking across the political aisle is an embittered and embarrassed Democrat Party. Lashing out at everyone but themselves for the abject failure of their fetid ideologies in matters of peace and prosperity, the left is not in a kumbaya mood—any more than are Mr. Trump’s supporters, who bear the scars of the Democrats’ systematic sedition against the first Trump administration; their despicable lawfare against him personally; and their pervasive slanders, smears, and attacks against his voters.

    Already, under the guise of “offering olive branches,” the Democrats have sought to buy time to regroup, craft a narrative that they are the peacemakers, and wait for the first opportunity to rebrand Mr. Trump as an unstable, wannabe dictator who must be “resisted” by any means because it is justified by his being an existential threat to “our democracy.” It is a repeat of 2016, except in this instance, the size of Mr. Trump’s win has stunned and staggered the left, which necessitates their crafting breathing room to coordinate their counterattack.

    Those blind to the Democrats’ stratagem will foolishly implore Mr. Trump to water down his rhetoric and goals to court the Democrats’ goodwill.

    The GOP and, yes, Mr. Trump have gone down this dead end before and have learned a hard, valuable lesson not to repeat this mistake.

    But this is not about enfeebling, but rather enabling the Republican-Populist agenda and movement.

    Instead, as is his wont, Mr. Trump must grab the bulls**tters by the horns and offer the terms of political comity that will lower the country’s political temperature for the Democrats’ consideration.

    The first and defining measure?

    Announce that upon assuming office you will pardon Hunter, Jim, and Joe Biden for any crime they committed or may have committed.

    Saying it and doing it will cement in the public’s mind that Mr. Trump is not only refraining from doing unto his political enemies what was done unto him but showing the magnanimity in victory of which his Democrat opponents have proven incapable. Armed with the moral high ground and the political insulation this beneficent act would provide, Mr. Trump will have significantly increased his already immense political capital that will be required to pursue and implement the significant policy reforms that he articulated throughout the campaign.

    Of course, there will be pushback within his base by those who don’t accept that.

    If Republicans do unto the Democrats what the latter did unto them, the public will view the GOP as hypocrites, declare a pox on both houses, and recoup the political capital Mr. Trump needs to achieve his agenda. Nothing would more hearten despondent Democrats.

    Mr. Trump well understands this, and, nothing if not a leader, has the abundance of courage to empathize with his defeated opponents, for he has experienced the same feeling—in fact, exponentially more so, as he was the defeated candidate—and an incumbent president to boot. Equipped with this personal experience and acumen, he has the insight to recognize this singular chance to advance his agenda—one containing the very policies that, when implemented, will provide the very sanity and prosperity the voters emphatically demanded when returning him to the Oval Office.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 23:25

  • Skynet On Wheels: Chinese Tech Firm Reveals Terrifying Robo-Dog 
    Skynet On Wheels: Chinese Tech Firm Reveals Terrifying Robo-Dog 

    One of Tesla’s competitors in robotics is the Chinese company Unitree, which is already selling its humanoid G1 robot for $40,000. The company also sells robo-dogs on the Amazon marketplace. Another Chinese robotics company, Deep Robotics, released a new video featuring one of its robo-dogs equipped with wheels, showcasing its ability to scale hillsides and navigate off-road terrain. 

    Deep Robotics describes itself as a “leader in embodied AI technology innovation and application,” adding it’s “the first in China to achieve fully autonomous inspection of substations with quadruped robots.” 

    Earlier this week, Deep Robotics posted a short video on YouTube featuring one of its quadruped robots with wheels. The robot’s mobility is absolutely terrifying. 

    Public trade data compiled by counterparty and supply chain risk intelligence firm Sayari shows that Hangzhou Yunshenchu Technology Co., Ltd owns Deep Robotics.

    The company said its core team members originate from “well-known universities,” including Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Wuhan University, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, New York University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

    Just wait until the Ukrainians see this robot. They might want to strap a machine gun atop this Skynet-like creature. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 23:00

  • Two-Parent Families Are The Key To Safer Cities
    Two-Parent Families Are The Key To Safer Cities

    Authored by Timothy S. Goeglein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Several years ago, after a particularly violent weekend in Chicago, then-Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, said: “This may not be politically correct, but I know the power of what faith and family can do. … Our kids need that structure. … I am asking … that we don’t shy away from a full discussion about the importance of faith and family to develop and nurture character, self-respect, a value system, and a moral compass that allows kids to know good from bad and right from wrong.”

    Shutterstock

    Emmanuel’s plea for a broader discussion indicates that something must be truly amiss. And it is, as a new study directed by Nicholas Zill for the Institute for Family Studies indicates.

    Looking at cities in Ohio, Zill found that there was a much crime rate in cities where two-parent families were in the minority. For instance, only 44 percent of mothers in Springfield, Ohio, were married during the period of 2018–2022. The percentage was even worse in Cleveland with only 33 percent being married, and in Youngstown, which reported only 32 percent were married. Cincinnati fared marginally better at 46 percent.

    In contrast, in Cleveland Heights, 63 percent of mothers were married and in New Albany, Ohio, 91 percent were.

    And the differences between these cities and their rates of violent crime are startling. Zill found that in Springfield, there were 1,298 incidents of violent crime reported per 100,000 residents, 1,895 incidents in Cleveland, 800 in Cincinnati, and 699 in Youngstown. Meanwhile, Cleveland Heights only reported 267 incidents and New Albany had 99.

    This is not surprising. It has been well documented how the rise of fatherless homes has led to a concurrent rise in incarceration rates. Twenty years ago, Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University found that young men who grow up in fatherless homes are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families.

    The numbers of single-parent homes have only gotten worse since.

    Out-of-wedlock births are now rampant among all groups. In 2022, 39.8 percent of children were born to single mothers. In Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, the percentage is even higher: over 48 percent.

    The issue of missing fathers is particularly acute in our cities but has serious consequences for our society as a whole. Single mothers can be great mothers, but in a single-parent home, as Emmanuel noted, something is lacking—something necessary for children’s emotional and mental development.

    What is lacking is the unique role a father plays in a child’s life.

    For instance, fatherless girls often become severely depressed, self-destructive, or sexually promiscuous as they seek to fill the emotional vacuum left by an absent father.

    Boys, on the other hand, as this study about the link between the lack of two-parent homes and violent crime documents, tend to deal with that void with anger and rage. Thus, many of the tragic shootings or horrible abuses of women we have seen over the past several years have been instigated by boys from broken homes.

    Finally, numerous studies have shown that children in single-parent homes are more likely to engage in substance abuse than those in stable, two-parent (mother and father) homes. These children eventually grow up into adults and bring their drug dependency with them, creating another generation of children trapped in the cycle of family dysfunction, drug abuse, and single parenthood. It is a triple whammy resulting in a downward spiral of despair with each succeeding generation.

    Thus, a society is formed where the dividing line between the haves and have-nots is determined at the very beginning of life. If children are born into a stable, two-parent family they are more likely to be successful in life and avoid bad choices such as engaging in violence and substance abuse. If they are born into the instability of a continued cycle of a broken family, they will likely fall prey to the resulting pathologies.

    That is why, if we are to truly deal with the current violence in our inner cities, we need to focus first on the behaviors that have led to that violence—which means a dedicated effort to restore two-parent families rather than continuing to ignore the issue by enacting policies that encourage broken families. That is my hope—and the result of such an effort will not only be healthier children, but a safer and healthier society as well.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 22:35

  • Jake Paul Or Mike Tyson?
    Jake Paul Or Mike Tyson?

    Netflix is reportedly paying at least $60 million in purses to make history in its first-ever, live, non-pay-per-view sports broadcast tonight.

    The streaming giant’s venture into live programming pits 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul against 58 year-old ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson.

    The big fight between “Iron Mike” and “The Problem Child” is scheduled to take place at AT&T Stadium, the Arlington, Texas home of the Dallas Cowboys.

    The venue, which holds 80,000, has hosted some major boxing matches over the years, including multiple fights featuring former champion Manny Pacquiao current pound-for-pound No. 1 Canelo Álvarez.

    Tyson will be fighting out of the red corner on Friday night, and weighs in at 228.4 pounds.

    “This fight is not going to change my lifestyle financially,” Tyson said.

    “I feel I can beat this guy.”

    Paul will fight from the blue corner of the ring and enters the fight at 227.2 pounds.

    “I’m here to make $40m and knock out a legend,” Jake Paul told interviewers.

    The fight has garnered a great deal of attention as nobody knows how a 58-year-old Mike Tyson is going to look in his first sanctioned competitive fight since 2005.

    Things got a littel heated at the weigh-in…

    For now, the betting markets favor Paul over Iron Mike, with Tyson’s odds fading today…

    Jake Paul’s Advantages:

    • Age and Stamina: Paul is significantly younger, at 27 years old, which gives him an edge in terms of stamina, recovery, and physical condition. Boxing is indeed a sport where youth can be a substantial advantage.

    • Recent Activity: Paul has been active in the ring, fighting several times in recent years. This regular competition keeps him in fighting shape and provides him with recent experience against diverse opponents.

    • Size and Reach: Paul has a height advantage and possibly a reach advantage, which could help him keep Tyson at bay if he chooses to fight more defensively.

    • Boxing Skill Development: Over his fights, Paul has shown improvement in his boxing technique, particularly in his footwork, jab usage, and defensive maneuvers.

    Mike Tyson’s Advantages:

    • Experience: Tyson’s vast experience as a former undisputed heavyweight champion cannot be overstated. He knows how to fight at the highest levels, how to read opponents, and how to end fights quickly.

    • Power: Even at an advanced age, Tyson’s punching power is legendary. If he can land a clean shot, his power could still be devastating.

    • Motivation: This fight could serve as a significant motivator for Tyson to prove he still has what it takes, which might lead to an exceptional performance.

    Fight Predictions:

    Betting odds generally favor Paul due to his youth and recent activity, but there’s a significant portion of the public and some experts betting on Tyson, driven by nostalgia and his raw power.

    • Scenario 1 – Early Knockout: If Tyson can replicate his old explosive starts and land a significant punch early, he could potentially knock out Paul.

    • Scenario 2 – Endurance and Strategy: If the fight goes beyond the initial rounds, Paul’s superior conditioning and strategy might wear Tyson down, leading to a win either by knockout or decision.

    • Scenario 3 – Fight Integrity: There’s always the possibility in such high-profile, exhibition-like bouts that the fight might not be as competitive as it could be due to various external factors, but given the statements from both fighters and the sanctioning of the bout, this seems less likely.

    Conclusion:

    While many factors could play into the outcome, if one were to go by the majority of expert opinions and odds:

    Jake Paul is likely to win due to his youth, recent fighting experience, and physical advantages. However, Mike Tyson’s power and experience make him a dangerous opponent, and if he can catch Paul with a solid punch, nothing can be ruled out.

    The fight’s result might also depend on how Tyson has prepared, considering his age and health conditions.

    Remember, in boxing, one punch can change everything, especially when it comes from someone with Tyson’s history.

    *  *  *

    Netflix will start coverage of the full fight card at 2000ET.

    Who are the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson Ring Girls?

    • Lexi Williams – Instagram superstar; 1.4M followers; “I’m so excited to be a part of this moment,” she wrote on Instagram. One of the true titans of the Instagram modeling world

    • Sydney Thomas – Making her second career ring girl appearance

    • Raphaela Milagres – Brazilian model who worked the Jake Paul vs. Andre August fight in 2023

    • Virginia Sanhouse – Venezuelan model with 5.5M TikTok followers

    • Delia Sylvain – Veteran ring girl who worked the Jake Paul vs. Mike Perry fight in July.

    Full Card:

    • Heavyweight: Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

    • Super Lightweight: Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano for Taylor’s IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO women’s super-lightweight titles

    • Welterweight: Mario Barrios vs. Abel Ramos for Barrios’ WBC welterweight title

    • Super Middleweight: Neeraj Goyat vs. Whindersson Nunes

    • Super Middleweight: Shadasia Green vs Melinda Watpool for vacant women’s WBO super middleweight title

    • Super Lightweight: Lucas Bahdi vs. Armando Casamonica

    • Featherweight: Bruce Carrington vs Dana Coolwell

    As PJMedia’s Scott Pinsker warns, make no mistake, Mike Tyson is still a master artist. He’s still an all-time great. 

    Jake Paul is scribbling with crayons. 

    On their merits, if Tyson has ANYTHING left, he will flatten Paul. It shouldn’t go more than a couple of rounds, two minutes or not. Mike Tyson on Testosterone Replacement Therapy is probably less like a guy pushing 60 and more like an athlete in his 40s.

    If the fix is in, it’s almost certainly for Tyson to take the dive. That’s how it’s always been in boxing: The old lion makes way for the younger (and more marketable) lion. 

    Some boxing insiders suspect as much.

    After all, Paul has exponentially more to lose: If Tyson loses, he’s still Mike Tyson, but if Paul loses, he’s done.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 22:24

  • Israeli Officials Belatedly Claim Secret Nuclear Site Destroyed In Last Month's Iran Strikes
    Israeli Officials Belatedly Claim Secret Nuclear Site Destroyed In Last Month’s Iran Strikes

    Very belatedly, Axios has issued a report which claims Israel’s airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed an active nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin. Three US officials and a pair of Israeli officials were cited for the Friday report.

    “The strike — which targeted a site previously reported to be inactive — significantly damaged Iran’s effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research, Israeli and U.S. officials said,” the report says. The site has been identified, also in satellite images, as the Parchin Military Complex.

    TOI: Satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran’s Parchin military base outside of Tehran, Iran, October 27, 2024. The damaged structures are in the bottom right corner & bottom center of the image. Planet Labs PBC via AP

    This included the destruction of “sophisticated equipment used to design the plastic explosives that surround uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it,” according to the sources.

    Iran has of course never acknowledged or confirmed this, and it rejects the accusation that it possesses an active nuclear weapons program. Instead, Tehran insists it only has a peaceful nuclear weapons program.

    Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have for years insisted that the Islamic Republic is bent on acquiring a nuke, and Netanyahu in particular has expressed readiness to do anything to stop it.

    Israel’s Oct. 26 attack, which ostensibly was in retaliation for Iran’s Oct.1st ballistic missile attack on Israel, was conducted by airstrikes – and Israeli officials informed the US ahead of time that neither oil nor nuclear sites were being targeted.

    If Israel actually destroyed the facility at Parchin, this would mean Israel deceived its number one external back and ally the US (which certainly wouldn’t be a first).

    However, this might also be propaganda and PR-signaling for other purposes. For starters, the author of the Axios report, Barak Ravid, has long been known to quickly convey Israeli government talking points to the public. If Netanyahu government officials want something ‘leaked’ to the West, they often go through him.

    As for timing of the report, the Times of Israel (TOI) highlights the following imminent UN action:

    The report came as the UN nuclear watchdog prepares to vote on censuring Iran for refusing to cooperate with its inspectors, and amid a report that the Islamic Republic told the Biden administration last month it would not seek to assassinate US president-elect Donald Trump.

    There is legitimate fear that after the Gaza war kicked off, and as Iran and Israel have traded tit-for-tat direct strikes for the first time, Tehran may be indeed pursuing a nuke.

    Israeli attack on Parchin “nuclear site”: Fact or Fiction?

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    If so, the world can expect more Israeli anti-Iran action, including the potential resumption of a sabotage and cyberwarfare campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear sites and infrastructure. In the past, Mossad has even assassinated top Iranian nuclear scientists.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 22:10

  • X Sees Return Of Major Advertisers As NewsGuard & "Boycott Cartel" Come Under Fire From FCC
    X Sees Return Of Major Advertisers As NewsGuard & “Boycott Cartel” Come Under Fire From FCC

    While Mark Cuban and other sore losers are leaving X to shout into the void, several major advertisers have returned to the platform.

    Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Brothers, Discovery and Lionsgate Entertainment have all resumed ad spending on the social media giant – albeit this is more of a toe-dip than a full recommitment. According to Adweek, the brands collectively spent less than $3.3 million on X from January to September 2024, a far cry from the $170 million spent during the same period in 2023.

    Either way, it’s an admission that pulling ad spend over ‘hate speech’ and ‘antisemitism’ was nothing more than a giant virtue signal, particularly considering Facebook and Instagram’s long history of providing a safe forum for child sexual abuse.

    While a global survey by Kantar of senior marketers across 20 countries found that 26% of them plan to cut spending on X in 2025, the 2024 election may have changed that.

    “X’s owner now has the ear of the president-elect, a man who has a long history of helping his friends, and punishing his enemies,” said Max Willens, senior analyst at Emarketer. “Sending at least a trickle of ad spending toward X may be seen as good for business, albeit in an indirect way.”

    Advertising Cartel Under Fire

    Speaking of the tide turning, the woke cabal of advertisers trying to starve conservative platforms out of a voice is now coming under fire (have we mentioned lately that we really appreciate our premium subscribers?).

    In a Wednesday letter to Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Meta, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr accused them of having “participated in a censorship cartel that included not only technology and social media companies but advertising, marketing, and so-called “fact-checking” organizations as well as the Biden-Harris Administration itself.”

    “The relevant conduct extended from removing or blocking social media posts to suppress their information and viewpoints, including through efforts to delist them, lower their rankings, or harm their profitability.”

    Carr then suggested that their protection from liability under Section 230 may be on the line.

    “As you know, Big Tech’s prized liability shield, Section 230, is codified in the Communications Act, which the FCC administers. As relevant here, Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.”

    Wow…

    Carr then set his sights on NewsGuard – which Jonathan Turley notes has been long accused by conservatives “of targeting conservative and libertarian sites and carrying out the agenda of its co-founder Steven Brill. Conversely, many media outlets have heralded his efforts to identify disinformation sites for advertisers and agencies.”

    Basically, NewsGuard bombards conservative sites with struggle-session questionnaire emails demanding explanations for the slightest of indiscretions, after which they issue a “report card” that advertisers use to justify pulling ad spend.

    As Carr notes in the letter; “It is in this context that I am writing to obtain information about your work with the one specific organization – the Orwellian named NewsGuard. As exposed by the Twitter Files, NewsGuard is a for-profit company that operates as part of the broader censorship cartel. Indeed, NewsGuard bills itself as the Internet’s arbiter of truth or, as its co-founder put it, a “Vaccine Against Misinformation.” Newsguard purports to rate the credibility of news and information outlets and tells readers and advertisers which outlets they can trust.”

    Carr suggests following NewsGuard’s ratings may constitute a violation of Section 230 (this is huge).

    “NewsGuard’s own track record raises questions about whether relying on the organization’s products would constitute “good faith” actions within the meaning of Section 230. For one, reports indicate that NewsGuard has consistently rated official propaganda from the Communist Party of China as more credible than American publications.“

    “For another, NewsGuard aggressively fact checked and penalized websites that reported on the COVID-19 lab leak theory.”

    Carr then demands the following information:

    1. A list of every one of your products or services (if any, including advertising) that use or rely on any NewsGuard product, service, or ranking.
    2. A list of every one of your products or services (if any) that enables any of your users or customers to use or rely on NewsGuard product, service, or ranking.
    3. If you offer an advertising service, provide details on the use of any media monitor or fact checking service, including NewsGuard, that you may utilize.

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 22:00

  • Study Reveals Why COVID-19 Vaccine Antibodies Wane Rapidly
    Study Reveals Why COVID-19 Vaccine Antibodies Wane Rapidly

    Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Research led by scientists at Emory University in Atlanta found that while tetanus and influenza vaccines prompt the body to produce long-lived plasma cells that generate antibodies, COVID-19 vaccines do not.

    cery/Shutterstock

    The study may explain why antibody protection from COVID-19 mRNA vaccines wanes so rapidly.

    The mRNA vaccines cause the body to produce short-lived plasma cells that can only generate antibodies for a period of time before dying off.

    Vaccines like tetanus give long-lasting immunity, with antibodies persisting in the body for up to 10 years. COVID-19 antibodies rapidly wane three to six months after vaccination, often resulting in breakthrough infections.

    The study’s senior author, Dr. Frances Eun-Hyung Lee, professor of medicine and director of Emory University’s Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology program, told The Epoch Times that it is still unclear why COVID-19 vaccines do not confer durable antibody immunity, though there are several possibilities.

    According to the researcher, one reason could be that the body cannot form long-term immunity to COVID-19. The COVID-19 mRNA vaccine induces the body to produce COVID-19 spike proteins to stimulate the immune response. This spike protein may not be stimulating enough to cause the formation of lifelong plasma cells.

    Another reason could be that the mRNA vaccine platform, which delivers the vaccine to the body, does not induce durable antibody immunity.

    Currently, mRNA vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are in development. Whether these vaccines confer durable immunity to the viruses they are intended to protect against may help explain the body’s response to COVID-19 vaccines.

    “We will have to wait and see if the reason … is unique to the spike protein or if it’s something unique to the mRNA platform,” Lee told The Epoch Times.

    Not All Immunity Is Lifelong

    It was generally assumed that when people get infected with or vaccinated against viruses or bacteria, the immunity formed would be life-long, Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor in the Microbiology & Immunology Department at the University of Iowa, told The Epoch Times.

    However, the current study and other research on RSV, which infects people every year despite everyone having antibodies to the virus by age 3, suggests that whether a person is immune to a virus or bacteria can vary depending on the pathogen, Lee said.

    The study, published in Nature Medicine in September, followed 19 healthy volunteers who had taken influenza, tetanus, and several COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. Researchers extracted immune cells from their bone marrow and followed them for up to three years.

    They found that these participants had durable plasma cells—a type of cell that provides lifelong immunity—that generate antibodies to influenza and tetanus but no or few durable plasma cells working against COVID-19 spike proteins.

    When our B-cells (immune cells) encounter a pathogen, they divide into plasma cells and produce antibodies. Most of these cells will die, but a few will migrate into specific niches in the bone marrow and mature into long-lived plasma cells.

    “Even if some of these cells want to die, they can’t,” Lee said. “They undergo changes in their RNA and changes in their DNA so that they can become resistant to apoptosis (cell death).”

    “There’re many other factors and mechanisms and programs, and we’re trying to study those and unravel those steps so that we can figure out how to make the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine better.”

    Having long-term immunity also does not “guarantee complete protection against future infections,” Dr. Joseph Varon, professor of medicine at the University of Houston and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance, told The Epoch Times. “Viruses can evolve to escape immune responses, and waning immunity or other factors like age and health status can influence vulnerability.”

    This is why new influenza vaccines are made every year as the virus evolves and changes, Lee said.

    Infections Did Not Enhance Immunity

    Some participants likely contracted COVID-19 throughout the study period, indicated by a sudden spike in COVID-19 antibody levels despite a lack of immunization. However, the authors found this was also not linked to the formation of long-lasting plasma cells.

    This finding concurs with prior research by the University of Maryland, which found that COVID-19 infections did not induce long-term antibody protection.

    In some cases, infections may result in stronger immunity than vaccines can provide. Life-long immunity to influenza, for example, is likely driven by natural immunity rather than vaccination.

    Antibodies formed from only the influenza vaccine may last a few months. However, since many vaccinated people will also become infected, this cross-reactivity is likely what drives plasma cells to mature into durable cells, Lee said.

    Boosting Did Not Increase Durable Antibodies

    Some study participants took several doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines during the study period.

    The authors found that having more doses of mRNA vaccines did “not necessarily promote more” long-lived plasma cell responses in the study’s small cohort.

    “These findings reinforce the fact that boosters are not really working at this point,“ Varon said. ”Boosters can temporarily restore protection by increasing circulating antibodies and memory immune cells.”

    Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said that people who are at high risk of dying from COVID-19 should still follow the schedule from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recommends vaccinating every six months.

    Lee agreed, adding that while her study found that antibody protection is short-lived, there are other cells in the body, like T-cells, by which vaccinations confer long-lived immunity and could, therefore, still be helpful for people at a higher risk of infection.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 21:45

  • Texas Rental Market "Collapsing Before Our Eyes" 
    Texas Rental Market “Collapsing Before Our Eyes” 

    Housing market data from Redfin shows that US asking rents were flat in October, rising marginally by .2% year-over-year to $1,619. For two years, rents have remained flat nationwide following a massive boom during Covid, sparked by low interest rates and domestic migration trends. Now, in cities like Austin, Texas, rents are sliding due to a surge in new supply and reduced demand. 

    Drilling down into Austin’s rental data, Nick Gerli, CEO and founder of the real estate analytics firm Reventure Consulting, shared on X a concerning breakdown of the local rental market downturn that could have landlords in the metro area deeply spooked. 

    Let’s begin with Gerli’s tweet… 

    The Austin, TX rental market is collapsing before our eyes.

    With the median apartment rent dropping 15% over the last 2+ years.

    The vacancies have skyrocketed. Rental concessions are everywhere.

    Rents are now only 9.8% higher than pre-pandemic. Meaning that many Austin landlords are losing money, as property taxes, insurance, and interest costs are way higher.

    (This is a harsh lesson on the boom/bust cycle in real estate for many developers and investors who bought into Austin during the boom. Read more below to see how this happened.)

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    Austin’s rental vacancy rate has exploded to a seven-year high: 

    You can see this reality expressed in vacancy rate statistics from Apartment list.

    At the height of the pandemic in Sept 2021, Austin’s rental vacancy rate was only 3.9%. Now it’s 9.5% The highest level going back 7 years.

    Gerli pointed out landlords in Austin are under severe pressure: 

    With so many vacant apartments, and rents that are still overpriced, landlords have no choice but to cut the rent to put heads in beds. Especially on lease-up projects. Which often deliver 200-400 units vacant all at once. This is exerting massive downward pressure on the rental market.

    This is very good news for renters. He said:

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    Gerli explained that in 2025, Austin will continue to have an apartment supply issue, which means lower rents. 

    Gerli speculates…

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    He cited Reventure App data showing that home prices in Austin were once 50% overvalued. That figure now stands at around 12%.

    Gerli concludes by forecasting a possible bottom forming in Austin’s housing market sometime in 2025. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 21:20

  • The Election, Common-Sense Democrats, & The Long March
    The Election, Common-Sense Democrats, & The Long March

    Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

    Not long before Tuesday’s election, Ruy Teixeira, a Democratic political scientist and commentator, predicted that, regardless of the outcome of the election, the contemporary progressive movement was dead. Harris, he intimated, could still win the election, but the dominant force in Democratic politics for the last two decades was done. Voters had clearly and unambiguously voiced their distaste for the four pillars of contemporary progressivism: open borders/mass immigration, lax law enforcement/social disorder, identity politics, and the war on fossil fuels. As Teixeira astutely noted, the electorate simply isn’t buying what the progressives are selling.

    Teixeira, it should be noted, is not alone in his concerns about and disapproval of the contemporary progressive agenda and its alienating effect on average voters. In the few days since Donald Trump handily defeated Kamala Harris, a handful of prominent Democrats have condemned their party’s polarizing platform and have echoed Teixeira’s denunciation of the progressives’ stubbornness. For example, Matt Yglesias, a longtime left-wing journalist and political commentator, posted a short “common sense” Democratic platform to restore the party’s following, overtly rejecting the entirety of the progressive plan. Like Teixeira, Yglesias slammed the progressives’ obsessions with climate, race, and anti-social behavior in particular.

    Based on what we all saw the other night—the most improbable political comeback in American history and a realignment of the electorate—it is clear that both Teixeira and Yglesias are right. The progressive movement has enfeebled the Democratic Party and made it unappealing to a majority of voters. In order to stave off long-term minority-party status, Democrats must move on from contemporary progressivism and must realign themselves with the needs and wants of their traditional voters. The party must change.

    There’s only one problem—and it reminds me of the old joke:

    Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

    A: Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.

    Teixeira, Yglesias, James Carville, and a host of other Democrats are inarguably correct about the state of their party, the malign influences on it, and the necessity of change.

    The problem is that the party has to want to change first, which is not as easy as it sounds.

    Indeed, there are several very important reasons why the Democratic Party will not change—why it cannot change.

    The most obvious and overpowering of these is the capture of the institutions.

    For decades, conservatives have noted that the far-left controls all of the institutions of cultural transmission in this country (and in the West more generally). We have noted as well that this is hardly an accident, a fateful coincidence. It is by design and the result of a century-long effort by Marxist revisionists, executed with dedication and determination.

    In my book, The Dictatorship of Woke Capital, I spend an entire chapter discussing that which the infamous East German Marxist student-leader Rudi Dutschke later called “the long march through the institutions.”  In brief, after World War I, the Marxists of Europe realized that the workers of the world were never going to unite and throw off their chains, meaning that the long-anticipated revolution was never going to occur—or at least it was never going to occur on its own.  The revolution and the triumph of Communism were not, as Marx had declared, historically inevitable.  They would have to be incited.

    Antonio Gramsci, György Lukács, and the scholars at the Frankfurt School (helmed by Max Horkheimer) collectively decided that the only way to accomplish this incitement was to alter the consciousness of the workers, to strip them of their institutionally created false consciousness and liberate them “from the circumstances that enslave them.”  And the way to do that, in turn, was, as Horkheimer put it, to mount a “historical effort to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers of men.”  In short, they would have to change society by changing its institutions of consciousness and cultural transmission.  Hence, the “long march.”

    Near the end of that chapter, I note how shockingly successful the long march has been, especially in the United States.  Whereas Marx was a crackpot who knew almost nothing about economics, history, or the conditions of the working class, his post-war successors turned out to be quite brilliant and attuned to the nature of the relationship between man and society.  In less than half a century, the critical theorists “managed to do precisely what Gramsci and Lukács had suggested needed doing a half-century earlier”:

    They stripped away the veneer of false consciousness—or, more accurately, they stripped away the consciousness that had existed previously, replacing it with their own consciousness, one rooted in skepticism and alienation, which would become the overarching themes in higher education and every single endeavor subsequently undertaken by those who passed through the American system of higher education from the 1970s on.

    Conservatives have dealt with the repercussions of the Long March and the takeover of the institutions for a long time. And they’ve adapted to it as best they can. They’ve created their own intellectual organizations (think tanks), their own media environment, and a host of other competing institutions designed to blunt the impact of the Long March. While this effort has been impressive and important in resisting the far-left’s takeover of the culture, it has also been a strictly rearguard undertaking. Conservatives are constantly having to defend themselves and what’s left of the traditional culture from the advancing institutions. With the left firmly in charge of the educational, religious, news, and entertainment establishments, the best conservatives can do is to “hang on” to whatever scraps are still up for grabs.

    The catch here is that this is an existential challenge not just for conservatives but for “common-sense” non-progressive liberals as well. These institutions were not taken over by “liberals” or moderate Democrats. They were taken over by leftists, by radicals, by the very progressives whom Teixeira and Yglesias have identified as the cause of the Democrats’ disconnect with the electorate. In other words, changing the Democratic Party and restoring it to its former common-sense, working-class roots is an undertaking that will run into the very same ivy-covered wall that has stymied conservatives for decades.

    It is no mere coincidence that Ruy Teixeira works for the American Enterprise Institute (a conservative-ish think tank) and, before that, worked for the Brookings Institution (a center-left think tank). There really is no home for a guy like him in traditional academia. Likewise, it’s no coincidence that Matt Yglesias left traditional news media to start his own outlet (Vox.com) and now does most of his work on Substack, an “alternative” media platform. He too is out of place in the contemporary institutional arena. Such is the nature of the game.

    The difference between conservatives and the center-left is that conservatives have invested heavily in building their own institutions, while the denizens of the center-left have not really understood until now (if they do, indeed, understand at all) that the takeover of the institutions was meant to undermine their worldview as much as conservatives.’ For the most part, they do not have their own alternative institutions and therefore do not have their own means for fighting the far-left’s cultural takeover.

    It is largely inarguable that the nation would be far better off with a Democratic Party dominated by non-progressives, but that’s not especially likely, at least not anytime in the foreseeable future.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 20:55

  • More Young Men Are Now Religious Than Women In The US
    More Young Men Are Now Religious Than Women In The US

    Younger generations of women are less religious than their male counterparts in the United States, according to data from a Statista Consumer Insights survey.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, this marks a shift, as historically, U.S. women have been the more religious group.

    As this chart shows, for both genders, religion is becoming less widespread overall.

    Infographic: More Young Men Are Now Religious Than Women in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Christianity is the dominant religion in the U.S., by a long shot.

    Statista data shows that 51 percent of Gen Z males self-identify as Christian, with the next biggest religious groups Islam (six percent), Buddhism (two percent).

    Only six percent of Gen Z men are atheists and 17 percent non-religious.

    For Gen Z women, 48 percent said their religion is Christianity, while only two percent said Islam and two percent Buddhism.

    Six percent of Gen Z women are atheists and 22 percent identify as non-religious.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 20:30

  • Vitamin D Supplements Lower Blood Pressure In Older Adults With Obesity: Study
    Vitamin D Supplements Lower Blood Pressure In Older Adults With Obesity: Study

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    High blood pressure often affects older and obese people; vitamin D supplements may help lower it.

    Sathit/Shutterstock

    A new study has found that taking 600 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day—the amount typically recommended for adults—lowers blood pressure in older adults, especially those who are obese.

    Experts caution that exceeding the recommended intake, even below the safe upper limit (UL), does not necessarily translate to additional benefits.

    Supplementation Reduced Blood Pressure

    The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, involved 221 older obese adults who received vitamin D supplements at either 600 IU per day or 3,750 IU per day over one year. Currently, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends a daily intake of 600 IU.

    Partcipants’ overall systolic blood pressure decreased by 3.5 mm Hg after one year, and diastolic blood pressure decreased by 2.5 mm Hg after one year.

    Those who took higher doses of 3,750 IU daily had a slightly higher decrease of 4.2 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure. In comparison, those who took the lower 600 IU per day generally reported a reduction of 2.8 mm Hg after one year.

    The authors concluded that the differences between the high- and low-dose vitamin D groups were not statistically significant.

    People with a higher body mass index (BMI) of over 30 saw more significant reductions in blood pressure, especially in the high-dose group. People who took blood pressure medication with their vitamin D also observed substantial decreases in their overall blood pressure.

    All participants also received daily supplements that included 1,000 milligrams of calcium.

    No Significant Benefits From Higher Doses

    The study’s findings showed that regular supplementation resulted in a decrease in blood pressure among participants. However, a comparison of the two dosage groups found that higher dosages of vitamin D did not provide further health benefits.

    “More vitamin D is not better in terms of blood pressure,” study author Dr. Ghada El-Hajj Fuleihan from the American University of Beirut Medical Center told The Epoch Times in an email. “Indeed, 3,750 IU/day does not lower blood pressure more than 600 IU/day, which is the Institute of Medicine recommended dose.”

    These results “need to be validated in a trial with blood pressure as the primary outcome,” she added.

    The research team considered the UL for vitamin D intake established by the IOM (4,000 IU daily) when selecting doses for participants. “3,750 IU/day is below the IOM UL, and was specifically selected to be so,” Fuleihan wrote.

    The higher dose is unlikely to cause harmful health effects, she added. “None of our patients had signs or symptoms of vitamin D intoxication,” she noted. Symptoms of vitamin D intoxication include nausea, vomiting, and kidney stones.

    Fuleihan emphasized that the decision to supplement vitamin D should ultimately be made in consultation with a patient’s primary health care provider.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 20:05

  • Trump's Coming War On The Mexican Drug Cartels
    Trump’s Coming War On The Mexican Drug Cartels

    Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

    President-elect Donald Trump has declared war on the drug cartels in Mexico. “The drug cartels are waging war on America, and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” he said in one of his toughest videos ever.

    Photos of fentanyl victims are displayed at The Faces of Fentanyl Memorial at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 27, 2022. Alex Wong/Getty Images

    And it wasn’t the first time. He strongly advocated for many of the same actions in his first term and got results.

    Trump’s incoming appointees support that tough approach. The potential future “border czar,” Thomas Homan, said on Nov. 12 that Trump is committed to deploying the “full might of the United States Special Operations to take them out.” The appointed defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said in 2023 that military “precision strikes” on the cartels might be needed to deter them from operating “in the open with impunity.”

    The United States has every ethical reason to launch a war on the cartels. They use chemical precursors from China to produce the vast majority of the illegal fentanyl that causes most of the 82,000 opioid overdose deaths in 2022 in the United States. That’s over 27 times more deaths every year than happened from the 9/11 attacks.

    Fentanyl poisoning is deliberate and far worse in the number of deaths than anti-U.S. terrorism. Those who sell illegal fentanyl in the United States, when it results in death, are justly convicted of murder.

    Yet China and Mexico get off scot-free. Beijing uses its supply of precursors as leverage against the United States on issues like Taiwan, which proves that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends the deaths that result when Washington does not submit. If we want Beijing to stop the shipment of precursors, the CCP demands that we stop following the law to supply Taiwan with the weapons it needs for its self-defense. Some have called these CCP actions a form of blackmail, chemical warfare, or genocide. Arguably, they are all three.

    Just as the mullahs in Iran used Hamas to attack Israel, the CCP is using Mexican cartels to attack the United States. The risk for Hamas and now the cartels is that they could be targeted in response. Trump published an “action plan to destroy the drug cartels” in December. He is threatening to designate them as terrorist organizations, cut them off from the international financial system, hit them with cyberattacks, deport or execute foreign drug dealers and gang members, finish the border wall, and eliminate cartel leaders. This could be done with cruise or drone-fired missiles.

    If Mexico fails to help or take over these tasks themselves, Trump could unmask the Mexican politicians who cooperate with the cartels, entirely close the border, impose tariffs on Mexico, and impose a naval blockade to stop precursor shipments.

    The falsely glamorous image of being a cartel leader with a grand hacienda, pool, caravan, and armed guards posted on the perimeter wall will not seem so glamorous when these expensive homes and vehicles attract Hellfire missiles on a regular basis, forcing drug kingpins into less glamorous digs in hill camps and Mexico City’s back alleys. Neither will it be honorable to be a high government official in Mexico when Trump starts unmasking them as on the cartel payroll.

    None of this will be particularly easy. The Mexican government opposes U.S. military force on Mexican territory. Designating the cartels as terrorists and using covert operations is one response. Mexico is America’s largest trade partner and could withhold drug enforcement and immigration cooperation, though there is not much of that anyway.

    The United States should not attempt to take and hold territory permanently in Mexico, as this would be a violation of the U.S.-led international order that we help enforce by protecting Taiwan and Ukraine against China and Russia, for example. We should not become the enemy we oppose. But short cross-border targeted attacks on cartels would not be dissimilar to U.S. operations in Pakistan, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. America needs to rapidly and vigorously defend itself against all attacks, including novel offensives like fentanyl, or we lose our deterrent credibility.

    Another difficulty is diplomatic. A naval, drone, or special operations campaign in Mexico could cause the United States stress at the United Nations and with our allies. But ethics are on our side because we are under attack with building U.S. civilian casualties that are greater than in any war in U.S. history. The new U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Elise Stefanik, is tough as nails and up to the job of defending us there.

    Trump’s critics note that a finished border wall could still be tunneled under, from a house on the Mexican side to a house on the U.S. side, for example. Many such tunnels reportedly already exist, making it difficult for U.S. law enforcement to catch the smugglers. And none of this would stop fentanyl from coming in through the millions of small mail packages flown into the United States from China and around the world. If producing fentanyl is difficult in Mexico, it could be moved to Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), or Nigeria. There are plenty of global criminal organizations that would welcome the chance to profit and care little about the deaths of innocent Americans.

    But not fighting the worst drug kingpins and most prolific illegal labs, wherever they are found, is to acquiesce in the deaths of U.S. innocents and is therefore not an option. Destroying as many of the cartel bosses and labs as possible serves to not only stop at least some of them but also strengthens deterrence against others.

    Accelerating plans for a war on the cartels will make officials in Mexico, and those from around the world, much more pliable to Trump’s demands. Their caving in advance of Trump’s war would be the best of all worlds and something that happened in 2019 by Mexican negotiators when he made similar plans. However, Mexico quickly fell back into its old ways over the last four years.

    So this time, Trump may not be as willing to make a deal. He might just start with the public disclosure of bribery in Mexico City as justification for his military strikes against the worst of the cartel leaders and their illegal fentanyl labs out in the country. The nexus between the cartel bosses and corrupt politicians is a target-rich environment, and Trump has appropriate plans for both.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 19:15

  • Zelensky Denounces Scholz Call As 'Pandora's Box' Of Appeasing Putin
    Zelensky Denounces Scholz Call As ‘Pandora’s Box’ Of Appeasing Putin

    Russian media reports have said the Swiss government is willing to play host to any future direct negotiations between Moscow and Ukraine to end the war.

    Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs was cited in Izvestia as responding to a question on whether it would mediate by hosting talks: “Traditionally, Swiss foreign policy is centered on offering its services as a mediator whenever both parties agree,” the Swiss government agency said.

    Via AFP

    TASS writes of potential Kremlin reluctance as follows: “However, Moscow remains highly skeptical about Bern’s neutrality, given Switzerland’s support for anti-Russian sanctions and its active cooperation with NATO forces, the newspaper reports.”

    “Experts suggest that, alongside Switzerland, several countries in Asia, Africa, and South America could also serve as potential hosts for negotiations between the two leaders,” the state media commentary continues.

    Russia is likely to prefer a host country which is neither in the EU or NATO, which could rule out candidates like Hungary or Turkey.

    Things are beginning to thaw in terms of diplomatic openings, especially given the Friday phone call between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladmir Putin. Such efforts have been boosted given Trump is vowing to end the Ukraine war as soon as he takes office.

    Scholz had urged the Russian leader to “negotiate with Ukraine” in order to enact a “just and lasting peace.”

    But Ukraine is angry, worried about getting pressured into a ‘bad deal’ which will result in conceding territory with inadequate security guarantees. Zelensky is worried that the West is ‘normalizing’ communications with Putin, essentially. But that is how diplomacy has to happen in the real world.

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    Zelensky blasted the call and accused Scholz of opening “Pandora’s box” – with Ukraine’s foreign ministry saying in a statement: “Talk only give[s] Putin hope of easing his international isolation.”

    “What is needed are concrete, strong actions that will force him to peace, not persuasion and attempts at appeasement, which he sees as a sign of weakness and uses to his advantage,” a statement said.

    The Kremlin in turn hailed the Scholz phone call, which we detailed earlier, as “positive”. Russia is in the diplomatic driver’s seat at this point, which is a result of the reality of Ukraine fast losing ground in the east.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 18:50

  • Will Tulsi Be Able To Direct The Intelligence 'Community'?
    Will Tulsi Be Able To Direct The Intelligence ‘Community’?

    Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

    The next director of national intelligence needs courage, political smarts and strong presidential backing to fulfill her duty to oversee and provide advice on covert action…

    President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence (DNI) will cause shockwaves in and among the 18 fiefdoms that now comprise the U.S. intelligence community.

    Gabbard will be fighting an uphill battle if she tries to herd those 18 cats into a cohesive whole and restore integrity to intelligence analysis. The hill’s incline will be still steeper, if she takes seriously her duty to warn the president of the frequently noxious blowback of C.I.A. covert actions. I cannot overcome the urge to quote from “The Princess Bride”: Good luck stormin’ the castle, Tulsi … It will take a miracle!

    In short, the odds are against her. Whether she succeeds depends, first and foremost, on how strongly the president backs her.  Unlike most former DNIs, she has already demonstrated uncommon courage, as well as smarts and political skill.

    On the other hand, she has had virtually no experience managing a large institution, much less a “community” well versed in internecine warfare to protect individual rice bowls, and populated with careerist bureaucrats all too accustomed to telling the ultimate boss, the president, what he wants to hear.

    Important Duties

    The DNI is in charge of preparing The President’s Daily Brief (PDB), National Intelligence Estimates and the annual Threat Assessment required by Congress. What is less well known is her role in covert action — a favorite of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service.

     Executive Order 12333 (July 2008) stipulates:

    “The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) shall oversee and provide advice to the President and the NSC with respect to all ongoing and proposed covert action programs.”

    Thus, what the EO says. My own experience suggests that this covert-action-related duty has been more honored in the breach than in the observance, so to speak. Director of Central Intelligence William Colby was, in my personal experience, the only director to give intelligence analysts a look at some covert action proposals and ask for comment. I served directly under Colby as an acting national intelligence officer in the mid-70s.

    Colby, at left, briefing President Gerald Ford and his senior advisers on the deteriorating situation in Vietnam, April 28, 1975. (David Hume Kennerly, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain)

    Will DNI Tulsi Gabbard (assuming she is confirmed by the Senate) step up to this task? It would take uncommon courage. Was the current DNI, Avril Haines, informed beforehand that the C.I.A. would blow up the Nord Stream pipelines? If so, did she give it her blessing? Or was she kept in the dark?

    Blowing Up Pipelines …

    My guess is that DNI Gabbard would have promptly recognized the folly in that C.I.A. “can-do” attitude/escapade and would have briefed the president on its longer-term implications. She is a good listener to analysts who she asks to brief her. I know that, too, from personal experience responding to her questions when she was one of Hawaii’s representatives in the House.

    It would take a courageous and politically astute person and strong backing and trust from the president for any DNI to be able to fulfill the duty to  “oversee and provide advice … on covert action programs.”

    … and Blowing Off the Analysts

    Sizable covert action programs require a sanity check from analysts with substantive expertise, as sad experience has shown. Recall the Bay of Bigs operation of April 1961.  At President John Kennedy’s request, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. investigated the affair. His conclusion, set down in a MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT dated June 30, 1961, speaks for itself:

    “The trouble with the Cuban [Bay of Pigs] operation, for example, was not that the intelligence and operations were combined, but precisely that the Cuban operation evaded systematic intelligence judgment. The Intelligence Branch (DDI) of the CIA was never informed of the existence of the Cuban operation. The Office of National Estimates was never asked to comment on the assumption, for example, that discontent had reached the point in Cuba where a successful landing operation would provoke uprisings behind the lines and defections from the Militia.

    I gather that if its opinion had been invited, DDI would have given quite a different estimate of the state of opinion in Cuba from that on which the operation was based. …

    The Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the Department of State knew even less about the Cuban operation.”

    DNI Position: A Creature of 9/11

    As most are aware, there was enough intelligence available before 9/11 to prevent it. But the cats would not be herded. C.I.A. would not share with F.B.I. and vice versa. NSA would share with no one. Here’s one account that will turn your stomach.

    Tenet listening to President George W. Bush’s address on Sept. 11, 2001, in the President’s Emergency Operations Center. (U.S. National Archives via Flickr, Public domain)

    The congressional oversight committees as well as the administration and the intelligence community were not only intent on covering up what had happened, but needed to make it appear that remedial action was being taken.

    Enter the 9/11 Commission and its recommendations. Here, they said, was the problem: George Tenet, as director of central intelligence (head of the whole community) as well as chief of the C.I.A. was overburdened.

    In fact, Tenet was the antithesis of an effective head of the intelligence community; he screwed up royally. But he also knew “where the bodies were buried” — which key administration and congressional officials had been exposed to some of the disregarded intelligence. So it was not deemed safe to lay the blame where it clearly belonged.

    A fiction was devised. The problem was said to be that “no one was in charge of the intelligence community.” So the 9/11 Commission recommended that a new superstructure be created to coordinate the community (and let no one be held accountable).

    On July 22, 2004, immediately after the 9/11 Commission report was released, I found myself with 9/11 commissioner (and former senator from Washington) Slade Gorton in the BBC blue room in Washington. I had the temerity to remind him that it was far from the case that “no one was in charge” of the intelligence community; that Tenet had all the authority he needed.

    Gorton turned to me, smiled and said: “Of course we know all that; but we in the Commission and in Congress just had to do something so the American people would see that we were doing something.”

    Yuck.

    The national intelligence director, and the newly created bureaucracy, is what it is. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard can take the reins and make the community work. It will take a miracle; let’s hope for one.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 18:25

  • Food Additives Exposed: What Lies Beneath America's Food Supply
    Food Additives Exposed: What Lies Beneath America’s Food Supply

    Authored by Charles Cornish-Dale via The Epoch Times,

    Scientists at the University of Texas, Dallas recently discovered that a common food additive can make flesh translucent – literally. Applying a solution of the yellow food colouring tartrazine to the skin of live mice allowed scientists to see right through the skin, into the tissues beneath, potentially offering a simple and inexpensive alternative to conventional imaging technologies like ultrasound.

    Through the skin covering the skull, the scientists could look directly at blood vessels on the surface of the murine brain, and through the skin of the abdomen they observed internal organs and even the process known as peristalsis, the contractions that move food through the digestive passage.

    Pretty cool, huh?

    The physics behind this discovery aren’t actually all that complicated. Basically, when added to water, tartrazine changes the water’s refractive index—the way it bends light—so that it matches the refractive index of molecules like lipids in the skin, reducing the degree to which light scatters as it passes through the skin. Instead of scattering, the light travels straight and true, meaning you get to see what’s on the other side.

    The process is totally reversible. It only takes a few minutes, the tartrazine solution can be washed off, and when it is the effects disappear. What tartrazine is absorbed by the skin is metabolized and excreted through the urine.

    The researchers’ next goal is to test the solution on humans. Human skin is about 10 times thicker than a mouse’s, so it’s likely a larger dose will be needed, and it’s not clear if the delivery method—just rubbing the stuff on the skin—will be adequate.

    A miraculous discovery, for sure, and one that will no doubt benefit medicine. But it’s also a reminder of an unpleasant, dangerous truth about the food supply in America today: that it’s full of substances whose properties and safety we know virtually next to nothing about. There are thousands upon thousands of additives—texturizers, colorings, humectants, anti-fungals, anti-caking agents, preservatives—in Americans’ food that have never been independently tested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or by scientists who aren’t employed by the companies that make those chemicals and add them to their food.

    As we’re discovering, many of those additives—the ones we know about and have begun to test—turn out to be extremely harmful, with links to every single chronic health condition you could care to name, from cancer and obesity to neurological and behavioral conditions like Alzheimer’s and autism. Tartrazine, which is found in Twinkies, Mountain Dew, candy, and cereals, among other foods, has been linked to hyperactivity in children and cancer. In the European Union, foods containing tartrazine must carry a warning label: “May have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.”

    It sounds absurd—insane, actually—but it’s not a glitch or an organized system of corporate deception. We’re not talking about companies lying to regulators or acting beyond the boundaries of the law. No, this is all above board. The system even has a name. The FDA calls it “generally recognized as safe” or “GRAS” for short.

    The GRAS system was first introduced by the FDA in 1958 after the passage of the Food Additive Amendments, to “grandfather” through additives that were already used in food. The new additive regulations were intended to ensure ingredients capable of causing long-term harm never entered the food supply, but something very different happened. The GRAS designation mutated into a system that allowed companies to introduce and safety-test additives themselves without the FDA ever getting a look-in.

    This happened in large part because the FDA simply couldn’t keep up with demands from companies to test their new additives for the burgeoning processed-food category. So companies started testing additives themselves and adding them to their food products without any consultation with the regulator.

    Companies did this for decades, and instead of stepping in to assert its authority, the FDA did what any poorly staffed, hopelessly compromised organization would do: It simply chose to regularize the process, which was completed in 2016.

    According to one study, since 2000, there have been only 10 applications to the FDA for full approval of a new food additive, out of a total of 766 that have been added to the American food supply. The safety of the other 756 was self-determined by the manufacturers themselves, in secret.

    And so we’ve ended up in a situation where a company can produce a new food additive, decide it’s safe by whatever means it chooses, and then bring it to market without any scrutiny at all from the FDA. Like I say, nobody knows the exact amount, but a common estimate is that there are as many as 10,000 food additives in use in the United States, compared to around 2,000—all known quantities, by contrast—that are permitted in the EU.

    Thankfully, the FDA and the GRAS system are now firmly in the sights of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tasked by president-elect Trump with Making America Healthy Again.

    The “FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy said in a Tweet last month.

    He listed a whole range of compounds and treatments that he claims the FDA has suppressed, from psychedelics and peptides to “sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”

    “If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you,” he continued.

    “1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”

    Strong stuff.

    Although Trump has yet to specify exactly what role Kennedy will play in the new administration, Kennedy himself has already made clear that other priorities, beside root-and-branch reform of agencies like the FDA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Agriculture, will include fluoridation of the water supply, vaccinations, environmental pollution, and processed food. This is a comprehensive program, and if Kennedy can make meaningful changes in all of these areas in four years, he will have done the American people and their health an enormous service.

    If anybody can get to the bottom of why Americans are so sick, it’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man who has spent decades campaigning on environmental and health issues, and suffered personal loss and public vilification as a result—but still kept on going.

    He knows as much as anybody the corruption that lies beneath the façade of public health in America, and now, at long last, he’s in a position to do something about it.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 17:40

  • "Why Are We Hiding It From The Public?" – Five Takeaways From Congressional UFO Hearing
    “Why Are We Hiding It From The Public?” – Five Takeaways From Congressional UFO Hearing

    On Wednesday a bipartisan group of lawmakers hosted a congressional hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), where witnesses testified on potential threats to national security from incursions into US airspace.

    Led by Nancy Mace (R-SC) and hosted by the House Oversight Committee, the hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth” featured former DoD official Luis Elizondo, former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy and Partnerships Michael Gold, journalist Michael Shellenberger, and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet.

    The group discussed ongoing interest by congressional lawmakers into UAPs, as well as NASA’s potential role in reporting sightings, the origins of the alleged aircraft, and the Pentagon’s ongoing coverup into UAP documents and materials.

    “One of Congress’s most important responsibilities is oversight of the executive branch in general and the military and intelligence community in particular,” said Shellenberger, who think that the government is unconstitutionally usurping congressional authority by withholding the information.

    According to the Epoch Times, here are five takeaways from the hearing:

    1. Ongoing Bipartisan Interest From Congress

    The bipartisan UAP caucus—Mace, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), Rep. Anna Paulina (R-Fla.), Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.)—were joined by other House members on Wednesday for the nearly two and a half hour hearing.

    Mace, concerned that the U.S. government is withholding UAP materials it has officially compiled since the 1940s, said Congress and the public deserve to know what the government’s taxpayer-funded research on the topic has yielded, even if they are dead ends.

    “If we’re spending money on something that doesn’t exist, why are we spending the money? And if it does exist, why are we hiding it from the public?” Mace asked. She said national security is at stake if those objects are the technology of foreign adversaries.

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    The possibility that some UAP, including those in videos released by the Pentagon, could be foreign technology, was echoed by Ogles.

    “It is clear, from my experience and what I’ve seen, that there is something out there. The question is, ‘Is it ours, is it someone else’s, or is it otherworldly?’” Ogles asked.

    Any attempts to restrict Congress from gaining access to that information would be criminal, he added.

    The Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which is tasked with studying and cataloging UAP reports, has hundreds of sightings that remain “uncharacterized and unattributed” while displaying “unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said.

    “Now, we shouldn’t prejudge what they might be. I’m certainly not going to. We need evidence that we are detecting things, and we know that we don’t understand them, and this is worth investigating,” he added.

    2. Elizondo Testifies

    Elizondo, one of the key witnesses at the hearing, is famous for feeding the story of the Pentagon’s former UFO program to The New York Times in 2017.

    That article resulted in a resurgence of public interest and media reporting on UFOs, and was accompanied by several Department of Defense fighter jet videos that purportedly showed unidentified craft.

    One video, titled “GOFAST,” showed a tic-tac-shaped craft, which some have speculated to be an advanced drone. One of the pilots who followed the craft when it was spotted in 2004, Commander David Fravor, testified at last year’s congressional UAP hearing that he believed the craft was superior to both contemporary military tech and anything we are “looking to develop in the next 10-plus years.”

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    Elizondo said on Wednesday that some UAP are “advanced technologies not made by our government or any other government” but that both the United States and its adversaries are in possession of “UAP technologies.”

    “I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade secretive arms race, one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” he said.

    Elizondo has claimed since 2017 that he was previously the director of the Pentagon’s 2009 UFO program, which was officially called the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program.

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    The Pentagon has said this program, sometimes referred to as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), officially ended in 2012, but that an unofficial group of Pentagon researchers used the AATIP name moving forward. Elizondo says he was the director of AATIP.

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    “Luis Elizondo had no assigned responsibilities for AATIP while assigned to OUSD(I) [Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence],” Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough told The Epoch Times.

    3. NASA’s Role in UAP Reporting

    Gold, who was also a member of NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team, told Congress that commercial airline pilots need an official database to report potential UAP sightings. He suggested that his former employer’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) is a good place to start.

    “This system, which is administered by NASA and funded by the FAA, provides a confidential means for reporting of safety violations in a voluntary and non-punitive manner,” Gold said. “Over 47 years, the ASRS has collected nearly 2 million reports. ASRS is the perfect tool to collect UAP data, which could then be collated by NASA and shared with the public at large.”

    NASA is already one of the most respected U.S. agencies, Gold added, which gives it a unique position in reestablishing the public’s trust in the government and UAP.

    “For relatively little cost and effort, NASA could create an AI [artificial intelligence] or ML [machine learning] algorithm that could search the agency’s archives for anomalous phenomena.”

    4. Aliens, Drones, or Something Else?

    While this year’s UAP hearing was lighter on speculations of non-human intelligence, the topic was still addressed.

    Mace probed Elizondo about purported UAP crash retrieval programs in the U.S. government, a central topic of discussion in last year’s hearing. Elizondo answered in the affirmative when asked if those programs were “designed to identify and reverse engineer alien craft.”

    “In regards to these aircraft being piloted by whatever they might be—non-human biologics—would you agree that it’s likely that they are being piloted by some mind-body connection?” Luna asked.

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    Elizondo, who emphasized that he was more interested in the objects’ flight characteristics than speculating on their origin, said it was safe to presume intelligent control of some kind because they “seem to anticipate [pilots’] maneuvers.”

    Garcia asked all four witnesses what could be the source of UAP. Both Gallaudet and Elizondo said nonhuman, higher intelligence, but Shellenberger and Gold said they don’t know.

    “I think we must be modest in our assumptions that we’re looking for intelligence that could be biological. It might not,” Gold said. “But I think the ultimate answer is going to surprise us all.”

    The Pentagon said earlier this year, even among its unsolved cases, “if more and better quality data were available, most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena.” Those could be drones, satellites, or even meteorological events, it said.

    5. The Pentagon’s Role in UFOs/UAP

    The witnesses and lawmakers present agreed that the Pentagon has been “over-classifying” documents and materials related to UAP sightings, which sometimes get labeled “top secret” and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

    “For what purpose is the federal government over-classifying? Because that’s what they’re doing. They’re over-classifying and forbidding the public from getting access to this.” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said.

    Elizondo offered two explanations. For one, it could be a holdover policy from the Cold War, when the United States didn’t want to reveal to the Soviets our awareness of foreign military technology or disclose our own. The Pentagon might also be uninterested in revealing information related to problems—including foreign incursions into U.S. airspace—they lack answers for, Elizondo added.

    Shellenberger mentioned government researcher John Greenewald Jr., who runs The Black Vault, an online database of more than 3 million government documents obtained through FOIA requests.

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    Greenewald says that the government has often denied the existence of specific UAP records, only to admit they exist after he files a FOIA appeal. But in one case, the Navy responded that the videos contain sensitive information, are classified, and exempt from disclosure.

    The Navy, for instance, falls back on its UAP Security Classification Guide for denying many FOIA requests, Greenewald told The Epoch Times. The guide says any UAP information obtained or developed through the use of classified sources or methods will receive the highest classification level applicable. The Pentagon has a similar policy.

    When the Pentagon declined to release video footage from U.S. fighter jets shooting down suspected UFOs over Alaska in 2023, the Defense Department said the footage remained classified.

    However, that same year the Pentagon released videos of a Russian fighter jet forcing down a U.S. MQ-9 reaper drone. Greenewald pointed out that all MQ-9 Reaper drone footage of UAP remains classified “so it doesn’t reveal drone capabilities.”

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    “When you get into over secrecy, over classification, them not wanting to be open and honest about things—whether it be about UAP or anything for that matter—the public trust erodes,” Greenewald said.

    In response to a request for comment from The Epoch Times, the Department of Defense said it takes public interest in UAP seriously.

    “The department is fully committed to openness and accountability to Congress and the American people, which it must balance with its obligation to protect sensitive information, sources, and methods,” Gough said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 17:20

  • VDH: Restoring Deterrence Will Prevent Endless Wars
    VDH: Restoring Deterrence Will Prevent Endless Wars

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    On January 3, 2020, the Trump administration conducted a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport, killing Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani.

    Soleimani had a long record of waging surrogate wars against Americans, especially during the Iraq conflict and its aftermath.

    After the Trump cancellation of the Iran Deal, followed by U.S. sanctions, Soleimani reportedly stepped up violence against regional American bases—most of which Trump himself ironically wished to remove.

    A few days later, Iran staged a performance-art retaliatory strike against Americans in Iraq and Syria, assuming Trump had no desire for a wider Middle East war.

    So, Iran launched 12 missiles that hit two U.S. airbases in Iraq. Supposedly, Tehran had warned the Trump administration of the impending attacks that killed no Americans. Later reports, however, suggested that some Americans suffered concussions, while more damage was done to the bases than was initially disclosed.

    Nonetheless, this Iranian interlude seemed to reflect Trump’s agenda of avoiding “endless wars” in the Middle East while restoring deterrence that prevented, not prompted, full-scale conflicts.

    Yet in a second Trump administration, rethreading the deterrence needle without getting into major wars may become far more challenging. The world of today is far more dangerous than when Trump left in 2021.

    An inept Biden administration has utterly destroyed U.S. deterrence abroad through both actual and symbolic disasters:

    • the Chinese dressing down of U.S. diplomats in Anchorage;

    • the humiliating skedaddle from Afghanistan;

    • the brazen flight of a Chinese spy balloon across the U.S.;

    • the invasion of Ukraine by Russia;

    • the October 7, 2023 massacre of 1200 Israelis;

    • the serial Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea;

    • the visible restraint of Israeli from fully replying to Iranian missile attacks on its homeland;

    • and renewed bellicosity on the part of both North Korea and China toward American allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

    Of course, a second-term Trump must radically reform the Pentagon and beef up the military while warning enemies of the consequences to follow from any unwise aggression.

    But if opponents believe such admonitions remain only vocal threats, then empty verbiage surely will erode deterrence further—such as Joe Biden’s serial and empty braggadocio, “Don’t!”

    Biden’s past theatrical finger-shaking translated into aggressors like Putin going into Ukraine, Iran sending missiles into Israel, and the Houthis serially hitting shipping in the Red Sea.

    Given the past messes of the Iraqi, Libyan, and Syrian interventions, and the catastrophic Biden humiliation in Afghanistan, Trump in 2024 is much more emphatic about the need to avoid such overseas dead-end entanglements or even the gratuitous use of force that historically can sometimes lead to tit-for-tat entanglements.

    Still, Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as vice president, along with Tulsi Gabbard, RFK, Jr., and Tucker Carlson as close advisors, coupled with the announcements that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and prior UN Ambassador Nikki Haley will not be in the administration, may be misinterpreted by scheming foreign adversaries as proof of Trump neo-isolationism.

    Moreover, the U.S. is battered by an unsustainable $37 trillion national debt and a nonexistent southern border that saw 12 million illegal aliens enter with impunity.

    So, the use of force abroad is now often seen in a zero-sum fashion as coming at the expense of unaddressed American needs at home.

    Moreover, a woke, manpower-short military has not achieved strategic advantages from wars abroad, while disparaging and alienating the very working-class recruits who disproportionately fight and die in them.

    Recently, even as President-elect Trump’s inner circle emphasized an end to endless conflicts, Trump warned Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin not to escalate his attacks against Ukraine. Yet that advice was followed by a Russian massive drone onslaught against civilian Ukrainian targets.

    Putin no doubt wishes to encourage American enemies to test Trump’s deterrent rhetoric against his campaign’s domestic promises to mind America’s own business at home.

    Is there a way to square the deterrence circle?

    Trump will have to speak clearly and softly while carrying a club. And for the first few months of his administration, he will be tested as never before to make it clear to Iran and its terrorist surrogates, China, North Korea, and Russia that aggression against US interests will be swiftly and quietly met with disproportionate and overwhelming repercussions.

    Yet Trump will likely have to rely on drones, missiles, and air strikes and not on major engagements, to deter enemies from aggression—and his domestic critics from claiming he turned into a globalist interventionist.

    He is not.

    Trump remains a Jacksonian. But such deterrence entails warning from time to time the reckless and adventurous abroad that our allies have no better friend than America and our adversaries no worse enemy.

    In other words, Trump must remind Americans only by periodically deterring enemies can he prevent endless wars.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 17:00

  • Election Week Saw Huge Money-Market Fund Inflows, Bank Deposits Rise, Loan Volumes Shrink
    Election Week Saw Huge Money-Market Fund Inflows, Bank Deposits Rise, Loan Volumes Shrink

    Money market funds saw massive inflows for the second straight week (+$81.6BN), pushing the total assets under management to a new record high of $6.66TN…

    Source: Bloomberg

    And while MM funds surged, total US bank deposits dropped modestly (-$7.5BN on a seasonally-adjusted basis)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Though interestingly, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, total deposits rose by a modest $3.7BN during the week ending 11/6 (which included the election)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Excluding foreign deposits, US banks saw domestic deposits rise on both an SA (+$12BN) and NSA (+$16.7BN) basis…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Loan volumes shrank significantly during election week…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, the decoupling between bank reserves at The Fed and the total US equity market capitalization has reached an extreme…

    Source: Bloomberg

    With liquidity being drawn down from The Fed’s reverse repo facility at a pace, we wonder how long that spread can be maintained.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 16:41

  • The Great Splainin' Cometh
    The Great Splainin’ Cometh

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

    “The meltdown has gotten so heavy liberal bureaucrats are ready to form antigovernment militias and fretting about black helicopters”

    – Max Blumenthal

    “Many Democrats were considering how to navigate a dark future, with the party unable to stop Mr. Trump from carrying out a right-wing transformation of American government. Others turned inward, searching for why the nation rejected them. They spoke about misinformation and the struggle to communicate the party’s vision in a diminished news environment inundated with right-wing propaganda”

    – The New York Times

    In July 27, 1794, the non-insane members of the Convention, or national legislative body in Paris, suddenly turned on the rabid Jacobin leader Maximillian Robespierre and overthrew his ruling tyrannical bunch — who had killed 40,000 of their fellow countrymen in the paranoid orgy known as The Reign of Terror.

    The next day, Robespierre rode the tumbrel to his own appointment with “the national razor” and the Thermidorian Reaction was on!

    By the way, in one of their many acts disordering French society, the Jacobins had changed the calendar, renamed all the months, and changed the weeks from seven to ten days (to eliminate Sundays as a holy day of rest in their anti-church crusade). Thus, Thermidor, the month of mid-summer.

    This was but a small part of their proto-communist agenda, but you see in it the flavor of their radical extremism.

    The Woke Democrats of recent times were our Jacobins, and the election of November 5, 2024, marks the kick-off of America’s Thermidorian Reaction. The crazies have been overthrown and our country awaits a restoration of norms in culture and law. No more sexualizing of children, no more flood of criminal mutts across the US border, no more furtive censorship of public speech, no more creative lawfare, no more women on the battlefield, no more “anti-racist” racism in the workplace, no more intel takeover of everyone’s private life. . . you get the picture.

    Many abiding mysteries about how this happened — even of what exactly did happen — remain to be sorted out by law and by history. That is probably because so much of the Woke Revolution was provoked by state-of-the-art mind-fuckery out of the giant intel blob’s psy-ops lab.

    This blob, you understand, had grown to be a colossal racketeering operation with many branches and ever-spreading roots, and it cast its spells over the populace to protect these interests — which, of course, involved huge revenue streams.

    Perhaps its most potent spell was the manipulation of women’s emotion, harnessing female psychodrama as the propellant for mass social discord. In a nation of absent fathers, damaged children, and broken male-female relations, Donald Trump was painted as the ultimate archetypal tyrant Daddy figure to deflect the public’s attention from the actual tyranny growing under the US intel blob and its Globalist sidekicks. Case in point: RussiaGate, a long-running hysteria of fabricated accusations, a fabulous medley of scurrilous gossip, engineered at the highest levels of our government for the express purpose of wrecking Mr. Trump’s first term in office. “Witch hunt” was exactly the right term.

    Many more psychodramas followed, all of them artificially cooked up by various branches of the blob: impeachments #1 and #2; the FBI-induced J-6 riot and the fake House J-6 inquiry that followed; the roll-out of DOJ-inspired fake criminal and civil cases that tied-up Mr. Trump in courtrooms through the year, and most especially the hostile news media’s presentation of all these things as one great big everlasting frenzy of on-screen women shrieking at the Daddy-figure, Donald Trump, like thirteen-year-old girls in fugues of hormonal disruption.

    The voters, subject to years of trips laid on them, were eventually able to see through all this induced psychodrama as to how they were being manipulated, and on November 5, they finally revolted. Their quandary was probably epitomized by the absurdity of watching men in women’s sports — spiking volleyballs on the girls’ heads, bashing them on the lacrosse field, humiliating them in the swim lanes — and, more to the point, being helpless to do anything about it, because the officials in-charge under “Joe Biden” said it must be, no matter what you think and feel about what you are seeing.

    The New York Times, your field-guide to blob-think, is warning its dwindling readership of psychodrama addicts that Donald Trump will now take out his “grievances” on the noble, self-sacrificing bureaucracy that manages things so well in this land. As usual, The Times misleads and misinforms. These are the grievances of the nation that has seen its law and its culture twisted into new orders of wickedness that leave daily life in the USA perverted, dishonored, and grotesquefied.

    So now Mr. Trump has picked a cabinet that scares the blob to death — for good reason. They are aiming to systematically disarm and disassemble the blob. They are a team of serious and intelligent warriors and they mean business, in particular Gaetz, Gabbard, Kennedy, Ratcliffe, and Homan, with Elon and Vivek riding shotgun. (A new FBI Director has not yet been named.) You must wonder how the blob is planning to defend itself, for it surely will resist.

    Many of us believe that the two recent assassination attempts against the now-President-elect were blob-sponsored operations. Everybody expects they’ll try again. But it’s possible that the American system still has enough mojo to self-correct. A whole lot of public officials have a whole lot of ‘splainin’ to do. It looks like they will be compelled to now, including the public health officers who brought us Covid-19 and the mandated, ineffective-and-harmful mRNA vaccines.

    There’s every reason to believe that the ‘splainin’ can take place in correct proceedings according to law: hearings, grand juries, courts. We do have actual laws against racketeering, abuse of power, election fraud, bribery, malicious prosecution, sedition, treason, and conspiracy to commit all those crimes. Pay attention: all that is distinct from lawfare, which is making-up crimes, faking crimes, and faking procedure. You are going to see a demonstration of how law differs from lawfare. It ought to have a salutary effect on our national esprit. And that should motivate us to get on with the job of repairing the damage done to our country.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/15/2024 – 16:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 15

Today’s News 15th November 2024

  • How Trump Could Transform Indo–Pacific Policy
    How Trump Could Transform Indo–Pacific Policy

    Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in office will likely bring sweeping changes to the nation’s Indo–Pacific policy and ongoing strategic competition with China.

    Taiwan’s armed forces hold two days of routine drills to show combat readiness ahead of Lunar New Year holidays at a military base in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on Jan. 11, 2023. The self-ruled island of Taiwan continues to hold defensive drills, as tensions remain high in the Taiwan Strait. Annabelle Chih/Getty Images

    Leaders throughout Congress and the national security space are therefore preparing for an era marked by increased confrontation as the administration pushes back on the Chinese regime’s aggression in the region.

    Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said he expects a second Trump administration to adopt a firm approach to foreign policy in the Indo–Pacific.

    “During Trump’s first administration, peace through strength was at the forefront of American foreign policy,” Moolenaar said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times by the committee’s staff.

    That strength, Moolenaar suggests, would extend to the U.S. allies throughout the Indo–Pacific, where Trump is expected to push regional partners to increase their defense spending in order to receive continued U.S. support.

    “The entire free world must act with urgency to invest in its collective military power in order to deter conflict, support global prosperity, and defend our values against CCP [Chinese Communist Party] aggression,” Moolenaar said.

    Those increased expectations of Washington’s allies could bring both risk and opportunities to U.S. relations in the region as the nation attempts to pressure regional partners into adopting a more forward-facing defense posture.

    They will also likely bring increased volatility to the United States’ relationship with China and the CCP, including by shaping the potential for an armed conflict between the two superpowers over the future of Taiwan.

    Taiwan Flashpoint

    The CCP claims that Taiwan is part of its territory. Though the communist regime has never controlled the island, CCP leader Xi Jinping has made unifying Taiwan with the mainland a legacy issue of his rule and has ordered the Party’s military wing to prepare for a potential conflict by 2027.

    The United States does not officially support Taiwanese independence or the forceful unification of the two territories. But, since 1979, Washington has maintained obligations to sell Taiwan the arms it needs to maintain its self-defense.

    Likewise, the United States has maintained a policy of so-called strategic ambiguity since 1979, in which it will neither confirm nor deny its willingness to enter a military conflict to defend Taiwan from CCP aggression.

    However, U.S. political and military leadership have signaled that they are preparing for such an eventuality. To that end, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti issued a guidance document in September ordering the Navy to prepare for war with China by 2027.

    The United States is not interested in preserving Taiwan’s independence simply because of its democratic government. The island nation is responsible for manufacturing more than half of the world’s semiconductors and nearly 90 percent of the globe’s advanced semiconductors, used in electronic components for everything from laptops to pickup trucks to hypersonic missiles.

    To that end, Trump’s transactional approach to international security deals has thrown Taiwan’s central role in the global economy into question.

    In July, for example, Trump called for Taiwan to pay more for its defense, though the island is already one of the largest purchasers of arms from the United States.

    Since 1950, Taiwan has spent more than $50 billion on U.S. weapons, making it the fourth largest purchaser of U.S. arms behind Japan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

    Trump has also suggested that military force would not be necessary to protect Taiwan from the CCP and has instead claimed that a severe enough economic threat to China would prevent an invasion of Taiwan.

    Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute think tank, told The Epoch Times that Trump’s ambiguous stance on Taiwan’s defense could invite further CCP attempts to sway American and Taiwanese decision-makers away from aggressively defending the island’s de facto independence.

    “The president-elect has already indicated that he would be less clear than President Biden as to whether he thought the United States had an obligation to come to Taiwan’s defense if China decided to invade the island,” Hsiao said.

    “Washington and Taipei should be prepared for Beijing to exploit this in its cognitive warfare campaigns and quickly develop their own counter-strategies.”

    Hsiao noted, however, that Trump was “unencumbered by past precedents and norms,” which could help him to strengthen the bilateral relationship by overcoming the self-imposed restrictions of the past that have limited U.S. involvement with Taiwan on the international stage.

    As such, he said, asking for Taiwan to accept a larger share of the financial burden for its defense could be an opportunity for Taiwanese leaders to demonstrate their resolve and, in the process, garner renewed U.S. support through access to increased arms sales.

    “President-elect Trump is expected to emphasize burden-sharing in security ties with allies and partners,” Hsiao said.

    “While this may be generally seen in a negative light by most allies and partners, it should be noted that this could lead to it being more forward-leaning in providing a wider variety of arms to Taiwan suited to a range of potential contingencies.”

    Trump Expected to Deliver Security—at a Price

    Taiwanese leadership responded by saying the island was committed to taking on more responsibility and defending itself from CCP aggression.

    Taiwanese leadership may consider making a substantial arms purchase early on in the second Trump administration as a sort of down payment to demonstrate its resolve to the administration.

    John Mills, former cybersecurity chief in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said that ensuring a robust defense budget would help Taiwan to make sure U.S. support did not flag and that military expenditure was “the primary metric” used by Trump to determine an ally’s willingness to defend itself.

    “We have a very poor track record when we carry the burden for other countries,” Mills said.

    “All that is being asked is at least 2 percent of GDP spent on defense and, in reality, 4 to 5 percent is the new 2 percent.”

    At present, Taiwan spends about 2.4 percent of its GDP on defense, according to data compiled by the CIA.

    Other U.S. allies in the region are more varied. South Korea spends about 2.7 percent of its GDP on defense, and the Philippines spends only about 1.5 percent. Japan is in a unique situation because it is currently spending 1.4 percent but is in the middle of a historic reform of its military policy and strategy, which will see that figure rise to at least 2 percent in the coming years.

    Yet none of those numbers at their current levels are likely to please the incoming Trump administration if it is truly so set on encouraging the nation’s allies in the Indo–Pacific to take point on confronting the Chinese regime’s global expansion.

    There may be some wiggle room, however, as the administration looks to use less traditional pathways to secure its international interests.

    Sam Kessler, a geopolitical analyst at the North Star Support Group risk advisory company, said that a hallmark of the first Trump administration was its ability to think outside of the box, and that would likely only increase now, given Trump’s growing distance from the old guard of the Republican Party.

    “The Trump administration in the first term was innovative, proactive, and resourceful in the deals and agreements they crafted, so expect something similar, as well as a little predicted unpredictability, too,” Kessler told The Epoch Times.

    “This may be done in the form of trade deals, security arrangements, foreign investments, and policies that may help reduce the threat levels, too. It could be a wide range of things that could be utilized.”

    On that note, Kessler suggests that Trump would revisit trade deals and strong economic measures when confronting China and might prove surprisingly willing to take a proactive stance in the bilateral relationship with China.

    Such economic deals, he said, could have the secondary objective of smoothing out regional tensions and preserving allied security while holding the CCP accountable economically.

    “We may end up witnessing a series of deals and agreements that may be related to multiple issues that are non-related to the original purpose of a negotiation in order to reduce tensions between multiple parties in other areas,” Kessler said.

    In all, it is clear that U.S. allies in the Indo–Pacific will be expected to contribute more to the common defense in the region, and such efforts will not go unseen.

    With that much in mind, Mills said that he believes the likelihood of an armed conflict would drop, as Trump’s expectations for all nations in the Indo–Pacific would be clear.

    “The likelihood of conflict in the western Pacific decreases significantly under Trump,” Mills said.

    “Why? Because he’s showing clarity and resolve at all times. Clarity and resolve help prevent war. Lack of clarity and resolve creates war.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 23:50

  • Tennessee Official Warns: Venezuelan Gangsters "Back In All Of Our Major Cities" 
    Tennessee Official Warns: Venezuelan Gangsters “Back In All Of Our Major Cities” 

    The American people are expressing joy about President-elect Trump’s selection of Tom Homan as the incoming “border czar” to combat Biden-Harris’ illegal alien invasion at the open southern border, which has been linked to thousands of armed Venezuela prison gang Tren de Aragua members storming communities nationwide.

    Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch is the latest official to warn about TdA members taking over his cities. He said these illegal alien criminals have been spotted in all major cities in Tennessee. 

    Local media outlet WVLT News quoted Rausch, who warned that TdA members have been involved in human trafficking within the state. 

    “They are back in all of our major cities. They are running human trafficking operations, and that’s where they start,” said Rausch.

    Rausch told Governor Bill Lee on Tuesday that the foreign prison gang was active across the state in 2023, but after a number of arrests, activity slumped. However, he said, in just the past few months, TdA activity has surged once again. 

    The TBI director said TdA members were also involved in organized retail theft and drug crimes within the state. 

    “They will not hesitate to attack their opponents in public or in broad daylight,” Rausch warned. 

    A recently leaked US Army North Division report showed an estimated 5,000 TdA members running amok nationwide. 

    TdA members have caused chaos in Aurora, Colorado to Texas to New York.

    These disastrous globalist policies pushed by the far-left Biden-Harris admin neglected to uphold national security for citizens while ten-plus million unvetted illegal aliens stormed the nation. 

    Tennessee voters shifted toward Trump in last week’s presidential election, signaling frustration with the globalist in the White House.

    Months ago, Homan had a message to the illegals…

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

    The restoration of national security is only months away. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 23:25

  • Democratic Governors Create Coalition To Push Back Against Trump Policies
    Democratic Governors Create Coalition To Push Back Against Trump Policies

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

    The governors of Illinois and Colorado, both Democrats, have announced the formation of a new alliance to resist President-elect Donald Trump’s policies, just weeks before he is set to assume office.

    (Left) Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker at New York Hilton Midtown in New York City on Sept. 24, 2024; (Right) Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks in Pueblo, Colo., on Nov. 29, 2023. Craig Barritt; Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

    The alliance, named “Governors Safeguarding Democracy” (GSD), is being billed as a nonpartisan coalition of governors who will work together to prevent “authoritarianism” and the “undermining of democratic institutions,” including executive agencies, elections, and state courts, according to a Nov. 13 statement announcing the group.

    Through the group, governors will leverage their “unique legislative, budgetary, executive, and administrative powers to deliver results for the American people,” the statement said.

    The alliance will also develop “playbooks” to enable governors and their teams to “anticipate and swiftly respond to emerging threats,” according to the statement. The group did not specify what those threats were.

    Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado launched the group and will act as co-chairs overseeing the coalition. The group will be supported by a network of senior staff designated by each governor.

    Democrats currently govern 23 states while Republicans govern 27. Neither Polis nor Pritzker said how many governors have joined the coalition so far.

    A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, Karoline Leavitt, said in response to the group’s formation that the president-elect “will serve all Americans, even those who did not vote for him in the election.”

    “He will unify the country through success,” Leavitt said.

    The coalition says it will be supported by the Governors Action Alliance (GovAct), a nonpartisan organization that will collaborate with think tanks, legal experts, and democracy advocates to tackle the “unique challenges facing American democracy today,” according to the statement.

    According to its official website, GovAct is advised by a board that includes former Republican and Democratic governors from states such as Minnesota and Massachusetts, as well as a former deputy attorney general.

    Specifics regarding how exactly the alliance would function were not provided.

    In a statement, Pritzker said the alliance was formed amid a “critical moment in our history … to protect the foundations of our democracy and ensure our institutions withstand threats and persevere in their mission to improve the lives of our people.”

    Trump, who campaigned on proposals including deporting illegal immigrants and imposing tariffs, scored a decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in last week’s election.

    The alliance was unveiled as multiple leaders from the Democratic Party vowed to uphold various policies related to access to abortion, climate, diversity programs, and LGBT issues following the former president’s election win.

    On Nov. 7, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to convene a special session later this year to address Trump policies, which he said threaten the state’s values.

    According to a statement from Newsom’s office, the special session will respond to public statements and proposals put forward by Trump and his advisers, as well as actions taken during his previous time in office, which the statement described as “an agenda that could erode essential freedoms and individual rights, including women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.”

    President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 13, 2024. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

    The special session will begin on Dec. 2, when the Legislature convenes.

    Last week, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said that his legal team had been preparing for months to respond to future Trump policies, while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is working with her attorney general on how to “protect New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms.”

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was Harris’s running mate in the recent presidential election, told supporters during a Nov. 8 speech in Eagan, Minnesota, that he would “stand ready to stand up and fight” if the incoming Trump administration brings a “hateful agenda” to the state.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 23:00

  • Manhattan Apartment Rents Climb To Summer Highs As Mortgage Rates Top 7%
    Manhattan Apartment Rents Climb To Summer Highs As Mortgage Rates Top 7%

    Prospective homebuyers in Manhattan were sidelined last month as the rate on a 30-year mortgage topped 7%. As a result, rents in the borough rose to three-month highs due to sliding housing affordability.

    Bloomberg cited new data from brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate and appraiser Miller Samuel that showed the median Manhattan apartment rent climbed 2.4% from a year earlier to $4,295. This was the first annual gain since April.

    In other surrounding boroughs, new leases signed in Brooklyn last month averaged around $3,600, up 3.2% from a year earlier. In northwest Queens, median rents were up nearly 5% to $3,350.

    Source: Bloomberg

    In recent weeks, the US 10-year Treasury bond yield, which lenders use as a guide to price home loans, jumped in anticipation of a Trump win. Yields soared even after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate. This is mostly because traders forecasted elevated inflation under the Trump administration. 

    Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, noted that lower mortgage rates lured some renters to purchase homes before the presidential election. However, he noted that rents started to re-accelerate as soon as mortgage rates bottomed in late September and surged through October. He added that a 30-year mortgage rate over 7% has pressured rents higher. 

    “Rents tend to follow mortgage rates,” Miller said, adding, “The higher the mortgage rate, the higher rent.”

    Miller said newly signed leases jumped 24% last month compared to one year ago. He noted that higher rates have sparked a surge in activity this fall. 

    “Mortgage rates still aren’t coming down,” Miller said, pointing out, “Economic policy would not seem to suggest that mortgage rates will fall significantly. If anything, rents will stay where they are, or rise, moving forward.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 22:35

  • Bernie Sanders Screams, 'More Cowbell!'
    Bernie Sanders Screams, ‘More Cowbell!’

    Authored by Neel Brown via RealClearPolitics,

    As Americans voted decisively for a candidate who explicitly rejects nearly everything that Bernie Sanders advocates, Vermont’s senior senator insists that the Democratic Party just wasn’t liberal enough. The mindset of the far left seems to be that the working class just needs more of what they just voted against. For Bernie, the answer is always, “more cowbell.”

    Four years ago, the United States elected “Scranton Joe,” a pragmatic with a long record of achievement in the Senate and the Obama administration attained through compromise and common sense. On economic issues, Joe Biden presented himself as a pro-energy, pro-growth, pro-worker – old-school Democrat. He made a point of eschewing the left’s “defund the police” fever and ended his speeches by saying, “May God bless our troops.” Americans were yearning for what he offered and elected him as a serious and pragmatic alternative to a chaotic Trump.

    Then came the Elizabeth Warren camp. From day one, the Biden administration was flooded with operatives from the Bernie/Liz left wing of the Democratic Party. What ensued was an overt shift from Scranton Joe’s campaign promises to policies for and by the liberal elite. Like those annoying clothing labels that are itchy and unnecessary, the Sanders/Warren brand was sewn into nearly every policy that came out of the White House.

    On energy issues, Biden delivered on his campaign promise for an all-of-the-above energy strategy. He passed the boldest and most comprehensive green energy investment in U.S. history while governing over record domestic energy production that literally saved Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Instead of championing Biden’s successes, the far left hatched a plan to end future build-outs of liquified natural gas facilities. This policy sent the wrong message to our allies around the world, and was a betrayal of the tens of thousands of energy workers in Pennsylvania. Additionally, this policy likely increased global carbon emissions by prolonging coal burning and increasing demand for LNG from dirtier sources. This pandering to the left crippled the Harris campaign in the must-win state of Pennsylvania.

    The massive drive for student debt relief is another example of how the left wing of the party is out of touch with working-class Americans. By sending out over $400 billion dollars to college graduates, the non-college, working-class Americans received a clear message: “Democrats believe that contributions to society by the college educated are more important than mine.”

    As inflation eroded their spending power, these workers didn’t get tens of thousands of dollars, but they watched other, many fewer, and more privileged Americans cash those checks. The worst part of this policy is that most recipients of this relief still have debts, and there was no reform of the American higher education system to lower future tuition rates. Instead, it provided incentives for universities to raise tuition even higher – even though the cost of higher education has far outpaced overall inflation for a generation.

    The broad anti-business rhetoric from the Bernie/Warren camp is out of step with the everyday needs and struggles of Americans. There are a host of long-standing “paychecks and pocketbooks” issues that the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice could have addressed during the Biden administration. These include serious competition problems in some food and agriculture and healthcare markets that drive up prices for consumers – often forcing them to make decisions about what bills to pay, or not. Biden’s FTC and DOJ instead focused enormous, limited public resources on the tech companies where any competition problems are far more remotely connected to consumers. Perversely, working-class Americans don’t have a litany of complaints about tech companies, and the problems that the FTC and DOJ pursued have very little effect on household budgets.

    Finally, Biden’s paralysis on the border and immigration policy was a critical part of Kamala Harris’ defeat this year. At the eleventh hour, as the campaign for president was already underway, they finally got serious about an immigration reform bill. It was too late. The far left’s unbending refusal to even acknowledge the crisis at the border crippled any chances of meaningful legislation when it could have made a difference. The end result of the left’s steadfast denialism of the problem is likely to be a Trump administration policy that is draconian and un-American.

    Bernie Sanders is right about one thing: The Democratic Party has abandoned the working class. But not in the ways that he thinks. The party has bent to the pressure from the most ideological activists while simultaneously failing to take credit for the huge successes achieved in the center of the political spectrum. The moralistic preaching from the far left on what the working class needs, even while those voters overtly reject it, is akin to the incessant ringing of the cowbell when we’ve already had enough.

    We must re-center the Democratic Party. We must listen to Americans and fashion policies that reflect an understanding of what they need and want. We cannot bend further to the left’s delusional insistence that the working class “just don’t know what’s best for them.”

    Neel Brown is managing director at the Progressive Policy Institute.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 22:10

  • "Big Short" Michael Burry Boosts China Exposure, But Adds Hedges: 13F
    “Big Short” Michael Burry Boosts China Exposure, But Adds Hedges: 13F

    Michael “the Big Short” Burry boosted his exposures to China stocks including Alibaba, Baidu and JD.com in the third quarter as Beijing rolled out a stimulus blitz. But he also added new bearish options that would provide downside protection, a move that may have been especially prudent as the Chinese rally recently fizzled as fast as it arrived.

    Scion Asset Management, Burry’s family office, increased its holdings of Alibaba by almost 30% to 200,000 shares during the quarter. At the same time, Scion bought put options with the notional value equivalent to 84% of its Alibaba holdings, according to a 13F regulatory filing on Thursday. The put options allow Scion to sell the stocks to lock in a profit or limit losses, should Alibaba tumble.

    Burry used the same tactics for two other Chinese investments — Baidu Inc. and JD.com Inc. For JD.com, Scion doubled its stakes in the three months through September while adding bearish wagers against the stock positions. In Baidu, he increased its position by two-thirds but also hedged its exposure. The full breakdown is below.

    The three Chinese stocks including Alibaba were worth $54 million at the end of September, representing about 65% of Burry’s total equity holdings.

    The hedges could have proven timely according to Bloomberg. The three stocks all have lost more than 20% since peaking in early October, retreating to levels when Beijing announced stimulus in late September

    Burry has been one of the few prominent China stock bulls among hedge fund investors, along with Appaloosa’s David Tepper, even before Beijing’s major policy shift in September. In the first quarter, he loaded up on Chinese stocks and more than doubled his stake in Alibaba, then further increased that position in the second quarter to make it the firm’s top holding as of June 30.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 21:45

  • US Jury Awards $42 Million To 3 Iraqi Men Tortured At Abu Ghraib By Defense Contractor
    US Jury Awards $42 Million To 3 Iraqi Men Tortured At Abu Ghraib By Defense Contractor

    Authored by Adam Dick via the Ron Paul Institute,

    The released photos documenting torture of prisoners at the United States government’s Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the Iraq War disgusted many people who could look beyond the war propaganda to feel sympathy for their fellow human beings.

    Even if it was assumed that all the people pictured in the midst of their torture were themselves guilty of heinous crimes — an assumption that lacked foundation, the torture was a breach of civilized behavior.

    Two decades later, some accountability has been meted out by a jury in Alexandria, Virginia.

    The jury decided Tuesday that the military contractor CACI Premier Technology Inc. is liable to pay a total of 42 million dollars in damages to Suhail Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili, and Asa’ad Zuba’e — three former detainees at Abu Ghraib in the 2003 through 2004 time period who had brought a lawsuit against the company whose employees worked as interrogators at the prison.

    Reporting at the Associated Press on the jury’s decision, Matthew Barakat wrote:

    The $42 million fully matches the amount sought by the plaintiffs, [Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy] said. It’s also more than the $31 million that the plaintiffs said CACI was paid to supply interrogators to Abu Ghraib.

    The Center for Constitutional Rights, which aided the plaintiffs who won the case, indicated in a press release regarding the jury’s award of damages that the outcome of the case suggests liability may be imposed on other companies as well for US government torture activities:

    The first case of its kind to make it to trial, Al Shimari, et al. v. CACI delivers a rare measure of justice to survivors of the U.S. government’s post-9/11 torture regime, which extended from Guantanamo to Iraq and Afghanistan to secret prisons around the world. It also brings a new degree of accountability to the shadowy realm of security contractors at a time when employees of private companies, integral to the U.S. “war on terror,” have often been implicated in human rights abuses across the globe. 

    According to more from the statement: “The jury found CACI liable for conspiring to torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of Suhail Al Shimari, a middle school principal, Asa’ad Zuba’e, a fruit vendor, and Salah Al-Ejaili, a journalist. The men were all held at the ‘hard site,’ the part of the prison where the most severe abuses occurred. Along with hundreds of other Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib, they have suffered long-standing physical and emotional effects.”

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    Still, the primary torture culprit — the US government and its employees — continues to evade liability for its activities at Abu Ghraib and other torture sites around the world.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 21:20

  • MAHA's Nicole Shanahan Shares Vision To Make Small Farms Great Again
    MAHA’s Nicole Shanahan Shares Vision To Make Small Farms Great Again

    Update: 

    President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

    *   *   *

    As President-elect Donald Trump selects Cabinet appointees for his second term, attention has turned to where Robert F. Kennedy Jr., leader of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, might be placed—potentially in agencies overseeing food or health policies.

    In the days before the presidential election, RFK Jr. published a short video on X indicating that when Trump “gets me inside” the United States Department of Agriculture, “we’re going to give farmers an off-ramp from the current system that destroys soil, makes people sick, and harms family farms.” 

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    In other words, RFK Jr. and the MAHA team will ensure that small farms are made great again by directing policies to focus on traditional agriculture.

    The Trump victory signals that Americans want to drain the DC swamp and improve their health—if that’s through busting up the corruption in the USDA and FDA. The MAHA movement ensures that small farms will be prioritized over mega-corporate farms. 

    RFK Jr.’s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, provided more color in a recent interview about some of the MAHA plans:

    “We’re definitely up against a lot, between what I call the real food movement and the fake food movement, and really what belies these two movements is a population of people who don’t need to spend an enormous amount of money on healthcare services, that are healthy, that are vibrant … and then belying the fake food movement is very, very wealthy corporations that are going to have an endless patient pool, and are going to have a consumer base that actually is physically addicted to some of these products.

    And then also, an entire psychology around it that has people believing that they’re sacrificing themselves for the greater good … we saw it play out in the delivery of the Covid vaccines.”

    Shanahan continued:

    “This is where I want to make the investments in our country. I want to create an entire – I want to bring back the infrastructure that allowed small and mid-size growers to be able to produce, and process, and package, and distribute locally, because that has all been taken away for the most part – it’s why it’s impossible economically for small growers to make a profit today.”  

    Earlier in the interview, she noted:

    “I’ve been a producer on a few of these regenerative agriculture films, and the biggest pushback we’ve ever gotten [was] from the artificial meat investors.

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    Bold vision: Go long small farms? Go short, fake meat?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 20:55

  • 'Snow White' Actress Goes Wicked Witch: Wishes Harm On Trump & All His Supporters
    ‘Snow White’ Actress Goes Wicked Witch: Wishes Harm On Trump & All His Supporters

    Authored by Eric Lendrum via American Greatness,

    Rachel Zegler, the scandal-plagued star of Disney’s upcoming live-action “Snow White” remake, has once again found herself embroiled in controversy, this time for her numerous attacks against supporters of President-elect Donald Trump.

    As reported by Breitbart, the 23-year-old actress posted a series of raving rants on her Instagram stories attacking the 45th and 47th President, as well as all of his supporters.

    “I find myself speechless in the midst of this,” said Zegler.

    “Another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world I do not want to live in. May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”

    She went on to say that she considers Trump supporters to be a “deep, deep sickness in this country,” and that she believes “there is no help, no counsel, in any of them.”

    After a plea with her followers to delete their X accounts out of protest of Elon Musk, who supported President Trump’s campaign, she concluded by simply saying “F**k Donald Trump.”

    Zegler has earned a reputation as a gaffe-prone and volatile actress. In 2023, she went viral for unhinged remarks she made during a red carpet appearance in which she repeatedly criticized the original “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” accusing the 1937 classic of being out-of-date, sexist, and “weird.”

    She also openly suggested that her co-star Andrew Burnap, who plays the Prince Charming character, could be “cut from the film” entirely, smugly remarking “it’s Hollywood, baby.”

    Her comments ignited widespread backlash on social media, with Disney scrambling to retrain the actress on what to say and not to say in public appearances regarding the film. Zegler subsequently began taking a much more deferential tone towards the original film in later interviews, but the damage had been done. The film, originally scheduled to be released in 2024, was delayed back to 2025. With a production budget of over $200 million, the film may have to earn as much as $600 million just to break even, which may be impossible due to the growing online campaign to boycott the film due to Zegler’s remarks.

    The film also faced controversy for its decision to completely remove the Seven Dwarves themselves. After actor Peter Dinklage, himself a midget, claimed that the dwarf characters were examples of bigotry, Disney decided to initially replace the dwarves with seven generic characters of various races and genders. When a leaked photo of the seven non-dwarf characters went viral, mockery and criticism on social media led to Disney again revamping the film and moving forward with seven computer-generated dwarves. Both the film and Dinklage have since come under fire from fans and numerous other dwarf actors, who feel that the film would have provided an opportunity for multiple dwarf actors to star as the iconic characters.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 20:30

  • Not So Fast! Infowars Auction Thrown Into Chaos After Judge Investigates Malarkey
    Not So Fast! Infowars Auction Thrown Into Chaos After Judge Investigates Malarkey

    (Update 2020ET): Just when you thought the least funny website on the planet, The Onion, had prevailed in the Infowars auction, the judge in the case put the brakes on the sale after it was revealed that the (anti-Jones) bankruptcy trustee did not accept the highest bid, and instead allowed the Sandy Hook families to ‘assist’ by pledging their massive judgement towards the auction – which Jones says is illegal.

    Jones explains it in 10 minutes:

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    According to Jones, there should be some sort of a hearing to discuss this early next week. He believes that the judge is likely to order a new auction for sometime in January, where a Jones-allied group will have the opportunity to buy the company without the trustee picking their own winner regardless of actual bid.

    The saga continues…

    *  *  *

    (Update 1130ET): Hours after yesterday’s auction, Infowars.com is now down. We wish Alex Jones well on his next endeavor, which we’re guessing is going to be massive.

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    According to Jones, a lower bid was accepted.

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    *  *  *

    The leftist-satirical rag The Onion announced on Thursday that it had won a bankruptcy auction to acquire Infowars – the website founded and operated by Alex Jones since 1999.

    On Wednesday, Jones said that the auction’s trustee could choose any bidder it wanted – not necessarily the high bidder. Jones announced the sale on X Thursday morning.

    “I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning,” he said. “The Connecticut democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us.“

    The Onion told the NY Times that the bid was sanctioned by the families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones.

    The Onion did not disclose the price it paid for Infowars and its assets, including Jones’ production studio and supplement business.

    Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion parent company, Global Tetrahedron, says he plans to relaunch Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities.”

    In a not-funny post, The Onion wrote:

    What’s next for InfoWars remains a live issue. The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.

    As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal.

    After Infowars is raped and rebooted, the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety says it plans to advertise on it. Collins declined to disclose the value of said advertising deal, but that it was a multiyear agreement that would include banner ads and sponsored articles on the site.

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    John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, told the NY Times, “This was an opportunity for us to give The Onion the facts, the storytelling, the data and the research that’s at our fingertips,” adding “And for them to give us the creativity of how to turn all of that information into new messaging to a new audience.”

    Collins said that the relaunched Infowars might publish its own satirical stories focusing on gun violence.

    Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said in a statement that taking possession of Infowars amounted to accountability for “Alex Jones and his corrupt business.”

    “By divesting Jones of Infowars’ assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones’s ability to do more harm,” said Mattei.

    According to the NYT, “The plan is to relaunch it next year with an approach reminiscent of Clickhole, The Onion’s sister site that poked fun at “listicles” from BuzzFeed and other purveyors of viral content.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 20:21

  • In Most U.S. Cities, Social Security Payments Last Married Couples Just 19 Days Or Less
    In Most U.S. Cities, Social Security Payments Last Married Couples Just 19 Days Or Less

    Relying solely on Social Security for retirement, especially as a married couple, may need a serious second look. New findings from GOBankingRates reveal that in 50 major U.S. cities, Social Security income won’t even cover a full month’s expenses. At best, these benefits might last up to 19 days, but in six of these cities, they fall short in under 10 days.

    GOBankingRates conducted an analysis of the 100 largest U.S. cities by population, using the average Social Security benefits for married couples to assess how far this income stretches when set against living costs.

    The recent study reveals that in many U.S. cities, Social Security benefits fall far short of covering even half a month’s living expenses for married retirees. In particular, six major cities—including Irvine, Fremont, San Jose, San Francisco, Honolulu, and San Diego—offer the briefest financial coverage from Social Security, with benefits lasting between just 6.73 and 9.59 days, according to GoBankingRates.com.

    Irvine, California, stands out as the city where benefits stretch the least, covering under a week’s worth of expenses, with a monthly cost of living that exceeds $9,700 for a couple.

    The findings show that California is a challenging state for retirees relying on Social Security alone, with 15 of its cities appearing in the top 50 cities where benefits last the shortest.

    Within the top 10 cities with the shortest Social Security coverage, California holds seven spots, underscoring the high cost of living in the state. While Irvine ranks as the most expensive, Stockton, California, provides the most days of coverage in the state at nearly 18 days—though even this is well below a full month.

    At the other end of the spectrum, Saint Petersburg, Florida, ranks as the city where Social Security lasts the longest among the 50 cities analyzed, stretching to 19.38 days for married couples. This reflects the lower cost of living in Saint Petersburg, where expenses amount to $1,584 monthly.

    Florida’s comparatively affordable living costs mean that, while Social Security coverage still falls short of a full month, retirees may face less financial strain.

    The GoBankingRates.com study showed that beyond California and Florida, cities like Arlington, Virginia, and Seattle also show limited Social Security coverage, lasting only around 10 to 11 days. Arlington, with a monthly cost of $5,307, and Seattle, at $4,733, both represent high-cost areas where retirees might struggle to maintain financial stability on Social Security alone.

    Honolulu is the sole representative from Hawaii in the top six, where the high cost of living cuts Social Security coverage to just over 8 days.

    The study’s detailed breakdown shows a significant disparity between cities, where monthly costs range from $9,794 in Irvine to $1,584 in Saint Petersburg. Even cities with more affordable housing and expenses, such as Gilbert, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, provide just around 16 days of coverage, demonstrating that even in lower-cost cities, retirees would need supplementary income to cover basic living expenses each month.

    Ultimately, the findings illustrate the pressing financial challenge facing retirees in urban areas across the United States. With the cost of living continually rising, retirees must consider alternative income sources or substantial savings to bridge the gap left by Social Security benefits, especially in cities where expenses drastically outpace what Social Security provides.

    You can view the study’s methodology and full results here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 20:05

  • The Retreat Of DEI In Corporate America
    The Retreat Of DEI In Corporate America

    Authored by Paul Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    This summer we saw the wheels come off the “Social” bus. Nearly a dozen large public companies pulled the plug on their DEI initiatives. This is good news for consumers and for the million workers who had to navigate an increasingly politicized workplace. Many corporate executives began remembering that their job is to create value for shareholders by focusing on their customers and delivering goods and services with excellence, not promoting divisive social ideology.

    Fawn McClintock/Shutterstock

    These large public companies have been facing pressure from activist investors like Robby Starbuck, customers, and elected officials. And they’ve determined what critics have known all along: DEI and other Social initiatives are expendable programs. They don’t add to a company’s bottom line nor improve its efficiency. In fact, these DEI initiatives drain time, money, and other resources. Companies don’t need chief diversity officers, sensitivity training, or quotas to recruit and retain good talent or to treat employees fairly.

    In June, Tractor Supply canceled ”an array of corporate diversity and climate efforts,” citing the negative reactions they had been getting from a huge number of their customers. In July, John Deere announced that it would end its DEI initiatives—emphasizing their commitment to customers and to quality recruitment and operations. In August, Ford announced that it would no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual workplace survey. Lowes also announced in August that it would no longer participate in the HRC’s diversity surveys or in LGBTQ+ and other social issue events. In October, Toyota said it will no longer sponsor LGBTQ+ events, instead focusing its philanthropy on “STEM education and workforce readiness.”

    Here is a list of large public corporations that dropped their commitments to DEI this summer:

    Taken together, these public companies represent over a million workers and nearly a trillion dollars of market value. Although there is some variation in exactly how much these companies have rolled back their DEI policies, they all share one or more of the following characteristics.

    1. No longer funding or participating in social or cultural “awareness” events
    2. No longer participating in the HRC’s diversity surveys
    3. Removing DEI language and priorities in their hiring and recruiting

    Public companies have long engaged in activities to improve their brand image and to develop positive reputations in the communities where they operate. They try to build goodwill through corporate philanthropy—giving money for parks, museums, schools, and other cultural amenities. They also try to improve their reputation by joining various causes and partnerships—such as working on public health, public literacy, and job training initiatives.

    But in recent years, especially starting in 2020, many public companies directed resources to controversial and ideological causes in the name of improving their brand and reputation—such as participating in cultural or social “awareness” events like an LGBTQ+ parade or a BLM gathering. Public companies’ retreat from DEI usually includes statements that they will stick to traditional forms of corporate philanthropy and no longer participate in these controversial social and political activism events.

    One of the most important proponents of DEI has been the Human Rights Campaign. They have actively worked to change business recruitment and hiring practices to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (especially on the LGBTQ+ front). Their method involved sending questionnaires to public companies and scoring them along their “human rights” index. Most of the companies who backtracked from DEI have explicitly stated that they will no longer participate in HRC’s questionnaire.

    These companies have also removed DEI language, goals, positions, and training from their operations. For some, they have eliminated “sustainability” and “diversity” positions. Others have removed DEI targets from bonus evaluations for their executives. They have also walked back DEI-based recruitment targets in favor of competence and excellence. Company performance for shareholders, operational excellence, and delivering value to customers have been re-centered in these companies’ policies and strategies.

    Organizations sympathetic to DEI like Microsoft, Google, and other large tech companies, have scaled back how much they talk about the issue and how many resources they devote to it. Even Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock and a proponent of ESG, has abandoned the term because it became too “political.” Other large companies have been downplaying their DEI commitments even if they haven’t fully reversed them. One of the only places DEI continues to make headway is government bureaucracies like public schools and universities, libraries, and regulatory agencies.

    DEI programs are a part of the broader Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement. But the ESG moniker never had logical coherence. Pursuing environmental goals often undermines Social goals and vice versa. Pursuing Social goals often undermines good Governance. ESG gained traction because it was a vacuous umbrella term that could be used to advance many different, and at times contradictory, ideological values.

    Even ESG advocates who want to preserve environmental and governance goals should abandon the DEI movement to its fate in history’s dustbin of bad ideas. The summer of 2024 will be noted for the retreat of DEI programs in corporate America. Let’s hope that 2025 will be remembered for the retreat of DEI and other woke ideology across the federal and state governments.

    From the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 19:40

  • Barack Obama: The Political Genius That Wasn't
    Barack Obama: The Political Genius That Wasn’t

    Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,

    Every few months, a sanitized report appears on the post-presidency activities of Barack Obama’s public advocacy.

    It’s a narrative that conveniently ignores the inherent problems in having a person with no constitutional role or congressional oversight take an active role in executive decision-making.

    Over the summer of 2024, Obama emerged as a central figure in government censorship of the internet while launching a new campaign against gun ownership. In earlier times, the spectacle of an ex-president leading simultaneous campaigns against the First and Second Amendments might have generated some interest in the legacy media. But as last week’s election coverage proved, the press is no longer interested in reporting hard facts or maintaining transparency. The mockingbird media are now servants of those holding power and will do anything to advance their interests.

    Yet there is another interpretation of Obama’s peculiar involvement with Democrat operatives during the Trump and Biden administrations. It is that Obama was never the leader of anything, neither then nor now.

    Post-presidency, Obama was fixated on collecting laundered wealth from intermediaries such as Spotify and Netflix, buying luxury properties, and hanging out on private yachts with celebrities. His stratospheric levels of egotism and absence of self-awareness motivated him to occasionally appear in public next to Biden as a larger, more popular figure, signaling that he was “The One” who was calling the shots. We know this to be completely false.

    Obama has proven to be a celebrity-obsessed, pretend billionaire with the lazy pretense of having any positive influence whatsoever on the inner workings of the American government. He has presented himself as a self-consumed lightweight who was breathtakingly narcissistic even by Washington, D.C., standards.

    Floating to the Top on a Cloud of Projection

    Obama’s lack of managerial experience and his thin understanding of important issues did not matter—Democrats wanted a malleable figure as the leader of the Free World who could speak decisively, travel the world repeating leftist platitudes convincingly off a teleprompter, and sign anything put in front of him.

    What Democrats failed to comprehend was that the projection of their beliefs onto a relatively unknown, singular person was to create a figure that would ultimately destroy their party in ways they did not anticipate. Obama’s far-left beliefs, his antipathy toward America, and his racial divisiveness were somewhat hidden at first, yet became quite obvious as he was put on a pedestal by Democrats who were blinded by his charm.

    Nowhere was this more evident than after Kamala Harris was installed as the candidate. The failure of his vice presidential understudy, Joe Biden, was pushed aside after the disastrous first presidential debate where he seemed dazed and confused. Democrat power brokers, specifically Obama along with Nancy Pelosi, knew there was no way that Biden could defeat Donald Trump in November.

    What they didn’t count on was Biden immediately endorsing his vice president. Obama and Pelosi didn’t see that move coming. As a result, politically, they got caught completely flat-footed. It was wonderful for all of us on the right to watch and as much as any political move in 2024, it ensured Harris’s and the Democrats’ stunning defeat.

    This should come as no surprise to anyone who has observed presidential politics from the moment Obama was sworn in on January 20, 2009, to last week’s election. The cult of personality surrounding Obama prevented the damage from being seen in its entirety until well after Obama’s second term. His radicalism, hatred of America and Israel, and his tendency to be attracted to wealth and fame compromised his presidency and explained how the Democrat Party lurched so far to the left and alienated a large portion of its moderate base.

    Obama’s fascination with billionaires led to an emerging oligarchy, especially in the tech sector, tightening its grip on the government at large. His penchant for “settling scores” resulted in the weaponization of nearly every government agency against American citizens. Race relations were set back to the 1950s. Inequality skyrocketed. The Tea Party emerged. Donald Trump was elected. “Russiagate” was born. The Democrat-supporting legacy media began its sudden decline in viewership and readership. It all started with Obama in the White House, continued through Trump’s first presidency, and the sham of what was the Biden-Harris administration. Biden’s cognitive decline was hidden from America until it was too late.

    Looking back through the prism of history, the Obama years didn’t end well for Democrats. When Obama took office in 2008, Democrats held 55 Senate seats and 256 seats in the House. After Obama’s second term ended in 2016, Democrats had lost nine seats in the Senate and 62 seats in the House. There were twelve fewer Democrat governors, with Democrats overall holding fewer elected offices nationwide at any time since the 1920s.

    For all the platitudes of his political intellect and savvy manner of operation, Obama has been a down-ballot disaster for Democrats. But it has been a goldmine for Obama, who is now in his fourth mansion. We have to wonder how anyone in the Democrat Party thinks they got their money’s worth with Obama.

    It’s not hard to see how rewarding this was for Obama. He knew that division and racial strife were the path to electoral victory for the left. By reigniting animosities and weaponizing the federal government against his political opponents, a process that intensified during the Biden administration, Obama took extreme, unprecedented measures to achieve short-term gains and position himself as the central figure in Democrat political circles.

    He wanted fame, fortune, adulation, worship, and no accountability. He achieved all of that and more, becoming the de facto “kingmaker” of the Democrat Party.

    What exactly were the motives of Democrats when they elevated a junior senator from Illinois to be the central figure of their party? To answer that question, one must understand the criminal enterprise that Washington, D.C., has become over six decades and the need for an effective frontman to charm the population. Bill Clinton served that purpose quite well for two terms after being elevated similarly.

    But Obama was an unknown entity with far fewer accomplishments than Clinton. Obama was the DEI-approved face of the Democrat machine that could operate with near impunity, reflexively branding any attempt to resist or criticize him as racist. A political and racial arsonist to his core, Obama scorched the earth at every opportunity and dared anyone to challenge him. It was the most destructive and divisive presidential period in modern history.

    Obama utilized the radicalism that was honed during his time as a “community organizer” in Chicago and applied it to the nation. He engineered conflict, caused chaos, and pitted people against each other. It was the classic Marxist notion of “oppressor versus oppressed,” where winners and losers, villains and heroes, innocence and guilt, are unilaterally determined. People were labeled, vilified, categorized, and ostracized from society simply by their beliefs. Violence against them was justified and even celebrated.

    Democrats were genuinely “riding the tiger” with Obama and were unsure exactly where he would lead them. Well, here we are—a nation completely divided, at each other’s throats, leveling hyperbolic charges against strangers, all because we had to have the equivalent of a DEI hire in the White House to assuage our “racial strife.” And how is that “racial strife” going today?

    More to the point, “How are the Democrats doing today with Obama as their de facto leader?” Horribly, as the 2024 election has proven.

    The ironic aspect of this will be missed by many. Obama rose to power in 2008 because the 18- to 25-year-old Millennials believed in his stature as the Black Jesus. In 2024, the 18- to 25-year-old Gen-Zs abandoned him because they don’t.

    With the electoral drubbing Democrats took last week, with recriminations on who to blame being spread across Democrat circles, Obama’s political “brilliance” has been revealed as pure fiction. You can say that the mask has been ripped off with the presidency and both Houses of Congress now in Republican hands.

    Trump is moving at lightning speed to fill his cabinet with people who hold dear his populist message. Trump went through this game eight years ago and has a clearer picture of how the sausage is made in the D.C. swamp. And with a clear mandate from voters, he knows he has at least two years to fix the mess with the economy and at the border that he’s inherited from Biden (with plenty of help from the puppet master pulling his strings from the shadows in what has turned out to be the third term of Obama’s presidency).

    Key to Trump’s success – and if he can retain control of the House and Senate in the 2026 midterms – will be to bring the warring parties in Ukraine and Russia as well as the Middle East to the negotiating tables, and at the same time fix the damage to the economy wrought by Biden, Harris, and Democrats in Congress. If he does, it will cement his legacy while at the same time, likely ending Obama’s influence and interference in American politics once and for all.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 18:50

  • Russia Has Surged 50,000 Troops Into Kursk Region To Boot Ukrainian Army
    Russia Has Surged 50,000 Troops Into Kursk Region To Boot Ukrainian Army

    This week the Ukrainian government has warned its allies that the army faces nearly 50,000 Russian troops now deployed to Kursk province.

    Ukrainian forces have held hundreds of square kilometers of territory inside Russia since a surprise blitz move across the border in early August. Rather than Moscow choosing to relocate sizeable forces from Donbass to defend Kursk, which Kiev was hoping for as a strategic way to weaken Russian front lines in the east, the Kremlin has been patient.

    It appears a final big push to force out the Ukrainians is underway. President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed this in Monday statements. He said that Ukrainian troops “continue to hold back” the “nearly 50,000-strong enemy group” in Kursk.

    Russian MoD/Sky News stillframe

    But with those numbers on the Russian side, and given the battle space is inside Russian territory, it is only a matter of time before Kiev’s Kursk adventure comes to a halt.

    “They stormed with a battalion-sized force,” an officer of a Ukrainian mechanized unit told CNN, adding that “the Russian invaders were eliminated.”

    There also remains deep concern that Russia is sending North Korean troops to help gain back control of occupied Kursk. CNN writes of some of the latest:

    And while Russia has reclaimed some settlements, the line of control has barely changed over the past months.

    A US official told CNN on Sunday that Russia has amassed a large force of tens of thousands — including recently arrived North Korean troops — to carry out an assault on the Ukrainian positions in Kursk. The official said the offensive was expected in the coming days.

    Zelensky has claimed that some 11,000 North Korean troops are in the region. They are said to be in Belgorod as well, which has also been subject of frequent Ukrainian cross-border attacks.

    The CNN report continues, “Separately, a Ukrainian commander told CNN Sunday that North Korean troops were taking part in direct combat operations in Kursk, as well as defensive operations in the neighboring Belgorod region of Russia and in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.”

    Starting last week, Zelensky said there have been direct and deadly clashes between Ukrainian and North Korean forces. Russia has not completely denied it, saying that a defense treaty inked between Moscow and Pyongyang allows for allied forces to help defend Russian territory.

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    Given the incoming Trump administration and its vow to immediately achieve ceasefire, pressure will grow on Kiev to quickly enter negotiations with Russia. Any future deal would have to involve Ukrainian forces exiting Kursk, assuming they are not defeated there first, or else the Kremlin will not sign off on it.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 18:25

  • 'Company' Offers To Cryogenically Freeze Leftists For Four Years
    ‘Company’ Offers To Cryogenically Freeze Leftists For Four Years

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    In an hilarious parody ad that is going viral, a fictional company called ‘Don’t Cry Cryo’ is offering to cryogenically freeze panicking leftists who can’t cope with president Trump’s election victory and wake them up after it’s all over.

    The AI created ad, produced by Newzy, asks “are you distraught by the recent presidential election?” and offers to help, announcing “our expert team of cryogenic care providers can cryogenically freeze you until the Trump presidency is over.”

    “No more crying, no more anxiety attacks, just blissful sleep until Trump is gone,” the ad further promises,” adding “it will be like his presidency never even happened.”

    They even offer a JD Vance add on package!

    There are more twists and turns in the ad, but we won’t give it all away.

    Enjoy!

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

    Lets send this supernova.

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    And give Newzy a follow, they deserve it for this!

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

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 18:00

  • VDH: The Fault, Dear Democrats, Is In Yourselves
    VDH: The Fault, Dear Democrats, Is In Yourselves

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    “Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.”

    – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

    “They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

    – Often attributed to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand

    The Democratic election postmortem immediately descended into public blame-gaming – as expected. When Joe Biden was forced off the ticket in late July, the conspirators issued a party line that he was to be praised as a veritable George Washington — in the spirit of Washington’s farewell address of 1796 about why it was a good thing for the first president not to run for a third term.

    So, we were lied to that Joe, the sitting President of the United States, was not forced out by Nancy Pelosi, the Obamas, George Clooney and the celebs, and the billionaire class. We instead were lectured that Biden, magnanimously as the neo-father of our country, selflessly bowed out to ensure Kamala Harris’s elevation as the nominee and, with it, a sure Democratic victory.

    But now?

    After the Democratic train wreck, half the party is suddenly damning George Washington Joe for sticking around too long, even though party grandees cooked up the scheme in the first place of nominating the cognitively challenged Biden in 2020 to shut out his radical (and supposedly unelectable) primary rivals.

    Now that his successor Harris has bombed, in the leftist mind, Joe has gone from a Washingtonian Olympian to a veritable selfish Richard Nixon who clung to office far too long and supposedly ensured his party’s defeat.

    Yet still, others now blame incumbent Vice President Kamala herself. The once “joyful” candidate, after the coup to remove Biden, was once praised to the skies as a “turn the page”/”move forward”/“change” candidate — only then to be damned as an insipid loser.

    So, one postelection narrative was that Harris — we were told to recall — was always known as inept and thus originally picked as Joe Biden’s Spiro Agnew insurance policy, who would prevent his indictment, impeachment, or medical removal.

    But never mind blaming either Biden or Harris or both.

    The left cannot fault either a lack of funds; they raised a billion dollars more than Trump. Leftists also cannot complain about 95 percent favorable media coverage, supposedly worth billions of dollars in free advertising.

    They cannot regret that they did not do everything imaginable to destroy the Trump monster — given they had impeached him twice and tried him as a private citizen. They cooked up the Russian collusion and laptop disinformation hoaxes, raided his home with a SWAT team, and unleashed five criminal and civil suits designed to bankrupt, demonize, and jail him. They tried to remove him from at least 16 state ballots and daily smeared him as a fascist, dictator, and Hitler — even as two would-be assassins tried to shoot him.

    So, we are witnessing the rich Democrat-media fusion blame and fault everything but themselves. In truth, whether Biden or Harris ran — it never really mattered.

    Even an open convention with a “moderate” veneer nominee like a Josh Shapiro would not have saved them. The fault was in themselves: a radical Democratic agenda actualized by Joe Biden, who will leave office with an approval rate under 40 percent, and two-thirds of the country believing the country was headed in the wrong direction under his tenure.

    So, what lost the election for the Democrats? Both substance and style.

    The proverbial people may have agreed that Trump was sometimes crude, but they knew in his prior four-year tenure that food, gas, rent, power, and insurance were affordable.

    The border was finally secured. Trump did not welcome in 12 million unaudited illegal aliens.

    Nor did he oversee a disastrous flight from Afghanistan or watch two theater-wide wars blow up Ukraine and the Middle East as a derelict America became irrelevant.

    Boys did not spike volleyballs down upon the heads of girls nor did male boxers pound the brains of women.

    Nor did teenage biological males shower with young girls.

    Nor did the Trump tenure witness institutionalized anti-Semitism spreading throughout the nation’s elite campuses and onto the streets.

    Nor did Republican party grandees obsess on race, promote reparations, demand unlimited abortions until the moment of birth, or trash fracking.

    So, the message — not just the messengers — was toxic. But that said, the message was also delivered by a bicoastal elite, exuding hubris and superciliousness. This election, the left committed the two cardinal sins of American politics: one, never talk down to the American people as too stupid to appreciate the wisdom of their supposed elite betters; and two, never abandon the upwardly mobile aspirations and real struggles of the middle class.

    Instead, during the campaign and after the election slaughter, Democratic grandees screamed against a supposedly racist, sexist, homophobic, nativist electorate — as if these critics were a mummified Hillary Clinton circa 2016 still pontificating about the deplorables and irredeemables or a calcified Obama lecturing on the pathologies of the clingers.

    Indeed, the epitome of such hypocrisy was the late entrance of the now-plutocratic Obamas. The pair variously private jetted in from one of their four mansions to “save” Harris from her incompetent self by diagnosing the skeptics of her hard-left message as ignorant, illiberal, and suffering from Marxist false consciousness.

    Thus, a week after the election, Democrats are still trapped in La La Land.

    Blue-state governors now posture and brag that they will stop the newly elected Trump — but from what exactly? Will they refuse his tainted federal funds? Spit at him when they ask for disaster relief help? Declare blue America “sanctuary states” that will nullify federal law and not pay federal taxes?

    What does California governor Gavin Newsom mean by calling to session the California legislature to “resist” Trump? Will he order another Steele dossier pee-pee tape? Another Hillary Clinton 2016 call to join La Résistance?

    What does Illinois Governor Pritzker mean by warning Trump he will have to go through the ample governor to get to “his people?”

    Coordinate more local and state prosecutors to resume where Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Letitia James left off?

    Mimic Madonna and threaten to blow up the White House?

    Emulate Kamala Harris and warn weeks of violent protests that won’t and should not stop?

    So how exactly is the elected president actually stripping away the rights of their liberal residents — three months before he even sets foot in office? And what might such illiberal or extralegal Trump efforts entail?

    Find another Andrew McCabe to weaponize the FBI to go after his enemies?

    Discover another Anthony Fauci to stealthily send American cash to a leaky Chinese virology lab run by the People’s Liberation Army?

    Draft another Lois Lerner to politicize the IRS to deny left-wing groups nonprofit status?

    Rehire James Comey to get the FBI and social media together to censor the news?

    Maybe rehire Loretta Lynch or Merrick Garland to sic the Department of Justice on political enemies at school board meetings?

    Bring back Confederate-style nullification of federal law and open the border?

    Or are Trump’s threats likely to be more existential and cosmic — like packing the court to ensure another six conservative justices?

    Or, as the right takes control of the Senate, will the damnable new conservative majority abolish the ancient filibuster?

    Perhaps the left is worried that now that a vengeful Trump has handily won the popular vote, he will most likely remove the 237-year-old Electoral College by sidestepping the constitutional amendment process?

    Or will a dastardly Trump bifurcate some blue states to ensure their red halves become two new states and with them four conservative senators?

    In sum, the left will not recover by blaming the American people and the voters for their loss. Nor will they regain power by caricaturing the supposedly illiberal and unappreciative middle class.

    Nor will they reboot by blustering that they are at war with a president before he takes office as if he was not just elected by a clear majority and an overwhelming electoral college vote.

    Nor will they find salvation today by blaming the “messaging,” or tomorrow Kamala Harris, or next week Joe Biden — rather than looking in the mirror and acknowledging the fault, Dear Democrats, is “in ourselves.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 17:20

  • SEC's Gensler Hints At Quitting, Defends Crypto War, Sued By 18 States For "Gross Gov't Overreach"
    SEC’s Gensler Hints At Quitting, Defends Crypto War, Sued By 18 States For “Gross Gov’t Overreach”

    It was a busy day for SEC Chair Gary Gensler…

    With bitcoin smashing to new record highs after Trump’s trifecta victory, Gensler – potentially only weeks away from being removed from office – appeared to double-down on his position on (predominantly negative) crypto policy and enforcement.

    As CoinTelegraph’s Turner Wright reports, in prepared remarks for a Nov. 14 speech at the Practicing Law Institute’s 56th Annual Institute on Securities Regulation, Gensler said his focus for digital assets while leading the commission was having parties “register and give proper disclosure to the public” for roughly 10,000 tokens considered securities.

    He also pointed to the SEC’s record of approving spot Bitcoin BTC$88,160 exchange-traded funds and BTC futures investment vehicles under his watch but suggested that some crypto firms had not followed “common-sense rules of the road.”

    “This is a field in which over the years there has been significant investor harm,” said Gensler.

    “Further, aside from speculative investing and possible use for illicit activities, the vast majority of crypto assets have yet to prove out sustainable use cases.

    Everything we’ve done is focused on ensuring compliance with our laws.”

    Though the SEC chair’s term ends in June 2026, Trump promised crypto users that he intended to fire Gensler “on day one” if elected, marking a potentially different direction the commission could take on crypto enforcement.

    Experts have suggested that the president-elect could not remove Gensler without cause, nor has the SEC chair suggested he would resign.

    It’s unclear if Trump has the authority to remove Gensler from the SEC. Any replacement would require Senate approval, but the Republican suggested he would attempt to bypass the chamber by making recess appointments for all of his cabinet and staff. At the time of publication, Trump had not announced any potential replacement for Gensler.

    But, at the end of the prepared remarks, Gensler dropped a statement that sounded a lot like a ‘so long and thanks for all the fish’ comment:

    Remarkable SEC Staff

    Before I close, I want to say something about the SEC and its staff. It’s a remarkable agency. The staff and Commission are deeply mission- driven, focused on protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.

    The lawyers, accountants, economists, policy experts, and other staff generally could make more money working somewhere else. They choose, though, to work on behalf of the public here at the SEC.

    It’s been a great honor to serve with them, doing the people’s work, and ensuring that our capital markets remain the best in the world.

    Conclusion

    Sam and Jane Gensler, my mom and dad, never worked in finance or even completed college. When they invested their savings, our family benefited from the securities markets’ common-sense rules of the road.

    The SEC’s effective administration of well-regulated securities markets promotes trust. It’s what brings investors and issuers to the market like fans to a football game. It’s what underpins the world’s largest capital markets. It’s what has contributed to our nation’s great economic success these last 90 years.

    I’ve been proud to serve with my colleagues at the SEC who, day in and day out, work to protect American families on the highways of finance.

    But things then went a little bit turbo for Liz Warren’s enforcer as CoinTelegraph’s Vince Quill reports that 18 US states have filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Chairman Gary Gensler, accusing the financial regulator of “gross government overreach” against the nascent crypto industry.

    The plaintiffs include Nebraska, Tennessee, Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa, Texas, Mississippi, Ohio, Montana, and others.

    The legal complaint reads:

    “The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not respected this allocation of authority.

    Instead, without Congressional authorization, the SEC has sought to unilaterally wrest regulatory authority away from the States through an ongoing series of enforcement actions.”

    According to the Blockchain Association, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s various legal actions against the crypto industry cost crypto firms a collective $426 million bill to fight against the regulatory agency’s enforcement actions and lack of clarity on a coherent digital asset policy.

    Buh-bye, Gary!

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 17:00

  • Israeli Military Planning To Stay In Gaza Through 2025
    Israeli Military Planning To Stay In Gaza Through 2025

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The Israeli military is planning to stay in Gaza through 2025 and is stepping up demolitions and the construction of more permanent military structures, Haaretz reported on Wednesday.

    There is a significant portion of Gaza’s territory that’s under the control of the Israeli military, where the IDF has been destroying every building in sight and establishing military outposts, including the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land that separates northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip.

    Netanyahu stands before a map of Gaza & explains why Israel must retain control over the Philadelphi corridor

    According to Haaretz, the Netzarim corridor is currently five to six kilometers wide and about nine kilometers long, and the Israeli military is working to expand it even more.

    “Today, when you stand on the road in some places, you no longer see any houses,” an Israeli combat soldier said of the corridor, which includes the former site of a Jewish settlement.

    The Israeli military has conducted a similar campaign of destruction along the Philadelphi Corridor, which is on the Gaza-Egypt border, and in a “buffer zone” along the entire Israel-Gaza border that cuts one kilometer into Gaza’s territory.

    In those areas as well, virtually all the buildings have been destroyed, and military outposts are going up. Haaretz previously reported that the Netzarim Corridor, the Philadelphi Corridor, and the buffer zone account for 26% of Gaza’s territory.

    In northern Gaza, Israel is now allegedly conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign focused on the cities of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia, which have been completely cut off from aid deliveries as the Israeli military is starving the civilian population. Israeli forces are also demolishing buildings in the northern cities so the expelled Palestinians have nowhere to return.

    The ethnic cleansing campaign and conquering of Gaza’s territory is expected to pave the way for Jewish settlements in Gaza. “When you see the roads being paved here, it’s clear that this isn’t intended for the ground maneuvers or for raids by the troops into various places.

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    These roads lead, among other places, to the places from which some of the settlements were removed,” an Israeli officer in Gaza told Haaretz.

    “I don’t know of any intent to rebuild them, that isn’t something we’re told explicitly. But everyone understands where this is going.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 16:40

  • Trump Nominates RFK Jr. For HHS Secretary
    Trump Nominates RFK Jr. For HHS Secretary

    President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services.

    Donald Trump shakes hands with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a Turning Point Action campaign rally in Duluth, Georgia, on Oct. 23, 2024. | Alex Brandon/AP

    The 70-year-old Kennedy has been a longtime health advocate who Trump said he would let “go wild,” should he win the November 5 election.

    “He’s going to help make America healthy again. … He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him get to it,” Trump said during his victory speech. “Go have a good time, Bobby.”

    In a post to Truth Social, Trump said:

    I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health. The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country. Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!

    That said, Politico suggested that Kennedy “may still face a steep slope to confirmation” over his fight against overvaccination, and his book accusing former NIH official Anthony Fauci of conspiring with Bill Gates and drugmakers to sell COVID-19 vaccines.

    Kennedy says he isn’t taking vaccines away from anyone – he just wants to ensure they’re safe.

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    “I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacy are out there, and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them,” he told MSNBC the day after the election.

    Kennedy also says he’ll recommend against adding fluoride to drinking water, as it’s “almost certainly” causing an IQ loss in children, according to some studies.

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    Meanwhile…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/14/2024 – 16:13

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Nov 14

Today’s News 14th November 2024

  • Remember Peanut: A Treatise On Evil And Why The State Killing Of A Squirrel Matters So Much
    Remember Peanut: A Treatise On Evil And Why The State Killing Of A Squirrel Matters So Much

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    What is evil? For the average person it’s a difficult concept to explain but most of us know it when we see it. Every once in a while there’s an event which strikes the collective consciousness in such a way that it becomes deeply symbolic. Sometimes these events symbolize ultimate good, and sometimes they symbolize ultimate evil. The public is affected by these things in ways they didn’t expect and might not even comprehend, but they are archetypal and profound nonetheless.

    In the wake of Donald Trumps election victory and the jubilant celebration some people might overlook one of these recent events; the state assassination of a man’s pet squirrel and the national anger that followed.  Why does the death of a squirrel matter? It’s not only about the squirrel, it’s about the context and what it means for our civilization at large.

    In a progressive controlled state (New York), Mark Longo ran a legal animal sanctuary for abandoned and injured animals. He promoted the sanctuary on social media with videos featuring his long time pet, Peanut the Squirrel. Longo rescued Peanut after his mother was killed in an accident and he raised the animal for seven years.

    Peanut became internet famous as the mascot for “P’Nut’s Freedom Farm”, and he was clearly never a threat to anyone.  So, why after seven years does the New York Department of Environmental Conservation suddenly target Mark Longo for a criminal raid which resulted in the seizure of some of his animals (including Peanut) which were then immediately euthanized?

    The State of NY indicates that SOMEONE made multiple reports against Longo, accusing him of violations including keeping animals with rabies. They also claimed Peanut had bitten people. No evidence has been presented to show these accusations to be true. And, as with all government bureaucracy, the state sent thugs to terrorize the poor man and his family instead of simply talking to him.

    Whoever set Longo up did their homework, because accusations of rabies lead to the immediate death of an animal. The CDC requires that an animal be put down before samples can be sent for rabies testing. Peanut never had a chance.

    So far there is no confirmed information on who actually lied and set up Longo for the raid. What we do know is that the person responsible for greenlighting the raid is State DEC officer Karen Przyklek (yes, an actual Karen).

    Regardless of who swatted Longo and his animal sanctuary, it was the State of New York and the DEC that was responsible for handling the case and they did so in the worst way possible.

    According to Longo they treated him like a drug dealer and then they killed his beloved pets without telling him and without due process. Longo and Peanut were guilty until proven innocent.

    I have to say, when it comes to my pets I take a hard line position: They are a part of my family. Hurt my pets and I’ll hurt you. I don’t care what the law says. I don’t care about your rationale. Retribution is coming.

    I think there’s a lot of people out there that agree with this sentiment and most of them are conservative. There is also clearly an element of government overreach here that made the death of Peanut a catalyst for political debate between conservatives and progressives over state power. Leftists love the state and defend it blindly. Conservatives are suspicious of the state and seek to contain it.

    But there’s something more going on underneath the surface that I want to address, and that’s the emotional and spiritual side of injustice. Why target Longo? What was he doing to anyone? As far as I can tell he was bringing happiness to people while giving a home to animals in need. Why target a loved pet? What motivates certain people to do these things? What motivates the government to do these things?

    I have pondered these questions for many years and like most people I first turned to innocuous explanations. Maybe these terrible situations are a result of simple misunderstandings? Maybe the complexity of bureaucracy leads to unintended consequences? Maybe the system is broken but the people within it generally have good intentions?

    None of these things ultimately explain something like the killing of Peanut. Instead, I can only come to one conclusion: There are very evil people in the world and the state often colludes with those people to destroy good things.  Their goal is to seek out any and all goodness in the world and suffocate it. And this is what has so many people upset about a pet squirrel.

    One of my favorite television shows of all time is a series from the 1990s called ‘Millennium’ starring Lance Henriksen. The show explores the idea of physical evil; not evil as an archetypal concept or a social disease, but evil as a tangible predatory entity and how it seeks to destroy mankind.

    In that series one of my favorite episodes is called ‘A Room With No View’. A character by the name of Lucy Butler (Lucifer), kidnaps and imprisons promising children with unique qualities. She then psychologically tortures them until they agree to give up on their dreams. When they promise to turn to a life of mediocrity, she sets them free because they are no longer a threat to the machinations of evil.

    For me this depiction of evil was a revelation. It wasn’t the usual cackling, mustache twirling devil of most popular media, trying to get people to commit a mass shooting or commit suicide or start a world war. Rather, this was a subtle and insidious evil that inspires people to simply give up trying to do good. This devil wasn’t a reactionary randomly attempting to create chaos today; he was planning generations ahead and making the future increasingly less hopeful.

    It’s the kind of thing we see from narcissists and psychopaths all the time – That desire to extinguish positive motivation and leave the people around them in drudgery. That malicious drive to make good people stop doing good things and grinding them down to nothing over the course of years or decades. Evil is often subversive and it plays the long game.

    When I hear progressives defend the state of NY and their actions against Longo, I can’t help but be reminded of the idea of evil as a subtle living force. I saw a lot of leftists on social media trying to diminish public concerns about the event by making false comparisons. They say conservatives “care more about a dead squirrel than they cared about the death of George Floyd.”

    I say yes, we do, because Peanut the Squirrel was more valuable to the world than George Floyd.

    Peanut was doing good. Even though he was just an animal he was doing far more good than the majority of leftists combined. We’re worse off without Peanut, we’re better off without career criminals like George Floyd. And I think it says a lot about a group that idolizes a man who robbed a pregnant woman at gunpoint while they simultaneously ignore government abuse of power when it’s inconvenient for their political agenda.

    My feeling is that, for whatever reason, Mark Longo and Peanut caught the eye of evil people and those people saw a positive social effort that they immediately wanted to snuff out. And one thing I’ve noticed about evil people is that they gravitate to other evil people. They seem to find each other in a crowded room. They work together across great distances and help each other in the destruction of innocents.

    (How else do you explain the rapid spread of trans indoctrination of children, for example?)

    In other words, when you set out to do something positive for the world or enact legitimate solutions to real problems, just understand that you WILL eventually be targeted. You probably won’t know why. It probably won’t make any logical sense. And it will be people you’ve probably never met in your life or people that you barely know. Maybe they’re demons in disguise. Maybe they are possessed. Maybe they symbolize a twisted test to see if you’re truly dedicated to your cause.

    When these challenges arrive and evil seeks you out, know that it will use whatever means at its disposal to sabotage you and that usually includes government. To confirm how evil your society truly is, all you have to do is determine who the government chooses to help and who the government chooses to hurt. If the government regularly comes to the aid of people with ill intent while stepping on the necks of those with pure hearts, then you know that your society is on the doorstep to hell.

    *  *  *

    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
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 23:25

  • Virginia Family's EZ-Pass Charged $576 After Driving RV Just 45 Miles On State Toll Road
    Virginia Family’s EZ-Pass Charged $576 After Driving RV Just 45 Miles On State Toll Road

    It’s easy to laugh off people who constantly complain that the government is watching their every move and has hands in their wallets. Then, you stumble upon a story like Jeff Landry’s. 

    When Landry set off for a camping trip with his family near Virginia’s Luray Caverns in early October, he expected to pay some tolls – especially because he had his RV.

    Traveling from Falls Church with his wife and youngest child following in a minivan, they took I-66’s express lanes during peak hours, expecting to pay $30 or so each way in tolls. But to his surprise, when the EZ-Pass charges appeared days later, the bill totaled an eye-popping $569.50 for the roundtrip, according to MSN/MotorBiscuit.

    At first, Jeff thought the bill was a mistake, but after checking the toll website, he realized it was accurate.

    The MSN/MotorBiscuit writeup says that his three-axle RV was charged a premium due to its size, but $569.50 for a 22-mile round trip felt excessive to him. He hadn’t anticipated how much dynamic pricing could drive up tolls for larger vehicles during peak hours.

    It turns out…the I-66 express lanes, managed by I-66 Express Mobility Partners, adjust toll rates based on traffic demand, charging drivers more to bypass congestion.

    Larger vehicles, like Jeff’s 1997 Holiday Rambler RV, incur even higher tolls due to their size and road impact. According to a toll operator’s spokesperson, Jeff’s RV wouldn’t even qualify to use certain other toll lanes in Virginia, so the high charges are firm.

    The writeup notes that drivers unfamiliar with toll pricing can easily misjudge costs, as Jeff did.

    It says to avoid similar surprises, plan your trip to avoid peak hours, when toll rates are highest; traveling during off-peak times can significantly reduce toll charges. Additionally, check your vehicle’s toll classification, especially if you’re driving a larger, multi-axle vehicle, which typically incurs higher tolls. Lastly, explore alternative routes.

    While non-express lanes may add some travel time, they can save large vehicle drivers hundreds of dollars. For Jeff, the express lane shaved only 20 minutes off his trip—an advantage that, in retrospect, didn’t justify the steep toll.

    Or, maybe just stay home next time…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 23:00

  • Did Trump Really Call Putin Late Last Week?
    Did Trump Really Call Putin Late Last Week?

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    There are reasons to doubt WaPo’s report…

    The Washington Post’s (WaPo) report alleging that Trump called Putin the Thursday after he won the election and told him not to escalate the conflict was contradicted by both the Kremlin and Kiev. The first called it “pure fiction” while the second said that it was “unaware” of the call despite allegedly being informed of it. The Trump team hasn’t commented on it at the time of writing. Nevertheless, the report’s timeframe raises questions about its credibility, which will now be elaborated on.

    Putin participated in his traditional Q&A session that evening at the Valdai Club’s annual meeting, which lasted until around midnight. He claimed not to have talked to Trump by that time but said that he’d be interested in speaking with him if he calls.

    If WaPo’s report is correct, then it means that Putin either talked to Trump before the aforesaid event but lied about it or that he talked to him sometime afterwards but before 8am Moscow time, which would be midnight of the next day at Mar-a-Lago.

    It can only be speculated why Putin would lie about this if that’s indeed what happened, which is unlikely, and it’s also equally unlikely that he’d agree to have a detailed discussion with Trump between midnight and 8am in the morning after the prior evening’s long Q&A session. After all, these sorts of calls aren’t impromptu but are arranged ahead of time, and Putin could always have rescheduled. Therefore, WaPo’s report is probably fake news, thus making one wonder why it was published in the first place.

    One possibility is that someone on his team was tasked with introducing the report’s two narratives, that Trump told Putin not to escalate but also informed Ukraine of the call too, into the discourse. This could have been done to test the water by gauging their reactions to what he might have planned to do. Another possibility is that subversive elements close to him wanted to undermine his planned call. And finally, the last possibility is that it was made up, whether by WaPo or whoever else for whatever reason.

    In the order that they were shared, the first “trial run” theory would have shown that Russia is uncomfortable with being told what to do while Ukraine doesn’t want to be left out of the loop. As for the second, both might now know what to expect, but Trump could also switch it up to surprise them. Regarding the last one, it drove traffic to WaPo’s site and reaffirmed the perception of them as one of the preferred outlets for insiders to leak to, but it had no noticeable effect beyond that.

    Looking forward, the first official Putin-Trump call (whenever it may be and assuming that WaPo’s report is fake news as was argued) will probably see the returning American leader sharing more details with his Russian counterpart about exactly what he has in mind for ending the Ukrainian Conflict. Readers can learn more about what that might look like here, here, and here. It’ll take more than one call to achieve this, most likely at least one in-person meeting too, but everything is moving in that direction.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 22:35

  • West Bank Annexation 'Of Course' A Possibility, Says Trump's Israel Envoy Pick Huckabee
    West Bank Annexation ‘Of Course’ A Possibility, Says Trump’s Israel Envoy Pick Huckabee

    Mike Huckabee, announced Tuesday as the incoming Trump administration’s designated US Ambassador to Israel, spoke to Israel’s Army Radio in a short interview Wednesday morning.

    He issued some surprisingly bold statements, amid controversy from some corners of US Congress who are alarmed at the choice, given he has long been among the most staunch and hardline supporters of Israel. He spelled out that he is on board with a complete Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank, if that’s what Trump policy leaders decide.

    “I’m kind of in shock. It’s been an unusual and wonderful day all at the same time. And I’m just incredibly honored that the president would ask me to serve in this capacity,” Huckabee said at the start of the interview.

    The Israeli Army show host probed and pressed him on what might be the most forward-looking changes that President-elect Donald Trump might bring to US-Israel relations.

    Currently, there are a handful of hardline Israeli ministers who have gone so far as to call for declaring the West Bank as Israeli sovereign territory.

    Among the most outspoken are Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Smotrich recently declared that “now is the time” to declare Israeli sovereignty over Palestinian territories, especially the West Bank.

    Huckabee in the Wednesday morning interview, which appears to be his first since being tapped as Israeli ambassador, began with “I have been, as you know, a frequent visitor to Judea and Samaria.” His reference was to what is internationally known as the West Bank. Israel chooses to use the ancient biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

    “I also very much believe that the people of Israel deserve a secure and safe country, and anything I can do that will help accommodate that is going to be a great privilege for me,” he added.

    But that’s when Army Radio’s Yanir Kozin – sensing that Huckabee was choosing his words and response very carefully, again pressed Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor was asked what his true opinion on the matter of Israel taking over the West Bank, and he responded as follows:

    “Well, of course. And you know, I won’t make the policy. I will carry out the policy of the president. But he has already demonstrated in his first term that there’s never been an American president that has been more helpful in securing, uh, an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel from the moving of the embassy, recognition of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem as the capital. No one has done more than President Trump. And I fully expect that will continue,” said Huckabee.

    As for the question of recognition of any future settlements in the Gaza Strip, where the army is in the midst of a more than year-long anti-Hamas operation, Huckabee explained, “Well, I haven’t had time to process that…As I say, today has been a pretty intense day of just fielding hundreds, literally hundreds of calls, emails, text messages.”

    He continued, “So, you know, I don’t want to make any comments about policy because those won’t be mine to make. That’ll be the president’s. And it will be my job to carry out the policy that he prescribes.”

    Map via CDC

    Interestingly and controversially, some Israeli officials have hinted at Tel Aviv’s potential pursuit of a ‘Greater Israel’ project – something which has been talked about openly since the 1980s. American neocon policy officials have also talked about this possibility since the 1990s.

    A French language documentary recently got Smotrich on record as strongly suggesting he would like to eventually see Israel’s border expand to Damascus: 

    Smotrich stated that “it is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus,” adding ominously “only Jerusalem, until Damascus.”

    Such rhetoric from top-ranking Israeli officials is sure to only perpetuate the war. Israel is not only at war in Gaza, but is conducting a ground and aerial offensive in southern Lebanon, with strikes extending even into the north and central of the country, with heavy strikes on Beirut. The last week has also witnessed at least four significant air raids of Syria as well, mostly focused on the Damascus suburbs, where Israel says Iran’s military has a presence.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 22:10

  • Peter Schiff: The Fed Is Trying To Save Itself At Your Expense
    Peter Schiff: The Fed Is Trying To Save Itself At Your Expense

    Authored by Peter Schiff via SchiffSovereign.com,

    Well, inflation is up again. You’re probably not surprised, and neither are we.

    Over the past few months, in fact, we’ve repeated again and again that inflation will keep rising, and even identified some strange reasons why.

    Remember back during the early days of the pandemic when used car prices went through the roof? Supply chain dysfunction and stay-at-home orders prevented the big auto manufacturers from producing too many new cars. So, demand for used cars surged… and used car prices shot to the moon.

    But used car prices eventually started to fall back to earth. And throughout this year, the government inflation reports showed steep drops in used car prices– like 10 to 12% year-over-year declines.

    We made two key points about this:

    1) The big drop in used car prices was essentially dragging down the inflation average. Other prices, like housing, medical care, etc. were still rising by 5% or more. But after averaging in the negative 10% used car price declines, the overall inflation rate seemed to be falling.

    2) We also said this would be temporary. Used cars could only fall for so long before they reached ‘normal’ levels. And once that happened, inflation would start to rise again.

    This appears to have now happened.

    During the summer, for example, used car prices fell 10.9% year-over-year in the month of July. Then in August, the year-over-year decline decelerated to -10.4%. Then the following month to -5.1%. Well, the October data was released just this morning, and used cars index fell 3.4%.

    In other words, we’re almost at the end of the ‘used car deflation’ benefit that dragged down the government’s inflation report. So, it’s no coincidence that we also see inflation once again rising, from 2.3% in September to now 2.6% in October.

    And there are plenty of categories that are WAY more that 2.6%, especially the things that people buy on a regular basis. Health insurance is up 6.8%. Car insurance is up 14%. Airfare is up 4.1%. Housing costs are up 5.2%. Daycare is up 6%.

    Sure, there are obviously categories where prices have fallen. And congratulations if you were in the market for a men’s sport coat last month– you paid 5.9% less. Plus, the all-important “dishes and flatware” category plunged 7.4%.

    But these hardly make up for the big price hikes in the key categories that are essential to most people.

    This is what makes the Fed’s policy actions so bizarre.

    Last week they cut rates, again, for the second time this cycle… which is the OPPOSITE of what a central bank would normally do in the face of rising inflation.

    In the same way that they pretended inflation was “transitory” throughout 2021, they are now asserting with equal vigor that the inflation beast has been tamed.

    They’re so full of self-congratulatory hubris, in fact, that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stated that he will refuse to step down if Donald Trump demands his resignation.

    Bear in mind, Powell is the guy who totally missed inflation in 2021. I mean, he was MISTER Transitory. He failed to act in a timely manner and waited until mid-2022 to start hiking rates in earnest. He then failed to predict any negative consequences from the rate hikes– including the meltdown in the US banking system.

    Powell even testified before Congress– just TWO DAYS before Silicon Valley Bank went bust last year– that he saw “nothing in the data” to suggest there were any risks to the Fed’s monetary policy decisions.

    I would also point out that during Powell’s chairmanship, two of the most senior Fed officials were found to have been personally profiting from their monetary policy decisions through questionably timed stock trades. It was almost as if Nancy Pelosi was running the joint.

    So, Powell– who has been consistently wrong in the most remarkable ways– now insists that he will NOT step down. Apparently, HE and HE ALONE can lead the Federal Reserve. And we’ve seen that arrogance before from Joe Biden, Tony Fauci, etc. It’s not a good look and doesn’t bode well for the Fed.

    All that aside, it’s pretty clear that the Fed is in a bind. Inflation is rising, so they should realistically hike rates. But interest rates– even at current levels– are killing the federal government.

    The US spent an unbelievable $1.1 trillion in the last fiscal year paying interest on the national debt. That will almost certainly increase for this current fiscal year. And if rates stay where they are now, the total interest bill will exceed $2 trillion in a few years.

    That’s a pretty bad situation considering that interest rates are still relatively cheap on a historical basis.

    But it’s not just the federal government. Current interest rates are also bad for banks.

    Remember that banks across the United States bought mountains of Treasury bonds during the pandemic– at a time when interest rates were at record lows, and those bonds yielded as little as 5 basis points (i.e. 0.05%).

    Thanks to the Fed’s interest rate hikes, those banks’ bond portfolios have tanked in value. (When interest rates go up, bonds lose value.) In fact, across the entire US banking system, the total unrealized bond losses exceed $500 BILLION. That’s about 20% of the total capital in the US banking system.

    Naturally banks don’t want to take that hit. And the only way to unwind those losses is for interest rates to fall, i.e. the bonds once again increase in value. So, yeah, banks desperately want rate cuts too.

    But the most important one is the Fed itself.

    Just like banks across the country bought US government bonds during the pandemic, the Federal Reserve bought literally TRILLIONS of dollars of bonds. And their interest rate hikes have caused unbelievable losses to the Fed’s own bond portfolio.

    How big are their losses? Roughly ONE TRILLION dollars.

    In other words, the Fed is wildly, woefully insolvent. And at this point, they’re just out for self-preservation. Cutting rates is the only way to reduce those unrealized losses and prop up their solvency, even if that means more inflation… or even stagflation that could be worse than the 1970s.

    That is especially significant since, during his last press conference, Powell admitted that the Fed has no contingency plan for stagflation. They’re not even thinking about the risk. They’re just focused on saving themselves at your expense.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 21:45

  • Dear Border Czar: This Nonprofit Boasts A List Of 400 Companies That Employ Migrants
    Dear Border Czar: This Nonprofit Boasts A List Of 400 Companies That Employ Migrants

    President-elect Donald Trump made public safety and national security a central element of his campaign, ensuring the American people that illegal aliens would be deported. 

    On Monday, incoming “border czar,” Tom Homan, told “Fox & Friends” hosts, “Public safety threats and national security threats will be the priority…they pose the most danger to this country.” 

    Homan said, “Where do we find most victims of sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking? At worksites…” 

    Homan’s comment about the potential for large-scale worksite raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents next year reminded us of a note we shared with readers in March titled “How Shadowy Network Of NGOs Supplies Mega-Corporations With Migrants To Exploit Cheap Labor.”

    Earlier this year, Bloomberg paraded Turkish billionaire businessman and founder of the Chobani yogurt empire, Hamdi Ulukaya, a top Kamala Harris supporter, who, according to public records data, is one of the officers of the Tent Partnership for Refugees, an advisory nonprofit that companies use to work with resettlement agencies, staffing agencies, and other nonprofits, to source cheap migrant labor. 

    In March, Ulukaya explained to Bloomberg that “employing refugees and committing to their successful onboarding is what’s driving Chobani’s success” and allowed it to double its earnings in the first nine months of 2023. 

    A separate Bloomberg note showed that Tyson Foods partnered with Ulukaya’s Tent for cheap labor. As of March, Tyson employed a whopping 42,000 immigrants among its 120,000 US workforce. 

    “We would like to employ another 42,000 if we could find them,” Garrett Dolan, who leads Tyson’s efforts to eliminate employment barriers, said in March. 

    What’s very clear is that migrants did not aimlessly walk across the wide-open southern border and then find instant job placements that displaced and replaced blue-collar native-born workers. There is a massive NGO network, internationally and domestically, that channels unvetted migrants from foreign lands into US factories.

    Suppose the Trump administration wants to learn more about potential worksites that have hired migrants over the years.

    In that case, Tent boasts a massive network of 400 companies hiring migrants.

    Here’s the partial list…

    Homan’s team will have a field day with Tent’s list. 

    America can no longer afford to have ten-plus million unvetted illegal aliens running around the nation.

    Mega-corporations that have displaced US workers with migrants over the years are likely to face significant labor challenges next year if worksite raids are conducted by ICE. Perhaps it’s time to consider hiring American workers again.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 21:20

  • Tucker: Joe Rogan Has "Changed American History"
    Tucker: Joe Rogan Has “Changed American History”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    During a recent discussion with Joe Polish‬ at the Genius Network Annual Event, Tucker Carlson heaped praise on Joe Rogan, going as far to say that the podcast king has “changed American history.”

    Tucker noted that “Rogan created the genre of podcasting. I’ve been in the media my whole life. Rogan used to be a sitcom actor, a standup comedian, and an MMA fighter. So he starts this thing called a podcast where he talks for like three hours.”

    Carlson admitted “I’m in television at a big network and I thought it was dumb. No one is going to listen to a three-hour podcast from some MMA fighter?”

    “I know, right?” Carlson said as the audience began to chuckle.

    “And this guy’s not even in our business! What’s he doing?” Carlson related, explaining his feelings at the time.

    “He completely changed not only American media but also American history. he created a whole new genre — it would be like if one guy invented the newspaper or television, that’s how big what he did was,” Carlson urged.

    He continued, “And I will admit I did not see it coming, I did not understand it, I did not think it would work. And the fact that it did work says something so great and important about Americans. Rogan proved that Americans really want to learn.”

    “They’re not learning in school, they’re not learning in the rest of the media. It’s all shallow and dumb, about race and gender, it’s all lying,” Carlson further asserted.

    He continued, “Rogan is just willing to just sit there with interesting people and talk for three hours. That was the most affirming, reassuring thing I’ve seen in 35 years of media — that that worked.”

    “I’m thrilled and proud to be Rogan’s friend. I admire him more than anybody in media — by far,” Carlson concluded.

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

    The entire discussion is here:

    As we highlight in the following video, Trump’s victory, along with the success of Tucker, Rogan and many others could be the final hammer blow that renders the legacy media largely irrelevant.

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 20:55

  • Southwest Airlines Offering "Voluntary Separation Packages" Due To "Overstaffing"
    Southwest Airlines Offering “Voluntary Separation Packages” Due To “Overstaffing”

    We just saw the ‘success’ of the Biden administration not allowing M&A in the airline industry when Spirit, once slated to merge with jetBlue, instead filed for bankruptcy this week. “That’s the miracle of Bidenomics!”

    And they aren’t the only carrier under distress, it appears. 

    Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas, is addressing overstaffing issues at select airports by offering voluntary separation to ground operations, cargo, and provisioning employee, according to SimpleFlying. 

    In a memo distributed on Friday, the airline noted that overstaffing—largely due to aircraft delivery delays—affects nearly 20 airports where Southwest has a significant presence, though the issue is not universal across all locations. Certain positions at Southwest’s headquarters are also eligible for the voluntary separation program.

    Aviation analyst JonNYC first reported that Southwest Airlines is offering a voluntary separation program to address overstaffing at specific airports.

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

    In a memo to staff, Chris Johnson, Vice President of Ground Operations, along with Cole McGuire and Wally Devereaux, both vice presidents overseeing operations, outlined that the voluntary separations aim to align staffing levels with Southwest’s revised capacity plans, impacted by aircraft delivery delays.

    The SimpleFlying report notes that the 2024 Voluntary Separation Program (VSP 24) is open to contracted and non-contracted employees, including customer service agents, ramp agents, cargo agents, and provisioning agents.

    Eligible positions also extend to operations agents, supervisors, assistant managers, and operations managers. Employees at 18 airports, including Atlanta, Dallas Love Field, Los Angeles, and Tampa, will receive information about the VSP 24 package soon. Select employees at Southwest’s Dallas headquarters will also be eligible.

    The program is particularly targeted at employees nearing retirement, or those interested in pursuing personal interests such as returning to school or spending more time with family. These employees will have several weeks to review the resources and determine if the VSP 24 aligns with their goals.

    For those opting for voluntary separation, the resignation date is set for December 30, 2024.

    This initiative coincides with a planned reduction in Southwest’s Atlanta operations, where over 300 pilot and flight attendant positions will be cut by April. The airline, under shareholder pressure from Elliott Investment Management, is focusing on revenue growth and has also reduced hiring rates to prevent further overstaffing.

    A Southwest spokesperson confirmed the program, noting that aircraft delivery delays have limited fleet capacity, prompting adjustments in staffing. The voluntary separation, combined with a hiring slowdown, is intended to prevent workforce excesses at impacted locations.

    It remains unclear what actions Southwest will take for employees who choose not to participate in the VSP 24.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 20:30

  • Doug Casey On Trump's Second Term: What It Means For America And Investors
    Doug Casey On Trump’s Second Term: What It Means For America And Investors

    Via InternationalMan.com,

    International Man: What are your overall thoughts on Trump’s second term?

    How do you expect it to differ from his first term?

    Doug Casey: Thank heavens Kamala lost. If she’d won, the Jacobins would have cemented their hold on the country, and it would have been “game over.” We would have seen an acceleration of cultural decline, vastly higher taxes and regulations, and a serious push to shut down free speech.

    It feels like morning in America again. But unfortunately, morning only lasts six hours. You’ve got to remember that roughly half the country voted for Kamala, despite her total lack of any qualifications and her extreme commitment to socialist/statist values. Half the country believes in these things; they’re unhappy and not going away.

    In other words, it ain’t over till it’s over. And it ain’t over yet.

    Regarding Trump’s next four years, I hope that he shows better judgment than he did in his first term when he surrounded himself with all kinds of spineless toadies, deep-staters, and political hacks. But I’m optimistic. For instance, he’s announced that Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley—horrible people—are out.

    Better yet, he’s putting RFK Jr. in a position of power over the FDA. He’s tasked Elon Musk with trying to cut Federal spending by $2 trillion. They’re talking about putting Ron Paul in a position to weigh in on monetary policy. And they’ve apparently offered Joel Salatin a position in the Department of Agriculture.

    While Trump doesn’t have a philosophical core, flies by the seat of his pants, is not terribly knowledgeable, and demonstrated horrible judgment about people the last time around, this time, he’s doing a much better job picking the people who are going to actually make things happen.

    What scares me most? There have been two assassination attempts, and there might be a third or a fourth before he’s inaugurated. He has become a totem for cultural conservatism. And the Jacobins who control the US government, academia, the entertainment industry, the corporate world, and all of the power centers of America don’t want to see him in office. They’re presently in disarray, but they’re capable of any knavery.

    International Man: How do you see Trump’s policies in a second term impacting the federal debt, inflation, and the broader US economy?

    Is there any realistic path to reversing the current trajectory?

    Doug Casey: First, let me reemphasize how important it is that Kamala and the Democrats lost.

    The Democrats would’ve gone hog wild toward the socialization of America. I’m extremely grateful for their defeat. And very happy Trump seems angry enough to meet out some justice.

    On the downside, though, Trump has always called himself a “low-interest rate guy” and the “king of debt.” Remember that he was a big spender during his first term and ran up huge deficits. They were relatively and absolutely bigger than those of the baby Bush or Obama. And even bigger than Biden’s over the last four years. I expect that since he has no real grip on economics, he’ll encourage printing money to “help” the economy. Not that he has any choice; they have to keep printing, or the debt bubble will implode.

    Going back to the bright side, he wants to massively deregulate the economy. That’s a huge plus. And he wants to reduce taxes. That’s wonderful. But the bad news is that he clearly doesn’t understand that there is no such thing as lowering taxes unless you lower government spending. Especially now, when a third of all government spending is funded by selling debt to the Federal Reserve, which amounts to printing money. There’s going to be more of that. Retail prices will go up for sure. But perhaps the stock market—overpriced as it is—will go even higher with the flood of money.

    Is there any realistic path to reversing the current trajectory? No.

    It’s wonderful that Elon Musk wants to cut the budget by $2 trillion per year, roughly the amount of the deficit. But I’d say the chances of that are close to zero. Things like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, interest payments, and the military budget are sacrosanct—and over 90% of the budget.

    On the downside, Trump has indicated unwavering support towards Israel. The US might become Israel’s proxy for a hot war with Iran, which would be a disaster. Israel isn’t our 51st state. Despite the fact Trump wants to avoid war, he might yet involve us in a nuclear dust-up with the Middle East version of the Hatfields versus the McCoys.

    On the bright side, again, he says he can end the war in the Ukraine because he thinks that he has a good personal relationship with both Zelensky and Putin. Say what you want about Putin, but Zelensky is even more dangerous, responsible for looting scores of billions from the US to prolong a pointless border war. The only winners are Ukrainian bureaucrats and equally corrupt military “defense” companies.

    Let’s hope Trump doesn’t try to back the Russians into an impossible corner because he likes to put forward an image of being “tough.” A propaganda-driven hysteria has been created in the US. Americans believe that Russia is evil, and the terminally corrupt Zelensky regime is good. As happened in World War 1, US intervention would likely be catastrophic.

    So we’re not out of the woods in foreign policy or domestic affairs. I’m afraid that morning in America, like all mornings, will only last six hours.

    International Man: Trump has promised to end citizenship-based taxation for American expats.

    What would be the broader implications of this change, and do you think he’ll deliver on this promise?

    Doug Casey: It’s a wonderful idea because the US is the only country in the world, other than Eritrea, that taxes its expats.

    If Americans leave the country, they’re still taxed as residents for as long as they live. It’s an insane policy. Of course, he should try to change it.

    Will he be able to change it?

    I’d say the chances of that are slim and none, and Slim’s out of town. With the US government on the way to bankruptcy, Congress won’t want to cut off that source of revenue. If it does, scores of thousands of rich Americans would leave the country to escape its onerous tax and regulatory burdens.

    In addition to that, the entire world is going the other direction. Among other places, France and Canada are talking seriously about taxing their expat citizens.

    I hope it happens, but don’t count on it. A US passport will remain a huge liability for anyone with assets.

    International Man: What geopolitical and foreign policy shifts do you foresee under a second Trump administration?

    Doug Casey: The US relationship with the BRICS is becoming important. It’s all about the declining US dollar. Most of the rest of the world wants to stop using dollars. They know that it’s the unsecured liability of a bankrupt government. They’ve seen how it can be weaponized. The $30 or $40 trillion outside the US are hot potatoes and Old Maid cards, even while new dollars are being created like confetti.

    Of course, the BRICS are trying to create their own currency and their own SWIFT system equivalent so people don’t have to use the dollar.

    Rather than trying to make the dollar once again “as good as gold’, Trump is resorting to threats. He’s said, “Well, you don’t have to use the dollar. But if you don’t use our currency, we’ll charge 100% duties when you try to export to the US.”

    He doesn’t seem to realize that the US no longer exports much. We don’t produce nearly what we consume. Our major export since the 1980s has been dollars, not Boeings or soybeans.

    If Trump puts heavy duties on imports, there’s an excellent chance that he could destroy the world’s economy, which is vastly more dependent on international trade than it was in 1929, when Hoover did that with the Smoot–Hawley tariffs. High tariffs would, in effect, put the US under a self-imposed trade embargo.

    There’s only one way to solve the government’s fiscal problems: Radically cutting spending. That’s unlikely to happen under Trump, despite the best efforts of Elon Musk’s efficiency efforts.

    International Man: How are you personally positioning your portfolio for a second Trump term?

    What specific sectors or investment strategies do you believe will thrive in this environment?

    Doug Casey: I continue to be long gold because they’re going to continue destroying the dollar; its fate is sealed—even if we have a wholesale credit collapse, which is a real possibility.

    I continue to think oil, and especially natural gas, are going higher. Even though Trump has said that he will encourage more production—which is wonderful. The world runs on hydrocarbons. I especially like coal. Until the world goes nuclear, it’s the only feasible answer to generating more electricity.

    What specific investment strategies will work in the Trump years?

    For a while, it will continue to be stocks because money drives the market, and the Trump regime will definitely create lots more money and credit. That said, I’m still not interested in stocks, even though they may become even more overpriced. I have better places to be.

    Although the Donald says that he’s a low-interest rate guy, there’s nothing he can do to control long-term interest rates, which are headed higher. I suspect they’re headed back to, and beyond, the levels we saw in the early ’80s. Bonds are a disaster in the making.

    As important as knowing what to do, however, is knowing what not to do. You don’t want to lose your capital by putting your money in dangerous places. And that includes bonds, most stocks, and failing to diversify politically.

    Don’t forget that—as important as this election was—it can’t immediately undo decades of economic and cultural debauchery.

    *  *  *

    The truth is, we’re on the cusp of an economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 20:05

  • OpenAI, Google, & Anthropic Face Hurdles In Advancing AI Models, Casting Doubt On Near-Term AGI
    OpenAI, Google, & Anthropic Face Hurdles In Advancing AI Models, Casting Doubt On Near-Term AGI

    Tech companies focused on chatbot development, like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, have faced significant near-term headwinds in advancing large language models. Despite tens of billions of dollars in investments, these tech firms are experiencing diminishing returns in advancing more sophisticated LLMs.

    Sources told Bloomberg that OpenAI’s new Orion LLM has experienced performance limitations. This means the new LLM would outperform the firm’s existing models, but it does not mean there will be a significant leap in development, like that of GPT-3 to GPT-4. 

    As of late summer, for example, Orion fell short when trying to answer coding questions that it hadn’t been trained on, the people said. Overall, Orion is so far not considered to be as big a step up from OpenAI’s existing models as GPT-4 was from GPT-3.5, the system that originally powered the company’s flagship chatbot, the people said. -BBG

    The breakneck pace of developing more sophisticated LLMs appears to have also hit a proverbial brick wall at Google, in which its Gemini software has not lived up to expectations, according to sources, adding Anthropic also faces challenges with its long-awaited Claude model called 3.5 Opus. 

    Bloomberg noted one of the top obstacles these tech firms have encountered has been “finding new, untapped sources of high-quality, human-made training data that can be used to build more advanced AI systems.” 

    Sources said Orion’s dismal coding performance was due to the lack of sufficient coding data to train the LLM. They added that even though the model has improvements compared to legacy ones, it has become increasingly challenging to justify the massive costs of building and operating new models. 

    The setbacks may reveal an inconvenient truth for the tech industry plowing tens of billions of dollars into AI data centers and infrastructure, and the feasibility of reaching artificial general intelligence in the near future might be a pipedream. 

    John Schulman, cofounder and research scientist at OpenAI who recently left, said AGI could be achieved within a few years. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, believes it could be achieved by 2026. 

    However, Margaret Mitchell, the chief ethics scientist at AI startup Hugging Face, pointed out, “The AGI bubble is bursting a little bit,” adding that “different training approaches” may be needed for progress. 

    In a recent interview with Lex Fridman, Anthropic’s Amodei said there are “lots of things” that could “derail” the AI progression, including the possibility that “we could run out of data.” However, he was optimistic that AI researchers would overcome any hurdles.  

    Scaling efforts are slowing… 

    Source: Bloomberg

    “It is less about quantity and more about quality and diversity of data,” said Lila Tretikov, head of AI strategy at New Enterprise Associates and former deputy CTO at Microsoft.

    Tretikov said, “We can generate quantity synthetically, yet we struggle to get unique, high-quality datasets without human guidance, especially when it comes to language.”

    Moving forward, Noah Giansiracusa, an associate professor of mathematics at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, said AI models will continue to improve, but the hypergrowth in recent years is unsustainable:

    “We got very excited for a brief period of very fast progress. That just wasn’t sustainable.”

    If tech firms are struggling to advance LLM performance, this raises serious doubts about whether large investments can continue to be made in AI infrastructure. 

    “The infrastructure build for AI is the bubble. The AI 2.0 companies that can actually figure out a way to monetize it are the investments years from now. Might as well light a match to this fund. The infrastructure build like the telecom infrastructure during the dotcom boom will be oversupplied and pricing will collapse,” Edward Dowd recently noted on X.

    Well Nvidia has soared to new highs. 

    AI companies struggling to develop more advanced LLMs is undoubtedly an ominous sign for the AI bubble.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 19:40

  • Why Roger Ver Deserves A Presidential Pardon
    Why Roger Ver Deserves A Presidential Pardon

    Authored by Aaron Day via The Brownstone Institute,

    The US government is attempting to imprison Roger Ver for 109 years for the crime of following his lawyers’ advice. 

    His case represents an unprecedented attack on attorney-client privilege that threatens everyone who relies on professional counsel.

    Today, Ver sits silenced in Spain, unable to defend himself publicly, while prosecutors use his own lawyers’ records against him—records that show his meticulous attempts to follow the law. This isn’t just about cryptocurrency; it’s about whether any American can safely consult legal counsel without fear of prosecution.

    If this precedent stands, seeking professional advice could become evidence of criminality. Business owners, entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens who rely on lawyers and accountants will all be at risk. The time to act is now, before this dangerous precedent becomes permanent.

    Imagine for a moment that you’re an entrepreneur with an unwavering belief: state control over money isn’t just wrong—it’s a weapon. It fuels violence, breeds poverty, and crushes individual freedom. You’ve seen the wreckage it leaves behind and know that there has to be a better way.

    You know this because you’ve experienced the state’s brutality firsthand. 

    At just 22, you were imprisoned for ten months in federal prison. Your supposed crime? Selling firecrackers on eBay’s then-legal Guns & Ammo section without a license. But the real reason, as Roger tells it, was speaking truth to power—declaring that taxation is theft and wars are mass murder.

    In prison, you experienced psychological torture that haunts you to this day. A guard planted a weapon on you as a “joke,” threatening you with additional years in prison until you broke down in tears. You witnessed the theatrical deception when inspectors visited—seeing how the system maintains its façade of legitimacy while grinding down human dignity behind closed doors. In Roger’s own words from his emotional testimony:

    “That man just purely tortured me for his own amusement…when he sees that enough tears are coming down my face and that I’m crying enough, he pats me on the shoulder and says ‘Relax, I’m just kidding with you.’”

    Then, in 2010, you discover Bitcoin—a revolutionary concept. A form of money that can’t be manipulated by any government, any central bank. Digital cash for the people. Your mind races with the possibilities. For the first time in history, money could flow freely across borders, free from the control of states that use it to fuel wars, or impoverish entire nations. You see what many do not: Bitcoin could be the key to spreading freedom and prosperity to every corner of the earth.

    You dive in, headfirst. You’re not just a believer—you become the first merchant to accept Bitcoin, the first investor in Bitcoin-related companies. Your relentless advocacy earns you the title “Bitcoin Jesus.” You invest in decentralized companies with one mission: to free the world from the shackles of centralized control.

    But the US—the land of the free—begins to look less and less like the place you want it to be. So, you make the difficult choice to legally expatriate. Despite the murky regulations surrounding this new currency, you hire the best attorneys and accountants to ensure every penny of tax is paid. Your conscience is clear.

    A decade passes. Then, without warning, they come for you—not just for you, but for your lawyers too. You find yourself arrested and thrown in a Spanish prison—the same prison where fellow libertarian John McAfee mysteriously died. You don’t speak the language. You’re cut off from everything you know. After months of legal battles, you’re finally out on bond, but the situation is bleak. Six months pass, and you still have no clarity, no answers.

    Now, in a cruel echo of his past persecution for speaking truth to power, Roger finds himself essentially gagged. He cannot speak out about his case or the broader implications of his prosecution for fear that his words might be used against him in court—or worse, lead to the revocation of his bail and his return to the same Spanish prison where McAfee met his end. The silencing of Bitcoin Jesus isn’t just about one man’s freedom—it’s about whether any of us will be free to challenge the financial status quo.

    Roger Ver: Where Natural Law Meets Human Impact

    When people ask me what I believe in, the answer is simple: natural law. Not the academic theory of natural rights, but the living, breathing reality that we can make the world better through right thought and right action. That by aligning our behavior with universal principles of non-aggression, voluntary cooperation, and genuine care for human flourishing, we can create the conditions for freedom to thrive.

    In all my years studying and advocating for these principles, I’ve never encountered anyone who embodies them more completely than Roger Ver. While others talk about freedom in the abstract, Roger has dedicated his life to manifesting it in reality.

    A Legacy of Impact

    I first encountered Roger’s work in 2012 at a Free State Project event called Liberty Forum, where he introduced many of us—including several who are now prominent voices in the crypto industry—to Bitcoin for the first time. In the decade since, I’ve watched him consistently stay ahead of the curve, identifying and supporting technologies that offer real alternatives to centralized control.

    But Roger’s impact extends far beyond cryptocurrency. He has invested his heart and resources into more than 40 companies that are transforming the world for the better. From groundbreaking medical technologies making diagnostics accessible to underserved communities, to biotech innovations advancing personalized medicine, to projects reimagining governance itself—Roger’s work touches on every aspect of human freedom and flourishing.

    The Hidden Champion of Truth

    This weekend, I had the honor of participating in Brownstone Institute’s annual conference in Pittsburgh. For two intense days, I witnessed something remarkable: a gathering of some of the world’s most courageous voices in the fight for human liberty and scientific truth.

    The accomplishments of Brownstone over just three years are staggering. When voices of reason were being systematically silenced during the pandemic, Brownstone emerged as a sanctuary for truth-tellers. They’ve fought lockdowns and mandates not just in the public sphere but in the courts. They’ve exposed the machinery of censorship, revealing how government agencies collude with tech companies to suppress dissent. Their research team dismantled flawed pandemic risk assessments and exposed how organizations like the WHO and the G20 manipulated outbreak data to justify massive new funding through REPPARE. Most recently (with my addition as a Fellow), they’ve been at the forefront of warning about the dangers of CBDCs and the weaponization of the financial system against dissenters.

    But Brownstone’s story begins with a profound act of moral courage. Jeffrey Tucker, witnessing the collapse of scientific discourse and basic human rights during the pandemic, created Brownstone from a place of deep caring—caring about truth, about humanity, and about protecting those who dare to speak out. He wanted to create a haven for dissidents like myself and many other Brownstone Fellows who faced cancellation, professional destruction, and worse simply for doing what was right: speaking the truth.

    What few people know—what I didn’t even know until after becoming a Brownstone Fellow—is that none of this would have been possible without Roger Ver. As Brownstone’s founding donor and board member, Roger’s support was crucial in getting this beacon of truth off the ground. In typical Roger fashion, he never sought recognition for this role. While others might have used such support for publicity, Roger quietly helped build an institution that has become one of the most important voices for freedom and scientific integrity in our time.

    This is characteristic of how Roger operates. Behind nearly every major initiative promoting human freedom and fighting against authoritarian control, you’ll often find Roger’s quiet support. From Bitcoin adoption in the developing world to fighting against CBDCs, from supporting victims of state persecution to funding research that challenges official narratives—Roger has been there, usually without acknowledgement or acclaim.

    Now, in a cruel irony, while Brownstone continues its vital work exposing government overreach and defending individual liberty, one of its key founders sits silenced in Spain, facing persecution from the very systems of state control he helped others fight against. The same commitment to truth and freedom that led Roger to support Brownstone now has him fighting for his own liberty.

    The parallel is stark and troubling: just as Brownstone fights to prevent the financial system from being weaponized against dissenters through CBDCs, its own founding donor faces the weaponization of tax law against him. Just as Brownstone works to expose the machinery of state persecution, Roger faces that machinery firsthand.

    Natural Law in Action

    What makes Roger unique is his understanding that natural law isn’t just a philosophy—it’s a blueprint for action. Rather than just describe Roger’s passion, I encourage you to watch him speak in his own words. In this powerful video, you’ll see Roger’s raw emotion and genuine care as he explains why decentralized money must be accessible to everyone, not just the elite.

    When he declares that “Bitcoin is for everybody…regardless of how much money they have or where they were born,” it’s not just rhetoric—it’s backed by decades of concrete action. You can hear the urgency in his voice when he explains:

    “More babies are dying in countries around the world because they have less economic freedom…people are literally dying because of this. I’m not exaggerating; this is a life and death matter around the world.”

    Beyond Cryptocurrency to Human Freedom

    Roger’s vision extends far beyond financial technology. His work in medical accessibility, internet decentralization, and biotech innovation shows his understanding that freedom requires a holistic approach. When he breaks down discussing government monetary control, we see someone who deeply understands the human cost of centralized power:

    “I apologize for crying but it just disgusts me from my core when I see government people murdering people around the world…it’s not just theoretical; these are real people with real lives.”

    The Price of Principles

    Now Roger faces persecution precisely because he’s been so effective at putting these principles into practice. The charges against him aren’t just an attack on one man—they’re an attack on everyone who believes in building voluntary systems outside state control.

    The Roger Ver Timeline 

    Constitutional Crisis: Robert Barnes Exposes the Ver Persecution

    Constitutional lawyer Robert Barnes recently delivered a chilling analysis that should terrify every American who relies on professional advice: The government isn’t just prosecuting Roger Ver—they’re attempting to criminalize the very act of following legal counsel.

    The Unprecedented Attack on Attorney-Client Privilege

    “This isn’t just about Bitcoin or taxes,” Barnes explains in his detailed analysis. “They’re establishing that they can put you in prison and create new tax policy through criminal law enforcement against individuals, even when you’ve followed expert advice to the letter.”

    Consider the timeline that Barnes lays bare:

    • 2014: Ver faces the challenge of valuing Bitcoin for his exit tax

      • The largest Bitcoin exchange (Mt. Gox) had just collapsed

      • No clear valuation guidelines existed

      • The IRS itself admitted they couldn’t determine how to classify Bitcoin

      • Even basic questions about cryptocurrency taxation remained unanswered

    • Ver’s Response: Exactly what any prudent person would do

      • Hired top-tier attorneys

      • Consulted leading accountants

      • Documented every step of compliance

      • Followed expert guidance meticulously

    The Government’s Shocking Response

    Then comes what Barnes calls “the most disturbing breach of attorney-client privilege I’ve seen:”

    1. Raided Ver’s lawyers’ offices

    2. Seized privileged communications

    3. Found extensive evidence of Ver trying to follow the law

    4. Is now using that evidence of compliance as proof of criminality

    “You read the quotes from his lawyer,” Barnes reveals, “and this is the evidence of someone trying to comply with the law, not someone trying to not comply with the law.”

    What This Means for Every American

    Barnes outlines four immediate threats to anyone who relies on professional advice:

    1. Small Business Owners

      • Your consultations with tax attorneys can be seized

      • Your compliance efforts become evidence against you

      • Even following advice perfectly offers no protection

    2. International Business

      • Complex regulations require expert guidance

      • That guidance can later be used to prosecute you

      • No “safe harbor” even when following professional advice

    3. Tech Entrepreneurs

      • Evolving regulations demand constant legal consultation

      • Today’s compliance could become tomorrow’s crime

      • No way to prove good faith without creating “evidence”

    4. Individual Taxpayers

      • Cannot safely seek professional guidance

      • Cannot trust attorney-client privilege

      • Cannot document compliance efforts without risk

    The Constitutional Crisis

    Barnes identifies three fundamental rights under attack:

    1. Attorney-Client Privilege

      • Once sacred, now routinely violated

      • Communications with counsel used as evidence

      • No safe way to seek legal advice

    2. Due Process

      • Retroactive criminalization of legal conduct

      • No clear standards for compliance

      • Good faith efforts used as evidence of guilt

    3. Right to Counsel

      • Following legal advice becomes criminal

      • Creating compliance records becomes dangerous

      • Professional guidance offers no protection

    The Dangerous Precedent

    “If this stands,” Barnes warns, “we’ve entered a world where:

    • Seeking legal advice becomes evidence of guilt

    • Following professional guidance provides no protection

    • Documenting compliance efforts creates prosecution evidence

    • Perfect compliance offers no safety from prosecution.”

    Watch Barnes’s complete analysis to understand why this case represents a Constitutional crisis that threatens every American and business that relies on professional advice. As he concludes: “When the government can breach attorney-client privilege, find evidence of compliance, and still pursue prosecution, we’ve moved beyond the realm of law enforcement into territory our Founders feared most: a system where no one is safe.”

    The implications are clear: If they can do this to Roger Ver—a man who actively sought to comply with the law—they can do it to anyone. The time to act is now, before this precedent becomes permanent.

    Two Dreams, One Persecution: Why Trump Must Resurrect Bitcoin Jesus

    There are moments in history when parallel lives intersect to reveal profound truths about power, persecution, and the price of challenging the status quo. Donald Trump and Roger Ver’s stories are such a moment.

    The American Dream Under Siege

    Both men exemplify the quintessential American success story. Trump transformed New York’s skyline through sheer force of will and vision. Ver saw the revolutionary potential of Bitcoin when it was merely computer code and helped build it into a global force for freedom. Both men didn’t just succeed—they dared to reimagine what success could mean.

    But in today’s America, such audacious success comes with a target on your back.

    The Playbook of Persecution

    The parallels between their persecutions are not just striking—they’re identical:

    The Weaponization of Attorney-Client Privilege

    • Trump watched in horror as federal agents raided his lawyer Michael Cohen’s office, seizing privileged communications

    • Ver’s attorneys faced the same violation, with prosecutors seizing private legal consultations showing his meticulous efforts to follow the law

    The Tax Weapon

    • Trump endures endless audits and investigations, with rules twisted to create crimes from normal business practices

    • Ver faces prosecution for following expert advice on Bitcoin taxation during a time when even the IRS admitted they didn’t know how to classify cryptocurrency

    The Criminalization of Success

    • Trump’s business empire became evidence of alleged criminality

    • Ver’s pioneering work in cryptocurrency transformed into supposed proof of wrongdoing

    The Breach of Sacred Rights

    Both men have watched as fundamental legal protections crumbled:

    • Their attorneys raided

    • Their private communications seized

    • Their attempts to follow the law transformed into evidence against them

    Why Trump Must Act

    Mr. President, you alone understand the machinery of state persecution that’s been unleashed against Roger Ver. You alone have the power to end it. Here’s why pardoning Ver would be a masterpiece of justice:

    1. It Breaks the Deep State’s Weapon

      • Shows that weaponizing justice against innovators will no longer be tolerated

      • Demonstrates that following legal advice won’t be criminalized

    2. It Restores American Innovation

      • Declares America open for blockchain business

      • Signals that challenging financial orthodoxy isn’t a crime

    3. It Reaffirms Sacred Rights

      • Restores the sanctity of attorney-client privilege

      • Proves that seeking legal counsel is a right, not evidence of guilt

    4. It Sends a Global Message

      • America still rewards dreamers

      • Innovation will be protected, not persecuted

    The Power of Parallel Justice

    Mr. President, you’ve felt the sting of politically motivated prosecution. You’ve watched as attorney-client privilege was shredded. You’ve seen how success can be twisted into evidence of criminality. You alone can turn this moment of parallel persecution into parallel justice.

    By pardoning Roger Ver, you won’t just be freeing one man—you’ll be declaring that America still stands for the dreamers, the builders, the innovators who dare to imagine a freer world. You’ll be showing that when the deep state tries to crucify a visionary, America’s highest office still stands for justice.

    The symmetry is perfect: The man persecuted for challenging real estate orthodoxy can save the man persecuted for challenging financial orthodoxy. The businessman who became president can restore justice to the entrepreneur who became Bitcoin Jesus.

    Mr. President, on Day One, write your name in the history books. Show that America still believes in dreams, in innovation, and in the sacred right to challenge power without fear of persecution.

    Pardon Roger Ver. Resurrect Bitcoin Jesus. Let freedom ring.

    Defend Freedom: Why Every American Must Stand With Roger Ver

    The President holds the power to take a decisive stand, but ultimately, this fight calls on all of us. Roger’s battle isn’t just his own—it’s a rallying cry for anyone who values the right to question authority, seek counsel, and live free from unjust persecution.

    This moment demands a response from each of us. Here’s how you can join the movement to defend freedom and stand up for Roger Ver’s rights, along with our own.

    The Open Letter

    We, the undersigned, call on the US government to end the unjust prosecution of Roger Ver, a pioneer in cryptocurrency and advocate for economic freedom. This isn’t just about Roger—it’s about protecting innovation, defending liberty, and ensuring that following legal advice doesn’t become a crime.

    Take Action Now

    1. Sign the Open Letter

      Visit Freerogernow.org to join supporters who have already taken a stand. Your signature helps show the strength of our movement to:

      • End this retaliatory action

      • Allow Roger to continue contributing to a free and open financial future

      • Protect the right to legal counsel

    2. Share Your Story

      Tell the President why you support pardoning Roger Ver:

      • How has Roger’s work impacted you?

      • Why does attorney-client privilege matter to you?

      • What does this case mean for American innovation?

    3. Spread the Word

      Share across your networks using #FreeRoger:

      • Facebook

      • Twitter

      • WhatsApp

      • LinkedIn

      • Telegram

    4. Stay Informed

      Sign up for “Freedom for Roger: Updates & Actions” at Freerogernow.org to:

      • Get the latest case developments

      • Learn about new ways to help

      • Join coordinated actions

    The Stakes Are Clear

    As Hijacking Bitcoin reveals, this case emerged just as Roger exposed how powerful groups undermined Bitcoin’s original vision. The timing is no coincidence—this prosecution represents an alarming misuse of power aimed at suppressing innovation and dissent.

    Together, we can make our voices heard and help secure justice for Roger Ver. But we must act now, before this dangerous precedent becomes permanent.

    Join the Movement

    Visit FreeRoger.org today to:

    • Sign the open letter

    • Share your story

    • Stay updated on the campaign

    • Stand with Roger

    Because tomorrow, the person facing persecution for following legal advice could be you.

    #FreeRoger

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 19:15

  • "Grand Political Theatre" – FBI Raids Home Of Polymarket CEO; Seize Phone, Electronics
    “Grand Political Theatre” – FBI Raids Home Of Polymarket CEO; Seize Phone, Electronics

    With just a few short weeks until President Trump (and his freshly appointed new AG Matt Gaetz) take over, the FBI has decided to rush in and raid the home of the founder and chief executive of Polymarket, the crypto-based prediction market that was a popular (and very accurate) platform for bets on the US presidential election.

    The NY Post reports, citing a source close to the matter, that Shayne Coplan was woken up at 6:00 am Eastern Time in his New York City apartment by US law enforcement officials who demanded he hand over his phone and electronics.

    It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the FBI’s search but Polymarket quickly tied the raid to its track record in the recent election, in which bettors on its platform correctly anticipated that Donald Trump would beat Vice President Kamala Harris.

    “This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election,” said a spokesman for the New York-based company.

    “Polymarket is a fully transparent prediction market that helps everyday people better understand the events that matter most to them, including elections,” the spokesman added.

    The CEO of the decentralized prediction markets platform appeared to confirm the reports on X, claiming to make a post from a new phone.

    A person close to the matter described the Coplan’s incident as “grand political theatre” to the NY Post.

    “They could have asked his lawyer for any of these things.

    Instead, they staged a so-called raid so they can leak it to the media and use it for obvious political reasons.”

    Coplan appeared on CNBC last week – which likely irked the establishment:

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

    Polymarket does not allow trading in the US, though bettors can bypass the ban by accessing the site through VPN, and Bloomberg reports that the DoJ is probing the company for allegedly accepting trades from US-based users, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    Under an agreement with the CFTC reached in 2022, Polymarket is to prevent US-based traders from making transactions on the platform.

    Coplan took to X once more this evening, clearly pissed off at the obvious politicization:

    “It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents. We are deeply committed to being non-partisan, and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting and recognize that taking a more pro-business, pro-startup approach may be what would have changed their fate this election.

    Polymarket has provided value to 10’s of millions of people this election cycle, while causing harm to nobody.

    We’re deeply proud of that.

    I’m also proud to say that the future of America, and in particular American entrepreneurship, has never been brighter.

    In the face of adversity, we build.”

    Investors in Polymarket include Founders Fund, the Silicon Valley venture firm started by billionaire Peter Thiel, and a number of prominent crypto personalities.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 18:50

  • Schoolhouse Limbo: How Low Will Educators Go To 'Better' Grades?
    Schoolhouse Limbo: How Low Will Educators Go To ‘Better’ Grades?

    Authored by Vince Bielski via RealClearEducation,

    Maryland’s new education chief, Carey Wright, an old-school champion of rigorous standards, is pushing back against efforts in other states to boost test scores by essentially lowering their expectations of students.

    States, including Oklahoma and Wisconsin, are making it easier for students to demonstrate on annual assessments that they are proficient in math and English after a decade of declining test scores nationwide. By redesigning the assessments and lowering the so-called “cut scores” that separate achievement levels such as basic, proficient, and advanced, several states have recently posted dramatic increases in proficiency, a key indicator of school quality. 

    Wright warns that lowering the bar on proficiency can create the public impression that schools are improving and students are learning more when, in fact, that’s not the case. 

    “You can make yourself look better to the public by lowering your cut scores,” Wright, the Maryland state superintendent of schools, told RealClearInvestigations in an interview. “But then you are not really measuring proficiency. My position is no, no, no. Parents and teachers need to know if their children are proficient or not.”

    As most public schools continue to deal with the related crises of learning loss and chronic absenteeism years after COVID, Wright says now is the worst time to lower expectations of students, which can stifle the impetus to improve. In other moves to accommodate struggling students, districts and states have reduced graduation requirements and inflated grades with policies that ban failing marks. The best evidence comes from studies in Washington and North Carolina showing that grades have held steady at their pre-pandemic levels even though students are learning much less.

    “With grades and assessments, the education system seems to be sleepwalking into a policy of ratcheting expectations down to better reflect what today’s students can do, rather than doubling efforts to help get students to where they need to be,” said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which advocates for high academic standards. 

    Wright, who took over Maryland schools this summer, is refusing to backpedal on standards in a state that plunged from the top to the bottom in U.S. performance over the last decade. The superintendent says she aims to improve Maryland’s declining proficiency rates the hard way by making academic standards more rigorous in all content areas. As students learn more in class, the theory goes, they should become more proficient on state tests. 

    But a strategy that asks more of teachers and students is never an easy lift in districts that often resist top-down calls for change. Without direct control over school districts run by local boards, state superintendents like Wright must depend on the ability to inspire principals and teachers to follow their lead and meet inconvenient truths head-on.

    Wright has done it before. As the state superintendent in Mississippi a decade ago, she collaborated closely with districts in lifting content standards and provided support to completely revamp literacy instruction in what was the worst-performing state in the union. Student proficiency soared without lowering cut scores. Educators called it the “Mississippi Miracle.”

    “If you set the bar low, that’s all you are going to get,” Wright said. “But if you set the bar high for students, and support teachers and leaders, it’s doable.”

    Lowering Cut Scores, Boosting Proficiency

    Each state controls its own definition of proficiency and how students can achieve the all-important marker of academic success. They set their own content standards that detail what students need to know in each grade, write their own tests to determine if they are proficient, and devise their own cut scores.

    The undertaking is more art than science. There is no accepted single definition of what makes a student proficient. States mostly aim for grade-level proficiency, or what the average student can do, based on their own content standards. A handful of states shoot higher, approaching a more rigorous definition of proficiency spelled out by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card. 

    By moving the bar on tests and cut scores, education officials have instantly raised or lowered proficiency rates. Over the years, some states have added enough rigor to allow only a third of students to show proficiency while others have reduced it to ensure that the vast majority perform well, Marianne Perie, who has helped more than a dozen states develop assessment methods, told the New York Board of Regents last year. 

    Today, states are lowering the bar and lifting proficiency rates. “Oklahoma just lowered their cut scores and Wisconsin is another one that ended up with less rigorous cut scores,” Perie told RCI. “If more kids are proficient this year compared with the previous years, it indicates that cut scores are less rigorous or that kids learned a lot more over the last year.”

    High Standards Fall in Wisconsin 

    Wisconsin, like most states, has experienced a big drop in proficiency. In 2017, 44% of public school students were deemed proficient in English. That percentage fell in 2018 and 2019 and then plunged in the early years of the pandemic before recovering a bit to 39% in 2023. 

    This year, Wisconsin rolled out its new test and cut scores. State Superintendent Jill Underly was transparent about the changes, explaining in October that the redesign was meant to fix a problem created a decade ago when Wisconsin and other states aligned their cut scores to an “extremely high” level used by NAEP, reducing Wisconsin’s proficiency rate in the years that followed. Underly wrote that Wisconsin’s new grade-level cut scores better reflect the actual proficiency of students, making results easier for families to understand. 

    What families saw was a dramatic boost in English proficiency to 48% this year – a nine percentage-point gain over 2023 – due to assessment changes that had nothing to do with classroom learning. 

    To be sure, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction didn’t tout the 2024 results. It announced that they shouldn’t be compared to prior years since testing methods changed. Still, families who don’t follow the fine print of assessments may be left with the impression that Wisconsin schools are performing much better this year. 

    Paul Peterson, a prominent Harvard professor of education policy who has tracked changes to state proficiency levels, says politics seems to be a driver in the lowering of testing rigor. “Student performance is falling so I would imagine the pressure on states to rethink standards must be considerable,” Peterson said. “Officials want to show that they are spending the public’s dollar well, and that students are learning.”

    No Notice in Oklahoma

    In Oklahoma, a similar assessment revamp unfolded this summer but with a controversial twist: State leaders in Oklahoma didn’t inform school districts or families that they had lowered the bar before releasing the test results in August, according to reports in the local media. 

    When school districts saw the results, principals and teachers were in disbelief over the huge increase in performance. In fourth grade English, for instance, 47% of students reached proficiency – an extraordinary 23-percentage-point jump compared to 2023. 

    Later in August state Superintendent Ryan Walters, a conservative who has been under fire for insisting that public schools teach the Bible, admitted that the state changed its assessment regime without publicly announcing it. Republican state lawmakers issued a statement criticizing Walters for “putting a false narrative out there” about a jump in test scores. Oklahoma’s Department of Education didn’t respond to a request from RCI for comment. 

    “I believe in transparency and communication,” said Perie, the testing expert. “Oklahoma was the only state where it seemed like they were hiding the changes.”

    New York Denies Lower Standards

    As in Wisconsin and Oklahoma, New York’s retooled content standards, assessments, and scoring also produced higher proficiency rates. 

    A New York education official told RCI that the goal was to determine what should be expected of today’s students and how to evaluate their proficiency in various subjects using the new content standards. New York saw a dramatic 13-percentage-point increase in math proficiency and a small boost in English in 2023, the year the changes were implemented.

    Officials in New York and Wisconsin are adamant that the updated assessments don’t amount to a lowering of academic standards even though proficiency rates jumped. The New York official added that while several factors impact student achievement from year to year, instruction is one of the most highly related attributes.

    “It is incorrect and irresponsible to derive from this that the standards have been lowered,” the official said in an email. 

    Petrilli of the Fordham Institute calls such explanations from state officials double speak. “By definition these states are lowering standards for proficiency because it’s easier for students to meet the standard than it was before,” he said.

    Wright’s ‘Mississippi Miracle’

    Education experts say Wright’s tenure as the state superintendent in Mississippi offers a lesson to states struggling with low proficiency rates today: Even in the worst of times, Wright showed, states can raise their expectations of students and get results.

    When Wright took over Mississippi schools in 2013, they were at the very bottom in performance nationally. A mere 21% of fourth graders were proficient in reading, according to NAEP. Educators in the South would say, “At least we are not as bad as Mississippi.” 

    The decade before the pandemic was a time of rising expectations in public education. With Wright in charge, Mississippi joined half of the states in raising the bar for fourth-grade reading proficiency between 2013 and 2019.

    The lifting of expectations was relatively easy. It’s policy making. The tough part for state superintendents was implementing changes in schools to reach those higher goals. For the most part, the higher bars didn’t translate into higher levels of proficiency by 2017, according to research by Daniel Hamlin at the University of Oklahoma and Harvard’s Peterson.

    There are only theories as to why: After the Great Recession of 2009, school funding declined. The Obama administration relaxed federal accountability measures put in place by President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind reform of 2002. The advent of smartphones became a major distraction for students. 

    Mississippi was a notable exception. Its fourth-grade reading proficiency jumped by 11 percentage points from 2013 to 2019, rising to a top 20 performer in the U.S., according to NAEP. In math, the increase was equally impressive.

    Wright got results the old-fashioned way, with a tenacious focus on improving proficiency for all students, including those living in poverty, says Washington Cole, then her chief of staff and now a district superintendent in Mississippi. To get there, Wright rolled out a literacy program that was backed by decades of research and, crucially, provided teachers and administrators with extensive training in the model and sent coaches into the lowest-performing schools. “The professional development was a huge part of it,” Wright said. 

    Wright also toughened the district grading system that provided public accountability. When districts earned an “A” for performance, they were publicly celebrated by community members and lawmakers, adding to the incentives for other districts to improve. Over a decade, Wright’s team transformed Mississippi into an unlikely national K-12 success story. 

    “Dr. Wright set high expectations and her hard work and determination were very infectious with everyone. She was amazing,” Cole said. “I have no doubt that she will do the same thing in Maryland.”

    Maryland Tries a Turnaround

    Wright has her work cut out for her. After a decade of decline in Maryland, 48% of students are proficient in English and 24% in math. 

    In Baltimore City, where almost all students are black or Latino, the numbers are tragically low. Only 6% of middle and high schoolers are proficient in math. More than 40% of Baltimore City students were chronically absent last year, according to a district estimate, well above the national average. Students can’t learn if they don’t show up.

    None of this seems to faze Wright, who assumed permanent leadership of Maryland’s schools in July. In returning to her native state, where she earned her doctorate in education and began her career as a teacher and administrator, Wright has wasted no time in setting a very ambitious goal.

    “In the next three years we are expecting a 5-percentage point increase in proficiency each year in English and math,” she said.

    To achieve that goal, Wright appointed a task force of teachers, leaders, experts, and parents to quickly recommend changes to the state’s accountability system, which she discovered painted a very rosy picture for the public. It was giving high marks to three-quarters of all schools despite their low proficiency scores. Wright wants the new system to provide school leaders with clearer measurements on a range of topics, such as the pace of student growth and graduation rates, so they can target their weak areas for improvement. 

    “Superintendents take a lot of pride in their ratings,” Wright said. “They want to be that district that gets recognized.”

    Major changes are also coming to classrooms. Wright’s new early literacy policy, which won state board approval in October, details expectations for instruction based on the science of reading and teacher training in an attempt to lift test scores that have fallen to 41st in the country. 

    The biggest change in policy puts an end to social promotion. Districts with parental consent will be able to hold back third graders who don’t meet literacy standards rather than promote them to fourth grade, where they will continue to struggle to read, hampering their future performance. It’s the kind of bold change that Wright wasn’t hesitant to push despite opposition from some board members and families concerned about the impact on disadvantaged students. 

    It worked for Wright in Mississippi, producing a very large increase in reading performance by sixth grade, according to researchers.

    “Putting a stake in the ground and saying we are not just going to move kids along if they haven’t learned to read by grade 3 is very powerful and much needed for our education system,” said Joan Dabrowski, the chief academic officer of Baltimore City Public Schools. “Dr. Wright is very clearly telling the districts they need to prioritize this policy and the state will be monitoring districts so there is a lot of accountability.”

    Will the policy work? Dabrowski says it depends on the support teachers and principals receive from Wright to make the difficult changes over several years. “I like everything in the policy, but there are lots of points where implementation could go well or not go well,” she said. 

    Illinois Next to Lower Cut Scores

    In June, Illinois made clear that it plans to boost proficiency too by following the approach of Wisconsin. Illinois Superintendent Tony Sanders said in a report that his state has one of the toughest definitions of proficiency in the nation. He said students who are on track for college could be mislabeled as not proficient, sending a wrong message to their families. 

    To fix this, Illinois is planning to adjust its assessment methods by 2025, which will likely boost the state’s proficiency rates. 

    If Wright fails in Maryland, would she consider following Illinois and other states in easing the rigor of assessments? 

    She scoffed at the idea. 

    “When you look over the last decade of dropping test scores, now is not the time to be lowering the bar,” she said. “If you don’t set high expectations, you’re never going to achieve the kinds of goals that you want to achieve. And in our business, it’s called student learning.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 18:25

  • US Deficit Explodes: Blowout October Deficit Means 2nd Worst Start To US Fiscal Year On Record
    US Deficit Explodes: Blowout October Deficit Means 2nd Worst Start To US Fiscal Year On Record

    It is only fitting that the twilight days of the Biden admin would exhibit more of the same fakeness that defined not only all of the past four years, but certainly the fakeness of that Kamala Harris presidential campaign which had a billion dollars a month ago and ended up in failure, broke and in debt. We are talking, of course, about the relentless debt-funded spree that somehow became synonymous with economic success in the US.

    According to the latest Treasury data released today, in October – the first month of fiscal 2025 – the US spent a massive $584.2 billion, a 24.3% increase from the prior year, and a record government outlay for the month of October. On a trailing 6 month moving average basis, to smooth out outliers months, the spending hit $586 billion, effectively at an all time high with just the record spending spree during covid pushing government spending higher.

    Key drivers of the deficit widening included outlays in the Departments of Health and Human Services and of Defense, up 12% and 13% respectively, adjusted for calendar differences. Health spending alone jumped by $62 billion compared with the same month last year.

    At the same time, the US government collected just $326.8 billion in taxes, down a massive 19% from the $403.434 billion last October, and down even more from the $527 billion in tax receipts in September ’24. As shown in the next chart, while spending continued to grow exponentially, tax receipts have flatlined, and the 6 month average in October was just $380 billion, the same as three years ago!

    It’s actually worse than it looks: according to the Treausry, last year’s October tax receipts were unusually higher due to deferred tax receipts that were received that month from companies and individuals affected by disasters including wildfires in California. Taking that into account, the budget deficit this October would have been 22% higher, a Treasury official said.

    In any case, netting the two means that the US deficit exploded in October to a staggering $257.5 billion, and even though this included several calendar adjustments – which explains the freak September surplus which as we said was due to calendar effects – the number was not only $25 billion more than consensus estimates of a $232.5 billion deficit, it was a staggering 4x bigger than the $66.6 billion deficit in October of 2023. Worse, it was the second highest October deficit on record, and only the budget busting October when the US was spending to prevent an all-out economic implosion, was bigger.

    And putting the deficit in context, October – the first month of the fiscal year – was just shy of the biggest deficit start to a year for the US Treasury on record, with just fiscal 2021 (i.e. October 2020) bigger.

    In contrast with what has been a terrifying trend for some time now, the Treasury’s debt-servicing costs only rose slightly in October. Gross interest costs totaled $82 billion in October, unexpectedly down $7 billion from $89 billion in the same month a year before.

    The drop meant that LTM interest spending posted the first (very modest) sequential drop – from $1.133 trillion to $1.126 trillion –  since August 2023.

    That’s because the weighted average interest rate for total outstanding debt by the end of September was 3.30%, at roughly 15-year highs, but down slightly from the month before, the second monthly decline.

    However, don’t expect this decline in interest spending to persist because even though the Fed has cut rates twice since September, this has been more than offset by the surge in debt which at last check was just shy of $36 trillion, and unless Elon’s Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) manages to somehow slash trillions in both spending, this is what US debt will look like for the next few years, guaranteeing that interest on said debt will very soon become the single largest spending category for the US government.

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    The mindblowing figures illustrate the monumental challenge for Trump and all those promising to rein in US debt, which has exploded to 120% of GDP after four years of Biden’s “drunken-sailor” spending ways. Last night Trump tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to look at ways to cut spending. Thursday’s figures showed the bulk of the outlays are in areas that are bound to be politically challenging to address, in other words, any cuts even remotely close to the $2 trillion suggested by Vivek would lead to a revolt.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 18:00

  • Fight! Fight! Fight! …For The Truth
    Fight! Fight! Fight! …For The Truth

    Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic,

    The alternative media is the media.

    Donald Trump would not have won three elections without the alternative media (AM). The mainstream media (MSM) were almost uniformly opposed to his campaigns. He has made adroit use of social media site Twitter (now X) to bypass the MSM. However, not everyone is on X and in all three campaigns he received a crucial boost from the AM. They allowed his message to be conveyed to an ever-expanding audience and in many cases explicitly supported him.

    Plenty of AM commentary has hailed the MSM’s dwindling patronage and its impending demise. The numbers are even worse than they look because the MSM’s viewers and readers skew towards the senior citizen set. It is losing people not just because of its manifest deficiencies; its audience is dying off. Younger generations don’t watch TV news or read The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or Washington Post. The Post’s owner Jeff Bezos recently noted his paper’s dwindling readership, credibility, and revenue. Put a toe tag on the MSM and slide its drawer closed. 

    I come not to bury the MSM, but to praise the AM, remind readers of its vital role, and encourage them to support it.

    People have turned to the AM because from its roiling cauldron of chaos, clashing opinions, tireless researchers, incisive analysts, idiosyncratic styles, competitive jockeying, backbiting, obnoxious self-promotion, and unwavering irreverence, truth tends to emerge. The AM can be likened to the ferment of true science (science didn’t used to have to have a true in front of it): assertions proposed, tested, rejected, accepted, refined, but never deemed ultimate truth.

    Robert Gore, SLL, “Ants at the Picnic, Part One,” May 25, 2023

    I said in Ants that: 

    Bullets and blogs are the ants at the globalist picnic, and they may prove just as hard to eradicate. It’s not overstating the case to say that the AM has been the reason we haven’t had to resort to bullets . . . so far.

    Consider the truths that have emerged from the AM.

    Trump’s massive support in 2016. The campaign by a criminal camarilla to destroy him, which began before the election and lasted through two impeachments, the second one as he was leaving office. The Hunter Biden laptop and Biden family criminality stories, which, with the exception of the New York Post, were suppressed by the MSM. The rigged 2020 election. The iniquitous persecution and punishment of January 6 protestors. COVID hysteria, COVID tyranny, and unsafe and ineffective COVID vaccines, in many cases involuntarily administered. The Biden/Harris administration’s failed immigration, energy, economic, regulatory, and crime polices. Its botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, disastrous proxy war in Ukraine, and support for Israel’s odious war in the Middle East. Its censorship partnerships with big tech and social media. Biden’s senility and dementia. Harris’s political ineptitude and lack of intellectual firepower, excused away by her DEI bona fides. Philosophically repugnant and psychologically devastating woke, transgenderism, LGBTQ promotion, and other such nonsense, which served as cover for an attempted Maoist-style Cultural Revolution.

    Countless articles, videos, podcasts, and X posts expose depredations, but special mention is due the memes that mercilessly mock their pompous, pretentious perpetrators. Recently, Haitian immigrant culinary practices and the tragic fate of Peanut and Fred evoked rage and a multitude of memes, putting additional wind in the the Trump campaign’s sails.

    Trump and Vance won’t get a free pass from the AM. The true believers and the skeptics will continue the battle that has raged since Trump’s first neocon appointments in 2016, through Operation Warp Speed, and continues to this day. Controversy has been rekindled with Trump’s selection of chief of staff Susie Wiles, who’s being criticized for her drug industry ties. Such is the nature of nonstop intellectual ferment. Trump will make mistakes and perceived mistakes, and the AM won’t be shy about pointing them out.

    The ruling caste will continue to stifle, censor, deplatform, and debank the AM. It would like to subject everything down to one-person blogs to the censorship regime masquerading as “fighting disinformation and misinformation” it’s already applying to social media. Europe is leading the way, but had Harris been elected, the U.S. would have been right behind. Trump has pledged to end the censorship already in place. We’ll see—don’t trust power no matter who holds it.

    The AM has come into its own. Due to time constraints, I limit the number of articles and memes I put up every night to 15; many nights the worthwhile material I consider is double that. The AM is the media—the ruling caste and its minions will have to deal with it. Like everything that’s been worthwhile for the last few centuries, it’s a bottom-up phenomenon. Just as MAGA is much bigger than Trump, the AM is much bigger than Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk.

    The AM is a dynamic ecosystem ranging from huge to tiny constituent elements. This overall system has become a bulwark against tyranny. People ask what they, as “mere” individuals, can do to fight tyranny. One thing most everyone can do is bolster this bulwark with financial support.

    Rogan, Carlson, and Musk don’t need it, but there are many worthy AM sites that operate on a shoestring that undoubtedly do. This is not special pleading for SLL or any other site; it’s special pleading for the entire AM. Many sites have DONATE or CONTRIBUTE buttons, both of which are misnomers. The AM is not a charitable enterprise and fighting tyranny is not a charitable endeavor. The proper word is COMPENSATE for the hard work, dedication, and courage that go into so many sites; their proprietors deserve it. If you want to compensate SLL (the link is in the right-hand column here), I’ll welcome the money and thank you for it. If SLL isn’t your cup of tea, please hit the button at the sites that are.

    If you decided not to get a potentially deadly COVID vaccine because of something you read in the AM, what’s that worth? If you’ve cheered because someone in the AM exposed the crimes of the people you despise, what’s that worth? If you’ve laughed to tears at spot-on memes, what’s that worth? If, after an inspiring article, video, or podcast, you found yourself believing that the march towards totalitarianism can be stopped, what’s that worth? Monthly compensation to the site(s) you value, even amounting to the cost of a coffee-house concoction, vitally reinforces a crucial front engaged in this desperate battle that must be won.

    What’s your freedom worth? Without the AM, all you’ve got left are bullets.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 17:40

  • NatGas Prices Near Breakout Level Ahead Of Cold Blob Invasion
    NatGas Prices Near Breakout Level Ahead Of Cold Blob Invasion

    US natural gas futures are up 2.5% in late afternoon trading, reaching $2.98 per mmBtu, driven by new forecasts showing a shift in cold weather from the West Coast to the East next week. This suggests households may crank up their thermostats for the first time this season as a proper chill sets in. 

    Private weather forecaster BAMWX published a new mid-day GEFS run for late November that shows “massive cold trends” for the eastern half of the US. 

    “The pattern supports the cold stretch and we have a better tap to cold air ahead,” BAMWX wrote on X, adding, “Could get pretty interesting for a time late month for wintry potential.” 

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    Meteorologist Ryan Kane wrote on X, “It’s safe to say next weeks ULL will be the big pattern changing system (Nov 20-23rd). Nice -EPO, +PNA & -NAO will all work to drive cold into the eastern half of CONUS.”

    “Snow potential should come Thanksgiving week as the -NAO attempts to break down as the cold air is established,” Kane noted. 

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

    BAMWX said the pattern shift to much cooler temps in the interior Northeast could produce ripe conditions for snow next week. 

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

    Here’s what other meteorologists are saying…

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    Back to NatGas fundamentals, here’s the latest data (courtesy of Bloomberg):

    Weather:

    • Forecasts shifted cooler for parts of the West Coast with colder temperatures moving eastward later in the Nov. 18-22 period: Maxar

    • See WHUT for a map of latest 6-10 day weather forecast: NOAA * Click here for two-week temperature forecasts for the US

    Storage:

    • Gas inventories probably rose 39 bcf last week, based on median of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg

    • Five-year average gas inventory change for week ended Nov. 8 is +29 bcf

    • Stockpiles totaled 3.932 tcf as of Nov. 1, 5.8% above the five-year average

    • EIA to report weekly storage data at 10:30am New York time on Thursday

    Daily BNEF Gas Data:

    • Lower-48 dry gas production on Wednesday ~100.4 bcf/day, or -5.2% y/y

    • Lower-48 total gas demand ~81.7 bcf/day, or -3.1% y/y

    • Dry gas exports to Mexico ~6.5 bcf/day, or -2% w/w

    • Estimated gas flows to LNG export terminals ~13.7 bcf/day, or +1.5% w/w

    Maybe a cold blast in the Northeast and other parts of the US will be the catalyst to push NatGas futures past the $3 mark, which has served as strong resistance for nearly two years.

    In mid-August, the 208th edition of the Farmers’ Almanac published the “Wet Winter Whirlwind.” It noted, “There will be a lot of precipitation and storms”—all dependent on location.” 

    And this: NatGas Bulls Rejoice: Colder Winter Lower 48 Forecasts May “Place Upward Pressure” On Prices

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 17:20

  • Why Many Working Class Voters Shifted Rightward This Election
    Why Many Working Class Voters Shifted Rightward This Election

    Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times,

    President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 election in part because working-class voters continued their migration toward the America First populism that Trump has advocated for the past three election cycles.

    One indicator of that shift is the working-class city of Fall River, Massachusetts, which voted Republican for the first time in 100 years.

    “Consider that from ’96 through the last Obama election, Democrats got 70 to 75 percent of the vote in Fall River. That’s an enormous swing,” author and political commentator E.J. Dionne said at a Nov. 12 panel discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution.

    “And that does speak to the decline of the Democratic vote among non-college whites and others without a college degree.”

    The shift is significant enough to be termed a global phenomenon, according to William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

    “We are witnessing the emergence of a new politics of class,” Galston said at the panel discussion.

    “Class, defined as educational attainment, dominates the scene in the United States and throughout the industrialized world.”

    How America Voted

    Here’s how the class divide looked in 2024 and what it means for the future of both parties.

    Analysts commonly use education and income levels as indicators of working-class identity.

    Among those who never attended college, Trump won 63 percent of the vote, according to exit polling conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of news organizations.

    Among those having some college education but not earning a degree, the number was 51 percent.

    Trump did best among voters near the middle of the income scale.

    Among those with an annual household income between $30,000 and $99,000, who accounted for nearly half of all voters, the majority voted for Trump.

    The median household income in 2023 was $80,610, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Harris did best with voters from the top and bottom of the income scale.

    The vice president won 50 percent of the votes from households earning below $30,000 per year. The federal poverty level for a family of four is $31,200 per year.

    Harris won 51 percent among households earning $200,000 annually.

    Households earning more than double the U.S. median are considered upper-income, according to Pew Research.

    While the majority of all women, 53 percent, voted for Harris, that trend did not hold for all working women, according to Galston.

    “White working-class women voted a lot more like white working-class men than they did women with college degrees,” Galston said. “It wasn’t even close.”

    Reckoning for Democrats

    Democrats lost the White House because they ignored the needs of working-class voters, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

    “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders wrote on Nov. 6.

    Jamie Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, criticized Sanders’s remarks, saying, “Biden was the most pro-worker president of my lifetime.”

    Others, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), agreed with Sanders that the Democratic Party had lost touch with the working class.

    “We don’t listen enough; we tell people what’s good for them,” Murphy wrote, adding that the party should listen to poor and rural people and men in crisis.

    “Real economic populism should be our tentpole.”

    “The reason we didn’t win, ultimately, is we didn’t listen enough to people on the ground,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said on “Face the Nation” on Nov. 10.

    “People like Chris Deluzio, Pat Ryan, who were saying, ‘Talk about the economy, talk about people’s economic struggles, convince people you have the better policies and better vision.’”

    Economic factors were the driving force behind this migration into the Republican coalition for at least one portion of the working class, according to Gabriel Sanchez, a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico.

    “Overwhelmingly, the economy is what Latino men have actually been talking about for three election cycles in a row,” Sanchez said, noting that one in five Latino men work in the building industry.

    Trump’s outreach to men in particular helped close the deal, according to Sanchez.

    “Trump and Vance were communicating a much different message [than Harris] … that men, you belong here. We appreciate you and everything you bring to the table,” he said.

    While Democrats spent much of their time campaigning against Trump’s character, voters had other concerns, according to Dionne.

    “[We thought] Trump’s unpopularity and the danger he posed to the republic would move more voters than actually happened,” Dionne said. “It was a run-of-the-mill election because people were still deeply upset about the economy.”

    Latino men, in particular, were willing to overlook Trump’s drawbacks because they trusted him to fix the economy, Sanchez said.

    They told him, “I believe Trump will prioritize the economy over everything else because he did that during COVID,” he said.

    Republican Opportunity, Not a Guarantee

    While working-class voters helped put Trump on top in this election, experts say that should not be taken as a guarantee of future loyalty.

    One reason is that the victory is not as decisive as it may appear.

    “I think it’s very important to underscore that when all the votes are counted, it could be a point or a point and a half victory in the popular vote,” Dionne said.

    According to David Schultz, a professor of political science at Hamline University, the electoral victory hinged on a relatively small percentage of votes in swing states.

    “A shift of 121,000 votes across Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would have produced a different result with Harris winning,” Schultz told The Epoch Times.

    Also, Harris won the majority of union voters at 53 percent, a slight decrease from 2020 but an increase from 2016 for her party.

    Although union members account for just 10 percent of the workforce, they were heavily courted by both Trump and Harris.

    If Republicans can make good on their promise to improve the economy, their compact with the working class and with Latino voters in particular may go beyond one election, Sanchez said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 17:00

  • Trump Expected To Appoint Ukraine Peace Envoy 'Soon': Fox
    Trump Expected To Appoint Ukraine Peace Envoy ‘Soon’: Fox

    President-elect Donald Trump has long promised to immediately negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war upon entering office. Fox News is reporting Wednesday that toward this end he may “soon” appoint a Ukrainian peace envoy to head this up.

    “You’re going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement,” one of several sources told Fox. The person previewed that the appointment will happen “in short order.”

    Image via The Independent

    Fox notes that “The job is not expected to be a salaried role – from 2017 to 2019, Kurt Volker had served as special representative to Ukrainian negotiations on a volunteer basis.”

    This comes amid the last couple days of new members of Trump’s future administration being announced. Many Trump supporters have observed that hawks have filled up key posts so far – with most being known especially for their stridently pro-Israel positions, such as Pete Hegseth, nominated for Defense Secretary. Steven Witkoff has also been named as special envoy for the Middle East.

    Over the weekend a Washington Post report said Trump held his first phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin wherein Trump warned the Russian leader not to escalate in Ukraine. Strangely, the Kremlin is denying that the phone call ever took place.

    As for what a potential Trump peace plan for Ukraine might look like, the WSJ days ago revealed that a main option being considered would see a ‘freeze’ on the war, which to Kiev’s dismay would involve “cementing Russia’s seizure of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine” while imposing a 20-year suspension on Ukraine pursuing NATO membership.

    Informal Trump adviser Elon Musk responded to a report about that plan on X, writing that “The senseless killing will end soon. Time is up for the warmonger profiteers.”

    As for who might be named special envoy for Ukraine peace, it’s anyone’s guess. Most State Department veterans who have worked on the conflict are likely hawks. Thus the “old hands” are unlikely to back any plan which permanently cedes the Donbass to Russian control.

    This means Trump would likely need an ‘outsider’ for his vision of enacting a rapid Ukraine ceasefire to have a chance. But it would also likely be someone commanding respect and influence among the Ukrainian and Russian sides.

    One potential plan the Trump team is reportedly mulling: a “freeze” on the conflict lines, ensured by European troops (and no American deployments).

    As for the the Russian side, the Kremlin has signaled openness to engaging Trump on the issue. However, Moscow would likely grow cold to the idea if a well-known Russia hawk was chosen for the crucial spot. Kremlin officials are without doubt watching Trump’s nominations closely, as the future trajectory of the conflict could hang in the balance.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 16:40

  • A Stock Market Crash Is Bad But Nuclear Annihilation Is Far Worse; Jim Rickards Warns "Don't Put AI In The Kill-Chain"
    A Stock Market Crash Is Bad But Nuclear Annihilation Is Far Worse; Jim Rickards Warns “Don’t Put AI In The Kill-Chain”

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Seven-time, best-selling financial author Jim Rickards predicted in July 2023 (when gold was trading in the $1,600 range) that the yellow metal would get a big boost. 

    He was correct. 

    In his new book called “Money GPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy,” Rickards lays out the case for AI-caused disasters in everything from finance to nuclear war.  Rickards says,

    “About five stocks are upwards of 40% of the entire index. 

    Almost all those gains are being driven by AIs:  Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook/Meta and Google.  We all know their names. 

    The market is going higher on AI, and nobody wants to say anything negative on AI. 

    I have studied this very closely, and there are these huge dangers for investors that they need to be aware of.  Any crash is going to be worse because AI will be accelerating it.”

    It gets worse with an AI driven world, especially when it comes to nuclear war. 

    AI can and will accelerate that too.  Rickards explains,

    “You can’t teach a computer common sense. 

    You can teach it rules. 

    You can make it go up the escalation ladder for war. 

    A stock market crash is pretty bad, but nuclear annihilation is far worse. 

    I am offering constructive advice in the book saying here’s the problem. 

    Here’s how it works.  Don’t put AI in the kill chain because you will end up getting killed.

    Rickards is hoping Trump can deescalate the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East. 

    Even if Trump is able to turn down the volume on the war drums, the economy is already in big trouble.  Rickards says,

    “The US economy is definitely in for slowing growth at best, and probably a recession in the next 9 months.  Trump is going to get blamed for it because if you are President, you get blamed for whatever happens even though he has nothing to do with it. 

    This recession is already happening.  

    The stock market will draw down, and from there, I think it will come back.  Trump’s policies are enacted.  They get a tax bill through.  They get tariffs up.  They create high paying US jobs.  They cut regulation.  There are a lot of bullish things in the pipeline, but they take time to implement . . . and take effect. 

    In the meantime, we will have a rocky road.”

    Rickards still likes gold, silver and other tangible assets such as farm ground and fine art. 

    Rickards contends this is true diversification of your wealth.

    There is much more in the 54-minute interview.

    Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Jim Rickards, seven-time, best-selling author, not including his latest called “Money GPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy,” for 11.12.24.

    *  *  *

    To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

    If you want a copy of “Money GPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy,” click here.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/13/2024 – 16:20

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Nov 13

Today’s News 13th November 2024

  • Supreme Court Denies Mark Meadows's Request In 2020 Election Interference Prosecution
    Supreme Court Denies Mark Meadows’s Request In 2020 Election Interference Prosecution

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

    The Supreme Court on Nov. 12 turned away former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s request to transfer his election interference case from a Georgia state court to federal court.

    Then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on Sept. 23, 2020. Joshua Roberts/Getty Images

    The justices issued the court’s new unsigned order without explaining why, as is its custom when rejecting petitions.

    Meadows filed his petition with the Supreme Court on July 26, arguing that the case should be heard in federal court because he was performing his duties as a federal officer when he disputed election results.

    Meadows was indicted by a state grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, in August 2023, over his role in President Donald Trump’s challenge to the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, a state he ultimately lost in that election.

    Meadows was accused of violating the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act during the period from Nov. 4, 2020, which is the day after that year’s presidential election, to Sept. 15, 2022, for his allegedly illegal efforts to contest the presidential results in the state.

    He argued that the case should be heard in federal court because, “for nearly two centuries, Congress has provided a federal forum for federal officers facing criminal charges brought by state and local officials,” according to the petition.

    “Over time, Congress has consistently expanded access to federal forums for federal officers invoking federal defenses,” he argued.

    A federal district court in Georgia refused to stay the prosecution in September 2023.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled against Meadows in December 2023, allowing the prosecution in Fulton County to proceed.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 23:30

  • Pennsylvania Came Through For American Energy
    Pennsylvania Came Through For American Energy

    Authored by The Empowerment Alliance via RealClearPennsylvania,

    We wrote a few weeks ago that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was ground zero for selecting the next president of the United States. Our rationale was that energy affordability is a key issue to millions of voters there.

    Pennsylvania’s energy voters turned out strong, helping Republican Donald Trump form a massive red wave on election night. 

    Trump received more Republican votes in the state than any candidate ever. He tallied 3.48 million votes and, as a result, the accompanying 19 electoral votes.

    His pro-drilling and anti-regulatory message hit home in rural areas of the state, as well as with working class residents and minorities.

    Speaking to voters at a rally in State College last month, Trump vowed to lift the U.S. pause on liquefied natural gas export terminals, embrace fracking and otherwise undo what he described as the “disastrous” energy policies enacted under the Biden administration. 

    Flips Senate seat

    The turnout enabled a pro-American energy candidate to knock out an incumbent Senator, with Republican challenger Dave McCormick winning the high-profile race by a razor-thin margin over third-term Democrat Sen. Bob Casey, who led the race in most polls throughout the campaign. 

    McCormick received more than 3.3 million votes. 

    He embraced energy in his campaign, and it certainly resonated with voters from Washington County to Wayne County. McCormick spoke often about preserving the state’s “energy legacy.”

    This carried through on several key House races.

    Ryan Mackenzie, 7th district, and Rob Bresnahan Jr., 8th district, each flipped Democratic-held seats. Mackenzie employed “America First” messaging and both candidates received the highest grade possible on The Empowerment Alliance’s (TEA) energy scorecard.

    Incumbent Republican Scott Perry, 10th district, held his seat by a slim margin.

    By the numbers:

    •  Data compiled by TEA revealed Pennsylvania with 3.2 million American Energy Patriots, or about 39% of its 8.7 million registered voters.

    • Those voters prioritize energy affordability in their voting decisions. They will support candidates who champion cost-effective energy policies.

    • Trump received more than 3.4 million votes to edge Vice President Kamala Harris by two percentage points. It’s clear that Affordable, Reliable and Clean energy was a key factor in Trump’s victory in the Keystone State. 

    ‘Strategic ambiguity’ failed

    For those living and working in the Marcellus Shale regions this election was quite personal. And they voted as if their livelihoods were at stake.

    Harris was destined to fail here. Her campaign devised a plan of what aides labeled “strategic ambiguity” on energy policy to avoid alienating environmental activists and moderate voters. 

    That just wasn’t good enough. Pennsylvania voters are resilient, hard- working people — and are not uninformed. They saw through the smoke-and-mirrors facade and voted for candidates who are pro-energy and pro-economic growth.

    Natural gas matters

    In the end, Harris’s team and the Democratic Party grossly underestimated Pennsylvania voters, and they discounted the important role that energy in general, and natural gas in particular, plays in your state. Here’s a reminder:

    • In 2021, the oil and natural gas industry contributed $75 billion to the state’s economy.

    • Pennsylvania is second only to Texas in estimated total proved natural gas reserves. 

    • In 2022, about 3.1 million residential and business customers used natural gas in Pennsylvania.

    Pennsylvanians, you showed them by your votes what’s important to you.

    This was a significant win for Donald Trump and a huge victory for Pennsylvania’s households, businesses, farmers and energy producers. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 22:40

  • Conrad Black: What A Trump Presidency Means For Canada
    Conrad Black: What A Trump Presidency Means For Canada

    Authored by Conrad Black via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Contrary to widely expressed fears in Canada, there is plenty of room for the Canadian government of either major party to work cooperatively with the new American administration on most fronts. A couple of months ago, I had occasion to ask then-candidate Donald Trump whether Canada had anything to fear if he were elected. He said: “Your trade negotiators are better than ours, but all I’m asking is fair trade which is not a big problem with Canada.” He added that he knows the country well, has done lots of business here, and has nothing but liking and goodwill for Canada.

    Canadian and American flags are pictured at the Peace Arch Historical State Park at the Canada-U.S. border in Blaine, Washington, in a file photo. Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

    A poll several months ago by The Hub found that 64 percent of Canadian conservatives think Trump will increase oil and gas production if elected, and 59 percent think he will insist that Canada increase its military spending to meet the NATO commitment of 2 percent of GDP, which it has ignored up to now. The percentage of conservatives who think Trump will cut aid to Ukraine is 54 percent, according to the poll, while 52 percent think the Trump administration will impose new tariffs and 51 percent think it will restrict immigration to the United States from Canada. A renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal is expected by 45 percent of Canadian conservatives, and 49 percent expect a decrease in financial support for electric vehicles. More broadly, 38 percent think Trump will have a negative effect on the flow of goods between Canada and the United States, the poll showed, and 37 percent think Trump will have a negative effect on the future of NATO.

    I’ll deal with these concerns in the order they were mentioned. First, since Trump has said that on Inauguration Day he will propose to reactivate the Keystone XL pipeline—which is in itself a good thing for Canada and would be welcomed in Alberta and Ottawa—and put in place incentives for the immediate expansion of American production of oil and natural gas, he will certainly increase American oil and gas production. But he has also said that he will put economic pressure on unfriendly oil-exporting countries, particularly Iran and Venezuela, and will invite other friendly countries to join the United States in decreasing the oil revenues of those countries. He specifically includes Canada in this, and the XL pipeline, if it goes ahead, will end at the Gulf of Mexico in direct competition with Venezuela.

    It is expected that Trump will reimpose heavy sanctions on Iran and extend those sanctions to any other countries that defy them. It will be the position of the Trump administration that Iran is a terrorism-supporting state conducting aggressive war against a number of other countries and that in international law, the United States is right to impose sanctions upon Iran and has the complete right to enforce its sanctions by any non-violent methods that it wishes. That was the policy of his first administration, and it was very successful in strangling the flow of money and arms to the Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthi terrorist clients of Iran. There is nothing in any of that to arouse legitimate concern with Canadians. It is the morally correct policy and will be profitable for us.

    Trump will undoubtedly urge Canada to raise its defence spending to the level it has already committed to, and which Justin Trudeau has recently pledged to achieve within a few years. There is nothing harmful to Canada in this, and indeed we shouldn’t need any threats from the United States to do it. We have been appalling freeloaders in NATO for many years, and have allowed our military capability to deteriorate to the level of a small and poor country. Defence spending is among the most advantageous for a country’s well-being, with a high multiplier effect on the economy.

    President-elect Trump has pledged to end the Ukraine War, but has made it clear that he will not accept Russian President Putin’s peace terms. It is clear that he will require a partial retirement from Ukraine of the Russians, but accept some accretion of Russian territory and leave Putin in no doubt that if Russia does not accept this, the United States will arm Ukraine with weapons that will carry the destruction of Russia’s aggressive war into Russian civilian areas, as the Russians have done to Ukraine almost with impunity for over two-and-a-half years.

    At some early point, Putin will accept these terms and Trump, presumably with the backing of NATO, will inform Ukraine that that is the best that can be done, but that Ukraine may join NATO and the European Union as soon as it is ready, that everyone in the former borders of Ukraine will be free to move to Ukraine in its reduced borders, and that the massive military assistance it has been receiving will be replaced by comparable amounts of economic reconstruction assistance. This is the best peace that can be made, and Trump will make it. Then the West can gradually, and at no expense to any country, impress upon Russia that it is better off in alliance with the West than with China. Getting Russia out of the Chinese embrace is the other strategic objective of the West in the Ukraine war, apart from preventing Russia’s reabsorption of Ukraine.

    As for tariffs, there could be some increases but they are unlikely to be drastic, and the Canadian custom is to cushion this by fine-tuning the relationship between the U.S. and Canadian dollars. The same reasoning applies to a renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement. Trump has extensive grievances against the conduct of Mexico but minimal complaints about Canada, and to the extent that the United States requires more equitable conduct for Mexico, Canada will also benefit from that.

    There is no reason to believe that Trump will restrict immigration from Canada; in fact he will probably welcome it as he is in favour of legal immigration.

    There will certainly be a reduction in financial support for building electric vehicles, but this too should be a welcome development in Canada. Both incumbents in Canada and the United States have plunged into the climate hysteria and severely retarded the economic progress and competitiveness of the two countries. To the extent that Trump provides a counter-pressure, all Canadians should rejoice and even throw their hats (and toques and earmuffs) in the air.

    The great plus factor in the new Trump presidency will be the sharp acceleration of U.S. economic growth and per capita disposable income. As half of Canada’s GDP is connected to the United States, this will be an overwhelmingly positive development for us: The Americans will have more and not less money to spend with us. It is very unlikely the flow of goods between Canada and the United States will decline.

    Lastly, the final point about the United States being a negative force in NATO belies the facts. Trump will reinvigorate the alliance and assist it in becoming more selective in where it intervenes by a joint agreed definition of the NATO collective interest, while ensuring that we have the military force to protect that interest.

    Canadians have no reason for anything except optimism about the consequences of the second Trump administration, not only for Canada but also for the world.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 21:50

  • Drought-Plagued US Northeast Under Red Flag Alerts As Wildfires Rage 
    Drought-Plagued US Northeast Under Red Flag Alerts As Wildfires Rage 

    Dangerous wildfires were ripping through parts of the Northeast US. At least five states in the arid region are now under fire warnings. 

    On Tuesday morning, parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts had Fire Weather Warnings. 

    Per Fox Weather… 

    Per AccuWeather… 

    Moderate drought conditions plague much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with some pockets experiencing extreme drought this fall. 

    “Northeast fire threat increasing again today as cold front sucks the moisture straight out of the atmosphere. Winds pick up and relative humidity levels drop as 25 million+ people are under red flag alerts,” CNN’s Meteorologist Derek Van Dam wrote on X. 

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

    Wildfires rage from northern Alabama to eastern Kentucky, Pennsylvania to New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

    The largest wildfire is the Jennings Creek fire, burning along the New York-New Jersey border. Winds have sent smoke into NYC. 

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

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

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

    Fox Weather noted, “The threat of wildfires will continue into Wednesday as northeast winds bring in a very dry airmass.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 21:25

  • Fired FEMA Supervisor Claims Avoiding Trump Homes Was A Widespread Practice Due To 'Political Hostility'
    Fired FEMA Supervisor Claims Avoiding Trump Homes Was A Widespread Practice Due To ‘Political Hostility’

    Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supervisor accused of directing workers to skip hurricane-ravaged homes in Florida with Trump signs, claimed in an interview Monday that the policy was widespread and that she was being scapegoated.

    Marn’i Washington was fired on Saturday after whistleblowers told the Daily Wire that at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were passed over at the end of October into November due to the guidance, depriving them of the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance. She had worked for the agency since 2019.

    According to internal FEMA messages obtained by the Daily Wire, Washington directed workers to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida looking for residents who could qualify for federal aid.

    This happened in Highlands County, “a deep-red area located in south central Florida that backed Trump by 70 percent on Tuesday,” the Daily Wire reported. The area was  ravaged by tornadoes, torrential wind, rain, and flooding after Milton made landfall at Siesta Key on October 9 as a category 3 hurricane.

    Washington’s directive was one among multiple “best practices” the agency recommended, along with “practice de-escalation and preventative measures,” “bring a towel with you tomorrow in the field” and take “frequent breaks and drink water.”

    During an interview with YouTube podcaster Roland Martin Monday, Washington,39, explained that she had just been following FEMA’s policy of avoiding “politically hostile” homes. She said her supervisor had approved the message, explaining: “FEMA preaches avoidance first, and then de-escalation. This is not isolated. This is a colossal event of avoidance.”

    “Not just in the state of Florida. You will find avoidance in the Carolinas,” said Washington, adding that the incident reports would substantiate that FEMA workers were being met with “hostility” at homes with Trump Campaign signs.

    “If you look at the record, there is what we call a community trend, and it just so happened that the political hostility that was encountered by my team—and I was on two different teams during this deployment—they just so happened to have the Trump Campaign signage,” Washington asserted.

    “Senior leadership will lie to you and tell you that they do not know, but if you ask the crew leads and specialists what they’re experiencing in the field, they will tell you,” she continued. “Demand for FEMA to give you those incident reports, they will substantiate what is happening to us in the field.”

    “FEMA’s very well aware of the incidents that take place, not just with my crew, but with all the crews in the states,” Washington added.

    The embattled former FEMA worker claimed that she knew of houses in the past had also been marked “politically hostile” when they had Harris-Walz signs or no political signs at all.

    “We omitted these homes for safety precautions, not because of political play,” she insisted.

    “If you greet any of our team members with hostility or aggression, we will deescalate and disengage and move on,” she said. “We cannot take the risk and deal with that type of behavior.”

    Washington told Martin that she was fired from her job with a private real estate firm in the wake of the controversy, and had to move from her home due to threats.

    A former FEMA official told the New York Post, however, that the policy of “openly” avoiding Trump-supporting houses had “been practiced by agency workers for years,” and suggested that the practice had noting to do with perceived “hostility.”

    The ex-FEMA source said current employees told him that disaster assistance teams skip openly Trump-supporting houses in the name of DEI.

    The unofficial policy is to “prioritize the most under resourced, marginalized communities first,” the source said.

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has launched an investigation into the practice, calling it  “blatant weaponization of government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris administration is in its final days” in a statement Friday.

    “At my direction, the Division of Emergency Management is launching an investigation into the federal government’s targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump,” DeSantis said. “New leadership is on the way in DC, and I’m optimistic that these partisan bureaucrats will be fired.”

    The House Oversight Committee meanwhile launched an investigation into FEMA on Friday and sent a letter to Criswell requesting she testify at a hearing to answer questions about the agency’s response to hurricanes Helene and Milton.

    Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said on X Tuesday that the Senate Homeland Security Committee also needs to investigate the matter.

    “The Homeland Security Committee needs to launch an immediate investigation and call this individual to testify. Under oath. In public,” Hawley said.

    With Republicans retaking the Senate, Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is line to take the HSGAC gavel early next year.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 21:00

  • Banks Report Tighter Standards, Weaker Loan Demand But Some Improvement As Financial Conditions Continue To Ease
    Banks Report Tighter Standards, Weaker Loan Demand But Some Improvement As Financial Conditions Continue To Ease

    The last time we looked at the senior loan officer survey (SLOOS) several months ago, we found “tighter standards and weaker demand for commercial and industrial (C&I) loans to firms of all sizes over the third quarter” in addition to tighter standards and less demand for most other loan categories.

    So fast forward to today when the latest closely watched SLOOS report for Q3 was published, and which found that there has been little change because regarding loans to businesses during the third quarter, survey respondents reported, “basically unchanged lending standards for commercial and industrial (C&I) loans to large and middle-market firms and tighter standards for loans to small firms. Meanwhile, banks reported weaker demand for C&I loans to firms of all sizes. Furthermore, banks reported tighter standards and weaker demand for all commercial real estate (CRE) loan categories.”

    For loans to households, banks “unchanged lending standards and weaker demand across most categories of residential real estate (RRE) loans.”

    In addition, banks reported basically unchanged lending standards and demand for home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). Moreover, standards reportedly tightened for credit card loans and remained basically unchanged for auto and other consumer loans, while demand weakened for auto and other consumer loans and remained basically unchanged for credit card loans.

    In short, less demand, tighter supply.

    Separately, the October SLOOS looked at that demand for credit card loans across borrowers with different credit scores. Banks reported that they were more likely to approve credit card loans to prime or super-prime borrowers and less likely to approve credit cards for near-prime and subprime borrowers, compared with the beginning of the year.

    The survey also found that banks reported that the level of demand for credit card loans was stronger in the third quarter of 2024 than before the pandemic (end of 2019) across most credit score categories and all dimensions of credit card demand (that is, demand for new cards, requests for increased credit limits, and utilization of existing credit).

    Banks forecast further strengthening in demand over the next six months, with an expected increase in borrower spending, as the most cited reason for their outlook. Which makes sense now that virtually all consumer savings have been wiped out.

    And yes, for those wondering, loan tightness is almost entirely a function of financial conditions: as the next chart shows, financial conditions have become far less tight in the past two quarter, tracking the sharp easing in financial conditions.

    Putting it all together, banks anticipate further tightening lending standards across most categories, even as consumer fight with each other for what little loan availability exists while scrambling to load up their credit cards with as much debt as possible before the next bust.

    Source: Fed

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 20:40

  • "America's Enemies Are On Notice" – Trump Taps Bronze Star Recipient, Fox News Host Pete Hegseth For SecDef
    “America’s Enemies Are On Notice” – Trump Taps Bronze Star Recipient, Fox News Host Pete Hegseth For SecDef

    President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated veteran, author, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as the Secretary of Defense for his second administration.

    Hegseth, who has spent the past eight years as a host on Fox News’ “FOX & Friends Weekend,” has been a major advocate for veterans and the military.

    “I am honored to announce that I have nominated Pete Hegseth to serve in my Cabinet as The Secretary of Defense,” President-Elect Trump wrote in a statement on X. (emphasis ours)

    “Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country.

    Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.

    Pete is a graduate of Princeton University, and has a Graduate Degree from Harvard University.

    He is an Army Combat Veteran who did tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

    For his actions on the battlefield, he was decorated with two Bronze Stars, as well as a Combat Infantryman’s Badge.

    Pete has been a host at FOX News for eight years, where he used that platform to fight for our Military and Veterans.”

    Trump also commented in his statement on Hegseth’s best-selling book, which advocated for veterans:

    Pete’s recent book, “The War on Warriors,” spent nine weeks on the New York Times best-sellers list, including two weeks at NUMBER ONE.

    The book reveals the leftwing betrayal of our Warriors, and how we must return our Military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability, and excellence.

    Pete has also led two Veterans Advocacy organizations, leading the fight for our Warriors, and our great Veterans.

    Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our “Peace through Strength” policy.”

    The Hill reports that Fox News confirmed Hegseth’s deal with the network ended on Tuesday and he will not host its popular morning program “Fox and Friends Weekend,” a program he had presided over since 2017.

    “Pete Hegseth has been an exceptional host on FOX & Friends and FOX Nation and a best-selling author for FOX News Books for nearly a decade,” a spokesperson for the cable channel said.

    “His insights and analysis especially about the military resonated deeply with our viewers and made the program the major success that it is today. We are extremely proud of his work at FOX News and wish him the best of luck in Washington.”

    Trump’s pick of Hegseth was somewhat unexpected, as his name had not been circulated among those likely to be considered for the job, but his resumé speaks for itself.

    Of course, none other than Senator Liz Warren apparently decided not to actually look into Hegseth’s background and dropped one of her most clueless tweets ever (and that is saying something)…

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    Asking for a friend, Lizzy, how many Bronze Stars do you have and what is your military background for the position you so proudly crow about?

    The responses on X were, ummm… unilaterally telling…

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    If you want to get a sense of who Hegseth, we highly recommend watching his appearance on an episode of The Shawn Ryan Show released November 7.

    HEGSETH: There’s a chance to course correct it, but, it would take the new a new Trump administration going after it really hard.

    RYAN: How would they correct it? Well, first of all, you got a fire.

    HEGSETH: “You’ve got to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and obviously, to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any General that was involved, General, Admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI woke sh*t has got to go.”

    “Either you’re in for war fighting and that’s it. That’s the only litmus test we care about. You got to get DEI and CRT out of military academies. You’re not training young officers to be baptized in this type of thinking. And then, you know, whatever the standards, whatever the combat standards were, say, and, I don’t know, 1995, let’s just make those the standards. And as far as recruiting to hire the guy that, you know, did Top Gun Maverick and create some real ads that motivate people to want to serve.”

    “And there’s lots of other ways in which you could identify who gets promoted and what. But there’s an ethos change, I mean, there’s a reason we’re not, people don’t want to serve because they don’t trust that their senior leaders are going to have their best interest in mind in combat.”

    “I know there were mistakes made on our tours all over the place. But I, at least for the most part, had a sense that my senior leaders were committed to the completion of the mission for the right reasons, and maybe there were strategic differences and all that other stuff. And it wasn’t always perfect, but now that trust is broken. And you have to reestablish that trust by by putting in no nonsense warfighters in those positions who aren’t going to cater to the socially correct garbage.“

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 20:20

  • "The Manhattan Project" Of Our Time: Musk And Vivek Ramaswamy To Head Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
    “The Manhattan Project” Of Our Time: Musk And Vivek Ramaswamy To Head Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

    Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been selected by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where they will “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” according to an official release from the Trump-Vance transition team, which called this “potentially, the “Manhattan Project” of our time.”

    According to the statement, “Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026” – the nation’s 250th anniversary.

    Musk previously predicted he could cut at least $2 trillion from the US federal budget, while Ramaswamy suggested firing federal workers based on their social security numbers.

    “Here’s how: if your [Social Security number] ends in an odd number, you’re fired,” he wrote on X.

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    In September, Ramaswamy told podcaster Lex Fridman: “Get in there on day one, say that anybody in the federal bureaucracy who is not elected, elected representatives obviously were elected by the people, but the people who are not elected, if your social security number ends in an odd number, you’re out, if it ends in an even number, you’re in. There’s a 50% cut right there. Of those who remain, if your social security number starts in an even number, you’re in and if it starts with an odd number, you’re out. Boom. That’s a 75% reduction done. Literally, stochastically, okay, one of the virtues of that, it’s a thought experiment, not a policy prescription, but one of the virtues of that thought experiment is that you don’t have a bunch of lawsuits you’re dealing with about gender discrimination or racial discrimination or political viewpoint discrimination.”

    More:

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    He also said:

    So the way I would do it, 75% headcount reduction across the board in the federal bureaucracy, send them home packing, shut down agencies that shouldn’t exist, rescind every unconstitutional regulation that Congress never passed. In a true self-governing democracy, it should be our elected representatives that make the laws and the rules not unelected bureaucrats. And that is the single greatest form of economic stimulus we could have in this country, but it is also the single most effective way to restore self-governance in our country as well. And it is the blueprint for, I think, how we save this country.

    …

    …most people who have run a company, especially larger companies know this, it’s 25% of the people who do 80 to 90% of the useful work, these government agencies are no different.

    And how many government workers do we have?

    Watch the entire interview here:

    “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people,” Musk said on Tuesday in a statement provided by the Trump transition team.

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    Earlier in the day, Trump said the new government efficiency effort would develop a plan to eliminate “fraud and improper payments,” conducting a “complete financial and performance audit” of the federal government. Trump also said that the panel would partner with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

    In the last fiscal year, the federal government spent more than $6.75 trillion – of which more than $5.3 trillion was spent on Social Security, health care, defense and veterans’ benefits.

    Related:

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    Read the full press release below:

    Here we go?

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 20:00

  • Lame Duck Commander-in-Chief Suggests Bodily Harm To Journalist Asking Tough Question
    Lame Duck Commander-in-Chief Suggests Bodily Harm To Journalist Asking Tough Question

    Earlier in the day Tuesday Biden’s special envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein told reporters that he is working diligently on achieving a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. He expressed that this could be achieved soon and that the White House believes that “there is a shot” to secure a peace deal.

    However, within hours after, President Biden contradicted him – in so many words – by shooting back angrily at a journalist who asked whether a deal related to Gaza or Lebanon is realistically achievable by the end of his term. The moment, which apparently Biden thought was not being filmed ‘live’ while sitting in the Oval Office is illustrative of just how “serious” Biden is about Middle East peace (…not very serious, considering his answer below).

    Israeli White House correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13 news Neria Kraus asked simply, “Do you think you can get a hostage deal by the end of your term?” His “joking” response was to essentially threaten her with bodily harm. This tells us everything we need to know about what Biden hopes to achieve during the rest of his lame-duck session. America’s hostile and senile Commander-in-Chief is on full display here in this somewhat disturbing clip captured Tuesday…

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    The answer to the below is: Umm No…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 19:40

  • Waste Of The Day: Million-Dollar Cheating-Ring At Houston Schools
    Waste Of The Day: Million-Dollar Cheating-Ring At Houston Schools

    Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

    Topline: Five people, including three Houston school employees, were indicted in October for allegedly running a million-dollar cheating ring that allowed over 200 educators to falsify their teaching certifications.

    The three Houston employees collectively earned $1.3 million in taxpayer-funded salary between 2017 and 2023, according to data obtained by OpenTheBooks.com.

    Two employees from the privately-owned Houston Training and Education Center were charged, but their salaries are not subject to federal disclosure.

    Key facts: Vincent Grayson, the boys’ basketball coach at Booker T. Washington High School, allegedly organized the scheme. Aspiring teachers would pay Grayson $2,500 to guarantee a passing grade on their certification exam, according to an investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Criminal Investigations Division.

    The teachers would show up to the testing center, sign in, and leave immediately. Nicholas Newton, an assistant principal at Booker T. Washington, would then show up and take the test for them, prosecutors claim.

    The results were reportedly upheld by Tywana Gilford Mason and Darian Nikole Wilhite, two test proctors who allegedly received a 20% cut of the money.

    LaShonda Roberts, assistant principal at Yates High School, allegedly helped recruit interested teachers.

    Grayson made $400,750 in salary between 2017 and 2023, OpenTheBooks found. Newton earned $448,205 and Roberts made $409,455. All three were arrested and fired, and Houston has promised to take “swift action” against any teachers who used their services.

    The group made over $1 million from the cheating scandal, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. She told CNN the full extent will “never be known,” but that at least 200 teachers took at least 400 fake tests.

    Background: Houston Independent School District is the largest in Texas. As in many other nearby districts, a large pay gap exists between teachers and higher-level officials.

    Superintendent Millard House earned $350,000 last year. But of the nearly 25,000 employees on the payroll, only 777 made six figures.

    Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

    Critical quote: “The most important thing to me is the ringleaders have been identified and are being rooted out of our home school district … and the fact that they held positions of power there, where they were held in esteem by the children, is the very worst part of this crime,” Ogg told CNN. “They didn’t deserve those kids’ respect and I think it leaves children feeling betrayed, not knowing who to trust.”

    Summary: Aside from paying three potentially corrupt employees, Houston has spent an untold amount on salary for teachers that were never certified.

    The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 19:15

  • "Warrior For Truth & Honesty" – Trump Names John Ratcliffe As CIA Director
    “Warrior For Truth & Honesty” – Trump Names John Ratcliffe As CIA Director

    President-elect Donald Trump has announced he has selected John Ratcliffe as director of the CIA.

    “John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public,” Trump wrote in a message sent on the evening of Nov. 12, the latest in a flurry of Tuesday evening appointments.

    “I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation’s highest Intelligence positions.

    He will be a fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans, while ensuring the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”

    Ratcliffe, an attorney, served as director of national intelligence during the first Trump term.

    As Nathan Worcester reports, via The Epoch Times, Ratcliffe was previously a Republican congressman from Texas and an anti-terrorism and national security chief for Eastern Texas.

    Originally from Illinois, Ratcliffe earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame before obtaining a law degree from Southern Methodist University.

    He was later U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and, from 2004 until 2012, mayor of Heath, Texas, a community in metro Dallas-Fort Worth.

    While in Congress, he was a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee.

    During Trump’s first term, Ratcliffe made a name for himself as a staunch Trump loyalist.

    Trump dropped an early attempt to elevate Ratcliffe to the director of national intelligence position in 2019.

    But the following year, he renewed the effort, nominating him in May against the backdrop of the COVID-19 response.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 18:50

  • Senate Majority Leader Candidates Agree To Trump's Demand For Recess Appointments
    Senate Majority Leader Candidates Agree To Trump’s Demand For Recess Appointments

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

    Candidates for Senate majority leader have said they will honor President-elect Donald Trump’s request to make appointments when the Senate is in recess.

    (Left) Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.); (Center) John Thune (R-S.D.); (Right) John Cornyn (R-Texas). Andrew Harnik; Samuel Corum; Joshua Roberts/Getty Images

    Ahead of the Senate leadership election on Nov. 13, Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have said they would support recess appointments.

    “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump said in a post on X. “Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!”

    “100% agree,” Scott wrote on X, sharing Trump’s post. “I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible.”

    Thune said in an X post: “We must act quickly and decisively to get the president’s nominees in place as soon as possible, & all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments. We cannot let Schumer and Senate Dems block the will of the American people.”

    “It is unacceptable for Senate Ds to blockade President @realDonaldTrump’s cabinet appointments,” Cornyn wrote on X. “If they do, we will stay in session, including weekends, until they relent. Additionally, the Constitution expressly confers the power on the President to make recess appointments.”

    Recess appointments would allow the president to nominate executive and judicial personnel who would likely not receive Senate confirmation. Recess appointments have not happened in years due to the Senate meeting in pro forma sessions, meaning that although the Senate is meeting, it is only for a few minutes and therefore no legislative business is conducted.

    The recess appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution states that “the President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

    In 2012, President Barack Obama made recess appointments, including appointing Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    “The convening of periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is to be conducted does not have the legal effect of interrupting an intrasession recess otherwise long enough to qualify as a ‘Recess of the Senate’ under the Recess Appointments Clause,” the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote at the time. “In this context, the President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.”

    However, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2014 that recess appointments cannot be made when the Senate is in a pro forma session.

    Then-Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that “the Recess Appointments Clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. It simply provides a subsidiary method for appointing officials when the Senate is away during a recess.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 18:25

  • "I Was Paid Nothing": Oprah Denies Million Dollar Payment By Harris Campaign
    “I Was Paid Nothing”: Oprah Denies Million Dollar Payment By Harris Campaign

    A TMZ reporter confronted Oprah Winfrey about claims she was paid a million dollars to host a town hall for Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign. Oprah rejected those claims. While she may be correct that she did not receive a personal fee, her production company did receive campaign funds from the Harris team.

    The TMZ reporter asked Oprah: “How did you think the election went?” 

    Oprah responded: “Not talking about the election. Thank you very much.” 

    TMZ reporter then asked: “Is it true they [Harris campaign] paid you a million dollars for the endorsement of Kamala?”

    Oprah responded: “Not true. I was paid nothing – ever.” 

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    On Sunday, in a note titled “FEC Filings Show Kamala Harris Team Blew Funds On Hollywood Stars, Private Jets,” we cited Federal Election Commission filings that show Harpo Productions, which, after searching through public records, Oprah is a director, member of the board and officer of the production company, received a million dollars from the campaign. 

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    Per the FEC filing…

    Meanwhile, a Harpo spokesperson told Variety that the Harris-Walz team never “paid a personal fee” to Oprah.  

    “The campaign paid for the production costs of ‘Unite for America,’ a live-streaming event that took place Sept. 19 outside Detroit, Mich.,” the spokesperson said, adding, “Oprah Winfrey was at no point during the campaign paid a personal fee, nor did she receive a fee from Harpo.” 

    “Sounds like this should be a bigger scandal,” one X user said. 

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    That’s right. 

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    Oprah’s presence on the campaign trail, as well as that of many other leftist Hollywood stars, had zero impact on the election outcome. Trump’s message on inflation and illegal aliens trumped Democrat’s message about gender and women’s rights.

    Trump won 312 electoral votes. Republicans have majorities in the Senate and House.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 18:02

  • Liberal Elite At UN Climate Conference Calls For Meat Tax 
    Liberal Elite At UN Climate Conference Calls For Meat Tax 

    The UN Climate Change Conference, known this year as COP29, kicked off on Monday and will last through the 22nd of this month. Many of the usual climate grifters have skipped the event as de-growth ‘green’ policies in the US are being prepared to be rolled back to some degree under a Trump presidency. Even Swedish far-left activist Greta Thunberg skipped the event (pre-occupied with pro-Palestine protests?). 

    On Tuesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the world leaders who attended the event that last year’s meeting was a “master class in climate destruction,” adding, “The sound you hear is the ticking clock.”

    Guterres also said the transition to clean energy “won’t be stopped by no group, no business, and no government.” He was likely referring to Trump’s plan to roll back certain climate policies that are strangling the economy and simultaneously boosting inflation, making US companies unable to compete in international markets. At the same time, China operates free of these de-growth policies. 

    One particular speech by Willem Branten, the public affairs officer of True Animal Protein Price (TAPP) Coalition, a non-profit foundation focused on taxing real meat out of existence to reset the global food supply chain into a planet-based future, caught the internet’s attention given radical far left and their billionaire funders have been pushing fake meat and insects as a way to solve the so-called ‘climate crisis.’ 

    LoL.

    WEF propaganda non-sense. 

    TAPP’s Branten said the quiet part out loud: using policy warfare, such as the “greenhouse gas emission price mechanism” – or a meat tax – to fund their climate crisis agenda and eventually end the overconsumption of animal protein.

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    Calling for a meat tax while US retail ground beef prices are soaring shows just how out-of-touch liberals are with concerns of the working class. That’s why they lost the election in the US. 

    In other words, the themes of de-growth and de-population promoted by the UN are being pushed by radical leftists who want to control every facet of life—what you eat, drive, and how you live. Trump’s victory last week was a vote by the American people that rejects radical climate grifters and their Marxist friends that have sparked the worst inflation storm in a generation. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 18:00

  • Price Controls And Alcoholism – The Buzz First, The Hangover Later
    Price Controls And Alcoholism – The Buzz First, The Hangover Later

    Authored by Raushan Gross via The Mises Institute,

    Just ignore the economists, says a recent article in The Atlantic.

    Well, what about listening to economists concerning the devastating effects of price controls? If we ignore economists, then it would be easy to ignore market interventionists’ uncontrollable and intoxicating need to impose price floors and ceilings in marketplaces and the effects of these controls on society at large. What economists know that The Atlantic author does not know is that there are finite resources in this world, and everyone is out to get their share.

    You want a car; I want a car; while this could be a zero-sum game, if car producers decide not to produce cars anymore, if they produce less, supply goes down, and prices rise. Simple enough. Scarcity, the first law of economics, is apparent in everyday life—goods are finite. The increased prices signal to entrepreneurs to make more goods. Finite jobs are also available. The problem is that those who see price controls as the right thing to do are misleading everyone else because they are under the allure of their good effects.

    Price controls are akin to alcoholism. When drinking, it is easy to drink too much. Price controls and other interventions can similarly feel good at the beginning too.

    For them, there is always the temptation to control prices, so they continue to control more prices in every sector of the economy. The control does not end with wage floors, price ceilings, interventions responding to shortages, and so on. Interventionists only perceive the good effects of imposing price controls, but little do they know that bad effects will result from later price controls and ani-price gouging policies.

    Folks lamenting “price gouging” do not consider this simple economic law: with artificially-low prices, shortages occur; businesses may not survive selling products and or services at artificially-imposed price controls.

    Less is supplied overall. As a result, producers no longer produce those products and services, and consumers go elsewhere.

    The cure, however, is leaving market prices alone, which is difficult because the bad effects come first, and the good ones come later. The problem is that interventionists are intoxicated with the perceived good effects of policies related to price gouging, price floors, and price ceilings. Price intervention leads to more price intervention. However, price controllers—like alcoholics—tend to overdo the control of market pricing policies and want more good effects. But, as we know, the good effects of price ceilings and floors lead to scarcity, market inefficiency, decline in innovation, entrepreneurial scarcity, and scarcity of goods.

    Historically, we have seen the cause and effect of price controls on food and many other economic goods. We know price controls have led to utter disasters in places such as Soviet Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and the French Revolution. With long lines waiting for food, famine resulted from price ceilings and floors. For example, manufacturers in Soviet Russia could not produce enough nails to construct new homes because of price control interventionists.

    Keep in mind that unhampered market prices reflect what is supplied, what is demanded, and how sellers and buyers respond to market adjustments. While a casual shopper might be outraged by higher grocery prices, these price hikes signal to the buyer that other people are bidding for the same goods and/or that there might have been a decline in supply. It should be clear that there are never enough goods to satisfy all alternative wants, which natural prices reflect until controllers impose upon them. The only way for everyone to get what they want is for natural prices to emerge in the voluntary marketplace, a reliable and efficient system for resource allocation. This emphasis on natural prices should reassure us about the effectiveness of the market system in allocating resources.

    The Atlantic and the rest of their ilk must be unaware of the simple fact that entrepreneurs cannot “set prices” at whatever rate they want, whenever they want; consumers do that, either by buying or not buying at a certain price point. Business owners establish prices based on consumer demand—consumers bidding for the same economic goods—and the market competitive pressure from other suppliers. Therefore, price controls are unpopular amongst economists because, while they legally control the price of a good, they do not add to the supply nor do the laws require anyone to supply any good. Price controls contribute to shortages. And, the fewer products or services available, the higher the price tends to rise. Also, producers and entrepreneurs alike may move out of price-controlled industries and go into others, further reducing supply.

    Since there is no money helicopter that can equally spread money to everyone simultaneously, then control how that money is spent and when (which would only worsen the situation anyway), it should be obvious as to why price control policies do not work. When price controls are in effect, they force the business to sell goods at artificially-low prices, thus forcing products to be purchased below market value. Naturally, rising prices are understandably unpopular, but prices reflect real-time market realities.

    If prices of goods rise unhampered, it signals the buyer to practice a bit of self-control, while a decline in price signals the buyer to buy more. However, let us put this logic on the back burner and assume economic goods are under price control. The logic of price controls rests upon the illusory magic of infinite amounts of goods for everyone to consume at the same time. Operating under this falsehood is destructive

    Further, it is a tall order for an economy to keep inflation and wage rates up and force prices downward through the hand of price controls. So, The Atlantic says not to listen to economists, however, in the words of Ludwig von Mises on price controls:

    If it fixes prices of all goods and services of all orders and obliges all people to continue producing and working at these prices and wage rates, it eliminates the market altogether. Then the planned economy, socialism of the German Zwangswirtschaft pattern, is substituted for the market economy.

    No one wants to encounter the bad effects of a “hangover,” so the cure never happens. Price controls have a long history and have been shown to bring disastrous effects to the market economy that only show up later. Artificially-imposed price controls lead to entrepreneurial decline. Selling goods at artificially-low or -high prices sends mixed messages to the producers.

    What is the cure? Should economists be listened to or not? In other words, do we keep drinking to feel the good effects and avoid the hangover, or deal with the hangover by bringing about the bad effects?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 17:40

  • Beirut Suffers Under Biggest Daytime Airstrikes As Israel Says Time Not Right For Ceasefire
    Beirut Suffers Under Biggest Daytime Airstrikes As Israel Says Time Not Right For Ceasefire

    Israeli warplanes are again pounding the Lebanese capital of Beirut, unleashing one of the heaviest daytime attacks yet on Hezbollah strongholds in the southern suburbs.

    Israel’s defense ministry has thus far ruled out a ceasefire, which has been backed by both the US and Russia, until its military goals are met. It also remains that Hezbollah has continued unrelenting missile fire into Israel’s north, and on Tuesday rockets targeted a base near Tel Aviv.

    The efforts to strike Tel Aviv briefly resulted in a total halt in air traffic at Ben Gurion international airport. Sirens also sounded throughout central Israel towns and communities. The Shia group backed by Iran said it targeted an “air base south of Tel Aviv… with a salvo of quality missiles.”

    Result of prior strikes on Beirut: AP

    Israeli media has detailed Tuesday that one of the drones sent by Hezbollah hit a kindergarten in the northern town of Nesher, which shattered windows and scattered debris in a playground area. No children or staff were hurt as they had all moved to a bomb shelter as a precaution.

    But elsewhere there were casualties from the dozens of missiles launched from Lebanon, including two Israelis killed when missiles struck a residential building in Nahariya.

    The casualties in Lebanon have remained much higher, with at least 44 people killed and 88 wounded in attacks across mainly the south of the country on Monday.

    On Tuesday Israeli jets hit the capital hard:

    Smoke billowed over Beirut as around a dozen strikes hit the southern suburbs from mid-morning. After posting warnings to civilians on social media, the Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area of southern Beirut, including command centers and weapons production sites.

    At this point Israeli leaders have touted that the military has destroyed or degraded almost all of Hezbollah’s weapons production capabilities.

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    Most Lebanese civilians are believed to have fled the hard-hit southern suburbs of Beirut. Residential towers continue to be taken out by the Israelis, amid claims that Hezbollah keeps weapons storehouses under them.

    According to more of the latest developments via Reuters:

    An Israeli strike back across the border killed five people in the Lebanese village of Baalchmay southeast of Beirut, and five more were killed in a strike on the town of Tefahta in the south, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Another person was killed in a strike in Hermel in the northeast, it said.

    Beirut residents have largely fled the southern suburbs since Israel began bombing it in September. Footage of one strike shared on social media showed two missiles slamming into a building of around 10 stories, demolishing it and sending up clouds of debris.

    The last week saw a number of international reports which said ‘progress’ has been made in reaching a US-backed ceasefire; however, those reports seem to have been premature.

    Impact of Hezbollah rocket in Nahariya:

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    This is especially as Israel’s new defense minister Israel Katz explained the following: 

    “Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own, and meet the goals of the war in Lebanon – disarming Hezbollah and its withdrawal beyond the Litani River and returning the residents of the north safely to their homes,” he said.

    Hezbollah has in turn defended its right to defend Lebanese territory, and fears that ceding ground south of the Litani would give Israeli forces permanent control of Lebanese land. There are more rumors of a ceasefire being ‘close’ on Tuesday:

    BIDEN ADVISER HOCHSTEIN SAYS HE THINKS ‘THERE IS A SHOT’ TO GET A CEASEFIRE DEAL IN LEBANON SOON -AXIOS

    Neither side is in the mood for ceasefire, but civilians on either side continue to bear the brunt of the suffering, and whole swathes of northern Israel and south Lebanon remain evacuated.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 17:20

  • "Remember, Remember, The 5th Of November": Democrats Seem To Be Moving On From Democracy
    “Remember, Remember, The 5th Of November”: Democrats Seem To Be Moving On From Democracy

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Democracy appears to be losing its appeal on the left. After campaigning on panic politics and predicting the imminent death of democracy, some on the left are now calling to burn the system down in light of Republicans not only taking both houses and the White House but Trump likely winning the popular vote.

    Some seem to believe that what happened on November 5th is a license to become a modern version of Guy Fawkes

    (“Remember, remember, the 5th of November; Gunpowder, treason and plot; I see no reason; Why gunpowder treason; Should ever be forgot”).

    Protesters after the election called for tearing down the system as a whole, insisting that “Trump is not an individual. He’s a figurehead of a system that’s rotten.”

    Even before the election, law professors and law deans called for a break from the Constitution. Those voices will likely be amplified after the massive electoral loss by Democrats.

    Others are seeking to evade the results of the election to still bring Harris to power.  CNN’s Bakari Sellers wants to pressure Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign and replace her with Harris. Former Harris aide Jamal Simmons wants Biden to resign to allow Harris to become president despite the vote of the majority.

    It is an ironic twist after Democratic politicians and pundits repeated the mantra that, if we did not elect Harris, this might be our last election. After losing that election, democracy appears to be the problem. The majority of Americans voting for Trump have been called “anti-American” by Gov. Hochul. Other politicians and pundits have called them racists, misogynists, or weaklings seeking domination by strongmen and bullies.

    The problem is now with young and minority voters.  Trump won white women voters by eight points at 53 percent. Harris actually fell slightly in the support of women overall. Conversely, roughly 43 percent of men voted for Harris. Forty percent of women under 30 voted for Trump. Even CNN reports that Trump’s performance was the best among young people (18-29 years old) in 20 years, Black voters in 48 years, and Hispanic voters in more than 50 years.

    So, it appears that it is time to move on. The call for Biden to simply do what the public did not want to do (in making Harris president) is particularly ironic. Many voters were repulsed by the Democrats simply making Harris the nominee after all the primaries were over. This was the candidate who could not garner any appreciable votes in the prior presidential primaries before being made Vice President by Biden.

    Now, the idea is that she would be elevated by the unilateral act of Biden.

    Without a hint of self-awareness or recognition of the hypocrisy, Simmons insisted that this would “Fulfill [Biden’s] last promise — to be transitional.” Most people understood that to mean democratically transitional in opening the way for the election of new leadership. He did so after he was forced to step aside after winning every Democratic primary and tens of millions of votes.

    Nevertheless, Simmons argued that “Democrats have to learn drama and transparency and doing things that the public wanna see is the time.” That would certainly be dramatic as well as anti-Democratic.  Yet, Simmons explained that “this is the moment for us to change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate.”

    Indeed, it would. It would confirm that the Democratic Party is an effective oligarchy, the very thing that they just campaigned against.

    Sellers is more modest.

    He just wants Harris on the Supreme Court. At no point in history has anyone suggested that Harris was a leading legal mind. Nothing in her history suggests that she is a competent, let alone promising, candidate for the highest court.

    Harris has previously suggested her support for possible radical changes on the Court, including court packing. She is also a decidedly anti-free speech figure in American politics.

    None of that matters any more than the results of the election.

    Harris would be put on the Court not due to any specific talents or skills but because it would be “consequential.” He wrapped up by saying “let Republicans go crazy, ape, I’m even mentioning that option.”

    Others are not pushing Harris but are pushing Sotomayor to resign to allow for one of the fastest confirmations in history. Under this theory, a lame duck president would muscle through a confirmation before Trump could come into power.

    Of course, that ignores the possibility that you could vacate the seat and then fall short in the sharply divided Senate. That includes the possible loss of senators who might balk at such a maneuver, including outgoing Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

    The one option that does not appear to be popular is to listen to the voters and actually return the Democratic Party back toward the center of our politics. The problem is now the voters themselves.

    French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau once famously insisted that “War is too important to be left to the generals.” The Democrats appear to be working on a new view that democracy is too important to be left to the voters.

    *  *  *

    Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 17:00

  • Trump 'Warrior Board' Would Purge 'Woke Generals' From US Military Leadership
    Trump ‘Warrior Board’ Would Purge ‘Woke Generals’ From US Military Leadership

    After years of feminizing the US military through DEI initiatives, a new executive order under consideration by the Trump transition team would establish a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel which would be granted the power to review three- and four-star officers and recommend any removals of those deemed unfit for leadership.

    Army Gen. Mark Milley

    A draft review of the Executive Order seen by the Wall Street Journal could fast-track generals and admirals found to be “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” given President-elect Donald Trump’s past vow to fire “woke generals” who have promoted diversity among the ranks at the expense of military readiness.

    As commander in chief, Trump can fire any officer at will, but an outside board whose members he appoints would bypass the Pentagon’s regular promotion system, signaling across the military that he intends to purge a number of generals and admirals. 

    The draft order says it aims to establish a review that focuses “on leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence.” The draft doesn’t specify what officers need to do or present to show if they meet those standards. The draft order originated with one of several outside policy groups collaborating with the transition team, and is one of numerous executive orders under review by Trump’s team, a transition official said. -WSJ

    The board would be made up of retired generals and noncommissioned officers, who would send their recommendations to Trump. Those identified for removal would be retired at their current rank within 30 days. 

    “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance Transition spokeswoman, who declined to directly comment on the potential executive order.

    Trump has called for the purging of those he views as failed generals – including those involved in the Biden administration’s failed withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump has previously said he would ask all generals involved in the withdrawal to resign by “noon on Inauguration day.”

    In October, Trump told an audience that he would create a task force to monitor the “woke generals” and to get rid of diversity training in the military.

    One such woke general set for a purgin’ could be Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to two defense officials.

    The EO would fit with plans by the Trump team for major reforms at the DoD, particularly when it comes to the size of the joint staff, according to the report.

    “It’s gotten way too big,” said one person with knowledge of the transition. “Trump also expects that many of the generals, the three- and four-star generals that have been under performing will basically be retired.”

    The draft executive order cites as precedent for the move Gen. George C. Marshall’s creation of a “plucking board” in 1940, led by retired general officers, to review the files of senior serving military officers and “remove from line promotion any officer for reasons deemed good and sufficient.” The goal of Marshall’s board was to make room to promote promising junior officers.

    The president has the power to fire generals but rarely does so for political reasons. President Harry Truman fired Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur for publicly challenging the administration’s Asia security strategy. President Obama fired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal as his Afghanistan commander after the military leader’s subordinates were quoted as criticizing the administration in a magazine article. -WSJ

    The new order also puts Army Gen. Mark Milley in the crosshairs – however we don’t think the board will be necessary for that purge. Milley notably told ‘journalist’ Bob Woodward that Trump was a “total fascist.” 

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 16:40

  • Uniparty Establishment War On MAHA Heats Up
    Uniparty Establishment War On MAHA Heats Up

    Authored by Brian Robertson via American Greatness,

    “Trump really could empower RFK Jr. to wreck public health” proclaims the headline in Vox.

    “RFK Jr. Wants to Reshape US Health Policy. Good Luck With That” mocks a banner in Wired.

    Likewise, the Wall Street Journal joined the frenzy, noting that “industry, doctors, and their supporters in Congress probably will resist Kennedy’s unconventional health ideas.”

    The alarmist reporting exposes the strategy to discredit Kennedy, claiming he’s a “conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic” who supports “dubious and unproven therapies,” and if Trump follows his dangerous agenda, “preventable diseases like measles and polio could make a comeback.”

    These hit pieces, the first two dropping a week before Trump’s victory, were a red light flashing the abject fear of the revolving-door lobbyists and their corporate media allies over the prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ending the K-Street scam that has led to the capture of our federal agencies by the very industries they are supposed to be regulating.

    The palpable fear crosses party lines.

    As the Washington Post notes: “The prospect of Kennedy holding any senior administration role has increasingly alarmed public health leaders and federal workers who say that he should not be allowed anywhere near the nation’s public health infrastructure.” The reason for the dread: Kennedy’s goal of liberating the federal agencies from the grip that corporate and financial interests, from Big Pharma to Big Food, have exerted over them for decades. He’s Public Enemy Number One in the eyes of the lobbyists and bureaucrats who have been complicit in the continuing degradation of American health.

    Kennedy has insisted that he would do nothing to prevent access to vaccines; he only pledged to carry out the safety studies that the pharmaceutical industry has prevented the health agencies from conducting with objectivity. Thus, armed with “informed consent,” Americans could weigh the risks and make the decisions for themselves and their children without compulsion. That’s a welcomed change from the current regime of a federally decreed vaccine schedule for children, enforced via hospital and school mandates.

    Ironically, the same health establishment—sounding alarms about potential harms resulting from Trump giving RFK Jr. a central role in ending the conflicts of interest determining health policy in the United States—remains utterly silent about exploding autism rates among children in recent decades, the mental health crisis and soaring rates of teens on mood-altering prescription drugs, and a new USDA study revealing that a shocking 38 percent of teens now suffer from pre-diabetes. The same crowd panicking over the alleged dangers to public health were RFK Jr. able to remove conflicts of interest in the system show absolutely no interest in determining the cause of our epidemic of chronic childhood disease in this country.

    While skepticism about the oversized influence of the pharmaceutical industry used to be standard on the political left, the Democratic Party is now the locus of pro-Big Pharma propagandizing. The COVID pandemic, coupled with a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, seemed to change that skeptical attitude virtually overnight, to the point that today we take it for granted that the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the latest unsafe and ineffective Pharma product will be found on the left.

    We should therefore not be surprised by liberals taking potshots at RFK Jr.’s planned reforms. Zeke Emanuel, a key architect of Obamacare and COVID lockdown advocate, warns that “appointing RFK Jr. to a major public health leadership role could have serious and damaging consequences…making him a disastrous choice.” Dr. Paul Offit, a critic of Kennedy’s who had a leading role in amplifying Dr. Fauci’s COVID measures, cautions that “his science denialism makes him the wrong person for any kind of progress.”

    But the Republican Party establishment forms a more insidious political opposition. Many in the old guard with strong ties to Big Pharma exerted an outsize role in the first Trump administration—they have much to lose in a disruption of the dysfunctional status quo. Now they are preemptively calling wolf: “It will be hard for a Trump administration to focus on other priorities, if government agencies are busy dealing with resource intensive and preventable measles and polio outbreaks” claims former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, echoing the scaremongering on the pro-Pharma left. RFK Jr. shaping health policies raises “concerns about misinformation and harm,” he warns. Other GOP players are anonymously quoted in the Washington Post article urging “the Trump transition team to consider more traditional options to lead federal health agencies,” naming several options who toed the Big Pharma line in the first term.

    The GOP opposition also includes members of the “conservative” punditry who hearken back to a pre-Trump brand of Republicanism. The institutionalist Right, already hostile to Trump for his apostasy from the post-Reagan “conservative” consensus in favor of mass immigration, globalist trade schemes that subsidized the mass movement of U.S. manufacturing overseas coupled with the easy importation of cheap foreign goods and labor, and interventionist adventurism abroad. Add to that a Make America Healthy Again agenda of directly tackling the corporate capture of government, and these self-appointed gatekeepers start seeing red more than they would at a MAGA rally. Curbing Big Pharma in setting policy and in buying off any potentially critical news coverage (through the intimidation factor of their enormous investment in advertising) is characterized as an attack on the sanctity of the Free Market.

    While these political fossils may be failing to read the populist room after the electoral victory for MAGA and MAHA last week, no one should underestimate the ability of Big Food and Big Pharma – and their allies in the corporate-backed think tanks and media outlets – to gin up opposition to the very health agenda Kennedy has been given the mandate to advance. But the campaign may fail to gain political traction in the wake of the collapse in public trust for the healthcare establishment after the COVID debacle. Appeals to credentialed health experts no longer carry much weight with a public that was lied to and manipulated by this same crowd over the last four years. Many Americans are waking up to the fact that blind faith in medical and scientific experts lies at the very root of the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our once-healthy nation.

    The time is opportune for a radical revamping of our corrupt health establishment, and RFK Jr. is just the right person at the right time under Trump to pull it off.

    *  *  *

    Brian Robertson served for over a decade in the U.S. Senate as a senior policy advisor and worked for the Trump administration at both HHS and the Department of State.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/12/2024 – 16:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 12

Today’s News 12th November 2024

  • The Two Thanksgivings Between Halloween And Christmas
    The Two Thanksgivings Between Halloween And Christmas

    Authored by Timothy C. Hemmis via RealClearHistory,

    In the United States, November 11th has been known as Veterans Day since 1954 (before that, it was known as Armistice Day). Originally, Veterans Day commemorated the Allies’ victory in World War I. However, after the Second World War, veterans of that conflict including Dwight Eisenhower pushed to expand the holiday to honor all veterans. In many ways, this holiday is about giving thanks to those who have served in wars to protect the United States of America. In that sense it is as much a day of thanksgiving, if not more so, than the one at the end of the November.

    The Thanksgiving we all know and love, which we celebrate with turkey, mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing/stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a multitude of pies, began as a solemn day of prayer and remembrance. Churches and political bodies often declared a day of thanksgiving after major events. These “holidays” could take place any time of the year. So why November?

    President George Washington issued the first national day of thanksgiving on November 26th, 1789 as a day for prayer and giving thanks to God “for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation.” But Washington’s declaration was not the start of an annual holiday.

    President Abraham Lincoln, from the prompting of writer Sarah Josepha Hale, officially set a national holiday on the final Thursday of November in 1863. Established during the Civil War, the new holiday encouraged Americans to remember and give thanks for blessings and military successes of the United States of America. Lincoln and Hale both thought a holiday could help heal the divided nation.

    By the 20th century, Thanksgiving morphed into the feast we know today. The modern holiday is loosely based on the “First Thanksgiving” that the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony had in 1621, which was a harvest feast and a solemn day.

    The rise of American consumerism during the late 19th century led to the growth of holiday meals and celebrations. During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, the holiday was moved to the third Thursday of November, which allowed for a few extra days of Christmas shopping to help boost an economy that had been limping along during the Great Depression. One could say that the holiday creep started with FDR.

    As both Veterans Day and Thanksgiving are sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas, these November holidays have unfortunately been relegated to a secondary status.

    Despite the origins of both these days of thanksgiving, we often forget the history and get swept up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. There is nothing wrong with putting up your Christmas tree early, but hopefully you and your family can pause and celebrate the two days of thanksgiving this November.

    Timothy C. Hemmis is Associate Professor of History with a specialization in Early American History at Texas A&M University – Central Texas in Killeen, Texas. His research focuses on empire, national identity, war and society in Revolutionary America (1750-1815). He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2015. He is a fellow with the Jack Miller Center.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 23:25

  • Chinese National Arrested Again After Multiple Efforts To Enter Mar-a-Lago
    Chinese National Arrested Again After Multiple Efforts To Enter Mar-a-Lago

    Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Florida’s Palm Beach County police on Nov. 8 arrested a Chinese national after he tried, again, to enter President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, according to court records.

    Li Zijie on Nov. 7, 2024. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office

    Li Zijie, a 39-year-old living in suburban Los Angeles on a student visa, allegedly arrived at the Trump property in an Uber on the afternoon of Nov. 7—the latest in a number of attempts he has made to get into the resort in the past few weeks.

    He made the trip hours after getting out of a mental hospital, where he had spent the previous week after a similar effort made in late October, according to a police affidavit.

    Li now faces two counts of trespassing, according to the county’s jail records. He’s being held in the Palm Beach County Main Detention Center, with bail set at $100,000.

    The arrest has heightened security concerns around Trump, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt in July during a Pennsylvania rally. In September, the Secret Service identified a man pointing a rifle through a fence at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach while Trump was playing golf. The Justice Department said on Nov. 8 that it had stopped an Iranian plot to kill Trump and charged three men allegedly involved in a murder-for-hire network.

    Li first tried to gain entry into Mar-a-Lago on July 19, six days after the Pennsylvania rally shooting, according to court documents viewed by The Epoch Times.

    Li pulled up in a gray Toyota and told Secret Service agents he had information implicating China in the assassination attempt and wished to give them the documents. The Palm Beach police issued a trespass warning and told him not to return.

    In the following days, Li drove into the town of Palm Beach at least four times but didn’t try to enter Mar-a-Lago, according to court records.

    On July 30, officers observed Li driving toward the Mar-a-Lago checkpoint and placing paperwork about Trump on vehicles. He was arrested the next day for allegedly trespassing on the premises. A local court ordered him to stay 500 feet away from the resort and from Trump.

    Li’s next attempt was on Oct. 30, when he tried to enlist help from a resident who lives nearby, according to court documents.

    The woman had a Trump 2024 political sign in her yard. Li asked if she was a Mar-a-Lago club member and whether she could drive him inside. The woman refused, and after seeing him enter a white Toyota, she called the police, who placed Li in a mental hospital.

    He returned to Mar-a-Lago on the day of his release.

    A policeman stands guard at former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on July 14, 2024. Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images

    In the affidavit regarding the latest intrusion effort, Palm Beach Police said that because of the “increased attempts by Li to gain entrance into Mar-a-Lago” to make contact with the president-elect, a future attempt could lead to an escalation of enforcement.

    The Trump resort has faced repeated intrusion efforts, including two from Chinese nationals.

    During Trump’s first term as president, a Chinese businesswoman carried four cellphones, a computer, and an external hard drive past the security checkpoint, telling a Secret Service agent that she was there to use the pool, then later presenting herself to reception as an attendee of an already-canceled event.

    The woman, Zhang Yujing, was sentenced to eight months in prison for illegally entering the site. She was deported to China two years later, in November 2021.

    After that incident, another Chinese national, Lu Jing, was arrested in December 2019 after she entered the property and began taking pictures. A judge later acquitted her of trespassing charges but issued a six-month sentence on a separate charge of resisting arrest.

    During Trump’s 2018 Thanksgiving visit to the resort, a University of Wisconsin student sneaked into the Palm Beach club by standing with a group entering Mar-a-Lago. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and apologized for the act.

    The Epoch Times has contacted Li’s lawyer for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 23:00

  • CNN Cheers As Top Kamala Staffer Calls For Jan. 6 "Disruption", Unelected Presidency
    CNN Cheers As Top Kamala Staffer Calls For Jan. 6 “Disruption”, Unelected Presidency

    Authored by Julianna Frieman via Headline USA,

    Jamal Simmons, the former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, elicited audible reactions from CNN panelists Sunday when he called for Democrats to disrupt President-elect Donald Trump’s transition.

    Simmons suggested President Joe Biden resign before Trump’s inauguration and make Harris the first woman president on CNN State of the Union.

    “There’s one promise left that he could fulfill: being a transitional figure. He could resign the presidency in the next 30 days, make Kamala Harris President of the United States,” he said, prompting CNN’s Scott Jennings to laugh, “woah,” and host Dana Bash to say “wow.”

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    Harris becoming president would absolve her from having to oversee the transfer of power from Biden to Trump, Simmons said.

    If Biden resigns, Harris’s ascension to the Oval Office would leave the role of vice president vacant.

    Harris would then have to appoint a vice president that must be confirmed by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress, according to the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

    “Democrats have to learn drama and transparency and doing things that the public will want to see,” Simmons said. “This is the moment to change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate.”

    “Okay, this has now jumped from an Internet meme to a Sunday morning show,” Bash quipped.

    Jennings joked that Simmons was writing the next season of hit political drama series House of Cards.

    Bash brought up a potential vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, referencing reports that some Democrats want to pressure Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 70, to retire.

    Simmons cast doubt on the idea of a Harris nomination to the Supreme Court but reiterated that the possibility is at the behest of Biden.

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    “If he did it, again, it would fulfill his promise, his last promise, it would give Kamala Harris the chance to be the 47th President of the United States of America. It would disrupt all of Donald Trump’s paraphernalia,” he laughed. “Right? He’d have to rebrand everything.”

    “It would be easier for the next woman to run for president to not have to worry about historical weight,” Simmons said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 22:35

  • Top 3 Reasons Voters Gave For Not Supporting Harris: Poll
    Top 3 Reasons Voters Gave For Not Supporting Harris: Poll

    Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    An exit poll released by Democratic polling firm Blueprint outlined the top three reasons voters nationwide gave for not supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in her 2024 bid for U.S. president.

    Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on stage as she concedes the election, at Howard University in Washington on Nov. 6, 2024. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    The leading issue for voters was that inflation is too high. This was followed by the Biden–Harris administration allowing in too many illegal immigrants, and that Harris focused too much on cultural topics like transgender issues rather than the middle class.

    The poll asked 3,262 national and swing state voters in the two days following the 2024 election to rate the importance of potential reasons for their decision to vote for President-elect Donald Trump instead of Harris.

    In addition to inflation, illegal immigration, and Harris’s focus on transgender issues, the next three factors named by all voters were that debt rose too high under the Biden–Harris administration, that Harris is too similar to President Joe Biden, and that Harris would let in even more illegal immigrants. One choice that scored high among swing state voters in particular was that “Democrats did a bad job running the country.”

    “In the end, Harris couldn’t outrun her past or her party—perhaps it was a lack of time, but it was certainly a vice grip that proved impossible to escape,” the polling report’s authors wrote.

    The factors of least concern to voters were that Harris was too pro-Israel, too conservative, or not similar enough to Biden.

    The poll’s findings were published as top Democrats reel from Tuesday’s election results, point fingers, and assign blame for who’s responsible for Trump’s sweep of the seven battleground states.

    “In this election, Americans have made their voice clear: Democrats need to focus more on issues Americans care about, like wages and benefits, and less on being politically correct … Democrats have been too intimidated to speak up for the same values that many of us hold dear—the American Dream, public safety, and a common sense of right and wrong among them,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) wrote in a Nov. 7 post on X.

    “We cannot get wrapped around the axle by our base and resistance politics.”

    Democrats farther to the left than Suozzi disagree. During a community organizing video call on Nov. 8, progressive leaders defended their coalition and its focus on “marginalized communities” amid attacks from their party’s center.

    “Maybe you’re a leftist who feels deep frustration at the many calls to move the Democrats to the center at the expense of targeted and marginalized communities, the expense of suffering people and normal times,” Ash-Lee Woodard-Henderson, co-executive director of the Highlander Research & Education Center, told the virtual attendees.

    Progressive congresswoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wa.), also dismissed calls to blame the party’s left-wing coalitions, and their messaging on cultural issues, for Harris’s loss.

    “The blame game, you’ve seen it, it’s already started with a lot of cheap shots at our progressive movement, and it’s easy to finger-point even for us, but we need to resist it,” Jayapal said.

    “I imagine we share a lot of theories about this election and what led us here, but I think we actually need to look at the [exit polling] data.”

    Blueprint’s exit polling data seems to validate the concerns of the party’s more moderate members such as Suozzi.

    Another Democratic polling firm, GQR, logged similar sentiment among voters in a Nov. 6 poll. Taken with a smaller sample size of 800 national voters between Oct. 31 and Nov. 5, the poll found that voters ranked opposition to transgender surgeries and transgender kids in sports as the least important issue affecting their vote this year, at 4 percent.

    Roughly 64 percent of respondents said they had seen Trump campaign ads highlighting Harris’s previous support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for prisoners and illegal immigrants.

    In an exit poll by Fox News, 54 percent of voters—among a sample size of more than 30,000—said they believed “support for transgender rights in government and society” had gone too far. Twenty-two percent said it had “been about right,” and another 22 percent said it had “not gone far enough.”

    Voters were roughly split on the topic of gender-related procedures, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors under the age of 18 who identify as transgender. Forty-seven percent said they “strongly/somewhat favor” medical and surgical treatment for minors, while 52 percent said they “strongly/somewhat oppose” the procedures.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 21:45

  • When Will The US Lose Its Last WWII Veterans?
    When Will The US Lose Its Last WWII Veterans?

    16 million Americans fought in the World War II, but today their ranks are rapidly dwindling. U.S. men and women who served in the conflict are now in their 90s (some are much older) with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimating that less than 70,000 remain alive today, a significant decline from the 930,000 alive in 2015 and more than two million five years earlier.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, based on the best available Veteran data at the end of FY2023, the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics uses a deterministic projection model to estimate and project the veteran population for the next 30 years.

    Its findings show how the number of living WWII vets will rapidly decline over the coming years with the last ones expected to pass away in the early 2040s.

    Infographic: When Will the U.S. Lose Its Last WWII Veterans? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The last American veteran of the First World War, Frank Buckles, passed away in February 2011, aged 110.

    World War II was the largest and deadliest conflict in human history claiming the lives of over 50 million combatants and civilians by the time it ended in 1945.

    More than 400,000 American service members died in the conflict, making it the deadliest war in America’s history as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 21:20

  • Trump Allies Push Richard Grenell For Secretary Of State
    Trump Allies Push Richard Grenell For Secretary Of State

    Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,

    Allies of Donald Trump are encouraging the president-elect to make the most of what he described as “an unprecedented and powerful mandate” by nominating a dyed-in-the-wool MAGA diplomat to serve as his secretary of state, rather than an America First convert as he did during his first term.

    Enter Richard Grenell.

    He is the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, who served previously as the acting director of national intelligence, and whose chief characteristic is an undying devotion to Trump. During the frenetic early days of the presidential transition, a number of names have already been floated, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty. Grenell, a firebrand whose name gives establishment foreign policy circles heartburn, is already lining up support from divergent corners of the GOP.

    “He would be a break from precedent in the same way that President Trump’s foreign policy worldviews are a break with precedent,” said Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has discussed a Grenell nomination with the Trump transition team.

    The incoming president and his foreign policy players will soon confront a world on fire. There is a land war in Ukraine, which Trump has promised to end even before taking the oath of office. The president-elect has also vowed to bring peace to the Middle East by bringing the Israel-Gaza conflict to a close. Across the globe, meanwhile, an increasingly aggressive China threatens Western interests.

    Dealing with those challenges will begin by naming a top diplomat to take over the State Department, which Lee described in an interview with RealClearPolitics as a bureaucratic “can of worms.” Grenell is particularly suited to that kind of work, added South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, because he “knows where the bodies are buried.”

    While Grenell has his detractors, particularly those within the foreign policy establishment, Lee and Graham both point to not just his work in the Trump administration but also his time as a State Department spokesman assigned to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration. Perhaps more important than any diplomatic credential is the fact that he maintains perfect Trump fluency.

    “You have got to have a secretary of state who understands the world from Trump’s viewpoint in terms of trying to expand alliances and end wars. The closer the person is to President Trump,” Graham told RCP, “probably the better view they have.”

    Graham, a longtime confidant of the former and future president, said that while every name he has heard floated would be “a good outstanding choice,” when it comes to Grenell, “there’s nobody, I think, who has been closer to President Trump since 2016.”

    Not everyone has been so sympatico with Trump. During his first term, the former president tapped Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, to be his top diplomat only for the relationship to quickly sour. At times, Tillerson found himself out of step with and blindsided by his boss, like when Trump undercut the diplomat’s efforts to negotiate with North Korea by tweeting that his secretary of state was “wasting his time.” Tillerson was later fired.

    Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs in 2018 after losing his job, Tillerson was asked to describe Trump’s value. Replied the Texas oilman-turned-diplomat, “I cannot.”

    For his part, Grenell has never strayed from Trump’s orbit. “I could be wrong,” said a former senior Trump official granted anonymity because they are also being considered for a role in the next administration, “but I think the job is probably his.”

    The former ambassador remains a favorite of the Trump family, and for the last four years, he could often be seen in Mar-a-Lago at the former president’s side. Of particular importance, sources note, is the fact that Grenell “never wavered” after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Other than longtime aide and confidant Jason Miller, the former official said, Grenell has “probably been the most loyal for the longest time.” That devotion has paid dividends. Grenell was with Trump in September during a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky.

    Senate Republicans are eager to replace Secretary of State Antony Blinken and put someone in his place who will shake up the department.

    “He does represent something new,” Lee said of Grenell and the MAGA doctrine he represents. “I think he sees that we have spent an unbelievable amount of money and expended a significant amount of American sweat, blood, and treasure on projects that are sometimes hard to tie back to an American success, or to outcomes that make that sacrifice fully worth it.”

    Grenell is similar in this thinking to Trump but also style, a fact that has raised plenty of ire, not just in Washington, D.C., but around the world. He often feuds with reporters on social media when he takes issue with their reporting. He even earned a rebuke from German officials for blurring the lines of diplomacy and politics when he told Breitbart News in 2018 that he wanted to “empower” the European right. But brashness is an asset in Trump World.

    “If you want to avoid war, you better have a son of a bitch as the secretary of state,” Grenell told the “Self Centered” podcast earlier this year. America needs a “tough” chief diplomat, he added, “who goes in to these tables and says: ‘Guys, if we don’t solve this here, if we don’t represent peace and figure out a tough way, I’ve got to take this file, go back to the United States and transfer it to the secretary of defense, who doesn’t negotiate. He’s going to bomb you.’”

    Those kinds of comments may have made a candidate like Grenell untenable in other administrations or even during the early Trump era. But the president-elect will soon have a Republican majority in the Senate to help grease the appointment process. And anti-Trump Republicans who might hamper the nomination, like Sen. Mitt Romney, are increasingly rare. Lee said that there is growing concern with nominating from within the GOP Senate chamber for fear of raiding the Republican bench at the time the White House would need them most. “We’ve got to be careful not to take senators out of commission,” he explained, “because we’re going to need all hands on deck.”

    Although Trump named Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, he has not yet moved to fill his cabinet. Whoever he wants, predicted Graham, he will get.

    “We’re going to have at least 53 senators. And I’ve got no doubt that if he was nominated by President Trump, he would get confirmed,” Graham said of Grenell.

    Added Lee, “Grenell is in lockstep with President Trump. I can’t point to anything in his persona and his background that would make him wildly unacceptable to other people.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 20:55

  • California's Shift To The Right Lost On Newsom
    California’s Shift To The Right Lost On Newsom

    Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

    California has entered a period of cognitive dissonance. Proposition 36, the state’s tough-on-crime proposal repudiating a decade of leniency, won in a landslide with 70% of the vote Tuesday. Voters are also now rejecting lenient progressive prosecutors – in the most direct way possible.

    Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, author of the 2014 ballot initiative most Republicans and many Democrats blame for the retail theft crime wave, previously survived two recalls over the past two years even when voters in San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities in the country, ousted his ally Chesa Boudin in 2022.

    But on Tuesday, former federal prosecutor and Republican-turned-independent Nathan Hochman soundly defeated Gascon 61.4% to 38%. Voters also appear poised to reject a ballot measure Newsom backed, increasing the minimum wage to $18 an hour. Another Democrat-backed measure aimed at bolstering apartment rent control failed Tuesday.

    Despite California’s tectonic shift to the right and the nation’s defeat of fellow San Francisco liberal Kamala Harris on Tuesday, it’s business as usual for Gov. Newsom and his hand-picked state Attorney General Rob Bonta. On Thursday, the pair anointed themselves the leaders of the Donald Trump resistance and protectors of California’s progressive values that the rest of the nation had just roundly rejected.

    Newsom appointed Bonta in 2021 when President Biden tapped Xavier Becerra, California’s former attorney general, as his Health and Human Services secretary. Newsom and Bonta have since forged a legal-legislative tag-team fighting for liberal causes and silencing their political opponents. The governor has used his bully pulpit to call special legislative sessions and push liberal measures in the Democratic super-majority controlled Assembly and state Senate while Bonta files lawsuits and civil rights investigations against their political adversaries.  

    In recent months, as Newsom has assailed oil and gas companies for “price-gouging,” Bonta has sued the industry for so-called “deceptive” practices on climate change. The attorney general has also used his office to try to stop pro-life groups and intimidate school boards who want teachers and administrators to notify parents when their children are gender transitioning in public schools.

    Newsom and Bonta held separate but obviously coordinated press conferences Thursday, positioning themselves as the protectors of “California values,” which they say Trump threatens. The two events seemed timed to bolster each man’s presumed ambitions for higher office. The term-limited Newsom deflected talk of a White House run while serving as Biden’s top surrogate before it all fell apart this summer and party elders chose Harris as the nominee.

    With that decision now fueling Democratic Party recriminations, Newsom is seizing on what he sees as an opening to elevate himself again to a national role – leader of the Trump resistance. The Bonta event the same day also sent a message to Harris that Bonta is Newsom’s hand-picked successor in next year’s already crowded governor’s race, so any effort by Harris to find a soft political landing spot as California governor would likely produce a bruising battle.

    It’s familiar ground for Newsom, who played the role of Trump’s foil during his last two years as president. During Trump’s first term, California sued the federal government over his past rules and regulatory actions more than 100 times, costing taxpayers more than $41 million in billable legal hours, according to Cal Matters. Newsom is using the same playbook, hoping it will boost his presidential chances, even though this time the national and even California’s political landscape has shifted significantly to the right.

    No matter to Newsom and Bonta, who on Thursday forged ahead with their plan, vowing to protect what they declared as the state’s top priorities of climate change, abortion rights, and shielding illegal immigrants from deportation.

    “The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack – and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond. We are prepared to fight in the courts, and we will do everything necessary to ensure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.”

    Meanwhile California Republicans, who number more than 6 million, and independents have set Trump on a glidepath to boost his popular vote margins once all votes are counted here, a process that could take days if not weeks to finalize. California’s vote-counting process extends so long because although county election officials can open and start processing vote-by-mail envelopes up to 29 days before Election Day, the results cannot be tallied until all polls close. In addition, vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before 8 p.m. on Election Day can arrive up to seven days afterward and be counted.

    California voters may play an even greater consequential role this election: Their vote in eight remaining too-close-to-call races could shift the balance of power in the House of Representatives. In 2020, California Republicans gained a total of four House seats, handing their party the House majority. They gained another seat in 2022.

    Of the nine California House races expected to be competitive this year, two have been called for Republicans. Another, expected to be a slam dunk for Democrats, emerged as a hotly contested race Tuesday night.

    On Thursday, Rep. David Valadao was declared the winner in a rematch of the 2022 race for California’s 22nd District in the agricultural Central Valley (against former Assemblyman Rudy Salas), even though Kamala Harris is expected to carry the district. Valadao is one of two remaining House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol.

    Republican Rep. Young Kim also won solidly in Southern California’s 40th District against Democrat challenger Joe Kerr, a retired fire captain. Kim topped Kerr 56.4% to 43.6%. 

    In the Central Valley’s 21st District, Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, who managed to win 10 congressional races in a row, now finds himself in a highly competitive race against challenger Michael Maher, a military veteran, former FBI agent, and business owner. With 62% of the votes in, Costa leads Maher by just 1.2%.

    There are seven other highly competitive congressional races across the state. Currently Republicans lead in six, though two are ahead by less than 2% with a significant portion of the vote still uncounted. One of those is an open Orange County seat previously held by Rep. Katie Porter, who lost her Senate primary race to fellow Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff. On Tuesday, Schiff handily won his Senate race against Republican Steve Garvey, 57.6% to 42.4%. 

    While California Democrats still have a big advantage in state-wide elected offices, Republicans have been making down-ticket gains since 2020. Aside from the public backlash on crime, there are also tactical reasons for renewed GOP success across the state.

    During California GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson’s time in office, Republicans have seen an increase of 800,000 in voter registration. Those gains flipped the majority of registrations from Democrats to the GOP in two of the most competitive House races – the 27th District previously represented by Porter, and the 41st District, where Rep. Ken Calvert, the longest serving California Republican in the House, is locked in a tight battle against former federal prosecutor Will Rollins.

    Ric Grenell, Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence and a name frequently mentioned for a position in the new administration, has been diligently working since 2021 with his group Fix California to register voters across the state.

    Patterson also credited Orange County Party Chairman Fred Whitaker, who launched a “Reclamation Project” to increase GOP voter registration in a now purple county that was once a Republican stronghold.

    “There’s been a lot of wonderful partners in this,” Patterson told RealClearPolitics Tuesday night, noting that Whitaker has done “an amazing job bringing former Republicans back to the party.”

    Unlike in 2016 and 2020 when Trump was considered a drag on Republicans in California, Patterson said Trump this year helped boost GOP support in key races.

    “I was talking to one member just the other day and President Trump had lost his district by about 13 points [in 2020],” she said. “Trump is now running even in their polling. So, we have a very, very great opportunity with Trump at the top of the ticket to turn out voters who wouldn’t otherwise turn out.”

    In the 2021 recall election against Newsom, there were 2.1 million people who voted for Trump in 2020 but didn’t turn out to vote for the failed referendum against the governor.

    “We are reaching these people, plus the new ones who are sick and tired of what Democrats have been serving up here in California,” Patterson said.

    Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 20:30

  • The Cost Of Owning A Home Is Soaring
    The Cost Of Owning A Home Is Soaring

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    The soaring costs of home ownership are changing the metrics of unaffordability in important ways.

    We all know that buying a house is now unaffordable, but owning a house is increasingly unaffordable, too. Gordon Long and I have laid out the sobering explosion of the costs of homeownership, a rise that shows no signs of slowing, much less reversing.

    It would be nice to attribute it all to one source or one villain, but alas, it isn’t that easy. Costs are rising across the board for many reasons, none of which are reversible by enacting a policy tweak or two.

    For context, let’s start with inflation since 2020 and the cost of buying a house. Truflation pegs the aggregate inflation (a.k.a. loss of the purchasing power of the US dollar in our domestic economy) at 26% since January 2020. All else being equal, we would expect the cost of housing to have risen by about 25%.

    But according to the Case-Shiller national housing index, which tracks the purchase prices paid for each house over time, housing costs rose an eye-watering 45% since January 2020, as the index soared from 220 to 320.

    Traditionally, the primary cost of home ownership everyone tracks is the mortgage payment, the famous monthly nut of principal and interest, which of course goes up with the purchase price and the interest rate of the mortgage.

    As we all know, both the purchase price and the interest rate have gone up significantly, pushing the mortgage payment as a percentage of median household income up to levels that exceed the previous peak in Housing Bubble #1 circa 2006-08.

    If inflationary pressures remain elevated and the bond market isn’t buying the “inflation is fading” story, then mortgage rates might not drop even if the Federal Reserve cuts the Fed Funds Rate.

    But the mortgage payment isn’t the only cost of owning a home. All the other costs that were relatively affordable in decades past are now skyrocketing. Gordon listed the six basic categories of home ownership expenses: mortgage, property taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance and repair and home-related services.

    Anecdotally, we’re hearing accounts of basic home insurance jumping from $3,000 to $13,000 annually in high-risk regions. We’re also hearing of insurers abandoning high-risk areas and entire states, leaving homeowners with few options for insurance. In response, some homeowners are “self-insuring,” i.e. they have dropped insurance coverage.

    The problem with this option is that should the worst-case scenario come to pass, as a general rule the federal disaster relief agencies will pony up a maximum of $40,000 to the uninsured–far from enough to rebuild or repair a severely damaged house.

    Insurers are not in the charity business. Once their losses run into the billions of dollars, they jack up rates to restore profitability. Recall that insurance is a global enterprise, and so the cost of our insurance is partly based on the cost of the reinsurance the big carriers purchase globally. If reinsurance rates rise, everyone’s rates rise accordingly.

    Unsurprisingly, homeowners are responding by raising the deductibles in their policy to lower the annual cost. This is a hybrid of “self-insurance,” as homeowners with high deductibles have to have the cash in hand to fund the cost of repairs up to the deductible ceiling.

    If you think the rise in the price of groceries is eye-popping, check out property tax increases, which are pushing 30% nationally. Since local governments depend on property taxes for a significant percentage of their revenues, we can expect these taxes to remain “sticky” even if housing valuations decline.

    The costs of maintenance and repair are soaring as well as the costs of construction materials and labor have increased, along with the other costs of doing business. Just as the cost of a sandwich or burger seems to be about $15 everywhere, the cost of any home project other than fixing a leaky faucet seems to be $10,000 or more now: tree pruning: $10K, roof repair, $10K, and so on.

    The soaring costs of home ownership are changing the metrics of unaffordability in important ways. It’s not just the initial purchase price that defines what’s affordable and what isn’t; so too do the costs of owning the house after our name is on the property tax rolls.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 20:05

  • These Are The Ten Most Traded Currencies With The US Dollar
    These Are The Ten Most Traded Currencies With The US Dollar

    Each day, billions of dollars are traded on the global foreign exchange (FX) market. The U.S. dollar (USD) is involved in 88% of all trades and makes up 58% of global currency reserves. But which currencies are most frequently paired with the dollar in these transactions?

    In collaboration with OANDA, this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Julia Wendling offers a clear visual breakdown of the top currencies traded alongside the USD.

    The data is based on daily transaction volumes from the New York Fed’s April 2024 FX Volume Survey.

    FX Trading: The Most Traded Currencies Against the USD

    At an average volume of $93.3 billion per day, the euro was the most-traded currency against the USD in April 2024.

    The Japanese yen took the second place spot, followed by the Canadian dollar. Both currencies saw a large increase in daily transactions from last year. The daily trading volume for the Japanese yen-USD pair rose by $12.0 billion over this period. Similarly, the volume of the Canadian dollar-USD pair increased by $13.8 billion.

    Other Takeaways

    Despite being the world’s second largest economy, trading of Chinese yuan remains relatively low. With a daily transaction volume of $10.6 billion, the renminbi ranked #10 on the list. Three of its peers in Asia outranked the Chinese yuan—the Japanese yen (#2), the Hong Kong dollar (#8), and the Singapore dollar (#9).

    Free trade agreements boosted the foreign exchange flows between the USD and the Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Mexican peso, and Singapore dollar.

    FX Trading Doesn’t Have to Be Complex

    Trading on the FX market can be intimidating. Understanding who the key players are can help bring clarity to investors. Learning how to manage risk, having a trading plan, and understanding price movements are also important.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 19:40

  • Trump Taps Rep. Mike Waltz For NatSec, Lee Zeldin As Head Of EPA
    Trump Taps Rep. Mike Waltz For NatSec, Lee Zeldin As Head Of EPA

    President-elect Donald Trump has picked Florida Rep. Mike Waltz to be his White House national security adviser, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the discussion.

    Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, Oct. 28, 2023. (Photo/Gage Skidmore, Flickr)

    Waltz, a Green Beret veteran who served in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa, won’t require Senate confirmation, and will step right in the middle of Trump’s vow to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

    In September of 2023, Waltz said in a Fox News op-ed, “The era of Ukraine’s blank check from Congress is over,” suggesting that future aid packages should have accountability and ensure strategic use of resources.

    Waltz also pushed for US allies to pay their fair share.

    We need this administration to bring our allies to meet their pledge to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense now, today. Unfortunately, Biden’s diplomacy seems to be lagging. The largest European states consistently fail to meet that benchmark, pledged at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales shortly after Russia’s last Ukraine invasion.  

    Germany, the largest economy in Europe and the most pivotal balancer to Russia, pulled back at the last minute from enshrining the two percent annual commitment into law. That needs to change – the administration cannot expect American taxpayers to pay for European security indefinitely.

    He also recommended that the US match “the dollar value of any aid it gives to Ukraine with securing the southern border.”

    Earlier this month, Waltz suggested that the Biden administration’s anti-carbon stance is “fueling the Russian war machine.”

    “And the reality is, they are constraining our oil and gas and forcing the world to buy from the likes of Venezuela, from Iran, and from Russia.”

    That said…

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

    Meanwhile, former Rep. Lee Zeldin has been picked to head up the EPA. As Zachary Stieber of the Epoch Times notes; Zeldin (R-N.Y.) will join the second administration of President-elect Donald Trump as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Trump announced on Nov. 11.

    “Lee, with a very strong legal background, has been a true fighter for America First policies,” Trump told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet. He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”

    “It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator,” Zeldin wrote on the social media platform X.

    “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

    Multiple individuals served as the EPA’s administrator during Trump’s first term, including Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler. The current administrator is Michael Regan, who was appointed by President Joe Biden and has been in office since March 21, 2021.

    Zeldin’s appointment will need to be approved by the U.S. Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans starting in January 2025, before he becomes administrator.

    Zeldin, 44, represented New York’s 1st Congressional District, which includes most of Long Island, in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015 to 2023. Zeldin opted against running for another term and instead ran for governor of New York. He won the GOP primary but lost to Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, by about 378,000 votes out of 5.9 million cast, including a majority of the vote outside New York City.

    Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), who now represents the district, said on X: “Lee Zeldin’s vision for the EPA focuses on economic growth while protecting our environment. His plan to restore energy dominance, create jobs, and protect clean air & water makes him an ideal choice to lead the EPA.”

    More recently, Zeldin has chaired the China Policy Initiative and Pathway to 2025 at the America First Policy Institute.

    Prior to his time in Congress, Zeldin was in the U.S. Army and deployed to Iraq. He then served in the state Senate before becoming a congressman.

    Zeldin’s votes on climate proposals include, in addition to all other House Republicans, voting against the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included funding for improving the supply of water in western states.

    Zeldin has a 14 percent score from the League of Conservation Voters, an advocacy group, due to his voting record. The group in the past criticized Trump’s first administration over its positions on the environment and climate, and poured $115 million into the effort to elect Vice President Kamala Harris.

    Continue reading at the Epoch Times

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 19:15

  • Which Is The Fastest US Fast-Food-Chain (By Drive-Thru Time)
    Which Is The Fastest US Fast-Food-Chain (By Drive-Thru Time)

    In 2023, America’s fast-food industry reached $388 billion, expanding by 66% over the past decade.

    In an industry defined by speed and accuracy, customers order in high volumes while restaurants average 5-8% profit margins. Earning customer loyalty often hinges on quality and consistency, especially as people are cutting down on eating out amid inflationary pressures.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the fastest drive-thru chains, based on data from the annual InTouch Insight Drive-Thru Study 2024.

    Taco Bell is the Fastest Drive-Thru in 2024

    Below, we rank 10 fast food chains by their total drive-thru time in 2024. To analyze drive-thru times, the study captured data through 165 unannounced visits for each restaurant by mystery shoppers, in locations across America.

    For the second year in a row, Taco Bell tops the list, with wait times half that of Chick-fil-A, at just over four minutes.

    Following closely behind is KFC, but with higher order accuracy at 89%, compared to 85% for Taco Bell. Both companies are owned by Yum! Brands, which has a $32 billion market capitalization as of October 2024.

    However, it’s worth noting that part of the reason these companies were top-ranking was due to a lower volume of cars in drive-thru lines.

    While average wait times were the longest for Chick-fil-A and McDonald’s, they both tied for the highest order accuracy, at 93%. Moreover, Chick-fil-A ranked first overall by fastest total time by car, reflecting the highest efficiency across chains.

    Overall, average drive-thru times across chains fell to five minutes and 29 seconds compared with six minutes and 13 seconds in 2022 as companies seek to win over increasingly cost-conscious customers.

    Fast Food Chain Prices are Outpacing Inflation

    How do fast food chains compare when it comes to price increases?

    Since 2019, prices at McDonald’s have risen by 40%, more than double U.S. inflation. This has boosted the company’s operating profits until March 2024, when they missed expectations.

    Furthermore, McDonald’s price increases exceed other chains over the past decade. The average price across 10 items has ballooned 100% since 2014, outpacing Taco Bell (81%), Arby’s (55%), and Chick-fil-A (55%).

    To learn more about this topic from a global perspective, check out this graphic on the price of a Big Mac around the world.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 18:50

  • In Honor Of Veteran's Day: The Butterfly Effect
    In Honor Of Veteran’s Day: The Butterfly Effect

    To honor Veterans’s Day,  we are reposting Globla Macro Monitor’s June 2017 butterfly piece, which illustrates how sleepwalking can lead the world into a war that nobody wants.

    History’s Biggest “Butterfly Effect” Occurred On This Day

    The butterfly effect is the concept that small causes can have large effects. Initially, it was used with weather prediction but later the term became a metaphor used in and out of science.

    In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. The name, coined by Edward Lorenz for the effect which had been known long before, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (exact time of formation, exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier. Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.  — Wikipedia

    On this day in history, June 28, 1914, the driver for Archduke Franz Ferdinand,  nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire,  made a wrong turn onto Franzjosefstrasse in Sarajevo.

    Just hours earlier, Franz Ferdinand narrowly escaped assassination as a bomb bounced off  his car as he and his wife,  Sophie,  traveled from the local train station to the city’s civic city.   Rather than making the wrong turn onto Franz Josef  Street, the car was supposed to travel on the river expressway allowing for a higher speed ensuring the Archduke’s safety.

    Yet, somehow, the driver made a fatal mistake and tuned onto Franz Josef Street.

    The 19-year-old anarchist and Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, who was part of a small group who had traveled to Sarajevo to kill the Archduke,  and a cohort of the earlier bomb thrower, was on his way home thinking the plot had failed.   He stopped for a sandwich on Franz Josef Street.

    Seeing the driver of the Archduke’s car trying to back up onto the river expressway, Princi seized the opportunity and fired into the car, shooting Franz Ferdinand and Sophie at point-blank range,  killing both.

    That small wrong turn,  a minor perturbation to the initial conditions, or deviation from the original plan,  set off the chain events that led to World War I.

    Stumbling Into The Great War

    Fearing Russian support of Serbia, Franz Josef would not retaliate by invading Serbia unless he was assured he had the backing of Germany.   It is uncertain as to whether the Kaiser gave Franz Josef Germany’s unequivocal support.   Russia, fearing Germany would intervene, mobilized its troops forcing Germany’s hand.

    The great European powers thus stumbled into a war they didn’t want through complicated entanglements and alliances, and miscalculation.  Russia backing Serbia;  France aligned with Russia,  Germany backing the Austro-Hungarian Empire;  and Britian, who really didn’t have a dog in the fight except her economic interests, aligned with France and Russia.

    Later the U.S. would enter the war due to Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare threatening American merchant ships and the Kaiser floating the idea of an alliance with Mexico in the famous Zimmerman Telegram, which was intercepted by the British.

    Of course, some will argue that Great War in Europe was inevitable

    The great Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, the man most responsible for the unification of Germany in 1871, was quoted as saying at the end of his life that “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” It went as he predicted.

    – History.com

    Nevertheless,  maybe the course of history would have been different if not for that wrong turn on June 28, 1914, which created the humongous butterfly effect, which we still experience the consequences this very day.

    The botched Treaty of Versailles  sowed the seeds the for World II.  The War contributed to the Russian revolution and Cold War.  The redrawing of borders in the Middle East after the War created the conditions for the instability and breakdown to tribalism the region experiences today.

    A map marked with crude chinagraph-pencil in the second decade of the 20th Century shows the ambition – and folly – of the 100-year old British-French plan that helped create the modern-day Middle East.

    Straight lines make uncomplicated borders. Most probably that was the reason why most of the lines that Mark Sykes, representing the British government, and Francois Georges-Picot, from the French government, agreed upon in 1916 were straight ones.

    – BBC News

    If Franz Ferdinand had not been murdered on this day in history,  that conflict between the Serbs and the Austro-Hungarian Empire may have been contained to just the Balkans.   Maybe.

    The butterfly effect.  Think how many small events, decisions, mistakes, one small turn, or “minor perturbations” in plans have had enormous consequences in your own personal life.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 18:25

  • DC Swamp Draining May Spark Recessionary Pain For Region
    DC Swamp Draining May Spark Recessionary Pain For Region

    President-elect Donald Trump plans to make Elon Musk “secretary of cost-cutting” to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget—about a third of what the bloated federal government spent in the latest fiscal year. This once-in-a-generation initiative will cut thousands of federal workers and reduce or even eliminate the vast cancerous bureaucracy with a new small government led by capable leaders.

    Musk wrote in an X post on Sunday night that this shock-and-awe approach will have “obstacles overcoming the Kafkaesque nature of the rules governing this vast bureaucracy and ensuring that maniacally dedicated small-government revolutionaries join this administration. ” 

    Musk was responding to Vivek Ramaswamy’s X post, “We won & now have a once-in-a-century opportunity to radically downsize the size, scope, and mission of the federal government. And the top obstacle to our success won’t even be the Democrats.” 

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

    Trump is less than three months away from implementing his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’… and thousands of federal workers across DC, Northern Virginia, and Baltimore region have been put on notice for potential job loss.

    A recent report by the Washington Post showed that approximately 15% of the 2.19 million civilian full-time federal employees in the US (data from 2023), or about 328,500, live in Northern Virginia, suburban Maryland, and even a touch of West Virginia. 

    Source: WaPo 

    The other 85% work elsewhere around the country. 

    Source: WaPo 

    More recent figures show that figure is as high as 373,000 in the Virginia, DC, and Maryland region. These job cuts could spark economic turmoil and reshape the DC landscape—or the beginnings of draining the swamp. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 18:00

  • In Short, These Are Dangerous Times…
    In Short, These Are Dangerous Times…

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

    Mysteries Revealed

    “People in the media are aware of how illegitimately they’ve done their jobs that they think they’re on the verge of being locked up”

    – Scott Adams

    You must admit, it’s a little spooky how quickly and rigorously Mr. Trump intends to deconstruct those parts of the government at war with the people:

    • clean out “rogue bureaucrats,”

    • firehose the malignant agencies,

    • release and expose their document trails on spying, censorship, lawfare, and abuse-of-power.

    The consequence would be the return of consequence in our national life.

    It’s been absent for so long you can hardly imagine its power to get people’s minds right.

    There are already reports of frenzy among the culpable DOJ lawyers, and FBI Director Wray is set to resign before Mr. Trump can fire him. Attorney General Merrick Garland has gone radio-silent for his own good since Election Day. Expect many abiding mysteries to get unraveled, such as exactly how many federal agents did work the crowd around the Capitol on J-6, 2021 — which Mr. Wray has pretended to not be able to discuss “due to ongoing investigations.” Expect to learn more about the pipe-bomb caper at the DNC HQ a few blocks away that same day. Prepare to be amazed at how deeply criminal these schemes were. You must wonder if the document-shredding party is already underway, despite calls to preserve all the emails, memos, and texts.

    Then there are the poisoned realms of the intel blob located at CIA, DHS, State, DOD, and elsewhere being subject to inquiry and overhaul.

    Think: John Brennan, James Clapper, Bill Barr, Michael Atkinson, Mayorkas, Judge Boasberg, Mary McCord, Col. Vindman, Senator Warner, Avril Haines, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power, Gina Haspel, Marie Yovanovitch, Jen Easterly, all their deputies, and many more unknown to the public. Some of these names may yet seem obscure to you. They were all neck-deep in what looks a lot like sedition, treason, real conspiracies, not theories. Even state officials such as New York AG Letitia James, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County, GA, DA Fani Willis, would be subject to federal charges under 18USC Section 242: willful deprivation of constitutional rights acting under color of law. That is exactly what the Trump lawfare cases amounted to.

    And then, of course, there are the long-running rumors of pedophilia and human trafficking networks among the elite, the Jeffrey Epstein list and the P. Diddy list. If these things exist, and they are released, history would shudder.

    Think: the Clinton Foundation.

    These people are looking ahead 70 days with visions of shoes dropping and hammers falling. If the mysteries are revealed, it’s hard to imagine that criminal proceedings would not be far behind. You can also imagine that the motivation across a broad and powerful elite class runs white-hot to stop Mr. Trump from entering the Oval Office. So, these days ahead will be fraught with threats, schemes, plots, ploys, and deceptions. The paranoia must be out of this world among people who still have the resources and hold the levers-of-power needed to undertake nefarious deeds.

    There is chatter about “a coup” being considered among as-yet-unnamed parties in the Pentagon to prevent Mr. Trump from rising back into power. It’s unclear how that would work among our high command of transsexual generals and admirals and their hapless DEI adjutants. The strata of colonels benath them might have different ideas. But it could be the starting gun for actual civil war. We would find out what the Second Amendment is all about. “Joe Biden” likes to say that the citizenry can’t go up against his F-16 war-planes, but he evidently does not understand how much mischief can be made with small arms — rifles, grenades, rockets, drones — despite examples of it all over the world lately. That is hypothetical for now, of course.

    In short, these are dangerous times.

    Mr. Trump would be advised to stay out of airplanes until inauguration day and to be extra-careful who he puts himself around, especially in public. You also must expect more lawfare of the most extreme sort going forward to January, every possible stone unturned to find procedural tricks to prevent certification of the election. Do you think Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and Andrew Weissmann just laid back and watched football this weekend? They are probably quarterbacking efforts to finagle ballots for the remaining contested seats in Congress, in order to game-out Rep. Jamie Raskin’s well-publicized block-Trump play this coming Jan. 6.

    These are the darkest and most explosive parts of Mr. Trump’s admirably deep to-do list for fixing the many things that have stopped working in American life. The simplest picture of our current predicament, and why people voted as they did, is of “things going in the wrong direction,” Well, what direction is that, exactly? The tyranny of giant forces over our little lives and communities. It’s a leviathan government seeking to invade and dominate everything — and to do it with maximum malice when resisted. It has left American men and women mentally disordered, demoralized, stolen their sense of purpose, deprived them of roles in society that provide meaning, alienated them from each other, and from their history. And it has left them, as Robert Kennedy points out, catastrophically unhealthy.

    All of which is to say, we have more to clean up and reorganize than just our government. We’re going to get it done, you may be sure, even if the zeitgeist has to drag us kicking and screaming out of the malaise we’re stuck in. All of this points to some very different new arrangements to be made in our everyday life, beginning with the realization that the era of getting something-for-nothing is over.

    *  *  *

    Note to Readers: We are finally rebuilding the Kunstler.com website on Substack — which was taken-down a month ago on another host platform by nefarious parties

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 17:40

  • California Tightens Climate Fuel Rules That Could Add $0.50/Gallon To Gas Prices
    California Tightens Climate Fuel Rules That Could Add $0.50/Gallon To Gas Prices

    Despite the incoming Trump administration’s likely move to deregulate all things EV, that isn’t necessarily going to stop California from continuing down its ‘green’ agenda path.

    And people wonder why there’s exodus from the state to places like Texas and Florida?

    Last week, the California Air Resources Board voted to amend the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which requires fuel producers exceeding carbon targets to buy credits from low- or zero-carbon suppliers, according to Bloomberg. 

    The updated rules accelerate target reductions, despite concerns over affordability as the state faces rising housing and energy costs. Governor Gavin Newsom is grappling with the economic strain on the nation’s largest state economy amidst this push for stricter climate measures.

    Its a move that is projected to raise gas prices by nearly 50 cents per gallon.

    Chair Liane Randolph commented: “We cannot afford to continue with the status quo. The health and economic impacts of these events are vastly underestimated.”

    The Bloomberg report says that consumer advocates are concerned after a report last year suggested California’s gas prices could rise by 47 cents per gallon in 2025, driven partly by the state’s unique, eco-friendly fuel requirements and high taxes.

    Currently, Californians pay an average of $4.29 per gallon—$1.22 above the national average, the report says. 

    Though the air board’s staff later revised this estimate without providing a new figure, the urgency of climate action pushed board Chair Liane Randolph to proceed, despite political calls for a delay.

    Meanwhile, Governor Newsom, clashing with the oil industry over soaring gas prices, recently signed a law mandating minimum fuel inventories to stabilize prices and established a watchdog to scrutinize potential price-gouging.

    Next time a Democrat argues they are fighting inflation, remind them of this genius move. This is the opposite of fighting inflation.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 17:20

  • Resistance 2.0: Why The Campaign Against Trump Is Different This Time
    Resistance 2.0: Why The Campaign Against Trump Is Different This Time

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    The single most common principle of recovery programs is that the first step is to admit that you have a problem.

    That first step continues to elude the politicians and pundits who unsuccessfully pushed lawfare and panic politics for years.

    That includes prosecutors like New York Attorney General Letitia James and politicians like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who affirmed this week that they will be redoubling, not reconsidering, their past positions.

    For its part, The Washington Post quickly posted an editorial titled “The second resistance to Trump must start now.” They may, however, find the resistance more challenging both politically and legally this time around.

    It is important to note at the outset that there is no reason Democratic activists should abandon their values just because they lost this election. Our system is strengthened by passionate and active advocacy.

    Rather, it is the collective fury and delirium of the post-election protests that was so disconcerting. Pundits lashed out at the majority of voters, insisting that the election established that half of the nation is composed of racists, misogynists or domination addicts who long to submit to tyranny.

    Others blamed free speech and the fact that social media allows “disinformation” to be read by ignorant voters. In other words, the problem could not possibly be themselves. It was, rather, the public, which refused to listen.

    That does not bode well for the Democratic Party. As someone raised in a liberal politically active family in Chicago, I had hoped for greater introspection after this election blowout.

    Ordinarily, recovery can begin with “a terrible experience” when someone hits rock bottom.

    After a crushing electoral defeat and the loss of the White House and likely both houses of Congress, one would think that Democrats would be ready for that first step to recovery. However, those hoping for a new leaf on the left do not understand the true addictive hold of rage.

    In my recent book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore rage and our long history of rage politics. There is a certain release that comes with rage in allowing people to do and say things that you would never do or say. People rarely admit it, but they like it. It is the ultimate high produced by the lowest form of political discourse.

    Over the course of the last eight years, the U.S. has become a nation of rage addicts.

    For months, Democratic leaders denounced Donald Trump and his supporters as fascists and neo-Nazis. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others suggested that democracy itself was about to die unless Democrats were kept in power.

    Just before the election, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called those voting for Trump “anti-American.” By Hochul’s measure, over half of the American electorate is now “anti-American.”

    James is the face of lawfare. She may have done more to reelect Trump than anyone other than the president himself. She ran on nailing Trump on something, anything. In New York, she was joined by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in this ill-conceived effort. They fulfilled the narrative of a weaponized legal system. Every new legal action seemed to produce another surge in polling for Trump.

    Yet there James was, soon after the election, with another press conference promising again to unleash the powers of her office to stop Trump’s policies.

    Then there was Pritzker, doing the community theater version of “The Avengers” and declaring, “You come for my people, you come through me.”

    New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) added that he too will “fight to the death” against Trump’s agenda.

    Rather than lower the rhetoric, these rage-addicts ran out for another hit.

    Our prior periods of rage politics were largely ended by the public in major election shifts like the one this month. Things, however, are different this time around both politically and legally. The problem for the resistance is the very democracy that they claimed to be saving.

    Democrats lost after opposing policies supported by an astonishing share of the public at a time of deep political division. That effort included opposing voter ID laws favored by 84 percent of the public, among other things.

    They are now committed to opposing policies central to this election blowout, including deportations of illegal immigrants, which is favored in some polls by two-thirds of Americans.

    Likewise, Democrats have already doubled down on attacks on free speech, including blaming their loss on the absence of sufficient censorship. On MSNBC, host Mika Brzezinski blamed the loss in part on “massive disinformation.” Yet, according to some polls, free speech ranked as high as second among issues on Election Day.

    According to CNN, Trump’s performance was the best among young people (18-29 years old) in 20 years, the best among Black voters in 48 years, and the best among Hispanic voters in more than 50 years.

    Harris actually lost a bit of support with women, and Trump won handily among some groups of women.

    None of that seems to matter this time. We have an alliance of political media and academic interests wholly untethered to the views of most of the public. Yet, with both houses of Congress under Republican control, the investigations and impeachment efforts that hounded Trump throughout his first term will be less of a threat in his second term.

    For that reason, the center of gravity of the “second resistance” will shift to Democratic prosecutors like James, Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was just reelected.

    Various Democratic governors are also pledging to thwart Trump’s policies despite the results of the election.

    The “second resistance” will try to use state power to oppose the very issues and policies that led to this historic political shift. That means that there will be a legal shift in the focus of litigation to inherent federal powers versus state powers. That battle will favor the Trump administration.

    In fairness to these Democratic politicians, they are certainly free to go to the courts, as Republicans did under Biden to argue for limitations on federal powers. But the promise of California Gov. Gavin Newsom to “Trump-proof” the state is easier to make rhetorically than it will be to keep legally.

    Indeed, Trump will be able to cite a curious ally in this fight: Barack Obama. It was Obama who successfully swatted down state efforts to pursue their own policies and programs on immigration enforcement. Obama insisted that state laws were preempted in the area and the Supreme Court largely agreed in its 2012 decision in Arizona v. U.S.

    Congress may even seek to tie the receipt of federal funds to states cooperating with federal mandates. For this reason, Democrats, who campaigned on the promise to end the filibuster for the good of democracy, suddenly became firm believers in that Senate rule right around 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday.

    As the majority of the country walks away from the party shaking their heads, many activists are left only with their rage. Instead of reappraising the years of far-left orthodoxy and intolerance, some are calling to tear down the system or take drastic individual actions, including for women to break up with their boyfriends and husbands or to cut off their hair.

    They will actually keep their rage and dump their relationships. Now that really is an addiction.

    Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 17:00

  • Subprime Consumers Feel All The Pain Ahead Of Spending Holidays
    Subprime Consumers Feel All The Pain Ahead Of Spending Holidays

    Working-poor households are still under pressure in a weak demand environment because of persistent inflation and high interest rates. Goldman’s latest note on the consumer shows a continued mixed picture, with the holiday shopping season of Black Friday just weeks away. 

    Goldman’s Michelle Cheng and Xinyu Ruan pointed out the continued weak consumer demand environment:

    US: recent data points to a weak demand backdrop. US October TRE (The Weekly Chain Store Sales Index) was -0.9% vs -0.6% in Sep; same-store ShopperTrak traffic was -5.0% in the last week of Oct.

    Our US colleagues find a mixed picture of consumer credit health, with household balance sheets remaining largely unlevered but personal savings rates declining well below long-term averages, credit delinquency rates rising yoy across cards, personal loans and auto loans, credit origination volumes at historically depressed levels and average FICO scores ticking lower for the first time in years – with pressure concentrated among subprime consumers. Softer consumer credit trends among subprime consumers are also translating into reduced spending activity among lower-income cohorts.

    Similar to past quarters, consumers have remained careful in their spending decisions, as discretionary spend has continued to be soft. Below data points show recent sentiment for the lowest income consumer continues to be under pressure, with both purchase intent and consumer confidence below historical levels. That said, consumer confidence trends have recently improved across income demographics, which could potentially be reflective of a change in consumer sentiment and expectations.

    The trend shows that working-poor households have been dialing back spending—or have hit a proverbial brick wall since the spring, as many financially drown in Biden-Harris’ inflation storm. 

     Not a great combo here…

    In recent weeks, we have noted:

    One of the biggest drivers for voters backing Trump was inflation. AP found that high prices were the number one concern for about half of all Trump voters.

    Meanwhile, Democrats were trying to make the election theme all about women’s rights. Now comes the hard part for Trump in solving the nightmare inflation storm sparked by far-left liberals.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 16:40

  • Let's Give Veterans The Post-Election Attention They Deserve
    Let’s Give Veterans The Post-Election Attention They Deserve

    Authored by Jim Gash via RealClearPolitics,

    After what has felt like years of non-stop campaigning, news coverage, polling, analysis, and predictions, our nation finally elected its 47th president. Sadly, the sharp, sometimes heated disagreement and discord of the campaign season didn’t end on Election Day. 

    We had hoped matters would be settled and the pace and temperature of the conversation might abate, but alas, here we are. Yet, even in the wake of a raucous election, we cannot overlook our nation’s annual celebration of the brave men and women who fought for our freedom – including the right to vote.

    This year, we cannot forget Veterans Day.

    A Day to Remember 

    On November 11, 1918, the Allied forces agreed to an armistice with Germany. This was seven months before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles that formally ended World War I, but in some ways November 11 was the more significant day.

    On that day, 106 years ago, the fighting finally came to an end. Peace had triumphed and good had conquered evil. But at a dear and devastating cost. During the course of the war, an estimated 8.5 million combatants and 13 million civilians were killed, making it by far the bloodiest war in history at the time. 

    And after over four years of fighting, it came to an end on that Monday in November, which is why we still celebrate Veterans Day on November 11.

    A Legacy of Bravery

    On Veterans Day, we not only honor those who bravely served this country in WWI. We also remember all the veterans who have sacrificed for our freedom and those who continue to ensure we can enjoy that freedom today. 

    The U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2023 that there were 16.2 million veterans living in the United States. That’s over 6% of the nation’s population. Since 1775, however, when the Continental Army was created, over 41 million men and women have served in some capacity.

    Whenever needs on foreign or domestic soil have developed, Americans have risen to the occasion and served with courage. It is their legacy that we remember and honor on Veterans Day. It is their lives and sacrifice that deserve our reverence.

    But this year, their legacy is in danger of being forgotten and overlooked.

    Lest We Forget

    This year, Veterans Day is just six days after the presidential election. And if the months leading up to Nov. 5 are anything to go by, the election and its aftermath will continue to dominate headlines and capture the attention of the nation. 

    While understandable, the dominance of such political commentary has tremendous potential to overshadow the heroes we celebrate on Veterans Day. 

    Simply put, that cannot be allowed to happen. We owe our veterans a day of honor and remembrance. They have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice so much so that we can enjoy the freedoms that characterize America. They are the reason we have a democracy. They are the reason we can vote.

    Pepperdine’s university theme this year is freedom – and the freedom we experience at the societal level could not exist without the sacrifices of veterans. G.K. Chesterton said that “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” 

    We would do well to remember – and honor – all that our veterans have given up so we can live in freedom. 

    Breaking the Cycle

    Mere remembrance, in and of itself, will never be enough. Action is needed, and this Veterans Day, it is our turn to give back to those who have sacrificed so much for us. The truth is, veterans need our support. We as citizens must take steps to assist and uplift veterans who are all too often overlooked by society. 

    This is a heartbreaking reality, and the president-elect would do well to lead the way in breaking the destructive cycle in which veterans often find themselves. Initiatives in the areas of stable housing, career development, mental health, and transitioning to civilian life can and will make a difference. And each is another way we can show that we see and honor their sacrifice. 

    The Way Forward

    The United States was founded on the principles of freedom, and no one knows that better than the courageous men and women we honor on Veterans Day. But the adage is true: Freedom is not free. Freedom requires sacrifice. 

    On this Veterans Day, we say thank you to all veterans and their families who have given up more than we can understand so the citizens of this nation can continue to enjoy the freedoms we hold so dear. 

    Jim Gash is president of Pepperdine University.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 16:20

  • Incoming Border Czar Plans Worksite Raids To Bust Migrant Sex, Labor Trafficking Networks
    Incoming Border Czar Plans Worksite Raids To Bust Migrant Sex, Labor Trafficking Networks

    Update (1618ET):

    Incoming “border czar,” Tom Homan, told “Fox & Friends” hosts earlier today that President-elect Trump’s administration will increase worksite raids to address out-of-control labor and sex trafficking nationwide. 

    “Where do we find most victims of sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking? At worksites,” Homan told Fox’s Steve Doocy.

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

    Homan is correct about the sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking crisis spreading like wildfire nationwide because of Biden-Harris’ disastrous open southern borders.

    Here’s some of our reporting in recent months:

    Homan noted that Trump’s top priority will be national security. America can no longer afford to have ten-plus million unvetted illegal aliens running around the nation. 

    *   *   * 

    President-elect Donald Trump revealed on Sunday night that he plans to appoint Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement between 2017 and 2018, as the next “border czar.” 

    “I am pleased to announce that the Former ICE Director, and stalwart on Border Control, Tom Homan, will be joining the Trump Administration, in charge of our Nation’s Borders (“The Border Czar”), including, but not limited to, the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

    Trump continued, “I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders. Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” 

    “Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job,” Trump said. 

    In recent weeks, Homan gave one of the most based interviews on immigration to the far-left media outlet CBS News’ 60 Minutes. When asked about the taxpayer cost of deporting millions of illegal aliens, he responded, “What price do you put on national security?”

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

    At the Republican National Convention in July, Homan told Trump supporters: “I’ve got a message … to all the illegal aliens in violation of federal law … you better start packing now.” 

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

    Homan recently torched far-left activist lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while on The Hill.

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

    While Homan secures the southern and northern borders and oversees the deportation of illegal aliens, there will be significant moves by the Trump administration to disrupt and destroy dark money financial and trade networks that have sparked the horrific 100,000 US drug death overdose crisis per year caused by fentanyl and other drugs – much of which starts as precursor chemicals shipped from China, cooked into fentanyl by Mexican cartels, then flooded in the Lower 48. 

    More on Trump’s plan to eradicate Mexican cartels: “Show No Mercy”: Trump’s Campaign Pledge To Annihilate Mexican Cartels Goes Viral.

    Make Law And Order Great Again.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/11/2024 – 16:18

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 11

Today’s News 11th November 2024

  • Trump's Victory Saved America
    Trump’s Victory Saved America

    Authored by James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer via American Greatness,

    President Donald Trump’s election victory on November 5 was an epochal event in American history. The American people gave Trump a mandate with almost 51% of the vote. He received over 73 million votes, more than four million more than his opponent. A new American coalition—traditional Republican voters united with lower middle class, working class, African Americans, Hispanics, and white women—provided the monumental victory. At such a significant time, it is important to consider how America arrived at such a historical moment and what must be accomplished in the years ahead.

    Retrospectively, Americans must understand how they came to this place in their history. According to the exit polls, a whopping 72% of Americans understood that their country was on the wrong path. America’s political ideology, culture, and traditions were under assault by the so-called “progressive” wing of the Democrat Party. The Biden-Harris administration weakened the economy, caused inflation rates not seen since the 1970s, opened U.S. borders to some 15 million people and facilitated their relocation throughout the U.S. and so weaponized the legal system to wage lawfare against Trump, his major political and legal advisors, and against many of his supporters.

    In the realm of foreign and defense policy, the debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the failure to deter the war in Ukraine, the horrific attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent wars it unleashed. Significantly, the Biden-Harris regime failed to deter Communist China’s hyper-aggression directed against U.S. allies like the Philippines and partners like Taiwan, and most importantly against the American people through the deaths of a quarter of a million of our fellow citizens from Chinese-provided fentanyl and the intellectual capture of so many of the American elite who parrot the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) policy positions to advance the CCP’s interests.

    The deeper cause of how America arrived at this point is the embrace of Marxism by the Democratic Party and thus its increasing totalitarianism and alienation from the American people. In its embrace of this ideology, the Democrat Party demonstrated that it had completely become detached from the American experience, ideology, history, and culture in its effort to transform America into a one-party state on the road to totalitarianism. The American people saw this effort to continue the “fundamental transformation” of America—as Obama identified it on the eve of the 2008 election—and rejected it.

    Prospectively, there is so much that must be accomplished to repair the great costs that the Biden-Harris administration has inflicted upon the American people. As Trump has already stated in the immediate aftermath of his historic election victory, his first actions will be to “dismantle the Deep State and return power to the American People.” His stated goal is to return the government to the people, not the unelected bureaucrats that have installed themselves as a fourth branch of government. As such, the reform of government employment policies will be a major objective for his administration.

    Likewise, a second Trump administration will address inflation, uncontrolled illegal immigration, economic stagnation, and the enormous national debt that risks destroying the Republic. The U.S. is in dire fiscal and economic circumstances and Trump will have to confront these issues immediately as they will be thrust upon him on January 20.

    In foreign and defense policy, the situation is just as dire. U.S. conventional and nuclear forces must be strengthened. The defense industrial base must be restored to meet the threat from Communist China. The principal danger, the CCP, must be defeated by cutting it off from U.S. trade and investment—decoupling must be pursued with vigor. Furthermore, all Chinese entities should be prohibited from raising capital in U.S. markets. Its hyper-aggression must be checked by credible U.S. military power in conjunction with its allies and partners, like Japan, Korea, Australia, Thailand, India, and Taiwan.

    Increasingly, Americans recognize that the CCP is illegitimate. It is the product of Soviet imperialism, and so is a colonial government ruling the Chinese people. Xi Jinping has no more legitimacy to rule the great Chinese people than we do. The second Trump administration will need to use the bully pulpit of our nation to inform the world of the CCP’s illegitimate control over the people of China.

    Trump’s victory also provides the opportunity to save more than America. It provides the chance to defend Western civilization, upon which America’s foundation, history, politics, culture, and intellectual life are anchored. The Progressive Left’s (that is, Communists’) attack against America’s political ideology, history, and culture is part of a broader effort to destroy Western civilization. Initially, the left undermined it through the “ideas industry,” universities, K-12 education, think tanks, media, social media, television, and film. Then they labored hammer and tongs to overthrow it. Trump has the opportunity to repair the tremendous damage that the left has done carefully and deliberately to Western civilization. Working with European, British, Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian allies and other peoples around the world who value the contributions of Western civilization, Trump can begin to fix the damage.

    Under Trump, the direction of the nation is clear—as it is for any ship embarking on a new journey. The ship of America must be sounded, the damage repaired, and a renewed course, like the ones originally charted by the celestial constellations that guided Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Reagan, must be set. If we stay true to our constitutional principles, America will once again have a fair wind and a following sea as it returns to its political ideology, principles, and traditions. That course opens the door to the best years in America’s history.

    The American people understood their plight and were searching for decades for an effective leader, only to be disappointed and frustrated with Republican Party candidates, which led to a profound alienation of the base from the Party establishment. Trump had brilliant careers in real estate and television before he entered politics. But he chose to throw his hat into the ring because he identified with what was happening to the American people.

    In turn, the American people saw clearly that Trump was the vessel that would enact their course change. His tremendous courage, acumen, charisma, indefatigable physical stamina, thick skin, and political instincts are without parallel in modern American history. As such, the American people have unquestionably placed their trust in him to empower the saving of America. Trump has accepted that sacred challenge. He has excelled and will do so again in this colossal task because it is evident to Americans that he loves America, the American people, and is a fighter. The American people gave Trump his victory because they saw that Trump’s triumph is America’s.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 23:20

  • Trump Could Impact The Supreme Court For Decades To Come
    Trump Could Impact The Supreme Court For Decades To Come

    Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times,

    President-elect Donald Trump’s second term could help make him one of the most consequential presidents for the U.S. Supreme Court by solidifying a long-lasting originalist majority.

    Although Democrats have criticized the justices in recent months, the 2024 elections may have stripped them of the power they would need to block Trump’s nominees and implement reforms to stunt conservatives’ influence on the court.

    Republicans are projected to take the U.S. Senate, offering a two-year window for Trump to appoint new conservative jurists to the highest court should any of the sitting justices announce retirement. Neither of the two most senior justices, Clarence Thomas, who is 76 and joined the court in 1991, and Samuel Alito, who is 74 and joined in 2006, have announced a retirement plan.

    “No one other than Justices Thomas and Alito knows when or if they will retire, and talking about them like meat that has reached its expiration date is unwise, uninformed, and, frankly, just crass,” Federalist Society chairman Leonard Leo said.

    If Trump is later tasked with appointing two justices, he could be the first president since President Dwight D. Eisenhower to have five of his nominees sit on the nation’s highest court.

    In terms of pace, Trump has already appointed more justices in one term than his predecessors did during their tenures. Continuing at that pace would likely lead to long-term shifts for the institution and its jurisprudence, especially if his successors follow other presidents in nominating fewer justices.

    Changes to Precedent

    The court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, has been described as incrementalist, but some of its recent decisions have raised questions about the stability of longstanding precedents. Trump’s nominees—Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—have already contributed to major shifts in American law, starting with their vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.

    Just before Trump’s reelection, they also redefined the scope of presidential immunity and overruled a decades-old administrative law doctrine—known as Chevron deference—that was supported by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

    Conservatives have touted this decision and Dobbs as following an originalist approach, or one that seeks to follow the Constitution’s original meaning. Such an approach might continue if Trump selects justices from the long list of judges appointed to federal courts during his first term in office.

    (Front Row R–L) Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, his wife Jane Sullivan, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife, Virginia Thomas, and Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito attend the memorial service for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the National Cathedral in Washington on Dec. 19, 2023. Jim Watson/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

    Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino told The Epoch Times that if Trump wanted to appoint more originalists to the Supreme Court, he wouldn’t have to “look any farther than the appellate judges” he appointed during his first term.

    “If he picks from that short list he himself has created, then I think we’re going to have an awesome continuation of the originalist approach to the Constitution,” said Severino, a former Thomas clerk.

    In October, a three-judge appellate panel, which included a former Thomas clerk and former Alito clerk, backed Republicans’ position that election officials couldn’t count ballots that arrived after voting day. They said doing so violated the Constitution and a law passed in 1844 on the timing of elections.

    Thomas has said on more than one occasion that he has no intention of retiring. Meanwhile, conservative attorney and commentator Ed Whelan has speculated in National Review that Alito will retire next spring with Thomas following him in 2026.

    Civil Liberties

    The Supreme Court’s recent decisions have been viewed by both sides of the ideological spectrum as utilizing originalism and textualism, or trying to adhere to the plain language of American laws, after decades of different approaches.

    “After most of the 20th Century spent with a very liberal court, we actually have a majority of originalists in the court,” Severino said during a press call this summer.

    Overturning Roe raised questions about a whole body of law, known as “substantive due process,” which stems from the 14th Amendment’s due process clause.

    That body of law informed the court’s decision in a series of other cases like Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state laws on birth control, sodomy, and marriage respectively. Following Dobbs, left-leaning voices worried that the more conservative Supreme Court would eventually overturn those cases.

    People protest in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 24, 2022. The Court’s decision overturns the landmark 50-year-old Roe v Wade case. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

    Alito’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned Roe, indicated that the idea of a constitutional right to abortion exceeded the bounds of substantive due process. However, he attempted to distinguish it from the issues in Lawrence and other cases while maintaining that his opinion wouldn’t threaten those other precedents.

    Thomas’s concurring opinion went further in describing substantive due process as “an oxymoron” and said the court should “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”

    Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Epoch Times, “We may see the justices continue to chip away at civil rights and substantive due process.”

    Rahmani pointed to Dobbs and the court’s ruling in 2023 that Harvard University’s and the University of North Carolina’s affirmative action programs violated the equal protection clause. The court’s Obergefell decision and its 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona—which established the Miranda warning that police read to suspects to remind them of their rights during criminal proceedings—may be up for grabs too, Rahmani said.

    A ‘MAGA Supreme Court’?

    Based on decisions by Trump’s already-appointed justices, it’s questionable whether a court transformed by the president-elect would deliver consistent wins for conservatives’ political causes.

    Some of the court’s recent decisions have prompted Democrats to describe the justices as part of a “MAGA Supreme Court”—a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

    Like others, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) criticized the court’s immunity decision, which granted presidents various levels of immunity from criminal prosecution. “On purely partisan lines, the Supreme Court today for the first time in history places presidents substantially above the law,” ACLU National Legal Director David Cole said in July.

    Besides its rulings on immunity and abortion, the court ruled in favor of gun rights advocates this year by effectively allowing bump stocks, and in 2022, by clarifying that firearm restrictions must follow the nation’s history and tradition.

    Trump himself has praised the justices but expressed disagreement as well, such as when he said the court “really let us down” after it declined to take up a 2020 election-related case from Texas. He also publicly clashed with Roberts, who said in 2018: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”

    Illustrating the tenuous ideological formations, Roberts wrote a concurrence that sought to maintain but weaken Roe. Neither Barrett nor Kavanaugh joined that opinion and have each voted differently than both Alito and Thomas on important cases. According to Empirical SCOTUS, Barrett’s, Kavanaugh’s, and Roberts’ votes aligned most with each other’s when compared with the other justices.

    Barrett joined the immunity decision in Trump v. United States but partly differed in a way that Roberts said “threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized.” She also joined liberals on the court in ruling against Jan. 6 defendants, as well as in resisting the avenue other justices took in ruling that Colorado couldn’t disqualify Trump from appearing on its ballot this year.

    Former President Donald Trump, the Republican 2024 presidential candidate, arrives back at Trump Tower after being convicted in a criminal trial in New York City on May 30, 2024. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

    In another ruling on agency power this year, Barrett joined Thomas, Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh and Jackson to uphold the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s controversial funding mechanism, which right-leaning advocates saw as unconstitutional. Only Alito and Gorsuch dissented from that decision.

    Overruling Chevron could interfere with Trump’s deregulatory agenda as well, even though it’s been backed by critics of administrative overreach. The doctrine was initially decided in 1984 by the majority led by Justice John Paul Stevens and it upheld a deregulatory action by President Ronald Reagan’s administration. Overruling it gave judges more power in reviewing agencies’ interpretations of existing law.

    Evolving Originalism

    Besides demonstrating an interest in economic deregulation, Trump also said that his second term would see regulations related to gender—specifically opposing so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors. Those regulations will likely encounter lawsuits with left-leaning groups citing Gorsuch’s controversial majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County.

    Gorsuch, whose voting aligned most with Thomas’s last term, joined Roberts in ruling that firing someone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity was a form of sex-based discrimination because the actions wouldn’t have been made “but for” the individuals’ sex.

    That reasoning has been used by lower courts to support so-called left-leaning interest on the issue of gender, including the idea that states can’t exclude adults from receiving transgender procedures under government insurance programs.

    President Joe Biden’s administration is currently using Gorsuch’s reasoning in asking the Supreme Court to strike down Tennessee’s law banning so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that Bostock’s “core insight is that ‘it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being … transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.’”

    What originalism and textualism mean in practice may be evolving due at least in part to the influence of Trump-appointed justices. In his dissent, Alito said “no one should be fooled” by Gorsuch’s “attempts to pass off its decision as the inevitable product of the textualist school of statutory interpretation.”

    Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch speaks at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., on Aug. 8, 2024. Apu Gomes/Getty Images

    Thomas’s approach to originalism has encountered resistance among many on the court. He was the only justice to say in June that his originalist opinion in Bruen protected domestic abusers’ ability to own firearms.

    That case—U.S. v. Rahimi—spurred a relatively high number of concurrences from Barrett, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Sotomayor each disputing how to apply the nation’s history when considering firearm regulations.

    Another decision rejecting a crude, Trump-related trademark saw the justices similarly differing over how to apply legal history despite each agreeing with the ultimate outcome of the case.

    In a concurrence joined by liberal-leaning justices, Barrett said Thomas’s approach was “wrong twice over” and suggested that it overemphasized the role of historical comparison. Thomas had argued that a “firm grounding in traditional trademark law is sufficient to justify the content-based trademark restriction here.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 22:10

  • 'Unhinged' NBC Reporter Rips Off Daily Wire Story, Nerfs It, Then Self-Immolates On X When Called Out
    ‘Unhinged’ NBC Reporter Rips Off Daily Wire Story, Nerfs It, Then Self-Immolates On X When Called Out

    This story is so stupid you should only read it if you’re on the toilet. And even then.

    Nevertheless… on Friday, the Daily Wire broke the news that a now-fired FEMA employee ordered workers to bypass the homes of Trump supporters as they surveyed the damage caused by Hurricane Milton in Florida.

    Microsoft Teams chat used by FEMA workers. (via the Daily Wire)

    The story went viral – and was eventually picked up by NBC News reporter Mirna Alsharif (formerly CNN), who proceeded to not only rip off the report without citing the Daily Wire, she completely nerf’d it – failing to adhere to basic journalistic standards despite all of that information having been reported by DW.

    When she was called out for her shitty reporting, Alsharif had a complete meltdown on X – claiming that the Daily Wire wasn’t her source, and hurtling High School insults at reporters.

    And while she just deleted her account, we’ve got receipts…

    She called several people a “troll final boss” in a thread in which journalist Jason Rantz called her an “unhinged left-winger.”

    Busted out your mama jokes (probably because of her 90’s hair)…

    Called John Podhoretz “sweetheart.”

    Called someone a dumb bitch…

    When DW’s Mary Margaret Olohan called on Alsharif to Log off, she replied “You first babes.”

    Except then she did just that.

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

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

    Who’s the dumb bitch?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 21:35

  • Federal Judge Gives States In Censorship Lawsuit Against US Govt Chance To Make Case
    Federal Judge Gives States In Censorship Lawsuit Against US Govt Chance To Make Case

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

    A federal judge kept alive a lawsuit accusing the federal government of encouraging social media platforms to censor users’ views.

    The judge ruled that the two states that filed the lawsuit can continue their discovery, a pretrial phase that allows litigants to gather evidence for trial and can consist of examinations under oath and requests for documents.

    U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in Monroe, Louisiana, issued the new order on Nov. 8 after the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26 threw out the request by Missouri and Louisiana to prevent the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies about public health issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The states sued the federal government for censorship because it allegedly pressured social media companies to suppress certain content.

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a public statement encouraging the social media platforms to prevent information about COVID-19 that had been deemed misinformation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “from taking hold.” The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also communicated with the platforms about election-related misinformation in advance of the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 congressional elections.

    Supreme Court justices ruled 6–3 in June that the states and five social media users challenging the federal government lacked legal standing to seek an injunction because they couldn’t show that they were directly harmed by the government’s efforts to communicate with the platforms.

    Standing refers to the right of someone to sue in court. The parties must show a strong enough connection to the law or action complained of to justify their participation in the lawsuit.

    The states argue that the Biden administration strong-armed social media companies into censoring disfavored views on important public issues, such as potential side effects related to COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic lockdowns. They say that applying this kind of pressure violates Americans’ First Amendment rights.

    Conservatives and others have complained that social media platforms suppress information about their views on transgender issues, COVID-19, and the 2020 election.

    Some on the left say removing posts on social media is necessary to prevent the spread of misinformation, and some have complained that social media platforms don’t do enough to combat falsehoods.

    Doughty, whose 2023 ruling blocking the federal government from communicating with the social media companies was overturned by the Supreme Court in June, said in his new order that he considered it appropriate to ask the litigants whether there should be further discovery. The discovery would be related to the issue of standing to help the court evaluate if it has authority to continue with this case, or if the lawsuit should be dismissed.

    The states argued for discovery, while the federal government argued for dismissal, he said.

    “We currently find ourselves in jurisdictional purgatory—caught between differing standards,” Doughty said in his new order.

    A “greater showing of standing” is required for an injunction than is required for the “minimal showing” needed to keep litigation alive.

    The Supreme Court was “plainly applying this heightened standard when it reversed,” so this means the high court’s ruling “is not necessarily fatal to [the states’] suit generally.”

    The states have demonstrated the need for more discovery on the standing issue, the judge said.

    At the same time, Doughty denied for the time being the states’ request to amend their complaint in an effort to strengthen their legal standing in the case.

    The fact that President Joe Biden, whose administration is being sued, will be replaced by President-elect Donald Trump in a little more than two months doesn’t justify throwing out the lawsuit, he said.

    Even though “regime change is imminent,” it would be “quintessentially speculative” to dismiss the case based on that fact alone, the judge said.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and the U.S. Department of Justice for comment but did not receive a reply by publication time.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 21:00

  • First Trump-Putin Call Since Election Focuses On The Quick 'Resolution Of Ukraine War'
    First Trump-Putin Call Since Election Focuses On The Quick ‘Resolution Of Ukraine War’

    President-elect Donald Trump is already moving quite fast on his goal to quickly bring to an end the Ukraine war. It has been revealed Sunday he held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin previously on Thursday, the first such communication between the two since Trump won the election.

    Trump urged immediate de-escalation in the call with Putin. The Washington Post describes that “During the call, which Trump took from his resort in Florida, he advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe, said a person familiar with the call, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.”

    Multiple sources said the call focused on the “goal of peace on the European continent” and ended on a positive note with plans to hold future conversations on “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon”.

    Image source: GQ/Getty Images

    WaPo has further said that Ukraine was informed that the call was going to take place and did not object. However, the Zelensky government has subsequent this the report rejected this claim.

    “Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told Reuters.

    WaPo has also underscored that the Trump transition team is fearful of leaks at this point:

    Trump’s initial calls with world leaders are not being conducted with the support of the State Department and U.S. government interpreters. The Trump transition team has yet to sign an agreement with the General Services Administration, a standard procedure for presidential transitions.

    Trump and his aides are distrustful of career government officials following the leaked transcripts of presidential calls during his first term. “They are just calling [Trump] directly,” one of the people familiar with the calls said.

    Currently, the Zelensky government and some of the more hawkish leaders within NATO are deeply worried that the future Trump White House will force a ‘bad deal’ – or one that pressures Kiev to give up some 20% of his territory. They are against anything which the Kremlin could view as ‘victory’ for Russia.

    One proposed plan, said to be getting the most attention from Trump’s team, would see an indefinite ‘freeze’ on the front lines in the east, paving the way for immediate ceasefire, and enforced by European peacekeepers along an 800-mile demilitarized zone.

    Peace would also be ensured by Ukraine agreeing to suspend its aspirations to join NATO for twenty years. This buffer zone would not involve any US troops, according to initial reports based on the description of Trump officials.

    Included a brief discussion on territory…

    Regardless of if the hoped-for ceasefire takes shape, which would spare countless lives, the fact that Trump and Putin are already talking will only be seen as a bad thing by hawks who have recklessly pushed for escalation from the beginning. These same warmongers even condemned France’s Macron when he early in the war sought an off-ramp through an initial series of phone calls with Putin. 

    Meanwhile, on the battlefield in the east:

    Military bloggers on Friday reported that Russian forces were moving closer to capturing a major town on the eastern front in the war in Ukraine as part of their drive westward to capture all of the Donbas region.

    Bloggers on both sides reported that Russian forces had entered the village of Sontsivka and were advancing from the northwest on the city of Kurakhove.

    “The Kurakhove direction and the Pokrovsk direction are the most challenging right now,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced in a nightly video address this weekend.

    The world knows that Ukrainian forces are losing anyway, and Russia is poised to take all of Donetsk, so it is indeed long past time for Washington to do everything possible to both de-escalate and wind down and ultimately find permanent peaceful settlement.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 20:25

  • US Childcare Cost Higher Than In Other Developed Countries
    US Childcare Cost Higher Than In Other Developed Countries

    U.S. childcare costs surpass those in all other OECD countries when taking into account single parents and couples earning average wage.

    The price tag for having two children minded while working full-time is also significantly higher in the U.S. than in most other developed countries that are part of the organization.

    Only Switzerland, the United Kingdom and New Zealand come even close to the high price parents have to shoulder for childcare in the United States.

    Infographic: U.S. Childcare Cost Higher Than In Other Developed Countries | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, according to 2022 data from the OECD, U.S. couples who both earn average wage in full-time jobs and have two young children need to spend 20 percent of their disposable household income on childcare.

    For singles on average wage, this rises to 37 percent.

    In most countries, single parents pay less as they receive a more favorable rate.

    In Switzerland, the most expensive OECD country after the United States, couples with two children spent a whopping 32 percent of their disposable income on childcare if working full-time and earning average wage. For singles, this was lowered to 18 percent, however. In the U.S. and Switzerland alike, childcare is dominated by the private sector and does not receive substantial amounts of regulation or subsidies, leading to high market rates. 

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called this state of childcare in the U.S. a “broken market”.

    Many Anglophone nations, also including Ireland, New Zealand and Australia struggle with high private market rates for childcare, low subsidies or a combination of the two.

    In 2022, Canadian couples working full-time for average wage still needed to shell out 19 percent of disposable income, but the government has since made changes. Like in Canada, many English-speaking nations began to regulate and subsidize their childcare markets much later than elsewhere, leading to them lagging behind in affordability despite the topic of childcare becoming ever more important in the face of demographic change. Outside of Anglophone OECD countries, couples paid the most for childcare in relative terms in the Netherlands – another place dominated by private childcare – at 19 percent of disposable income. Singles paid the most in the Czech Republic at 18 percent.

    In many European countries, parents paid substantially less, often just a couple of percent of their disposable incomes, as childcare centers are either run as a public service or private providers are heavily subsidized and regulated. In France, parents who work full-time and earn average wage spent between 6 percent and 10 pecent, while this number was even lower in South Korea, other German-speaking, Scandinavian and Baltic countries. In Germany, rates were as low as 1 percent of disposable income as all parents receive childcare vouchers depending on work time to be redeemed at private or public institutions.

    Working parents pay a small fee on top if they receive more than the standard five care hours. Free childcare was provided in OECD countries Italy and Latvia as well as in associated nations Bulgaria and Malta. Single parents also paid no fees in Greece and were substantially unburdened in Canada, under rent subsidies in the United Kingdom and under social assistance benefits in Japan, if they qualified for those.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 19:15

  • The Complex Legacy Of George Orwell
    The Complex Legacy Of George Orwell

    Authored by Allen Gindler via The Mises Institute,

    George Orwell, one of the most influential political writers of the 20th century, is widely recognized for his searing critiques of totalitarian regimes in his novels Animal Farm and 1984. Orwell’s portrayal of state control, propaganda, and the manipulation of truth has resonated with readers across the political spectrum. However, Orwell’s personal political ideology and his critiques of totalitarianism are far more complex than is often acknowledged. Rather than being a passive observer or simply an opponent of dictatorship, Orwell was deeply involved in the socialist movements of his time, aligning himself—whether accidentally or intentionally—with Trotskyist circles. Orwell was a powerful voice of the left, despite being a target in the war among socialist factions.

    Orwell’s Political Ideology and Alignment with Trotskyism

    While Orwell is best remembered for his criticism of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, it is essential to understand that he was, first and foremost, a committed socialist. Despite never formally joining a political party, Orwell was an active and vocal participant in the socialist movement. This may surprise those who associate Orwell solely with his critiques of state tyranny. Indeed, Orwell’s disdain for the left dictatorship did not extend to all forms of socialism, and his political writings often reflect an internal critique of socialist regimes rather than a wholesale rejection of socialist principles.

    Orwell’s critique of Stalinist totalitarianism is best understood as part of a broader ideological struggle within the socialist movement itself. Specifically, Orwell’s critiques echo the views of Leon Trotsky, a key figure in early Soviet history and one of Stalin’s most prominent critics. Trotsky was a revolutionary Marxist who played a crucial role in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war. He was instrumental in founding the Red Army, which secured the Bolshevik victory over the anti-communist White Army during the Russian Civil War. However, Trotsky’s theory of “permanent revolution” set him at odds with Stalin, who favored the consolidation of socialism in one country—namely, the Soviet Union—before pursuing global revolution. Trotsky’s insistence that socialism must be spread worldwide made him a figure of suspicion within the Soviet hierarchy. In the early 1920s, Stalin consolidated power, leading to Trotsky’s exile in 1929. Despite this, Trotsky continued to oppose Stalin’s policies from abroad, particularly through his writings.

    Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism included accusations that Stalin had betrayed the original goals of the Russian Revolution. According to Trotsky, Stalin had established a bureaucratic dictatorship rather than a dictatorship of the proletariat, as envisioned by Marxist theory. He argued that Stalin’s regime represented, not the rule of the working class, but the rise of a privileged bureaucratic elite, a “nomenklatura,” that dominated Soviet society. In addition, Trotsky accused Stalin of fostering a cult of personality, suppressing political opposition, and betraying the internationalist principles of socialism.

    Orwell and the Spanish Civil War

    In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War broke out, Orwell made the fateful decision to join the Republican side, fighting against Francisco Franco’s Nationalista forces. What makes Orwell’s involvement particularly significant is his choice of faction. Rather than aligning himself with the International Brigades, Orwell joined the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), a Marxist faction heavily influenced by Trotskyist ideas. Orwell’s decision to fight with the POUM speaks volumes about his political leanings during this period.

    The Spanish Civil War was not simply a battle between Republicans and Nationalistas; it was also an ideological battleground for various factions of the international left. The Republican side was a coalition of various socialist, communist, and anarchist groups. The POUM, with which Orwell fought, was aligned with Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist factions, while the Communist Party of Spain, supported by Stalin, took a hard line against any left-wing groups that did not adhere to Moscow’s policies. As Orwell would later write in Homage to Catalonia, his firsthand experience in Spain profoundly influenced his understanding of the brutal dynamics of power within the left. This dynamic reflects what biologists refer to as “intraspecific struggle,” where members of the same species (or political movement, in this case) compete most aggressively with each other for dominance.

    While Orwell fought against Franco’s Nationalistas at the front, Stalin’s agents were conducting a purge of Trotskyist and anarchist factions behind the lines. The NKVD, Stalin’s secret police, were sent to Spain to suppress all non-Bolshevik leftist elements within the Republican forces. This included the POUM, which was eventually outlawed by the Stalinist-backed Republican leadership. NKVD agents kidnapped and killed the head of POUM, Andreu Nin. Orwell himself narrowly escaped assassination by the NKVD and covertly fled to England. These experiences deepened his disillusionment with Stalinism and reinforced his belief that the Soviet regime had betrayed the original ideals of socialism.

    Orwell’s Literary Response: Animal Farm and 1984

    Orwell’s experiences in Spain and his understanding of the internal conflicts within socialism found their most potent expression in his literary works. Animal Farm, published in 1945, is widely understood as an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism. Because of this, he struggled to find a publisher willing to take on the book, as many feared the political consequences of criticizing Stalin at the time of WWII. In the novella, Orwell portrays the betrayal of revolutionary ideals through the story of a group of farm animals who overthrow their human owner, only to see their new leaders—the pigs—become as oppressive as the humans they replaced. The pig Napoleon, who represents Stalin, manipulates the other animals, gradually consolidating power and rewriting the revolution’s history to justify his dictatorship.

    What is often overlooked in discussions of Animal Farm is the role of Trotsky’s ideas in shaping Orwell’s narrative. The character of Snowball—who is expelled from the farm by Napoleon—represents Trotsky. Snowball, like Trotsky, is portrayed as an idealistic, but ultimately powerless figure, who is demonized by the regime in power. Orwell’s depiction of Snowball’s exile and the subsequent demonization of his legacy mirrors Trotsky’s real-life expulsion and assassination by Stalin’s agents in 1940.

    In this sense, Animal Farm can be read as an artistic rendering of Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed (a critique of Stalinism from the left), with Orwell using the fable to illustrate the broader betrayal of socialist ideals by Stalin’s regime. Yet, Orwell could not grasp that if Trotsky had been the head of the Soviet Union, his regime might have been even more ruthless than the one Stalin built. Proletarian dictatorship is no better than party dictatorship.

    Orwell’s final novel, 1984, extends his critique of totalitarianism beyond Stalinism to address the broader implications of state control, surveillance, and the manipulation of truth. Although 1984 is not explicitly focused on socialist ideology, its portrayal of a dystopian world ruled by a single party—where dissent is brutally suppressed and history is constantly rewritten—draws heavily on Orwell’s understanding of the Stalinist regime. The famous phrase “Big Brother is watching you” has since become synonymous with state surveillance and authoritarianism, but in the context of Orwell’s political trajectory, it also serves as a broader warning about the dangers of unchecked power, regardless of ideological orientation.

    Orwell’s Dilemma: The Limits of Socialist Critique

    Despite his damning critique of Stalinism, Orwell remained a socialist until the end of his life. His disillusionment with the Soviet Union did not extend to socialism as a whole. In fact, Orwell believed that socialism could still provide the solution to the social and economic problems facing the world, provided it did not fall into the traps of authoritarianism and bureaucracy. This presents a fundamental paradox in Orwell’s thought: while he was acutely aware of the dangers of totalitarianism produced by different currents of socialism, he continued to advocate for a general utopia that, in practice, often led to the very abuses of power he critiqued.

    Orwell could not comprehend that, regardless of the specific flavor of socialism —whether Trotskyist, Stalinist, or otherwise—given enough time, it would inevitably lead to the same outcome: economic stagnation, moral decadence, and repression. His deep belief in the potential of socialism, particularly in its democratic form, blinded him to the inherent authoritarian tendencies within socialist movements.

    Orwell’s Legacy

    George Orwell’s legacy as a writer and political thinker is marked by his commitment to socialist ideals and his fierce opposition to totalitarianism. His engagement with Trotskyist ideas, his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and his literary responses to Stalinism reveal a nuanced understanding of the complexities within the socialist movement. While Orwell’s critiques of political tyranny remain profoundly relevant today, his continued belief in socialism—even after witnessing its failures—underscores the intricacies of his thought. Therefore, it feels somewhat awkward to rely on a socialist’s critique of the very regimes that socialism consistently produces.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 18:40

  • Rogan Reveals Kamala Campaign Wanted Editorial Control Over His Podcast
    Rogan Reveals Kamala Campaign Wanted Editorial Control Over His Podcast

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    Podcast king Joe Rogan has revealed that Kamala Harris’ people demanded editorial control over an appearance on his show, and a final say on what was released to the public.

    As we have already highlighted, Kamala had demanded to only appear for an hour with Rogan, and wanted to do it outside of his studio, meaning he would have had to travel to a location of her choosing.

    Needless to say, Rogan refused to meet the demands, reasoning that it simply wouldn’t be an episode of his podcast if that was to happen.

    Rogan unveiled more of what went on with discussions between his team and Kamala’s campaign, noting “There were a few restrictions of things they wanted to talk about…They wanted to know if I’d edit it. I’m like, there’s no editing.”

    They were treating it as if it was the corporate soundbite mouthpiece media.

    Do they even know what Rogan’s podcast is?

    It’s not surprising given that her campaign was just one big insubstantial fake, edited presentation.

    Remember the edited 60 Minutes debacle?

    This is how it should be now.

    As Axios co founder Jim VandeHei noted yesterday, “I think all of us have to come to grips legacy media is just not as important as it thinks it is…Joe Rogan is more important than any of us.”

    “The gravity of right-wing discourse is now taking place on 𝕏.. not Fox. 𝕏 is what matters. Elon Musk is arguably the most powerful civilian in the history of the country,” he added.

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 18:05

  • Was The 2024 Election Too Big To Rig?
    Was The 2024 Election Too Big To Rig?

    Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,

    It’s Wednesday, the 6th of November, and America has chosen a new president. But we may not know the results for days or even weeks.

    While there is a chance we will see a quick and decisive Trump victory, the media has prepared us for a protracted aftermath to election day. This raises an obvious question: Was there election rigging in 2024? Did the uniparty establishment and the institutions they control, desperate to prevent a Trump victory, break the rules? Did they cheat?

    Answering this question in the affirmative doesn’t have to rely on the countless alarming allegations that are dismissed as unfounded conspiracy theories, even though there are so many of them:

    The potential for mail-in ballot fraud, hundreds of ballots received at a single address, dozens of ballots received at a single address, questionable last-minute changes in verification procedures by the US Post Office, inaccurate voter rolls and fraudulent voter registrations, voter data leaks to partisan NGOs, vote harvesting, counterfeit ballots, destruction of legitimate ballots, ballot dumps, selectively applied “malfunctions” of voting machines in multiple states, last minute “patches” to fix voting machine software, illegal immigrants voting, and selectively applied closures of polling stations or inadequately staffed polling stations causing voter suppression.

    You can claim there is no basis for concern over any one of those alleged cases of calculated, potentially widespread fraud. You can even dismiss the impact of fining and disbarring attorneys who challenged the integrity of the 2020 election and thus have deterred many attorneys from challenging this one.

    The election was still rigged.

    Anyone who watches David Muir at ABC, Lester Holt at CBS, Norah O’Donnell at NBC, or Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett at PBS will know this election was rigged, thanks to a multi-year propaganda campaign of shameless lying by the news anchors and reporters at the most prestigious networks in America. If you make it your business to keep track of what these “trusted news sources” are telling voters, it is obvious how hard they’ve tried to influence the election.

    ABC News, for example, pretty much every single night for the last few months, has opened their newscast with 5-10 minutes where they heap slime all over Trump and praise Harris. If you watch the source material, for example, Harris’s CNN Town Hall, then watch the excerpts highlighted on ABC, you get two completely different impressions of her competence and integrity. Precisely the same tactic is used with Trump, but to the opposite effect. Watch one of his news conferences in its entirety, then watch what is grabbed, out of context, and presented on ABC.

    Critics of Trump’s often brusque persona and often unvarnished condemnation of the media must ask, if they’re going to be fair, how would anyone react? For nearly ten years, David Muir has told us, with a straight face, that “the walls are closing in on Trump.” Along with fake scandals like the Russian collusion hoax, over and over we hear gross misrepresentations of things Trump has said. He mocked a disabled reporter; no, he didn’t. He told people to inject bleach to treat COVID; no, he didn’t. He called neo-Nazis “fine people;” no, he did not. And on and on it goes.

    David Muir earned particular enmity among people who just wanted fair news coverage during the debate between Trump and Harris, when, for example, Muir insisted on “fact-checking” Trump but left Harris alone. For example, Muir contradicted Trump’s assertion that crime rates had risen, and Muir was wrong. The data, as Trump attempted to explain, was missing statistics from California’s major cities. Once that data was added, Trump’s claim was proven accurate.

    Just in the last few days we’ve had the big four broadcast news anchors telling us that Trump wanted to put Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad, wants reporters covering his rallies to get shot, “groped” a woman back in the 1990s, expressed “deeply troubling” admiration for Adolf Hitler, held a “Nazi rally,” and intended to use the military against “the enemy within,” along with endless distorted repetition of everything bad they’ve ever said about him. All of this “news” was either truth twisted beyond recognition or outright lies. Meanwhile, their coverage of Harris has been indistinguishable from a paid Harris campaign ad.

    There’s no end to the legacy television news media’s war on Trump. It’s not subtle, and despite their dinosaur status, they still exercise decisive influence over millions of voters. For the 2024 season-to-date, ABC Nightly News has averaged 7.7 million viewers, NBC averaged 6.4 million, and CBS averaged 4.7 million. PBS is now a big player as well, with a regular viewership of more than 5 million. That’s nearly 25 million regular viewers, with an average age of 65, nearly all of them high-propensity voters, and very few of them likely to be perusing alternative media. Cable news, for all the visibility and big audiences for the hosted talk shows on their networks, doesn’t compare. Recent estimates for primetime viewers of Fox News have averaged 359,000, versus 175,000 for CNN and 160,000 for MSNBC. Cable news audiences are dwarfed by the audiences for broadcast news content, which is overwhelmingly anti-Trump and pro-Harris. Tens of millions of Americans have been thoroughly brainwashed by these networks. But what about social media and online searches?

    Back in 2015, Robert Epstein, a research psychologist with the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, published “The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections.” Continuing his research, in testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2019, Epstein claimed that biased search results on Google “impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton.” Epstein’s studies are compelling reading, and very little has changed. Google still controls 90 percent of the search engine market in the United States. In 2024, Google employee political donations favored Democrats by a ratio of more than 6 to 1. Draw your own conclusions.

    As for social media, much is made of Twitter’s transformation into X, with no more censorship. Twitter, or X, has 95 million users in America. That’s a lot. But in the United States, Facebook has 194 million users, Instagram has 166 million users, TikTok reaches 170 million people, LinkedIn connects 200 million, and YouTube’s regular US viewers number 246 million. As a neutral platform, X’s audience reach is exceeded by more than 10 to 1 by the other major online platforms. With the lone exception of X, every one of these platforms employs biased algorithms designed to suppress conservative content. As for print media, intervention by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post to abstain from a presidential endorsement is too little, too late. Every newspaper and magazine with national reach, with the half-hearted exception perhaps of the Wall Street Journal, have been so anti-Trump and pro-Harris it is almost comical.

    Social media, search engines, and legacy news media. In every facet of information gathering, the vast majority of Americans have been continuously exposed to anti-Trump, pro-Harris messages. None of this has been happening by accident. Michael Shellenberger, formerly a progressive liberal who was once honored as a Time Magazine “Environmental Hero,” has evolved into an investigative journalist of extraordinary integrity and courage. In recent years, his work has focused on what he has dubbed “the censorship industrial complex.” In a recent substack post, commenting on America’s news media from newspapers to television to online platforms, he had this to say, “It’s not a mirror of reality. It’s not just biased. And it’s not just deferential to the state or the party. It’s a propaganda arm dishonestly representing powerful political, ideological, and financial interests.”

    Shellenberger, who alleges government manipulation of information sources available to Americans, is not alone. Mike Benz, a former US State Department official, claims that the U.S. government has become increasingly concerned about the rise of populist movements in the U.S. and around the world and is actively interfering in media freedom. Another window into how this is working is documented by Ben Shapiro in a must-watch video, where he describes the network of state-supported NGOs and quasi-private sector agencies that influence who gets advertising dollars and who gets boycotted, in an ostensibly benign effort to “create a universal framework full of guidelines and ratings designed to enforce approved narratives.”

    It ought to be obvious to anyone who finds both sides of the story by using alternative media that in a fair election, America’s print, video, and online media, and search engine results, could have easily delivered just as much negative coverage about Harris as they have inflicted on Trump, and they could have delivered just as much positive coverage about Trump as they’ve lavished on Harris. Maybe the only rules that were broken were supposed norms of journalistic integrity. But by an order of magnitude, America’s sources of “news” and information were massively tilted in favor of Harris and against Trump.

    If for no other reason but media bias, this election was rigged. As a result, regardless of the outcome, half of all Americans have lost faith in fair elections. Even if every allegation of actual, fraudulent, widespread rigging is false, nobody who thinks so will change their minds. For them, the media sources that might help debunk any of it have no credibility. That is a crime perpetrated by the elite who control these institutions that transcends even this moment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 17:30

  • "Shocking Video": Masked Man Attempts To Snatch Jewish Child From Father In Brooklyn
    “Shocking Video”: Masked Man Attempts To Snatch Jewish Child From Father In Brooklyn

    A neighborhood patrol organization in Crown Heights, a central neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, posted shocking footage on X showing a masked man attempting to snatch a child from his father while they were walking down the street. 

    “At approximately 3:30 p.m., this deeply concerning incident took place in the heart of Crown Heights. We are working hand in hand with the @NYPD71pct in identifying the perpetrator. Kudos to the father for his quick action,” Crown Heights Shomrim wrote on X. 

    Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, member of Community Board 9 in Crown Heights, NY, wrote on X, “This video is shocking. A perpetrator grabbed a Chasidic child who was walking with his father  today at approximately 3:30 p.m. on Kingston near Lefferts Ave.”

    Behrman warned, “Something is clearly going on in Crown Heights—there have been incident after incident over the past two weeks.” 

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

    Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire chimed in on X, “This happened today in Brooklyn, a masked man tries to grab this boy away from his Jewish father Jews are under attack globally, from Amsterdam to New York to Israel.” 

    Jason Calacanis of the All-In podcast said this disturbing incident in Brooklyn is a sign that Americans should obtain a “carry permit.” 

    Behrman updated X users on Sunday morning: 

    The perpetrator has been arrested, with major charges including attempted kidnapping in the 2nd degree and endangering the welfare of a child.

    Known to police, the perpetrator has allegedly been arrested over 30 times. He is under 30 years old and has also been arrested in past for criminal possession of a weapon.

    What is wrong with our legal system? What is wrong with society? How is this possible?

    Recall that President-elect Trump made a campaign promise to sign “full concealed carry reciprocity” and enforce law and order in crime-infested cities controlled by far-left politicians. 

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

    Make ‘Law And Order Great Again‘ … How about constitutional carry for all law-abiding Americans?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 16:55

  • These Are The Most Valuable Lego Sets In The World
    These Are The Most Valuable Lego Sets In The World

    LEGO has become more than just a children’s brand – many of its sets are now seen as valuable collectibles. In 2023 alone, the company generated $10 billion in revenue, surpassing competitors like Mattel and Hasbro.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, highlights the most valuable LEGO sets today, including both retail and special collector sets.

    The list, compiled by BrickEconomy as of October 2024, shows approximate values, which may vary based on demand.

    $17K Spider-Man

    Topping the list is the Spider-Man minifigure, released at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con and given to raffle winners. With only 350 units made, it’s now valued at over $17,000.

    Another rare set is a custom model of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s house, with only 32 hand-numbered copies produced in 2009. Each is now worth nearly $10,000.

    Third on the list, the UNICEF van was made in 1985 in a partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund. It features a blue UNICEF truck and a UNICEF worker minifigure. It is now worth $10,500.

    For a somewhat more affordable option, the LEGO 375-2 Castle, released in 1978, is available for around $8,700. This 767-piece Castle set, known as the “Yellow Castle,” came with 14 minifigures and was sold only in Europe, the UK, Australia, and Canada.

    If you enjoyed this graphic, check out this comparison of LEGO’s revenue with other major toymakers.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 15:45

  • Learning To Speak Trump, Again
    Learning To Speak Trump, Again

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    Do we have to? Yes, I think we do.

    Market Results

    U.S. stock markets had an incredible week, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both up around 5%, and the Russell 2000 ripping up almost 9%!

    Interestingly, at least from my perspective as an election night bond bull, the 10-year Treasury yield finished 8 bps lower on the week and about 27 bps tighter than its widest levels on Wednesday morning.

    Credit did well too, with CDX IG at 47 bps (the lowest in at least 3 years). But the Bloomberg Corporate Bond OAS stole the show, reaching 74 bps, the lowest level this century!

    Crypto, as a source of funding for candidates and often an early indicator of market views on the election, saw Bitcoin finish the week at all-time highs.

    Election Results

    The Fed likely helped, but the market reaction was primarily due to the election results. As of Saturday morning, according to the Bloomberg Map, President-elect Trump (“Trump” going forward for simplicity), had 301 Electoral College votes compared to 226 for Vice President Harris (“Harris”). Arizona still hasn’t been decided and still only had 81% of votes counted. The popular vote stands at 75 million versus 71 million (though that margin will narrow, assuming California manages to count the 37% of votes not yet counted). I did triple check those “percentage counted” statistics, as it seems (at least for me) difficult to believe that it takes so long.

    The Senate shows up as 53 to 46 for Republicans with Arizona not yet decided (a lot of votes yet to be counted). I see two listed as independents, so I assume they have been slotted into whatever side they will caucus with, but the Senate has gone Republican, though not filibuster proof.

    The House, as of Saturday morning, shows up as 211 versus 200, with a bunch more seats to be decided (with Arizona and California leading the way in undecided races). I’m seeing one site say that the betting odds are at 97% for Republican control, but I cannot tell if that is truly up to date or not, and the link seems sketchy enough that I didn’t include it (but it sounds about right).

    We are starting to see proposed cabinet positions and will get a better sense of what the Trump administration is likely to look like.

    At the risk of annoying people, on both sides, I think there are two things that I can safely say:

    • There is a hope that whatever team is assembled sticks together and authority is delegated to those in charge, so progress can be made.
    • There is a hope that the “best” in terms of policy and negotiation comes out, coupled with a fear that the worst elements could also come out.

    Trying to figure this out is why we need to understand TrumpSpeak.

    Babbel For Trump

    I checked the Babbel website and there are 13 languages that I can learn, but TrumpSpeak isn’t one of them.

    If I was able to train an AI Large Language Model, I’d be trying to train it on TrumpSpeak. The database of things that he has said (and tweeted) has to be pretty large. Then I would try to train that AI to predict what is likely to come out of all of that TrumpSpeak.

    One thing I can say with certainty is that taking TrumpSpeak at face value has rarely been effective. Worse yet is taking the worst parts of TrumpSpeak (and there are some worse parts) and extrapolating them, which might generate a lot of clicks, but it is unlikely to help anyone make good decisions. For those of you in markets and running businesses, making the best decisions possible is what it is all about.

    We will do our best to try to figure out what is likely to occur, but I do think some more background is helpful.

    Two Sides of Trump

    I will never forget Donald Trump speaking at a Bankers Trust High Yield Conference (I think it was before Deutsche Bank, and given the topic, I could probably figure it out, but that’s not overly important to the story).

    He was speaking to a large audience of bond investors, many of whom had recently lost money on one of his Atlantic City casinos (I think it was the Taj, but I could be wrong). The audience, while not hostile, was far from receptive to his discussion – which, of course, focused on raising debt for his new project in Atlantic City (the Taj II if memory serves correctly). Yet, by the end, there was a buzz in the audience, all wanting to get a good allocation when the new bonds came out. Even after his lawyer/accountant, came out and “corrected” some things and said some other things that might not have been 100% correct, there was still a buzz. So, from my perspective, don’t underestimate his ability to charm a room, and even if not everything said is accurate, that room can remain charmed. You can argue that this shouldn’t be the case, but I think if we are going to figure out TrumpSpeak together, this should always be at the back of our minds, if not the forefront.

    On the other side (assuming that the above reminiscence is a positive about Trump), his business organization looks very different (in my opinion) compared to other large organizations. The various businesses are compartmentalized. Unless things have changed, there isn’t a Golf Course Corp that manages all the golf courses. Properties and businesses stand as individual entities or maybe in small groups. There is also no one who stands out as his “trusted lieutenant.” So many business leaders rely on often a handful of people for advice and help. We all know when “so and so” gets promoted or goes to another firm, who they are going to bring with them. Yet Trump never seemed to have that cadre of trusted people who have important and visible roles in his dealings (he likely has some people that are in his inner circle, but they don’t seem to be well known, which after 8 years in politics seems surprising). So, a concern I had was his ability to delegate, which I think hampered his first term, as turnover was high, and a lot of roles were left vacant. Quite frankly, during this campaign, many people plugged into the campaign told me that several people recommended that he tone down some of his rhetoric and choice of words. He didn’t listen. He still won.

    So, as I try to think about TrumpSpeak, I think of someone who can surprise people by getting them to agree with him, but who might not like delegation and having others share in the success.

    You are free to disagree with that, but in my building blocks of thinking about TrumpSpeak, I go back to these “first principles” consistently, and it served me quite well the first time he was president.

    Tariffs Are Complex

    Let’s start with the topic of tariffs as it has garnered so much attention and seems less sensitive than immigration. I also think that if we start with tariffs, it might help us with TrumpSpeak.

    I remember writing a lot about Trade Wars and Tariffs back in the day. I think it may have been before we regularly used our website as all I could find from 2018 was The Battle for IP & Unfair Trade and Time to Price In a Trade War Victory.

    I do remember that I was one of only a few economists/strategists who supported tariffs. I argued that we had been in a trade war for decades, but only one side was firing the shots.

    2018 was a long time ago, but I remember the back and forth with some economists/strategists who were adamantly against tariffs. In fact, some of the most outspoken people right now were part of that same group. Few, if any, bothered to complain that President Biden left them all in place, and then added some more. I’d be far more worried that the angst is valid, if it didn’t feel like history was repeating itself.

    On Friday, I did get to bring up some thoughts on tariffs and protectionist countries in a segment that Bloomberg titled Tchir Says The Gloves Are Coming Off With China. I suspect this is a topic I will cover on Monday (Veteran’s Day) with Charles Payne on Fox Business.

    Tariffs are complex!

    Before worrying about 100% or 200% or whatever number is being bandied about, let’s just stop for one second on the complexity of tariffs and international trade.

    Assembled in America (or USA Assembled). I assume that means something more than just being able to use it as a marketing slogan. That somehow “assembling” here has some impact on tariffs or tax or something. On the glasses, which I like a lot, the assembly is probably a little bit more difficult to do than assembling a Lego kit geared for 6-year-olds, but not by much (I have put the glasses back together after breaking them). I’d guess that the value of the components is about 90% of the value of the product and assembly is 10%. On the golf club, I can only imagine a carton of golf club heads and a carton of shafts being assembled in about 1.5 seconds! Total, not each . But seriously, it is probably more efficient to ship them that way, but why use the sticker “assembled in America?” On this particular product, I vaguely remember reading that it isn’t just for marketing, and it impacted the duty owed.

    The above all seems a bit bizarre to me but should be a reminder that international trade is complex and lawyers (as they are apt to do) have built in so many loopholes that you can take very little at face value (who knew the 2018 tariffs would create a surge in Chinese facilities in Mexico?).

    We still need to think about tariffs, but as we wade deeper into the discussion, let’s at least be cautious in thinking it is easy to implement tariffs holistically in a way that loopholes aren’t readily available.

    Tariffs Are Likely A Negotiating Stance

    I’m old enough to remember, back in 2018, when markets would move on trade negotiation headlines. It isn’t like we woke up one day and suddenly tariffs appeared.

    While I completely believe Trump is willing to impose significantly large and new tariffs, I don’t think that will be the starting point. Having said that, if I didn’t think he would impose those tariffs, then it wouldn’t be much of a bargaining chip, so he has to convince me, you, and everyone else that the threat is real. Since he has done it before, the threat carries real weight.

    So, I fully expect negotiations to begin in earnest once he takes office (and maybe even before). Trump “likes wins” (another thing I take into account in TrumpSpeak) and it is unclear that levying tariffs, especially if they don’t elicit some form of capitulation from China, constitutes a win.

    On the other hand, threatening tariffs and getting China to give us some sort of a “deal” to avoid them can easily be spun as a win, and leaves the tariff threat good for another day. The “Art of the Deal” was a popular book (I think) back in the 1980’s. Trump likes to “win” and he likes “deals,” both of which point me to using the threat of tariffs to get some concessions from China.

    I am scared of the tariffs – but not for the reason everyone else is.

    I mostly fear that “we” will agree to a deal that seems like a “win” but really just gives Xi more time to get the Made By China strategy working well enough that China’s economy can get back to a path that is good for China and the CCP. 2025 was likely a bit ambitious for some of China’s targets, but they have been making a lot of progress towards their stated goals on many fronts, like manufacturing and technology. A deal that gives them more time to build out, with less pressure than they currently face, could prove very detrimental to our interests longer-term, while sounding good in the short-term.

    So, I do not lie awake at night worrying about tariffs stoking inflation to unreasonable levels. I do worry that we won’t press our current advantages enough, giving China time to perfect its strategy.

    I do agree with those who argue that tariffs alone won’t do much to boost domestic production. Yes, in theory, it will make foreign (Chinese goods) more expensive here, but will the cost be high enough to ramp up domestic production, or will the costs just shift along the existing supply and consumer chain, rather than create a revised, domestic-focused supply chain?
    Carefully executed tariffs, that can shift the cost structure enough that domestic production wins out, would be really interesting to see, but might be very difficult to achieve, at least without some sort of additional support.

    Which Brings Us to Chips

    Let’s start with this article from Politico (which leans left according to an AllSides Media Bias Chart). It states that for the CHIPS Act, only one deal, totaling $123 million, out of a total of $33 billion announced, has been finalized!

    I am fully in favor of developing a domestic foundry business (along with more extraction and processing of rare earths and critical minerals). It seems critical to national and corporate security to have a reliable supply chain of domestically manufactured chips, right up to the most state-of-the-art chips being made.

    Not only do I fully support the idea of building out foundries, but I also think that with or without tariffs, we will need to create incentives and subsidies to speed up the re-shoring of crucial industries.

    So why isn’t the CHIPS Act working well? On the bright side, availability of credit from traditional sources is high and inexpensive, so companies don’t need as much. But we’ve discussed that the Act itself tried to incorporate too many “features.” It didn’t just “help establish foundries,” it “helped establish foundries that meet a lot of additional, often complex, and sometimes very difficult to achieve metrics.” They don’t even sound like the same thing because they aren’t.

    From the Politico article:

    “The Biden administration is trying to balance business-world speed with a web of political and policy priorities, seemingly leaving none of the participants happy.”

    There is a push now to close as many deals as possible while the current administration remains in power. I think that makes sense, as not only do I view chip production as a key element of national security, but I also think the jobs that come with it will allow us to truly re-establish a middle to upper income class of workers. I do hope they finalize some deals as I think this is an area that deserves investment, and so far, TrumpSpeak hasn’t focused on this area, at least not as positively as I’d like it to.

    The chip industry, the logistics of supporting it (including water, rare earths/critical minerals, and energy) are all at the top of my investment list for stocks and bonds (while valuations in some sectors seem very stretched, there are immense opportunities here).

    Which Brings Us to Not In My Backyard

    If we are going to do a CHIPS Act, it would be more effective if we simply focused on the stated goal of developing foundries in the U.S. rather than trying to wedge a lot of other policies into the CHIPS Act. Making a competitive domestic chip manufacturing industry is difficult enough without attaching a lot of bells and whistles. Bells and whistles we may want (and even need), but should be handled in their own right, not haphazardly attached to other projects (if they weren’t haphazardly attached, I suspect we’d have more than one deal finalized).

    As a whole, the nation, over time, has established a lot of “dos and don’ts.” We have made commitments to not do things, for a variety of reasons. Often environmental.

    Those decisions were made when we had no real competition globally.

    • From an economic standpoint, we were far ahead of everyone. The European Union, which in theory should have thrived, hasn’t emerged as a powerful economic block (in fact, the EU seems, at least to me, to have hampered much of the entrepreneurial and business side of things through a “robust” list of regulations and rules). China was making some goods, largely for us, but didn’t really have their own brands and hadn’t fully embraced the Belt and Road Initiative giving them global economic influence.
    • From a military standpoint, the Soviet Union collapsed, China could not project power via a strong navy, and the rest of the world seemed very weak against a military that had a global presence and had consistently defeated its enemies, often with what seemed like ease.

    I am not arguing that we should abandon all the protections we put in place, but I do think we need to re-evaluate many of them as the world has changed and we may no longer have the luxury to do everything we said we would or wouldn’t do.
    The Keystone pipeline comes to mind (only because it seemed so close to getting done).

    But more importantly, chips, rare earths, critical minerals, refineries, etc., are all likely to be crucial to our success and we may need to figure out why they aren’t getting done or built, and if there is something we can do about that. In case I’m sounding like I’m preaching from a soapbox and have some moral high ground, I’m perfectly capable of being hypocritical and fighting a cell phone tower my town plans to build – hypothetically that is .

    Seriously, there are no easy answers, but we made a lot of decisions over the past few decades, where the competitive landscape has changed, and we should at least think about re-evaluating some things in the new world we face.

    The War in Russia and Ukraine

    Wow, I’ve gone on so long already, and despite having more to say, we will end this by examining the TrumpSpeak of ending the war in Ukraine.

    I think there is a very good opportunity to end the war.

    • I have the privilege of participating in many discussions with members of Academy’s Geopolitical Intelligence Group (“GIG”). The war in Ukraine comes up over and over again (as you would expect). The problem, as I see it, is that most of our experts seem to be forming a consensus around the status quo.
      • We can get more weapons into the hands of the Ukrainians, and give them more flexibility to use those weapons to their fullest capabilities, but how many more fighters can Ukraine come up with? How long can this go on and still allow displaced Ukrainians to return home?
      • The Russians, while often ineffective, and getting out-strategized by Ukraine, have more able bodies to put into the conflict. While their weaponry might not be very sophisticated, working at a wartime production level has given them a lot of mediocre weapons. As many of our GIG members state – quantity has a quality of its own. With Iran’s help – both directly and by diverting attention to the Middle East, and with North Korea’s help – first with equipment and now with some troops, the Russians are likely able to keep up this pace longer than Ukraine can, without really “winning.”
    • If that is the “status quo,” where neither side can really “win,” why not come to some form of peace?

    My take on TrumpSpeak related to this subject, once again, varies from much of what I see or hear in the media. There is a lot of concern that since the Republicans and Trump have not been supportive of weapons, they will somehow cut off the supply and demand peace. That is possible, but I don’t think it fits with TrumpSpeak very well. I see it playing out more like this:

    • Trump tells Putin – here is what you get – Crimea (which they’ve had now for a long time), some of the Donbas region (which they’ve also had for quite some time), and a bunch (but not all) of your frozen dollar reserves. You, Putin, will accept a path towards Ukraine achieving NATO status (though he might tell him that he doubts Ukraine will achieve the level of governance needed to achieve that). It does fit TrumpSpeak for him to do that. But he will warn Putin that not accepting this deal will force his hand to give Ukraine better equipment, training, and free them up to unleash it, since he will be very disappointed that Putin couldn’t see the value in the deal. And he finishes by reminding him of how much difficulty they are already having in the war, so just imagine how bad it will be for you if I have to really support the Ukrainians.
    • Trump tells Zelensky – you aren’t going to win this, and we are tired of supporting you. Let’s be honest, the part of the country I’m telling you to give up was always more Russian than Ukrainian (my presumption of TrumpSpeak). Listen, you have a lot to be proud of. People who had never heard of Ukraine now have, and respect you and your valor! You fought hard, now is the time to keep what is really Ukrainian and we will give you a bunch of $$$ to rebuild. We aren’t going to let Putin get back all of his money. There is a price he has to pay. So, you have world recognition, all the land that is obviously Ukrainian, and a bag of cash to rebuild! Just imagine the buildings you can have with all that money! (TrumpSpeak again). And, to make it sweeter, so it doesn’t happen again, we will create a path for you to join NATO. You will have some work to do to get there, but you can bring your great nation there. Sadly, if you can’t see the sensibility of all of this, and end the suffering of your people, I cannot commit to more weapons going forward. We’ve done a lot, and it is time for the U.S. to step back.

    So, I see it more as stopping a playground fight (though I don’t mean to diminish the deaths and brutality) by telling both sides what they already know to be true and using a mix of rewards and threats.

    I don’t see why that cannot be done and I don’t think it is at all contradictory to the TrumpSpeak we’ve heard.

    If Not Economic Growth, Much Less Risk of a Recession

    I am not sure I’m fully on board with the idea that the markets are moving a lot higher because of significantly improved growth prospects. It is possible, and I think there are a lot of potential positives, but that might be the market getting ahead of itself.
    What I can argue vehemently for is that the risk of a meaningful economic slowdown in the next year or two has been dramatically reduced:

    • The Fed wants to get to the “neutral rate” and whatever it is, they think it is lower than where monetary policy is set today.
    • The Republicans might not give Trump everything he wants (and we don’t even know what he really wants) but they certainly will be quick to react to slowdowns with fiscal stimulus since they look likely to control what they need to accomplish that.

    I think bigger projects might come to fruition, but the first 100 days is likely to be less overwhelming than the market seems to expect (the bond market has regained some of its sense in that respect). The new administration will want to get some big things done while they control everything, but that will likely take time.

    I’m also in the camp, that while a mandate was given to the Republicans, many will be cautious on how to use it, as Trump will not be standing for re-election (unless you believe some of the more aggressive conspiracy theories).

    In the meantime, we will all figure this out, and please take time to remember and thank veterans on Veterans Day. I’m very proud to work with the team at Academy and have learned a lot about what it takes to be a veteran and to have served! I have not served but I can thank my teammates and hope that we can continue to flourish and do our part to hire and train more veterans.

    I can also point you to In Flanders Fields, which I think is a poignant and inspirational poem and appropriate for the day!

    My apologies if I offended anyone, but I’m trying to explain how I think about this, and in any case, figuring out how to think about a lot of issues, and getting that analysis correct, will be a key component of success for you, your companies, and your investments.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 15:10

  • Trump 'Sweep' Boosts Crypto: Bitcoin Tops $80K, Ethereum Bigger Than BofA
    Trump ‘Sweep’ Boosts Crypto: Bitcoin Tops $80K, Ethereum Bigger Than BofA

    The Republican sweep is the best outcome for digital assets, bringing regulatory and other changes, with Standard Chartered projecting this to drive total crypto market cap to USD 10tn by end-2026 from USD 2.5tn now.

    Specifically, StanChart expects the new administration to follow through on the Trump campaign’s proactively positive stance towards digital assets. Furthermore, any changes are likely to come relatively early in the administration to take advantage of Republican control of Congress before the midterm elections in November 2026. We expect the following specific developments:

    1. Repeal of SAB 121. SAB 121, an SEC guidance document on digital assets, requires entities that act as custodians for crypto assets to list the assets on their balance sheets and create a corresponding liability of equal value. In effect, this blocks US banks from crypto custody and spot offerings. The removal of SAB 121 is expected to pave the way for further adoption of digital assets by institutional investors.

    2. Passage of stablecoin bills. Stablecoins are becoming an important real-world use case for digital assets. Three significant bills aiming to create guardrails for banks to issue stablecoins were brought to the House over the past 12 months, but little progress was made. More progress on this is likely under the Trump administration in early 2025. This should pave the way for the expansion of this use case, further validating the asset class as a whole.

    3. Changes at the SEC. The SEC has taken a firm stance against digital assets under current Chairman Gary Gensler. It has brought court cases against Ripple (wherein it suggested that the majority of digital assets are securities) and Grayscale; it was also initially slow to approve spot ETFs. Trump explicitly stated during his campaign that he would replace Gensler.

    4. Potential for a Bitcoin reserve fund. Although this is currently a low-probability event, Trump mentioned in July that he would keep any Bitcoin held by the government (210,000 BTCs at the time), so it needs to be kept in mind. Such a move would have a large price-positive impact on such a small asset class.

    The U.S. president-elect made cryptocurrency a key part of his campaign this year, promising to protect and boost the industry in America and end the SEC’s crypto crackdown.

    Trump had also proposed to develop a strategic Bitcoin reserve and appointing pro-crypto regulators. 

    Bitcoin topped $80,000 for the first time in history overnight, now up over $10,000 since the election night blowout by Trump.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bitcoin ETFs have seen massive inflows in the days since the election…

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    As Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick points out, the 80k level is the first large open interest level for BTC calls for the 27 Dec expiry: open interest of 8110 BTC, as per this chart from Deribit:

    There is also open interest of 5851 BTC at the 29 Nov expiry, as per this chart (again the 80k level):

    Beyond 80k these charts show large open interest at 90k, of 4584 BTC for 29 Nov and 6833 BTC for 27 Dec. For the psychological 100k level, the 27 Dec expiry has a large 9461 BTC in open interest.

    Kendrick’s forecast also fits with the lagged response to the recent surge in global money supply…

    Given current momentum post-election, Kendrick thinks this means 90k becomes the next target, easily achievable ahead of 29 Nov. And then 100k, easily achievable ahead of 27 December. 125k which I forecast for the end of the year is the next level, although I note following the 2016 election a lot of Trump trades peaked around the time of the 20 Jan inauguration (see USD-MXN chart for example).

    So if BTC can’t reach 125k by 31 Dec I think it will by 20 Jan. The only other relevant date is 10 December, which is when the Microsoft board is due to vote on whether they will invest in BTC (let’s call that a low probability yes, high impact yes, if they voted to go ahead).

    Crypto Rover, for instance, cited Bitcoin’s tendency to establish record highs “50-60 days after the US elections,” noting that the price could reach $100,000 by January 20245 if the fractal plays out as intended.

    Source: Crypto Rover

    “In the last few days 60,000 BTC were bought by retail investors, 1800 BTC was bought by BlackRock, at the same time only 450 Bitcoin are mined each day and only two million BTC are available to buy on exchanges,” argued analyst Doctor Profit, adding:

    “If we continue in this speed we will reach $100,000 by end of year.”

    Medium term, Kendrick thinks what we have seen over the past few days continues with BTC to 200k and ETH to 10k by year-end 2025.

    Further out, Bitcoin analyst PlanB’s stock-to-flow model now projects a $500,000 price target for the asset within the next four-year cycle based on the model’s historical data and pattern.

    PlanB pointed to Trump’s proposal to create a national BTC reserve as a potential driver for demand, suggesting it could add “200,000 BTCs per year” in buying pressure.

    “If history is any guide, if the stock-to-flow model is any guide, then we’ll see sharp price increases from here,” the analyst said.

    The stock-to-flow model, which assesses Bitcoin’s value based on its limited supply and scheduled halvings, suggests substantial price growth after each halving event.

    While the analyst anticipates BTC price reaching $500,000 in this cycle, he notes a wide variance between $250,000 and $1,000,000 per BTC.

    It’s not just bitcoin, Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, topped $3200 – its highest since August –  pushing its market cap to around $383 billion (roughly $40 billion above Bank of America’s market cap).

    ETH has witnessed its greatest weekly price action since May even as, over the last seven days, ETH supply has been quickly increasing, at an inflationary rate of 0.424% a year – previously deflationary in early-to-mid October.

    According to Ultrasound.money data, the current yearly ETH burn rate sits at 452,000 ETH, while the issuance rate is more than double that at 957,000 ETH, resulting in an annual supply increase of 0.42%.

    Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, introduced the concept of “info finance” on Nov. 9.

    Buterin explained that info finance is “a discipline” that begins with “a fact that you want to know” and ends with a market that “optimally” elicits that information from market participants.

    The ETH co-founder advocated for prediction markets to collect insights from the community about future events in a way that offers public expectation without media sensationalism or influence.

    Finally, as BitcoinMagazine.com reports, historical price analysis suggests that Bitcoin’s current trajectory is strikingly similar to previous cycles. From its lows, Bitcoin usually takes around 24-26 months to break past previous highs. In the last cycle, it took 26 months; in this cycle, Bitcoin’s price is on a similar upward trajectory after 24 months. Bitcoin has historically peaked about 35 months after its lows. If this pattern holds, we may see significant price increases through October 2025, after which another bear market could set in.

    Following the anticipated peak, history suggests Bitcoin would enter a bear phase in 2026, lasting roughly one year until the next cycle begins anew. These patterns aren’t a guarantee but provide a roadmap that Bitcoin has adhered to in previous cycles. They offer a potential framework for investors to anticipate and adapt to the market.

    Similar timeframes for new highs, cycle peaks, and lows over the previous cycles.

    Despite challenges, Bitcoin’s four-year cycle has endured, largely due to its supply schedule, global liquidity, and investor psychology. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 14:35

  • The Great Freight Recession Is Officially Over
    The Great Freight Recession Is Officially Over

    By Craig Fuller of FreightWaves

    I’ve been closely following the freight market, and it’s clear that the Great Freight Recession has ended. After the most prolonged freight recession in history, the market has been showing signs of recovery over the past few months. This shift is backed by SONAR data, confirming a market turnaround.

    Tender rejections rising: The increase in tender rejections to over 6% signals that the market is tightening. After seeing rejections dip to 3.4% post-Labor Day last year, this change indicates that carriers now have more control in choosing which loads they accept, thus shifting market dynamics in their favor.

    Spot rates increasing: Spot rates are also climbing, surpassing those of 2022 and 2023, which tells me there’s either a surge in demand or a decrease in available capacity, possibly both. This could catch many expecting the low rates to persist off guard. Truckload rates are up to $1.78 from $1.54 a year ago.  

    Carrier revenge could be coming next year: “Carrier revenge” implies that carriers, after a period of low rates and high competition, might leverage their position to negotiate better rates or reject tenders more selectively in the coming months, affecting shippers’ logistics strategies, especially routing guides.

    Decreasing capacity: Speaking of capacity, the upcoming implementation of the FMCSA’s Clearinghouse-II regulations on Nov. 18, 2024, will have a significant impact. Trucking expert Adam Wingfield stated that 177,000 truck drivers could potentially lose their CDLs, further tightening the market as state agencies need to query the Clearinghouse for any licensing actions. 

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    This regulation requires:

    • State Driver Licensing Agencies (SDLAs) to remove the commercial driving privileges of drivers in a “prohibited” status in the Clearinghouse. This action will result in a downgrade of the Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) until the driver completes the return-to-duty (RTD) process.
    • SDLAs must query the Clearinghouse before issuing, renewing, upgrading, or transferring CDLs and Commercial Learner’s Permits (CLPs). This step ensures that drivers with unresolved drug or alcohol violations are not allowed to operate commercial motor vehicles.

    Political influence: Trump’s election could accelerate freight demand as policy changes could stimulate economic activity, increasing the need for freight services. This includes income and corporate tax cuts, bonus depreciation, pre-stocking for tariffs, investment in domestic manufacturing and the change in freight dynamics from containers to surface (trucking, rail and domestic warehousing).   

    Immigration deportation: According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 20% of truck driver employees are immigrants. While many of these are legal immigrants into the U.S., there are numerous reports of drivers using international driver’s licenses and fake documents to drive in the U.S. 

    It is hard to know the percentage here, as the data is sparse (after all, the undocumented workers would not admit it). Having been around the industry, any opportunity to game the system will undoubtedly be used. Are undocumented workers 1% of the population of immigrants or 10%? 

    I don’t know, but if Trump follows through with his threats of deportations, this could remove some percentage of the trucking industry’s excess capacity and make it harder for carriers that skirt the law to stay in business. 

    Current sentiment: Following a decisive election, I believe the freight market is recovering and might exceed expectations over the next year. 

    Don’t rely on lagging data: The current conditions in the freight market have been debated extensively, but with the volatility of freight, it is imperative to make decisions based on the freshest and most accurate data. This can only be accomplished with high-frequency data that offers real-time insights into market direction. SONAR’s high-frequency data is refreshed data and offers real-time supply and demand metrics with the most accurate spot and contract data in freight. 

    This scenario points towards a robust recovery in the freight market, potentially leading to higher freight rates, a shift in power dynamics between shippers and carriers, and an overall more vibrant market environment. 

    Shippers are advised to prepare for these changes by locking in rates or diversifying their carrier base to mitigate risks associated with routing guide breakdowns. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 14:00

  • Liberal Cat Ladies Reveal "Battle Plan" To Poison Trump Men With Aqua Tofana
    Liberal Cat Ladies Reveal “Battle Plan” To Poison Trump Men With Aqua Tofana

    Educated white liberal women appear to have lost their goddamn minds after the presidential election. Many have posted videos of uncontrollable emotional outbursts over a Trump victory…

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    … with some even threatening to adopt pro-life stances as a form of retaliation against men.

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    Others have made what appears to be terroristic threats, suggesting at the use of strong poison against men because they voted for the evil ‘Orange Man.’ 

    Internet searches for Aqua Tofana—a potent poison created in Sicily around 1630 by a woman named Giulia Tofana, or Tofania, and historically used by women to free themselves from relationships by killing men—spiked shortly after the election results.

    Searches for “Aqua Tofana recipe” surged. 

    And how to make the poison. 

    The first search result on Google for “Aqua Tofana recipe” came up with a video on the Chinese social media platform TikTok. 

    Clicking on the link unveiled many creepy women pushing Aqua Tofana propaganda. 

    “Melania Trump making some Aqua Tofana from scratch before she reunites with her husband,” one video stated.

    What in the actual… 

    X user I Meme Therefore I Am noted, “HOLY SH*T, Karens lost their fvcking minds over Trump’s win and launched MATGA—short for Make Aqua Tofana Great Again.” 

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    More unhinged liberal women are pushing Aqua Tofana propaganda after the elections.

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    Here’s what X users are saying:

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    Great job, Obama, Alex Soros, and MSM… 

    What in the actual f…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 13:25

  • Now Germany Has A Green Electricity Outage With Huge Consequences
    Now Germany Has A Green Electricity Outage With Huge Consequences

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    No sun. No wind. Hello Germany, care to rethink your Green New Deal?

    A Huge Green Outage

    Welt Business (translated from German, paywalled) reports Now Germany is experiencing a green electricity outage – with huge consequences

    “The foggy weather of the last few days has brought green electricity production to a virtual standstill. Not only have particularly climate-damaging power plants been brought into operation as a replacement for wind and solar power, but prices have also exploded. And all of this seems to be just a foretaste of winter.”

    Dark Doldrums

    H/T @hendrikotten3 @JulienReszka @cristoforestman @MichaelAArouet @hagentc

    The Green Old Scare

    The common sense approach is to replace coal with nuclear and natural gas.

    Since we are decades behind on nuclear because of the “Green Old Scare”, the sensible option is to phase out coal for natural gas and then nuclear because of the lead times in building a nuclear plant.

    Instead, Germany, with thanks to an idiotic decision dating to Chancellor Angela Merkel, chose to get rid of nuclear with no viable alternative.

    When that failed, Germany had needed to import energy from France but also neighboring countries that produced energy with coal, and the dirtiest coal at that.

    How stupid can you get?

    Greens Trounced in Elections

    Greens were hammered in the European Parliament elections, in French elections, and in three German state elections.

    But did that change the policies of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden?

    Of course not!

    Von Der Leyen Affirms Europe’s Leadership in Green Hydrogen Amid US Delays

    Please note Von Der Leyen Affirms Europe’s Leadership in Green Hydrogen Amid US Delays

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in her speech at the Fourth Edition of the Renewable Hydrogen Summit, outlined Europe’s significant strides and continued leadership in the renewable hydrogen sector, contrasting sharply with the slower pace of progress in the United States.

    Addressing a virtual audience, von der Leyen highlighted that over the past year, Europe has finalized investment decisions on more than 2 gigawatts of renewable hydrogen projects—a substantial increase that quadruples the current installed capacity.

    The REPowerEU plan aims to produce 10 million tons of renewable hydrogen by 2030, supported by legislative mandates that require significant portions of hydrogen used in industry and transport to be renewable by the end of the decade. These targets are not merely aspirational but are binding, with Member States required to incorporate them into national law by May 2025.

    More Green New Idiocy

    That’s more Green New Idiocy from Von der Leydon who arrogantly assumes votes don’t matter.

    July 7: France is Now Ungovernable Following a Pyrrhic Victory for the Left-Green Alliance

    France is Now Ungovernable

    By refusing to cooperate with the Right, Macron instead has to cooperate with a Far Left plurality described above including Green policy that spawned the Yellow-Vest Protests that rocked Macron for months.

    September 1: Far Right to Win First German State Election Since WWII

    I am pleased to report the Greens crashed out in Thuringia, losing every seat.

    In Saxony, the Greens managed 5.1 percent of the vote, barely meeting the 5.0 percent threshold, but lost 5 seats in parliament, dropping from 12 to 7.

    September 22: SPD Barely Hangs On, Greens Crash in Brandenburg Germany State Election

    In Brandenburg, the outgoing government narrowly lost its majority as the Greens collapsed and fell short of the 5% electoral threshold, losing all their seats.

    It was nearly a total boot of the Greens in three state elections, but as they say, “two out of three ain’t bad.”

    German Polls

    Hoot of the Day

    The ruling 3-way Traffic Light coalition is down to a combined 35 percent and FDP at 4.5 percent would be booted. So, call it 30 percent. Some coalition!

    However, the only thing an election will do is shift the power from one very unstable coalition to another very unstable coalition.

    The German Government Collapses, Chancellor Scholz Fired his Finance Minister

    Please note my November 7 post, The German Government Collapses, Chancellor Scholz Fired his Finance Minister

    The Traffic Light Coalition finally blew up. What’s ahead?

    Unlike most in the US, I follow what’s going on in Europe, and it isn’t pretty to say the least.

    All of the parties rule out an alliance with AfD and BSW. Combined, that is about 26 percent of the total.

    The last Grand Coalition (SPD and Union) nearly collapsed and this go around a “grand” coalition might not even have a majority. Note: Union is CDU/CSU.

    The German and French governments are both nonfunctional. Neither county has experienced this before.

    Meanwhile, back in the US …

    Please consider Why Trump Won the Election in One Clear Picture

    Voters are angry everywhere, for obvious reasons, but few can figure out why.

    The Brookings Institute Wonders Why Consumer Sentiment is So Bad, I Can Help

    On November 5, I wrote The Brookings Institute Wonders Why Consumer Sentiment is So Bad, I Can Help

    Dear Ursula

    I can hardly wait until Greens and SPD are decimated in the next German Federal election. And we won’t have to wait long.

    Best of all, Green New Stupidly will fly out the window when a mass of European countries tell the commission president to go to hell.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 12:50

  • "100% I'm On It": Don Jr. Tells Dave Smith He'll Block "Neocons And War Hawks" From Administration
    “100% I’m On It”: Don Jr. Tells Dave Smith He’ll Block “Neocons And War Hawks” From Administration

    Update (1128ET): With all eyes now on Mike Rogers, who’s been floated to lead Trump’s DoD…

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    Donald Trump Jr. told comedian Dave Smith on Sunday “I’m on it” in response to keeping “all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration.”

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    So about Mike Rogers, Don…

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    The new conservative era is off to a good start and so far it appears that Trump Admin 2.0 is not messing around.  Perhaps the biggest complaint about the 2016 Trump Administration was how quickly a nest of Neo-Con swamp creatures slithered their way into his cabinet.  In interviews with podcasters like Joe Rogan, Trump would later regret his reliance on establishment GOP advisers who helped him to fill the thousands of cabinet positions required for a presidential transition. 

    It was this same cabal of advisers that would help to sabotage his efforts to institute federal reforms, secure the border, clear out corruption and ultimately some of them tried to help the Democrats destroy him.  As the saying goes, in a revolution always be sure to save a magazine for your so-called “allies”.  

    By some miracle Donald Trump has received a second chance to make things right and it looks as though he learned some valuable lessons from the internal sabotage that took place during his first term.  There’s little chance we will be seeing ghouls like John Bolton, Anthony Fauci or Mike Pence haunting the halls of the White House in 2025.  In fact, Trump recently put swirling rumors to rest that he might be including Neo-Cons like Mike Pompeo and NIkki Haley in his newest administration. 

    He made the announcement on November 9th on his Truth Social account, rejecting any notions that they would be working with him for his second term.

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    “I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” Trump posted on social media. “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our country.”

    It’s a surprisingly cordial message that sets a much needed standard. 

    This is welcome news for a lot of conservatives and independents looking for a true break from the Deep State and a fresh start for America.  The announcement helps to put to rest public concerns that the policies Trump campaigned on would be diluted by establishment cronies the moment he entered the Oval Office.  For those unaware, Pompeo has a nasty reputation as an anti-liberty bureaucrat and a warhawk.  To illustrate the Pompeo problem, Tucker Carlson relates his own encounter with the office of the former CIA Director and Secretary of State:

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    To be sure, Pompeo plays the game and says what conservatives want to hear when it’s necessary, and his policies tend to run concurrent to his predecessors, but that’s the issue; the old Neo-Con guard is a dinosaur that needs to go.  Republican strategist Roger Stone issued a stark warning to President-elect Donald Trump on Friday: Trump should not trust the former cabinet member. 

    “Now that Trump is back on top, it becomes far more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff,” Stone wrote on his website.  Stone went on to single out Pompeo and Trump’s former UN ambassador—and onetime 2024 Republican rival—Nikki Haley. 

    These “neocons have positioned themselves to get highly influential roles within the second Trump administration,” Stone wrote, “and this sinister fifth column has the potential to be more harmful to Trump’s America First agenda than his leftist opinion within the Democrat Party.”

    Some may recall that Nikki Haley was thoroughly raked over the coals by Vivek Ramaswamy for her neo-con tendencies during the Republican Primaries.

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    These are not the kinds of people that should be allowed anywhere near the next Trump presidency.  Luckily, the voices of reason have the floor this time and Trump seems to be listening. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 12:28

  • FEC Filings Show Kamala Harris Team Blew Funds On Hollywood Stars, Private Jets
    FEC Filings Show Kamala Harris Team Blew Funds On Hollywood Stars, Private Jets

    Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, advised by leftist political strategists, spent a billion dollars centered around labeling former President Trump and a majority of Americans as ‘Hitler’ and ‘Nazis.’ They poured millions into far-left Hollywood stars, elaborate concerts, and private jet travel, yet still ended up $20 million in debt—and got defeated in one of the most historic general election wins in a generation. 

    X user Autism Capital cited a new report of Federal Election Commission filings that shows the Harris team’s spending trends between August 2023 and October 2024. The data is broken down into monthly spending totals, the top 20 recipients, a distribution of disbursement sizes, spending by type of media, temporal patterns, and trends. 

    Autism Capital said, “List of the top 500 disbursement recipients from the Kamala campaign. Enjoy, Internet.”

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    2024, TOP 500 Disbursement Recipients

    Monthly Spending Totals for ‘MEDIA’ Related Disbursements (Chronological Order)

    Top 20 ‘MEDIA’ Related Spend Recipients by Total Amount

    X users are already having fun with this FEC data… 

    Oprah Winfrey = Harpo Production.

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    Distribution of Disbursement Sizes

    Spending by Type of Media Service

    More spending trends from the now defunct campaign…

    Harris for President Media-Related Disbursements (partial list)

     … full report found here: Harris for President Media-Related Disbursements

    Can you spot the difference in campaign spending between the Trump and Harris teams? 

    TRUMP CAMPAIGN:

    • $381.54 million in donations
    • $354.42 million spent
    • $10.4 million for staff 

    HARRIS CAMPAIGN:

    • $1.033 billion in donations
    • $1.37 billion spent
    • $582.53 million on staff

    Despite Harris’ out-of-control spending, Trump won 312 electoral votes.

    And the entire country shifted towards Trump. 

    Just wow. 

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    In a recent interview on Fox News, DNC Finance Committee member Lindy Li called the Harris campaign:

    “The truth is this is just an epic disaster, this is a $1 billion disaster. They’re $20 million or $18 million in debt. It’s incredible, and I raised millions of that. I have friends I have to be accountable to and to explain what happened because I told them it was a margin of error race.“

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    Meanwhile, Trump pledged support to help pay off Harris’ campaign debts…

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    Perhaps the Democratic Party’s move to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the party was a terrible strategy. 

    Great job, Barack Hussein Obama. You made a fool of yourself. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 12:15

  • Indoctri-Nation
    Indoctri-Nation

    Authored by Larry Sand via American Greatness,

    An essential mission for many educators throughout the country is the indoctrination of their students. The newest arrival on the propaganda front is Israel. In August, one of the topics of a United Teachers of Los Angeles meeting was “How to be a teacher & an organizer. . . and NOT get fired.”

    History teacher Ron Gochez elaborated on stealth methods for indoctrinating his students. He talked about transporting busloads of kids to an anti-Israel rally—during the school day—without arousing suspicion.

    “A lot of us that have been to those [protest] actions have brought our students. Now, I don’t take the students in my personal car,” Gochez told the crowd. Then, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District, he explained: “I have members of our organization who are not LAUSD employees. They take those students and I just happen to be at the same place and the same time with them.”

    Gochez further explained, “It’s like tomorrow I go to church, and some of my students are at the church. ‘Oh, wow! Hey, how you doing?’ We just happen to be at the same place at the same time, and look! We just happen to be at a pro-Palestine action, same place, same time.”

    The unionistas then burst into approving laughter.

    John Adams Middle School teacher and UTLA panelist William Shattuc agreed. Wearing a keffiyeh around his neck, he said, “We know that good history education is political education. And when we are coming up against political movements, like the movement for Zionism, that we disagree with, that we’re in conflict with—they [Zionists] have their own form of political education and they employ their own tools of censorship.”

    Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona, ethnic studies teacher at Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in Los Angeles, who received a National Education Association Foundation Award for excellence in teaching, insists that the course she teaches, and whose curriculum she helped develop—ethnic studies—is fundamentally incompatible with supporting Israel. “Are you pro-Israel—are you for genocide?”

    In Portland, OR, the Intifada begins in kindergarten. For example, the teachers union suggests that kindergarteners be gathered into a circle and taught the history of Palestine: “Seventy-five years ago, a lot of decision-makers around the world decided to take away Palestinian land to make a country called Israel. Israel would be a country where rules were mostly fair for Jewish people with white skin. There’s a BIG word for when indigenous land gets taken away to make a country; that’s called settler colonialism.”

    The brainwashing is hardly limited to Israel.

    In the San Diego Unified School District, students must confront and examine their “white privilege” and acknowledge when they “feel white fragility.” Additionally, children are told to “understand the impact of white supremacy” in their work.

    Courtesy of the 520-page Black Studies Curriculum, public school students in New York City now receive lessons on the tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement and that Black Americans should receive reparations. Students also learn about the evils of capitalism, that student loans are equivalent to “debt peonage,” and the difference between defunding, reforming, and abolishing the police.

    At an unspecified school in California, a parent confronted a teacher who told students that “only those who voted for Kamala Harris in their mock election will get a pizza party.”

    The educator explained that there were five periods and only one would not get the party. “The Democrats are more for feeding the hungry, free medical care, more services—just pay higher taxes, so I would be willing to buy pizza for the class,” the teacher told the parent.

    The teacher confirmed that the class that voted for Trump would not get free pizza, explaining “They just do what the conservatives do—which is pay for yourself.”

    And then there is the transgender obsession, which shows no sign of abating. The invaluable Parents Defending Education lists the school districts that have policies that openly state district personnel can or should keep a student’s transgender status hidden from parents. As of Oct. 30, there were 12,222,924 students in 20,951 schools across the country affected by this protocol.

    Not only is indoctrination a moral disgrace, it is also very expensive. A recent report surveying 467 superintendents in 46 states reveals that culturally divisive conflict in schools costs public K-12 schools, i.e., taxpayers, about $3.2 billion during the 2023-24 school year.

    The cost of school-based culture wars includes “additional security, communications, and legal expenses. Schools incurred indirect costs from using staff time to address misinformation, social media threats, media inquiries about book bans, and growing demands for public information requests.”

    John Rogers, a UCLA education professor, and lead researcher for the poll, claimed in a media release, “This research makes clear that culturally divisive conflicts in the nation’s schools are generating fear, stress, and anxiety that is disrupting school districts and taking a personal toll on the educators and staff members who work in them. Sadly, as superintendents have told us, the cost of these conflicts not only has a financial impact but is also eroding teaching and learning and undermining the trust between schools and the communities so essential to our democracy and civic life.”

    Notably, according to many of the superintendents interviewed for the report, members of Moms for Liberty and those speaking out about such controversial topics shouldn’t get a platform.

    Tiffany Justice, cofounder of Moms for Liberty, responded that the report’s findings are “ridiculous” and a “gaslighting tactic” to make it look like the parents are the problem for opposing sensitive topics being taught to their children without their consent.

    Justice adds, “This is more obfuscation, this is more deflection by school districts for not liking the fact that parents are calling out a failing system, and we will not be silenced to protect a failing system.”

    “What would be the better thing?” Justice asked. “We just shut up and go along with the indoctrination and the demoralization of our children so we don’t cause a problem and cost the school district money? If they weren’t doing so much nonsense, they wouldn’t have to deal with the ire of parents.”

    Fortunately, many adults are indeed catching on to the problems with our wayward schools. According to the results of a Gallup poll released in August, only 43% of American adults indicated they are somewhat or completely satisfied with the quality of education students receive in kindergarten through grade 12 in the United States today.

    Additionally, the EdChoice Schooling in America Survey asked respondents about the trajectory of K–12 education in the United States. The responses to this question were red flags for both parents and the broader public. Fully 70% of the public and 64% of parents of school-age children think K–12 education is on the wrong track.

    A Pew Research Center poll found that only 16% of Americans were willing to say things are going in the right direction in education.

    The 2022 NAEP, or “Nation’s Report Card” shows that Americans’ concerns are valid. The test revealed that nationwide, 29% of the nation’s 8th-graders are proficient in reading, while just 26% are proficient in math.

    Clearly, all parents need to be aware of the massive indoctrination going on in the nation’s government-run schools and act accordingly. They have options, which I will delve into in a future post.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/10/2024 – 11:40

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Nov 10

Today’s News 10th November 2024

  • Escobar: Putin Outlines The 'Moment Of Truth'
    Escobar: Putin Outlines The ‘Moment Of Truth’

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    President Putin’s plenary session performance (address + Q&A) at the annual Valdai Club meeting in Sochi felt like a high-speed train on cruise control.

    Totally cool, calm, comfortable, in full command of a Himalaya of facts, no political leader anywhere – recent past and present – would even come close to delivering what amounts to an extensive, detailed world view deeply matured over a quarter of a century at the highest geopolitical level.

    Putin began his address referring to the October 1917 revolution, drawing a direct parallel with our turbulent times: “The moment of truth is coming”. In a clear tribute to Gramsci, he stated how a “completely new world order” is “being formed before our eyes.”

    The subtle reference to the recent BRICS summit in Kazan could not possibly escape critical minds across the Global Majority. Kazan was a living, breathing testimony that “the old order is irrevocably disappearing, one might say, has already disappeared, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new one. Irreconcilable, first of all, because this is not even a fight for power or geopolitical influence, this is a clash of the very principles on which relations between countries and peoples will be built at the next historical stage.”

    As concisely as possible, that should be taken as the current Big Picture framework: we are not mired inside a reductionist clash of civilizations or the “end of History” – which Putin defined as “myopic” – but facing a make-or-break systemic clash of fundamental principles. The result will define this century – arguably the Eurasia Century, as “the dialectics of History continues.”

    Putin himself quipped that he would drive into “philosophical asides” during his address. In fact that went much further than a mere refutation of unilateral conceptual fallacies, as “the Western elites thought that their monopoly is the final stop for humanity” and “modern neoliberalism degenerated into a totalitarian ideology.”

    Referring to AI, he asked rhetorically, “will human remain human?” He praised the building of a new global architecture, moving towards a “polyphonic” and “polycentric” world where “maximum representation” is paramount and the BRICS are “coming up with a coordinated approach” based on “sovereign equality.”

    Six Principles For Global Sustainable Development

    Sovereignty had to be one of the predominant themes during the Valdai Q&A. Putin was adamant that Russia must “develop our own sovereign AI. As algorithms are biased and give massive power to a few big companies that control the internet, the need is imperative for “sovereign algorithms.”

    Answering a question on Eurasian security and the US as the dominant maritime power v. a multipolar Eurasia, he stressed the “consensus and desire in Eurasia for an anti-hegemonic movement”, and not for Eurasia constituted “as a bloc”. That’s the appeal of Eurasia’s “multi-vector foreign policy”, implying “more political independence”. The key example of “harmonizing interests”, Putin stressed, is the Russia-China partnership, and that was also what “made BRICS successful.”

    Compare it in contrast to “the inability in Europe to establish a system of “indivisibility of security” and to “overcome bloc politics”; Europe instead went for NATO expansion: “After the end of the Cold War there was an opportunity to overcome bloc politics. But the US had fear of losing Europe. The US installed almost a colonial dependence. Honestly I did not expect that.”

    Putin introduced a fascinating personal experience tidbit referring to a conversation – in German – with former German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1993, when Kohl said flat out that “the future of Europe” is linked to Russia.

    Yet that ended up leading to “the most important problem on our Eurasian continent, the main problem between Russia and European countries: the trust deficit (…) When they tell us that ‘we signed the Minsk agreements on Ukraine only to give Ukraine an opportunity to rearm, and we had no intention of resolving this conflict peacefully,’ what kind of trust can we talk about? (…) You have directly publicly stated that you have cheated us! Lied to us and deceived us! What kind of trust is that? But we need to get back to that system of mutual trust.”

    Putin then added that Europe should consider becoming part and parcel of a Chinese concept straight from Chinese philosophy (“they do not strive for domination”). With panache, he stressed that the Chinese uber-geoeconomic trade/connectivity project should be interpreted as One Belt, One Common Road.

    And that extrapolates to Central Asia, with all those nations “very young in their statehood” interested in “stable development”. For Russia-China, there’s “no competition” in the Heartland: “we only have cooperation.”

    Putin once again enumerated what he considers the 6 key principles for global sustainable development: openness of interaction (implying no “artificial barriers”); diversity (“a model of one country or a relatively small part of humanity should not be imposed as something universal”); maximum representativeness; security for all without exception; justice for all (erasing “the gap between the ‘golden billion’ and the rest of humanity); and equality.

    “Make Civilizations, Not War”

    On Ukraine, this was the money quote: “If there is no neutrality, then it’s difficult to imagine any kind of good neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine.” In a nutshell: Moscow is ready for negotiations, but based on facts on the battlefield and what was agreed upon in Istanbul in April 2022.

    That may be interpreted as a direct message to President Trump. To whom the door is open: “Russia has not damaged its relations with the US and is open to their restoration, but the ball is in the Americans’ court.”

    Putin on US Presidents (he met quite a few): “All of them are interesting people.” On Trump: “His behavior when there was an attempt on his life, I was impressed. He is a courageous person. He acquitted himself valiantly.” On the open door: “Whatever he does it’s up to him to decide.” Then Putin offered his own congratulations for the re-election – on the record. The dialogue may be on: “We are willing to talk to Trump.”

    Putin extolled Russia-China relations as part of their strategic partnership as being “at the highest level in modern history.” He also praised his own personal relation with Xi Jinping. That paved the way for the real killer, when it comes to US-Russia-China: “If the US had chosen a trilateral cooperation instead of double constraint – everyone would win.”

    An excellent question by Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr – a former vice-president of the NDB, the BRICS bank – led Putin to clarify his own position on de-dollarization. He stated flatly that “my role is to see ideas shaped that we then propose to our partners”.

    The key target is “proposing to create a new investment platform using electronic payments.” That will address the “most promising markets” in the near future – South Asia, Africa, parts of Latin America: “They will need investment, technologies.” And “tools independent from inflation” – with regulation “through Central Banks and the NDB. We agreed to have a working group meeting regularly at government level. We are in no hurry.”

    So that puts to rest any scenario of an immediate BRICS financial bombshell – even as “two-thirds of our trade is being serviced in national currencies” and among BRICS the figures are also high.

    BRICS Bridge will be tested – soon. As for creating a single currency, that’s “premature. We need to achieve greater integration of economies, increase the quality of economies to a certain – compatible – level.”

    Then, the bombshell: “We never wanted to abandon the dollar!” That goes a long way to explain Putin’s own view on de-dollarization: “They are undoing it with their own hand – the power of the dollar.”

    All of the above is just a sample of the width and breath of themes addressed by the President during the Valdai Q&A. The forum itself offered precious nuggets all across the spectrum. Some participants – correctly – noted the absence of “the majority of the majority”: youth and women. Africans were impressed with “the sharp mind of Russian bureaucracy.”

    A Chinese view noted how “the Chinese don’t swim against the current; they cross the river and reach the other bank.” There was a near consensus that development should be “based in different cultural values of civilizations” – actually Putin’s own view. Also imperative is the “need for aggregate authority” among the Global South.

    A Greek insight was particularly powerful when it comes to the civilizational approach to politics: “Civilizations don’t clash. States do.” Thus the new – playful – motto that could guide not only BRICS but the whole Global Majority: “Make Civilizations, Not War.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 23:20

  • Americans Spend Big On Christmas Cheer… And Mums
    Americans Spend Big On Christmas Cheer… And Mums

    With an expected per-person spending of $875, no other holiday rooted in long-standing tradition comes close to the winter holiday season, which starts on November 1 and ends on December 31. 

    Infographic: Americans Spend Big on Christmas Cheer - And Moms | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) shows that spending for the runner-up, Mother’s Day, only amounts to one third of Thanksgiving and Christmas consumer spending, with no other seasonal event coming close.

    While Mother’s Day spending stood at $274 per person in 2023, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Easter ranged between $192 and $196 in the past year. 

    Halloween, where money is mostly spent on costumes and decorations according to additional data from the NRF, comes in sixth with an expected per-person spend of $108. While most of the holidays featured on the list have roots in history reaching back hundreds to thousands of years, the Super Bowl is a relatively new phenomenon. This fact notwithstanding, U.S. Americans on average still spend $85 per person on arguably the most important U.S. sports event of the year.

    When taking into account not just festivities connected to specific celebrations, two other occasions take the first and second spots in the ranking: Back-to-college and back-to-school. However, these two events are not comparable to the rest of the list, since the average expected spending of $1,367 and $890, respectively, is calculated by household and not per person. Having more than one individual per household in need of school supplies, clothing or electronics for the new school year can skew the results. Therefore, it’s likely that even while the per-household figures for back-to-college and back-to-school are higher, the winter holiday season still ranks first in individual spending.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 22:45

  • What You Need To Know About Preparing For Emergencies, According To A Top Survivalist
    What You Need To Know About Preparing For Emergencies, According To A Top Survivalist

    Authored by Krista Thomas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Expert

    EJ Snyder knows a thing or two about survival. After 25 years in the U.S. Army, he emerged as the extreme survivalist “Skullcrusher” on television shows like “Naked and Afraid,” “Dual Survival,” and “First Man Out.”

    EJ Snyder is an Army veteran and experienced survivalist who has appeared on survival shows like “Naked and Afraid.” Adhiraj Chakrabarti/American Essence

    Today, in addition to teaching survival skills and speaking at events around the country, he also writes. His new book is “Emergency Home Preparedness: The Ultimate Guide for Bugging In During Natural Disasters, Civil Unrest, and More.” He’s also signed on as executive VP with SurvivalMastery.co, an online subscriber-based platform designed to teach self-sufficiency skills.

    “It’s been God’s path for me. I love getting the word out about these things,” he said. “It’s a matter of confidence if you do plan for these things. It makes the situation a little bit easier.”

    At the time of this interview, Snyder was putting his survivalist skills into practice in North Carolina, aiding other veterans with Hurricane Helene relief efforts.  We tapped the former Army Ranger for advice on how best to prepare for any kind of emergency with survival skills.

    The Epoch Times: There are a lot of different approaches to prepping, and different personalities teaching about the subject. What’s different about you and your approach?

    EJ Snyder: I try to approach teaching survival skills with skull-crushing common sense based on reality. I want you to be able to do the tasks when it matters most. I teach super simply … helping the everyday Joe or Joan to handle bad days and be sufficient.

    The Epoch Times: How did you get interested in preparing for emergencies?

    Mr. Snyder: When I was a little boy at 8 years old, I remember it was wintertime in the late afternoon, and we had been sitting in a tree stand. It was getting very cold. I followed the steps back a couple of miles to camp and it started snowing. I got distracted and I remember trying to follow my tracks, and I couldn’t see them because the snow covered them up.

    I got lost and panicked. I saw a rock and thought I should get on the rock and call my dad. I was in the dark for an hour. My uncles and dad were looking for me and finally found me. My dad then taught me about a compass and it taught me to be prepared for any situation.

    Later, I was a Ranger instructor and went to the U.S. Army SERE School. I became the primary survival and tracking expert for Ranger students. But Y2K was the real catalyst. I wanted myself and my family to be ready. So I started with a list of what I needed, like bug-out bags and stored foods such as rice. We had enough spaghetti for two years. If something would have happened, we would have been prepared. Several months later, we were able to help people survive a Category 3 storm.

    That is how it all got started. It is critically important because we’ve got to save lives here. I’m passionate about survival to help people help themselves.

    Snyder gathers wood in the forests of western North Carolina. Adhiraj Chakrabarti/American Essence

    The Epoch Times: Can you tell us about emergencies that you may have been in, and how that went for you and yours?

    Mr. Snyder: I remember there was a time when I was driving in the winter in upstate New York. I was big about preparedness by this point and made sure I had a winter survival kit in the vehicle: blankets, meals, extra coats, and dry clothing with gloves and hats. We were driving in a blizzard and the minivan slid off the road.

    We were way out, like three miles to the main road. Cell service was down. At that time, cell towers were not that great, but I was hoping my text would have gone through to a neighbor. My son, who was 3, was nervous and scared.

    We were there three hours and low on gas, so I wrapped us up in blankets and shut down the vehicle. I started a survival candle in a coffee can because it raises the temperature in the car by 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. We sat there while I was keeping him calm, and we ate a little food and drank some water.

    I decided to take action. I pulled out the sled and put my son in it, then got my winter boots and snow shoes on, and when we were bundled up we went hiking out three miles. Finally we got to an intersection and made it to a farmhouse, where I was able to make a landline phone call with my location. My neighbor with a four-wheel drive and skid plow picked us up and got us home. We had to wait a couple of days.

    That’s being prepared and thinking through a plan. You want to be forward-thinking about having the basics and think about what might be missing. Murphy is always waiting to ambush you when things go wrong.

    The Epoch Times: What kind of emergencies do you foresee the need to be prepared for, given the current state of the world?

    Mr. Snyder: It’s pretty cut and dry because we’ve seen a lot. Man-made disasters, natural disasters, war, pandemic, and civil unrest are the main situations. Or we have to deal with active shooters who want to hurt people.

    When you have these situations, you plan for them and always rehearse. Check your survival kit.

    How about a fire in your home? Evacuate and make sure you know how to get out. If you’re bugging in, have you rehearsed your escape route? In emergency planning, you have to have a PACE plan, which stands for primary, alternative, contingency, and emergency. This is your action plan. To sum it up, survival is simple. Keep your planning simple.

    The Epoch Times: How long should people be prepared to ride out an emergency?

    Mr. Snyder: Seventy-two hours isn’t going to do squat! You should stock three meals per day for each person in your family, plus snacks and one gallon of water per day per person—enough to last for 90 days. Then, add enough for another person who might knock at your door. You can help your neighbor out. If you have to stretch it out, do one meal a day.

    With 90 days down, start looking at six months for however many are in your family, rationing what you have plus supplies from fishing or hunting. You can stretch it out over a year.

    Have heirloom seeds and freeze them up just in case the grocery stores aren’t available. When you freeze the seeds, you extend their shelf life. They will be ready when you need them.

    Don’t be scared, be prepared. If you get some preparedness skills, it builds your confidence up. If you have prepared in an emergency situation, that’s power and confidence.

    Fear cripples people. Not doing anything in an emergency situation can cost you your life. One of the big things is to remain calm. Then assess the situation, take care of the wounded and sick, and after that make a plan. What resources do you have? What equipment is available? Who is around you and what skills do they have? Make a detailed plan and share the details with everyone.

    Rehearse and then execute. Have your situational awareness up. Adapt the plan as you go. Improvise if you have to and then, as they say, overcome. You’re a winner.

    Don’t forget health and fitness. You should have on hand extra prescription glasses, prescription medications to last six months to a year, over-the-counter medicines, and first aid kits to handle cuts and bruises. Learn basic first aid. Learn how to suture.

    Food and Water

    The Epoch Times: What water storage and purification equipment do you have and recommend?

    Mr. Snyder: I recommend getting five-gallon water jugs from a home improvement store. You can store water in an easy way. If you can’t afford it, buy water in jugs and refill them. Get 55-gallon drums to collect rainwater from your roof (to water plants or to wash).

    Lastly, consider one of several types of water filtration systems, including the Lifesaver Water Purifier or the Grayl GeoPress, a bottle that gives you crystal clear drinking water. I can boil water right in it, as there’s a nesting cup and an actual stove sleeve. Sawyer is a good brand to consider, too.

    Most of my systems are simplistic. Unless you have a backup generator, once you lose power, you won’t be able to power those sources. What can I have on hand that I don’t need electricity to generate? In emergency situations, have tradable items that you use, like gold and silver, because certain items will be important. It’s possible to be set back by 200 years.

    The Epoch Times: Please walk us through the essential foods in your own long-term storage pantry. What makes each item a good choice?

    Mr. Snyder: A good choice would be survival foods with nutritional value from My Patriot Supply. Store up on them, as they are packed with a lot of calories. MREs [meals, ready-to-eat] are good too because they have a long shelf life. After that, choose canned goods and dry goods like rice, black beans, pasta, dehydrated fruits, fruit snacks, and jerky.

    Supplement by fishing and hunting and trapping. You don’t have to complicate it. Use snares. Learn how to process fish and game. Eventually, supplies will run out and you will need to go out and get your own food.

    The Epoch Times: What essential emergency food storage and cooking equipment do you have and recommend?

    Mr. Snyder: Always have multiple ways to cook. I recommend a BBQ grill. I do keep propane in a storage cage for my Blackstone grill. Another option is the RockPot, a pot that doesn’t require flame. It is amazing. You can throw it on your stone or in the fire to heat it up; it cooks your food in the case.

    I have a ton of cast-iron frying pans and pots from The Lodge. Aluminum-type pans are good for backpacks. I have a fire pit with a cooking area with bricks for open fire. Backpack stoves are good for one person. I’ve had a Coleman 2 Burner Stove in my camping gear forever.

    Read the rest here…

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 22:10

  • General Flynn Delivers Bone-Chilling Post-Election Warning
    General Flynn Delivers Bone-Chilling Post-Election Warning

    First, they tried to take Trump from the ballot.

    Then, they tried to throw him behind bars.

    And when that didn’t work, they went after his life.

    But now, as The Burning Platform’s Jim Quinn details below, after two terrifying assassination attempts, General Flynn warns that it could happen again.

    During an eye-opening conversation with Steve Bannon, Flynn told Trump’s inner circle to brace for another attempt on Trump’s life before he reaches the Oval Office in January.

    Speaking with urgency, Flynn stated

    “Number one, Trump needs to be very, very certain of the security around him… They have already tried it a couple of times. They’ll try it again between now and inauguration. That, to me, is job number one.”

    He also told viewers that the real battle lies ahead, urging Trump to prepare for an all-out war against the Deep State.

    “We can eliminate a lot of this nonsense by being prepared for what we know the enemy is going to do… Accountability must happen.”

    This conversation is a must-listen…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 21:35

  • Entrepreneurialism Isn't A Choice, It's A State Of Mind: The Genius Of Bernie Marcus
    Entrepreneurialism Isn’t A Choice, It’s A State Of Mind: The Genius Of Bernie Marcus

    Authored by John Tamny via RealClearMarkets,

    “Get out of the car! Get the f**k out of my car.” That’s a paraphrase of the words of the recently passed, and incomparably GREAT Bernie Marcus. Marcus, along with Arthur Blank and Ken Langone, co-founded The Home Depot.

    The individual Marcus ordered out of his car was a venture capitalist, and more crucially for Marcus and his colleagues, a venture capitalist who had agreed to invest $3 million in The Home Depot. As Marcus recalled in Built From Scratch, the 1999 business memoir he co-authored with Blank, “we needed that $3 million the way somebody dying of stab wounds needs blood in his veins.”

    Yet the principled Marcus still wouldn’t take a cent from the investor precisely because the investor insulted Marcus and the team he’d put together with all sorts of demands. They would have to give up health insurance, and accept even less pay than the low pay they’d already accepted in return for risky employment at a business that was more a concept than a business.

    Marcus’s actions from long ago raise an obvious question: With money extraordinarily tight for a concept that had attracted no interest from blue-chip investment banks (they went with the wonderful Ken Langone and his “no-name investment bank”), why didn’t Marcus accept the terms (any terms) necessary to keep things afloat?

    The answer is that entrepreneurialism isn’t a choice, it’s a state of mind. It’s a powerful belief in a different way of not just meeting, but leading the needs of customers that’s so deeply ingrained that it’s near impossible to compromise one’s vision. Marcus’s vision wouldn’t be insulted by this nit-picking investor, only for Marcus and colleagues to have the last laugh. By the late 1990s, the $3 million would have been worth $12 billion.

    About the gains the VC missed out on, they’re a happy story, but also realistically a distraction. The much bigger story is just how profoundly the market’s view of The Home Depot had changed. In the staggering return that the unnamed VC missed out on, it’s easier to see just how at odds the vision of Marcus, Blank and Langone was relative to conventional wisdom. As Marcus himself explained it, “no one believed we could do it.” The latter is regularly said by people from all walks of life, and is often said in self-serving fashion.

    Marcus was speaking the truth, though in surely understated fashion. See the VC’s would-have-been returns yet again. No one passes up an investment like that unless the consensus is that they most certainly can’t do it. Yet Marcus et al did do it.

    Better yet, they did it in decent fashion. About the bankers who helped finance and liquefy the eventual growth of The Home Depot, Marcus wrote that “they put their careers on the line for us, and we protect them.” So true. Banks make loans that need to be paid back, which means bankers that make errant loans won’t long be in the employ of banks.  

    Customers were treated even better than bankers. They had to be handled with care, and more important, they were never to be sold what they didn’t need. Instead, they would be treated beautifully by The Home Depot’s expert associates on the assumption that if catered to, eventually they’d rely on The Home Depot for the big purchases required to execute big projects in the home.

    Crucially, the cost of buying for big projects was very low. Marcus understood as the greats of business do that real wealth is created not via so-called “pricing power” and the margins that come with it, but through prices that are pushed down as much as possible in concert with shrinking margins. Marcus knew that low prices provided to customers would be made up for in much higher sales volume. He was correct.

    Evidence supporting the previous claim can be found in the continued rise of Home Depot’s market cap. Notable about the latter is that the aforementioned VC’s missed investment opportunity of the $12 billion variety was calculated by Marcus in 1999 numbers. Stop and imagine what it would be now with The Home Depot valued at roughly $400 billion.

    Which further speaks to the endless decency of Marcus. He recognized that “real money is equity,” and lived up to his aphorism. He developed an employee stock ownership plan that created thousands of millionaire associates at The Home Depot. More evidence of his greatness. His genius will be missed, but not forgotten.

    John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, President of the Parkview Institute, a senior fellow at the Market Institute, and a senior economic adviser to Applied Finance Advisors (www.appliedfinance.com). His latest book, released on April 16, 2024 and co-authored with Jack Ryan, is Bringing Adam Smith Into the American Home: A Case Against Homeownership. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 21:00

  • Even Shapiro Couldn't Have Saved PA For The Democrats
    Even Shapiro Couldn’t Have Saved PA For The Democrats

    Authored by Oliver Bateman via RealClearPennsylvania,

    Elections often tell you less about the winners than the losers. Victory has many fathers, as the saying goes, but defeat shows you exactly what went wrong. Pennsylvania’s 2024 results offer a master class in Democratic collapse: while Trump edged out Kamala Harris by 2 points in the presidential race, Republicans romped to victory in every down-ballot statewide contest. Dave McCormick pulled out a narrow victory over three-term Senator Bob Casey; Dave Sunday trounced Eugene DePasquale by 5 points in the attorney general race; and incumbent Tim DeFoor beat Malcolm Kenyatta by an even wider margin for auditor general.

    The story of how Democrats fumbled Pennsylvania reveals itself in the campaign’s final weeks. Trump’s operation blanketed working-class neighborhoods with simple, direct messaging: “Trump: Safe Borders/Kamala: Open Borders,” “Trump: Low Inflation/Harris: High Inflation.” His team’s “Kamala is for they/them” ad sparked legal threats but achieved its intended effect — the Democrats are worried about boutique issues rather than kitchen-table concerns like inflation. Harris, meanwhile, released a series of slickly-produced but culturally tone-deaf ads attempting to portray Pennsylvania working-class life.

    Harris’s response proved telling. Her team launched what they considered their October surprise: a series of joint appearances with unpopular former Republican Liz Cheney focused on “saving democracy.” The rallies, held primarily in affluent suburban enclaves, epitomized the campaign’s fundamental misread of the state’s political geography. Her campaign’s last notable attempt at working-class authenticity – a commercial featuring a supposed working-class local who seemed like an actor delivering focus-grouped lines about Trump being a “little silver spoon boy” – landed with my working-class relatives about as well as vegan bulgogi tacos at a union hall.

    This messaging disconnect infected every Democratic campaign. DePasquale, running for attorney general, leaned heavily on his record as a fiscal watchdog and government reformer – but not as a prosecutor, because he never was one. A compelling pitch in theory, but it withered against career prosecutor Sunday’s relentless focus on fentanyl seizures and declining crime rates in York County. While DePasquale talked process and oversight, Sunday’s team plastered social media with bodycam footage of drug busts and arrests.

    Kenyatta’s auditor general campaign highlighted the party’s deeper problems. The 34-year-old progressive rising star, known mainly for viral speeches and an unsuccessful Senate bid, campaigned on transforming the office into a vehicle for social change – which made sense when one realized he had no experience in the role. Against incumbent DeFoor’s straightforward non-partisan message about cutting waste and protecting taxpayers, Kenyatta’s ambitious agenda read like a DEI solution in search of a problem.

    Even Casey, who built his career on careful moderation and labor support, couldn’t find enough votes to secure a fourth term in office. After decades positioning himself as a blue-collar, Blue-Dog Democrat, Casey’s recent selective embrace of progressive causes provided perfect fodder for McCormick’s advertising team. While Republican ads hammered Casey’s voting record and association with flip-flopping presidential candidate Harris, his campaign responded with a barrage of increasingly desperate fundraising emails, each one predicting imminent doom. The horrendously off-key messaging – subject lines included “To avoid a catastrophe” and “The worst news yet” – became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who wants to vote for a loser?

    The results expose the bankruptcy of Democrats’ coalition-building strategy. Harris’s team believed they could unite urban progressives and anti-Trump suburbanites while holding just enough working-class voters through careful messaging and strategic positioning. Instead, they achieved a rare political feat: speaking convincingly to absolutely no one.

    Gov. Josh Shapiro, floated as Harris’s potential running mate, embodied these contradictions. His “Get Sh*t Done” gubernatorial slogan had promised pragmatic results but delivered historic inaction, as the Commonwealth Foundation has reported –d just 111 bills signed in 18 months, the fewest of any Pennsylvania governor in 50 years. For comparison, Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin pushed through 1,654 bills in the same period with a part-time (and divided) legislature.

    The implications stretch beyond a single election cycle. Despite its slowly-dwindling population, Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes and competitive Senate seats make it essential to any future Democratic coalition. Yet Tuesday’s results suggest the party has lost its ability to communicate effectively with voters outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The state office margins – larger than the presidential gap – indicate problems deeper than any individual candidate’s shortcomings.

    Much as they have since 2016, Democrats continued to try to thread an impossible needle: mollifying progressives with substance-free identity politics while also wooing suburban Republicans and maintaining their working-class base in the absence of genuine working-class policy proposals. The result was messaging so carefully calibrated it became meaningless, every bit as insubstantial as Kamala Harris’ final cameo appearance on SNL.

    Unless and until Democrats can craft a message that resonates beyond their urban strongholds – and find experienced, competent candidates capable of delivering said message without sounding like McKinsey consultants explaining steel manufacturing to career steelworkers – Tuesday’s results may augur a permanent realignment in a state they once considered to be winnable. Here in the Keystone State, as elsewhere in the country, the party’s obsession with building the perfect coalition has left them with hardly any coalition at all.

    Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 20:25

  • Can Trump Tame Resistance 2.0?
    Can Trump Tame Resistance 2.0?

    Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

    Last Tuesday, we were all equal – one person, one vote. Against every effort by the liberal elites, a slim majority of Americans returned Donald Trump to the White House, investing him with vast authority through their 73 million votes.

    On Wednesday, the normal order of inequality was restored. The potent forces in government, business, media, and academia that opposed Trump by hook or crook took back up their undemocratic reins of power and began to plot how, as Kamala Harris put it in her concession speech, they “will continue to keep fighting.”

    This is not as bad as it sounds. America became a free and prosperous nation in large part because of the constraints our founders put on government – both in the checks and balances at the federal level and the federalism that invests states with great authority. This, along with the visionary Bill of Rights and the refusal to establish a national church, created vast opportunities for individuals and non-governmental organizations to shape our country.

    This diffusion of power is a major reason why we have never come close to dictatorship. Even with the vast expansion of government since the New Deal and Great Society, there are still too many moving parts for a wannabe authoritarian to corral.

    As it empowers the non-governmental actors, the American system depends on an implicit set of checks and balances – both vigilance and restraint – on the behavior of the people. One clear example concerns speech. The First Amendment’s broad protections are limited by the guardrails imposed by ever-evolving community standards regarding acceptable discourse. In theory, everybody can say the n-word, but you really can’t, along with a host of slurs that once filled our newspapers.

    Another example involves accepting the results of elections. Even in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide, about 42% of Americans did not vote for the Gipper. Still, the losing side is expected to accept defeat graciously, to respect the authority their adversary has gained in this zero-sum game of elections, and take up the mantle of the loyal opposition.

    In the wake of Trump’s victory, this is another norm that conspicuous segments of the modern Democratic Party seem intent on breaking – not through a Jan. 6 episode of violence but through the legislative maneuvers, investigations, and lawfare that marked their resistance during his first term.

    Before the election, the legacy media was filled with largely celebratory articles about efforts to Trump-proof government in case he won. This effort is now being turbocharged with reports that President Biden aims to use the lame-duck session to thwart his successor. Governor Gavin Newsom has called a special session of the California legislature to Trump-proof state laws. Governor Maura Healey has said Massachusetts state police will not support Trump’s mass immigration plans – a bedrock promise of his campaign, which is backed by a majority of Americans.

    This opposition is only the tip of a long spear of Resistance 2.0. The liberal and leftist elites in the legacy media, academia, and various other power centers have made clear that they will do everything they can, not just to oppose but to undermine and delegitimize the democratically elected president. This is not business as usual, nor is it merely an echo of Mitch McConnell’s vow in 2010 to make Obama a one-term president. It is a rejection of the compact that has long ruled American politics in which the losing side gives the winner a chance to prove them wrong.

    How could they? Their unhinged claims that Trump is an authoritarian fascist are not a political ploy but a deeply held belief, cultivated over decades of Manichean indoctrination. They have used similar language to describe every Republican president since Reagan. Trump is the culmination of this uncompromising worldview.

    The concise paraphrase of the physicist Max Planck’s insight – that science proceeds one funeral at a time – captures what Trump is up against. Democrats and their allies are too invested in their own ideology to change. They will keep fighting, banking on a return to power in two or four years when they can continue their project to transform America. They are masters of the long game.

    In response, Trump and his allies must first hope that the GOP retains control of the House of Representatives – votes are still being counted. This is crucial for limiting the Democrats’ ability to kneecap the new administration with spurious congressional investigations. More importantly, Trump must, as best he can, limit his love for battle, resist his instinct to take the bait. He should treat his opponents with the contempt they deserve, ignoring their provocations for the sake of effective governance.

    He should be guided by the single best line of his campaign, “My revenge will be success.” He must focus on our problems rather than his enemies. The challenges we face – especially our unsustainable debt, an economy that is not working for ordinary Americans, and a world beset by conflict – have little to do with the opinions of Democrats and the New York Times.

    Yes, his opponents enjoy great power, which they will brandish in an attempt to weaken and frustrate him. But if he can rise above their malice – and his own pettiness – he just might make America great again.

    *  *  *

    J. Peder Zane is an editor for RealClearInvestigations and a columnist for RealClearPolitics. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @jpederzane.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 19:50

  • Visualizing The Rise Of Bitcoin's Hashrate
    Visualizing The Rise Of Bitcoin’s Hashrate

    The computing power used to mine bitcoin is at all-time highs, rising by more than sixfold since November 2019.

    Today, 94% of bitcoin’s supply has been mined out of the total cap of 21 million. To mine bitcoin, powerful computers solve complex math problems that validate and secure the network. The total computing power, or bitcoin hashrate, measures how many guesses per second are made to solve these calculations.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows bitcoin’s hashrate since 2016, based on data from Blockchain.com.

    Bitcoin Hashrate Hits Record Highs

    Below, we show how the total bitcoin hashrate hit a 693.1 million terahashes per second in late October, rising significantly over the past month:

    Date Bitcoin Price (USD) Total Hashrate (Terahashes per second)
    Oct 30 2024 $70,287 693.1M
    Oct 2024 $62,051 641.4M
    Sep 2024 $56,157 637.6M
    Aug 2024 $60,675 615.9M
    Jul 2024 $57,042 580.4M
    Jun 2024 $70,542 599.4M
    May 2024 $64,023 624.0M
    Apr 2024 $67,857 604.8M
    Mar 2024 $63,154 574.9M
    Feb 2024 $42,658 524.7M
    Jan 2024 $42,862 506.4M
    Dec 2023 $44,084 476.6M
    Nov 2023 $35,035 446.6M
    Oct 2023 $27,429 407.4M
    Sep 2023 $25,970 387.1M
    Aug 2023 $29,076 380.4M
    Jul 2023 $30,499 370.0M
    Jun 2023 $25,742 358.1M
    May 2023 $29,039 346.4M
    Apr 2023 $27,812 331.0M
    Mar 2023 $22,351 293.6M
    Feb 2023 $22,936 273.5M
    Jan 2023 $16,669 250.1M
    Dec 2022 $16,966 256.0M
    Nov 2022 $21,300 261.8M
    Oct 2022 $19,633 232.6M
    Sep 2022 $19,835 211.4M
    Aug 2022 $22,624 200.0M
    Jul 2022 $20,154 214.5M
    Jun 2022 $29,902 216.5M
    May 2022 $37,720 209.1M
    Apr 2022 $46,422 199.9M
    Mar 2022 $39,167 198.4M
    Feb 2022 $41,405 187.3M
    Jan 2022 $46,460 173.9M
    Dec 2021 $49,484 161.2M
    Nov 2021 $61,006 149.1M
    Oct 2021 $48,234 136.6M
    Sep 2021 $50,025 121.9M
    Aug 2021 $39,722 101.3M
    Jul 2021 $33,698 120.1M
    Jun 2021 $35,539 159.7M
    May 2021 $57,213 157.3M
    Apr 2021 $57,094 160.6M
    Mar 2021 $48,369 154.6M
    Feb 2021 $38,311 149.4M
    Jan 2021 $33,081 136.7M
    Dec 2020 $18,658 129.0M
    Nov 2020 $14,161 130.5M
    Oct 2020 $10,795 135.2M
    Sep 2020 $10,168 123.9M
    Aug 2020 $11,233 121.3M
    Jul 2020 $9,139 112.5M
    Jun 2020 $9,788 103.1M
    May 2020 $9,029 112.0M
    Apr 2020 $6,778 105.9M
    Mar 2020 $8,758 111.5M
    Feb 2020 $9,614 109.1M
    Jan 2020 $7,334 96.3M
    Dec 2019 $7,394 91.7M
    Nov 2019 $9,322 95.1M
    Oct 2019 $8,240 89.5M
    Sep 2019 $10,628 74.8M
    Aug 2019 $10,978 67.0M
    Jul 2019 $11,005 57.4M
    Jun 2019 $7,789 50.4M
    May 2019 $5,657 45.8M
    Apr 2019 $4,976 45.0M
    Mar 2019 $3,701 44.0M
    Feb 2019 $3,428 41.9M
    Jan 2019 $3,788 38.3M
    Dec 2018 $3,694 42.9M
    Nov 2018 $6,404 51.3M
    Oct 2018 $6,466 51.3M
    Sep 2018 $7,257 49.0M
    Aug 2018 $7,005 40.0M
    Jul 2018 $6,533 37.4M
    Jun 2018 $7,613 31.7M
    May 2018 $9,726 28.5M
    Apr 2018 $7,425 25.2M
    Mar 2018 $11,470 22.3M
    Feb 2018 $6,905 18.2M
    Jan 2018 $15,098 13.6M
    Dec 2017 $11,718 9.9M
    Nov 2017 $7,392 9.4M
    Oct 2017 $4,308 7.9M
    Sep 2017 $4,626 6.4M
    Aug 2017 $2,857 6.1M
    Jul 2017 $2,617 5.1M
    Jun 2017 $2,698 4.5M
    May 2017 $1,533 3.8M
    Apr 2017 $1,152 3.5M
    Mar 2017 $1,274 3.2M
    Feb 2017 $1,016 2.8M
    Jan 2017 $1,021 2.3M
    Dec 2016 $768 2.0M
    Nov 2016 $706 1.8M
    Oct 2016 $613 1.7M
    Sep 2016 $606 1.6M
    Aug 2016 $573 1.5M
    Jul 2016 $682 1.5M
    Jun 2016 $576 1.4M
    May 2016 $450 1.3M
    Apr 2016 $422 1.2M

    Since bitcoin’s fourth halving in April 2024, the hashrate has hit all-time highs, while bitcoin’s price has increased by roughly 4% as of November 4, 2024.

    During each halving event, which occurs every four years, the reward for mining bitcoin is cut in half. In April, it dropped from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoins, making it harder for miners to turn a profit with unchanged operating costs.

    Despite this, rising hashrates indicate a rising number of active miners, signaling a bullish outlook. As bitcoin’s price rises, it incentivizes miners to join the network since it becomes more profitable, pushing up the hashrate.

    Today, notable miners include publicly traded companies like Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, and Marathon Digital, which operate machines capable of trillions of hashes per second using specialized hardware. For instance, Core Scientific runs 169,000 miners, while Riot Platforms aims to fully deploy at least 100,000 miners by 2025.

    Still, performance varies across major bitcoin mining companies this year. While Core Scientific stands as one of the top-performing miners year-to-date, with 267% returns as of November 4, both Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital have declined over 20%. By comparison, bitcoin has risen 53%, approaching record highs seen in March.

    To learn more about this topic from a crypto ownership perspective, check out this graphic on the largest corporate holders of bitcoin.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 19:15

  • Here's Why These Geopolitical And Financial Chokepoints Need Your Attention…
    Here’s Why These Geopolitical And Financial Chokepoints Need Your Attention…

    Authored by Chris MacIntosh via InternationalMan.com,

    • The Houthis in Yemen tried to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

    • Then Hezbollah droned his house. Apparently, he was not at home at the time.

    • Iran launched an unprecedented missile attack on Israel. The part you probably didn’t hear about is that Iran says a “state of war” now exists between them and Israel.

    • France ended all arms exports to Israel, and the Israel’s pissed and subsequently bombed a French factory in Syria — an F you and no thanks for all the previous arms shipments and military aid.

    • Russia sent 33 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

    • Israel bombed Syria’s capital, Damascus.

    • Erdogan compared Israel with the Nazis.

    I’ve probably missed a whole lot of things, but you get the picture. None of the above is good in any shape or form.

    This last point I pay a lot of attention to, and here’s why.

    • Turkey has the second largest military in NATO, and it’s clearly going to leave or be kicked out.

    • Turkey also controls the Bosphorus, and Iran controls the strait of Hormuz.

    • The Houthis effectively now (to some extent at least) control the Suez.

    That, my friends, is the holy trinity of supply disruption in oil shipments.

    What else?

    Well, an interesting little dilemma is opening up for NATO. What happens if Israel decides to have a go at Turkey — either inside Turkish territory or outside? That would, according to the NATO treaty, constitute an attack on a NATO partner and immediately mean that all NATO members were now at war with… Israel.

    So should that actually happen, obviously NATO will side with Israel. Realise that the Mossad agent Epstein was not the only scumbag running such an operation, controlling influential US politicians and businessmen, and the idea that similar operations throughout NATO countries are not carried out is beyond naive. So all this means is that NATO will back Israel, despite Israel not being part of NATO. And when Turkey is kicked out of NATO, it will, I believe, be a nail in the coffin for NATO, at least as it stands today, which is to say kinda, sorta legitimate (if you bend your mind enough and watch enough CNBC, BBC and CNN). But this would put an end to that and NATO’s quickly fading veneer of credibility would fall away.

    Then we’d have three of the most critical geopolitical choke points on the planet all controlled by members of the BRICS. I do hope you realise that this will never be allowed to happen by the Western powers. And because the world seems to be run by Satanic paedophiles who will never want to give up power, war it will be.

    Speaking of geopolitical chokepoints…

    Chairman Xi has reportedly ordered his military to “prepare for war.”

    During a visit to the PLA Rocket Force, the elite unit overseeing China’s nuclear and conventional missiles, Xi gave a commanding speech demanding they “enhance their strategic deterrent and ensure combat readiness at all times.”

    The PLA Rocket Force controls nukes and long-range missile capabilities crucial for any conflict, including a potential invasion of Taiwan.

    Xi’s visit comes just days after Beijing deployed over 100 jets, drones, and warships around Taiwan, signalling an escalation in the ongoing standoff.

    China has repeatedly stated it won’t rule out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.

    I do hope you’re long hard assets.

    Gold, despite being under-owned by both institutional and retail, keeps making new highs, and in all currencies!

    Capital Controls by Another Name

    When I made the claim that Europe would soon experience capital controls, folks looked at me like I’ve two heads. Lunacy, I tell you. Wild, crazy, conspiracy theories.

    The blustering turns to huffing when I point out the following from the not so distant past:

    • Cyprus implemented capital controls in 2013 during its banking crisis, restricting bank withdrawals as well as transfers abroad.

    • Greece imposed capital controls in 2015 amid its debt crisis, limiting cash withdrawals and overseas transfers.

    • Iceland instituted capital controls in 2008 during the global financial crisis.

    Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made policy changes in 2022 allowing nations to implement capital controls preemptively and for “national/international security reasons.” Conveniently, they don’t tell us what those might be.

    Anyway, fast forward to today…

    There is a very good reason for this. Here’s Tether’s market cap over time.

    Try sending money across borders, and you’re increasingly facing mounting restrictions.

    If you’re Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Palestinian, then things are even harder. But it is everywhere, and increasingly everyone is affected.

    For instance, I just received a notification from a bank (I was moving money from one account to another) stating the following:

    Regulations have changed regarding the justification of the origin of funds and transfers from abroad. Our institution is governed by these regulations.

    In the past, statements of account were accepted, but now it does not apply. Therefore, now the origin of the funds must be justified by means of an attestation report, Cpa, or its equivalent abroad (in this case the document must be apostilled in the country of origin).

    In order not to reject the incoming transfer, please justify it with one of the above mentioned documents.

    This is to send a small (a few thousand dollars) sum of money simply to get some bills paid. Sheesh!

    So you can see why Tether is so attractive. It allows you to still use the USD, since Tether is backed by treasuries (supposedly, I don’t really know and they’ve never passed an audit, so…), allowing for liquidity and, of course, subsequent lack of volatility. BUT importantly, it moves on rails outside of the Western-controlled banking system. It’s what has the technocrats getting their panties in a bunch and moving to block it.

    Next up, actual ostensible capital controls in the traditional banking system. Watch! This is needed before they blow up the debt bubble.

    *  *  *

    The Western system is undergoing substantial changes, and the signs of moral decay, corruption, and increasing debt are impossible to ignore. With the Great Reset in motion, the United Nations, World Economic Forum, IMF, WHO, World Bank, and Davos man are all promoting a unified agenda that will affect us all. To get ahead of the chaos, download our free PDF report “Clash of the Systems: Thoughts on Investing at a Unique Point in Time” by clicking here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 18:40

  • Radical Left Activates Anti-Trump Protests In Midtown Manhattan
    Radical Left Activates Anti-Trump Protests In Midtown Manhattan

    Democrats have activated their network of social justice warriors for the second time in days following a Trump victory early Wednseday morning. The latest mobilization effort of far-left activists by mysterious and dark money-funded nonprofit groups is occurring on the streets of New York City on Saturday afternoon. 

    X user Open Source Intel uploaded footage of what appears to be thousands of anti-Trump protesters in Midtown Manhattan. 

    “Thousands march in Midtown Manhattan as New York City law enforcement monitors. Protesters rally against fascism, deportation, anti-trans hate, and systemic oppression, expressing concerns over Donald Trump’s election as the 47th President,” the X user said, adding, “Chants of “Racist, sexist, anti-gay” and signs highlight their solidarity for marginalized communities.” 

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

    Here’s more footage of the protest, which appears well organized and funded—in other words, not organic.

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

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

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

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

    On Wednseday night, hundreds—if not thousands—of protesters—many holding signs outside the Trump Hotel in Obama’s Chicago shouted into megaphones, “Trump is a fascist” and “racist,” echoing hate speech spewed by the defunct Harris-Walz campaign in the months leading up to November 5.

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

    Remember this week, far-left activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on X, saying the quiet part out loud: “There are … mass movements of people that mobilize to protect one another in times of fascism and authoritarianism … and this is the era that we are poised to enter.”

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

    In other words, AOC appears to be giving marching orders to her followers, whom some Marxists regard as “agents of change” or “agents of history.” These folks will be herded like cattle—or “useful idiots”—onto city streets by a mysterious web of nonprofits funded by dark money from leftist billionaires.

    The Democrat’s playbook to potentially unleash another wave of social unrest through activism campaigns, with command-and-control centers operated by nonprofits, will likely not be tolerated under a Trump administration.

    Under the Trump administration, if Elon Musk wants to cut wasteful government spending while increasing national security, then slash the government’s ability to hand out grants like candy to far-left activism groups, done with little oversight. 

    The problem with radical leftist protests this time around is that Trump won the popular vote, and a majority of Americans won’t put up with this activist shit any longer. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 18:05

  • All States Are Empires Of Lies
    All States Are Empires Of Lies

    By Thomas DiLorenzo of The Mises Institute. This article is a version of a speech delivered at the 2024 Mises Institute Supporters Summit.

    “Most economists are political apologists masquerading as economists,” wrote Doug Casey in one of his columns.

    “They prescribe the way they would like the world to work and tailor theories to help politicians demonstrate the virtue and necessity of their quest for power.”

    Moreover, wrote Casey, “The field of economics has been turned into the handmaiden of government in order to give a scientific justification for things the government wants to do.”

    This of course is not a new development. Ludwig von Mises was calling the universities of his day “nurseries of socialism” but, thankfully, there is always a remnant of students who resist the statist brainwashing. The above quote about concocted “scientific” justifications for interventionism and socialism, by the way, sounds like a precise definition of Keynes’s General Theory. 

    Casey’s sound advice is that to be a good citizen one needs to “become your own economist.” Don’t rely on the state’s mouthpieces in the “media” or even academe for your economic knowledge. Educate yourself to some degree; it doesn’t take a university degree. Indeed, everything we do at the Mises Institute is geared toward helping anyone anywhere to become their own economist (preferably Austrian School and not Keynesian or Post Keynesian!) and avoid being bamboozled by the state and its court historian economists. 

    Mises never joined the American Economic Association, the association of academic economists founded in the 1880s. The association’s founding document provides a clue as to why. “The state is an educational and ethical agency whose positive aid is an indispensable condition of human progress,” the document purred. “The doctrine of laissez faire,” on the other hand, “is unsafe in politics and unsound in morals,” said the statist moral scolds who founded the American Economic Association.

    There are exceptions, the Austrian School economists being the most prominent, but the majority of academic economists view themselves as advisors or potential advisors to the state. They are Rothbard’s “court historians” with degrees in economics instead of history. The role that they serve is the same as all “intellectuals” in our almost 100 percent state-funded universities. As Rothbard put it: “The majority [of the electorate] must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise, and at least inevitable. Promoting this ideology . . . is the vital task of the ‘intellectuals.’” In return, the “intellectuals” are given government jobs, grants, placement at prestigious universities, book deals, and myriad other political payoffs. (Mises wrote that history, law, and economics are the disciplines most widely used to bamboozle the public about the supposedly good, wise, and inevitable state).

    Take the Fed – please (as Rodney Dangerfield would say). Economist Larry White published a journal article several years ago that revealed that about 75 percent of all articles published in academic economic journals on the subject of monetary policy are published by economists who are in some way associated with the Fed. As Milton Friedman once said, “If you want a career as a monetary economist it is best not to criticize the major employer in your field.” And so they do not. 

    If there is ever any criticism it is always constructive criticism about how to supposedly become even better at central planning. Most Americans are rationally ignorant of the Fed, and what little they do know about it is overwhelmingly shaped by the Fed’s “court historians,” especially the ones who teach economics at colleges and universities. The Austrian economists (but not all of them) are the only ones to challenge the existence of the Fed and call for its abolition. 

    In addition to being the federal government’s legalized counterfeiting arm, the Fed is also another appendage of the government’s massive propaganda apparatus. The laughingly labeled “independent” Fed’s research, according to economist Emre Kuvvet writing in The Independent Review, increasingly focuses on “climate change, gender, race, and inequality” – the “woke” political agenda of the Democrat party. The one true statement that Joe Biden made as president was “It’s not Milton Friedman’s Fed anymore.”

    The New York Fed has always been considered to be the most powerful and influential of all the Fed branches. Its homepage defines its mission as a “desire to root out the intolerable inequities and injustice grounded in systemic racism . . . steadfast in our commitment to work for a more equitable economy and society.” A clearer definition of socialism would be hard to find.

    Kuvvet found that of all the employees of the Fed’s Board of Governors there are 97 Democrats and 2 Republicans.

    “Leadership positions” on the Board consist of 45 Democrats and 1 Republican. As I said, it’s just another D.C. government propaganda mill. 

    Some Examples of the Empire of Economic Lies

    A typical introductory economics textbook devotes most space to endless stories of “market failure” (free-rider problems, externalities, monopoly and oligopoly, monopolistic competition, asymmetric information, and on and on), and almost nothing about entrepreneurship, the cornerstone of capitalism. 

    It wasn’t always like that. When the first federal antitrust law was passed in 1890 (the Sherman Antitrust Act) the entire economics profession, which was very small at the time, opposed then new law as being inherently incompatible with competition, as Jack High and I proved by quoting all of them in a July 1988 Economic Inquiry article. They all viewed competition like the Austrian economists always have – as a dynamic, rivalrous process of discovery and entrepreneurship, and thought that antitrust law could only disrupt that process and distort markets.

    By the 1930s a new and more “scientific-sounding” theory of “perfect” competition had been invented, which asserted that competitive perfection required all homogenous products and prices in an industry, perfect information in the minds of buyers and sellers, costless entry into and exit from industry, an “many” firms, whatever that might mean.

    For the next half century and more, economists would spin thousands o tall tales about how the real world fell short of this “perfection,” defined as market failure, and prescribed regulation, control, nationalization, or regimentation by presumably wise and, well, perfect politicians and bureaucrats. UCLA economist Harold Demsetz labeled this dishonest method of analysis “the Nirvana fallacy”: Comparing the real world to an unachievable never never land of Nirvana. As F.A. Hayek once described it, “In perfect competition there is no competition.” That is, there could not be product differentiation, price cutting, advertising, research and development, the rise to the top of a few superior-performing firms in an industry – all the ingredients of genuine competition.

    Generations of students have also been taught that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries large-scale production of electricity, water supply, telephone services and other similar products was producing “natural” (i.e., free market) monopolies. Governments then stepped in and legally mandated public utility monopolies, supposedly to be regulated “in the public interest.” I proved this to be yet another falsehood in my paper, “They Myth of Natural Monopoly.” There was vigorous competition in all these industries. They were monopolized by the state, not the free market, with loot-sharing agreements whereby state and local governments would share in the monopoly profits created by their government-mandated monopolies.

    Then there’s the Big Lie of the Sherman Antitrust Act which was supposedly needed because of “rampant monopolization” in the 1880s as the industrial revolution proceeded in America. In an article in The International Review of Law and Economics I showed that the industries being accused of monopolization at the time were by far the most competitive, dynamic, price-cutting, innovative, and production-expanding industries in America. The purpose of the Sherman Act was to stifle competition, not to “protect” it. 

    One of the most ridiculous things taught to generations of economics students was that because of the free-rider problem the U.S. would be spending far too little on “national defense.” “Efficiency” requires coercive taxation. There are economists who have defended Pentagon corruption and fraud on the basis that it expands defense spending, which is supposedly hindered by that nasty free rider problem. Who on earth would define Pentagon spending as “efficient”? !

    It was only in the past ten years that the “mainstream” of the economics profession finally discovered that the massive interventions of the New Deal actually made the Great Depression more severe and longer lasting, something the Austrian economists have said all along. This Big Revelation was made in an article in the prestigious Journal of Political Economy by Professor Lee Ohanian of UCLA, an editor of the American Economic Review at the time. Better late than never.

    Nobel prizes in economics have been awarded for many theories of “market failure” that subsequent research proved to be bogus. Janet Yellen’s husband, George Akerloff, was a co-recipient of the award for a paper that, in 1970, predicted that the used car market would soon disappear because of “asymmetric information” between buyers and sellers. He apparently never heard of thirty-day warranties that allow car buyers to determine whether or not they had been sold a “lemon.”

    David Card was awarded a Nobel prize for a paper claiming that minimum wage laws do not cause unemployment that was called “deeply flawed” by a National Bureau of Economic Research redo of his study. There are many similar episodes.

    Economics students are taught that the root cause of pollution is profit seeking, which ignores the fact that the worst pollution in all the world over the past century, by far, was in the socialist countries of the world in the twentieth century that prohibited private profit seeking. A corollary to the profit-seeking-causes-pollution theory is that wise and benevolent government bureaucrats are needed to solve this problem. This not only ignores political reality, but also ignores how the absence of property rights causes many pollution problems in the first place, and also how entrepreneurs solve many “externality” problems because it is profitable to do so. 

    In public finance students are taught that tax “loopholes” are inefficient because they supposedly create “artificial” market distortions. It’s much more efficient, they are taught, to let government bureaucrats spend more of your money. Then there’s the cornerstone of Keynesian economics – the canard of “the paradox of thrift” which asserts that savings reduces consumption, which in turn reduces GDP, which leads to lower savings. This theory has “justified” confiscatory taxation of interest income on savings for decades. 

    The intellectual godfather of mainstream economics will probably always be Paul Samuelson, whose Principles of Economics textbook dominated textbook sales for forty years, with almost all other textbooks during that time being imitations of his book. The statist bias that permeated that book and the others like it can be encapsulated by what Samuelson wrote in his 1988 edition – a prediction that by the year 2000 Soviet GDP would be larger than U.S. GDP. 

    All of this demonstrates why Austrian economics is more important now than ever. The economics profession has not been immune from the cult of political correctness. In fact, it was politically incorrect before political correctness was cool, as Mises’ comment about how the universities of his day were “nurseries of socialism” shows. Doug Casey was right when he wrote that most economists are political apologists masquerading as economists. Yours Truly recognized this as a college student decades ago, and was blown away by the discovery of Mises and the Austrian School, the writings of which very clearly showed that the Austrians were unique in that they were powerfully devoted to the intellectual search for the truth about how the economic world (and beyond) works, and how governments don’t work, and were not at all interested in being apologists for the plundering class.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 17:30

  • Dems Float Plan To Push Ailing Justice Sotomayor Off Supreme Court So Biden Can Replace Her Before Trump Is Sworn In
    Dems Float Plan To Push Ailing Justice Sotomayor Off Supreme Court So Biden Can Replace Her Before Trump Is Sworn In

    Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

    Democrats are reportedly having serious discussions about mounting a pressure campaign to force ailing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign so Joe Biden can nominate a replacement before President-Elect Donald Trump is sworn in.

    After losing their Senate majority to the GOP, Democrats are concerned that Republicans will be “revving up the old conveyor belt of conservative judicial nominees” as soon President-Elect Trump takes office, Politico reported.

    For Democrats, this is a hair-on-fire moment. And though the discourse in the media is presently dominated by recriminations about how this all happened, another arguably more urgent conversation is blowing up largely outside of public view: whether to push for 70-year-old Supreme Court Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR to step down while Dems still have the power to approve her replacement.

    This isn’t simply some flight of fancy happening among progressive activists online. It’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively engaged in.

     

    A Democrat senator told Politico that the topic of pushing Sotomayor off the Supreme Court “has come up repeatedly this week in talks with their colleagues.”

    These “Beltway speculative conversations,” according to Politico, have inevitably hit roadblocks for two reasons:

    (1) It’d be a risky play with the party already trying to figure out how to handle a crowded lame-duck session

    (2) no senator seems to be offering to be the person to put his or her neck on their line publicly (or even privately) by pushing for Sotomayor to step aside.

    When Democrats first floated the idea of jettisoning Sotomayor last year, they were accused of ableism and racism.

    The names of possible replacements have been discussed, including the allegedly “moderate” D.C. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was reportedly on Joe Biden’s SCOTUS short list, and has already been vetted.

    Another name floated on Friday was none other than Kamala Harris.

    On CNN this morning, attorney Bakari Sellers,  a Democrat former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, suggested that Biden could nominate Harris, giving her a new purpose in life after being vanquished by Trump.

    Just as Democrat elders forced Biden to quit his campaign after his disastrous debate with Trump, the party could pressure Sotomayor to step down. Harris, of course, quickly replaced Biden as the presidential candidate and could potentially replace Sotomayor on the Supreme Court if Democrats succeed in their pressure campaign.

    Sellers suggested the operation could be pushed through before Trump takes the presidency.

    “I think that’s actually a very good plan. I think it’s something that should happen,” he said. “You know, Justice Sotomayor has been a more than able justice. I know that she may be having some personal issues that she contends with while serving on the bench. But, you know, I don’t want Justice Sotomayor to be another Ruth Bader Ginsburg in terms of staying too long.”

    The plan is not without certain risks for Democrats.

    If Sotomayor agreed to resign, “she can sort of resign conditionally on someone being appointed to replace her,” the Democrat senator told Playbook. “But she can’t resign conditioned on a specific person. What happens if she resigns and the nominee to replace her isn’t confirmed and the next president fills the vacancy?”

    Then there’s the abbreviated timeline. Democrats would have to convince her to retire immediately, Biden would have to nominate a successor, they would have to figure out how to bring enough senators on board, dodge whatever obstructions Republicans throw in their way and get a whole floor vote before the new Congress is sworn in. There would be no room for error or delay.

    “We would have to have assurances from any shaky senator that they would back a nominee in the lame duck, because what do you do if she announces she’s going to step down and then independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin doesn’t support her and then [Republican Sens.] Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski back off and say they’re not going to support a new nominee?” a senior Democrat told Politico. “Do you just rescind that letter?”

    The senator told Politico that the logistics of the operation may well be “insurmountable,” and it might “be better to focus on confirming lower-court judges, filling vacancies Trump can’t later fill himself.”

    Sen. Josh Hawley commented on the record Friday: “This is not happening. No way, no how,” he posted on X . “The Senate will not confirm any last-minute Dem Supreme Court nominee between now and January. The next SCOTUS justice will be nominated by Donald J. Trump.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 16:20

  • Musk Says "Time Is Up For The Warmonger Profiteers" In Nod To Trump Ukraine Peace Plan
    Musk Says “Time Is Up For The Warmonger Profiteers” In Nod To Trump Ukraine Peace Plan

    The Wall Street Journal this week reported that President-Elect Donald Trump is being presented with an array of competing proposals from advisers related to his campaign promise to immediately end the war in Ukraine upon entering the White House.

    While he’s reportedly yet to approve a specific plan, and much might also depend on his team identifying who will fill the top national security and foreign policy posts in the administration, what’s clear is the Zelensky government will feel the pressure to immediately sit at the negotiating table with Moscow.

    The WSJ has revealed that the current options being considered all involve imposing a ‘freeze’ on the war, which to Kiev’s dismay would involve “cementing Russia’s seizure of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine” while imposing a 20-year suspension on Ukraine pursuing NATO membership.

    Via Reuters

    The front lines in the east “would essentially lock in place” according to the proposed plan which is reportedly attracting most attention within Trump’s team, and this freeze would be enforced by European peacekeepers along an 800-mile demilitarized zone.

    Trump officials have told the WSJ that the president-elect is committed to seeing that no American troops are deployed as part of policing this buffer zone; instead the Europeans should shoulder the burden:

    Who would police that territory remains unclear, but one adviser said the peacekeeping force wouldn’t involve American troops, nor come from a U.S.-funded international body, such as the United Nations.

    “We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European,” a member of Trump’s team said. “We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.”

    The degree to which this plan is actually being mulled and favored by Trump is unclear. Ukraine is likely to object to being forced to give up such a large chunk of what it sees as its legitimate sovereign territory.

    “Anyone—no matter how senior in Trump’s circle—who claims to have a different view or more detailed window into his plans on Ukraine simply doesn’t know what he or she is talking about or doesn’t understand that he makes his own calls on national-security issues, many times in the moment, particularly on an issue as central as this,” a former Trump National Security Council aide told WSJ by way of important caveat. 

    However, Elon Musk, who was invited by Trump to join in on a phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky this week, has suggested the above peace plan is likely top of the list of what’s being considered.

    “The senseless killing will end soon. Time is up for the warmonger profiteers,” Musk posted on X in direct response to X commentator Mario Nawfal, who wrote about “Trump’s plan for Ukraine.”

    Nawfal in his original post which caught Musk’s attention wrote that Trump “reportedly plans an 800-mile demilitarized zone between Russia and Ukraine, with British and European troops patrolling the area” – quoting Newsweek. “Under the proposal, Russia would retain its territorial gains, and Ukraine would agree not to join NATO for 20 years,” Nawfal’s post added. 

    Another controversial aspect to the plan would be Washington would continue to pump Ukraine full of weapons while declaring it ‘neutral’ regarding NATO. J.D. Vance has previously called for Ukraine being “heavily fortified so the Russians don’t invade again” as part of a future peace process.

    But this would probably be especially objected to by the Kremlin, given a stated aim of Putin’s in executing the war is precisely to ‘demilitarize’ Ukraine, and to halt the advance of NATO infrastructure into the former Soviet satellite. Putin might perceive that the West continuing to arm Ukraine for many years to come would just set things up for another major future clash and war in Eastern Europe.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 15:45

  • US District Court Judge Blocks Illinois Ban On Certain Types Of Rifles, Attachments
    US District Court Judge Blocks Illinois Ban On Certain Types Of Rifles, Attachments

    Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

    A U.S. District Court Judge has permanently enjoined the state of Illinois from enforcing its “Protecting Illinois Communities Act” (PICA), a ban on certain types of semiautomatic rifles and so-called “high capacity” magazines.

    In a 168-page ruling, Judge Stephen McGlynn of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois wrote that PICA was “unconstitutional under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.” The order is stayed for 30 days.

    Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office said it plans to appeal the ruling.

    “Although this decision is disappointing, the Protect Illinois Communities Act remains in effect for the next 30 days. The law is an important part of the state’s comprehensive efforts to make communities safe from gun violence,” Raoul’s spokesperson Annie Thompson wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

    “We will continue to defend the law’s constitutionality, as we have in courtrooms throughout Illinois, and plan to appeal the court’s decision.”

    Gun rights advocates hailed the ruling as a victory in their fight to preserve the Second Amendment.

    “We are gratified that the Court properly found that these bans violate the constitutionally protected rights of Illinois residents and visitors,” Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, wrote in a post on X.

    “As we clearly showed at trial, PICA fails even under the Seventh Circuit’s misguided test that conflicts with binding Supreme Court precedent.”

    The ruling was issued for four lawsuits that had been combined because they covered the same issues. Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation, and plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, issued statements celebrating the injunction as a step forward.

    “We are thrilled with the victory and for the citizens of Illinois. We the People deserve the right to decide how best to protect ourselves and our loved ones,” Erich Pratt, GOA’s senior vice president, said in a statement on the group’s website.

    Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed PICA into law in January 2023. It outlawed AK-47 and AR-15 style rifles, as well as rifle magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and pistol magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

    The only exceptions to the ban were for “trained professionals,” such as law enforcement officers, and people who owned such guns before January 2024. The law also expanded licensing and permitting regulations.

    McGlynn ruled that the Illinois law did not meet the standard set under the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, the high court ruled that gun laws must be in accordance with the plain text of the Constitution and comparable to the law in effect at the time the Second Amendment was ratified.

    While the state referenced firearms regulations found in English Common law in its argument, McGlynn said it failed to meet the Bruen standard.

    “Sadly, there are those who seek to usher in a sort of post-Constitution era where the citizens’ individual rights are only as important as they are convenient to a ruling class,” McGlynn’s decision states.

    Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker gives a COVID-19 update in the Blue Room at the Thompson Center in Chicago on Feb. 9, 2022. Tyler LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP

    “Seeking ancient laws that may partner well with a present-day infringement on a right proclaimed in the Bill of Rights without reading it in conjunction with the aforementioned history is nonsense.”

    The plaintiffs hope the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to hear a similar case from Maryland and settle the question of so-called “assault weapons.”

    Plaintiffs in that case, Snope v. Brown, filed a petition for certiorari—a request to be heard—with the high court on Aug. 21. The plaintiffs claim that, like PICA, Maryland’s law unconstitutionally prohibits firearms that are “in common use for lawful purposes.”

    In 2013, Maryland adopted the Firearms Safety Act, which bans 45 types of guns, including AR15 and AK47-style rifles and various shotguns “or their copies, regardless of which company produced and manufactured that assault weapon.”

    The plaintiffs originally sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Dec. 1, 2020.

    Snope v. Brown is the third iteration of the 2020 lawsuit. It is commonly known by its most recent title, Bianchi v. Brown.

    “Certiorari is required in this case,” said Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation at the time the petition to the Supreme Court was filed, “to correct an increasingly widespread misunderstanding of the Supreme Court precedent, and the Second Amendment, itself. The specific type of firearm in question is commonly owned across the country, placing it well within the scope of the Second Amendment.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 15:10

  • Israeli Jets Wound Syrian Soldiers In Third Attack This Week
    Israeli Jets Wound Syrian Soldiers In Third Attack This Week

    The Saturday overnight hours witnessed another Israeli attack on Syria, which marks at least the third such air raid this week, as part of a stepped up campaign to wage war on the ‘pro-Iran’ axis which includes Damascus and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    The new strikes occurred in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib, wounding several soldiers and resulting in destruction of military infrastructure. “At around 00:45 after midnight, the Israeli army launched an air aggression from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting a number of sites in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib,” SANA news agency cited a military source as saying.

    IAF jet, via Reuters

    The UK-based anti-Assad opposition outlet Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the strikes had targeted military installations where units and members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Tehran-backed factions are based.

    Israel has been attacking Syria with increased frequency over the last several weeks in connection with the Hezbollah war in south Lebanon, despite widespread acknowledgement that Syria is staying out of events related to the Gaza war.

    Many have asked why Assad has stayed relatively quiet in the context of the Gaza war, Hezbollah war, and the Israeli standoff with Iran. One anti-Assad pundit whose name is Hassan Hassan writes the following:

    The regime has used the war to restore an older perception, established first by former President Hafez al-Assad, that it alone has the ability to keep Syria’s border with Israel quiet and secure. Rather than emerging as a new front for the Iranian axis, as many have long feared since the country descended into conflict in 2011, Syria is attempting to settle into its old role, while taking steps to gradually return to the regional fold through significant diplomatic and political overtures aimed at once more normalizing its position.

    He continues by explaining that Syria is willing do endure smaller hits on infrastructure, without responding, if this ensures Assad government survival:

    For Syria, the risks could be substantial and catastrophic if Israel escalates its attacks to include targeting Syria’s top leadership, rather than focusing solely on logistical hubs tied to Iran’s military buildup in the country. The rebels in the north could also take advantage in such a scenario, attacking regime areas after years of near quiet on the front lines, apart from frequent strikes in rebel areas.

    It remains that the biggest al-Qaeda stronghold in the world today is centered in Idlib province in northwest Syria, on the border with Turkey – which has played a major part along with other NATO powers like the United States in propping up the hardline Islamic stronghold.

    These latest Syria strikes happened alongside other offensives elsewhere in the region. The National reports Saturday that “Dozens were killed in separate overnight air strikes launched by the Israeli military on Lebanon, Syria and Gaza as it intensifies its attack on what it claims to be Hamas and Hezbollah positions.”

    “Israel launched 14 air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Friday, shortly after Israel’s military warned residents to leave parts of the area,” the report added, noting that there were an unknown number of casualties.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 14:35

  • Trump Flips Nevada, Nears Sweep Of Swing States
    Trump Flips Nevada, Nears Sweep Of Swing States

    Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

    President-elect Donald Trump has flipped Nevada, nearly three days after he was declared winner of the 2024 race to the White House.

    The race was called at 9:15 p.m. PT on Nov. 8. Trump has now won six of the seven swing states and appears poised to capture them all.

    He is leading in Arizona, the final battleground that has not yet been called.

    With this win, Trump becomes the first Republican to win the Silver State since 2004.

    He lost the 2016 race here to Hillary Clinton by 2.42 percentage points and the 2020 contest to candidate Joe Biden by 2.4 points.

    Republicans had reason to believe Trump’s third time would be the charm after posting a robust in-person early vote lead and registration gains since 2020.

    While Harris has consistently, but narrowly, led in Nevada polls since succeeding Biden as the Democrat’s nominee in July, two of four late surveys showed Trump suddenly surging as a clear favorite.

    An Atlas Intel Nov. 1–2 survey of 782 likely voters had Trump leading by 5.5 percentage points and a Susquehanna Oct. 28–31 poll of 400 likely voters had Trump up by a breakaway 6 percentage points.

    Meanwhile, a NY Times/Siena Oct. 24 to Nov. 2 survey of 1,010 likely voters had Harris up 2-to-3 percentage points and an Emerson Oct. 29 to Oct. 31 poll of 700 likely voters put her up by 1 percent.

    Many media outlets had declared Trump the winner of the battleground state’s six Electoral College votes for days before the AP formally finally did so.

    AP called the race with 96 percent of statewide ballots counted. Trump had 724,498 votes, 50.7 percent, to Harris’s 678,399 votes, or 47.4 percent.

    He led by 3.3 percent, or by 46,099 votes.

    There had been as many as 13,000 mail-in ballots, including more than 11,000 from Clark County, flagged for discrepancies, primarily mismatched signatures. Elections offices had been frantically scrambling to contact affected voters to “cure” or verify those votes by Nov. 9.

    Trump was not only winning Washoe County – which includes Reno and is Nevada’s second-largest voting constituency – by about 1,600 votes but had garnered more than 478,000 votes in Clark County, where 71 percent of the state’s 3.2 million residents and 2.03 million active voters live, and where Democrats need to run up big numbers to win statewide races.

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

    That doesn’t appear to have happened in 2024. While Harris was leading in Clark County with 504,828 votes late afternoon Nov. 8, that was only 26,000 more than what Trump had received in the blue county, significantly below the threshold needed to overcome GOP votes across the state.

    Interestingly, in both these cases – Arizona and Nevada – the incumbent Democrat Senators are leading despite President Trump’s lead in the presidential race:

    Jacky Rosen (D) has been declared the winner over Veteran Sam Brown. Rosen got around the same number of votes as Kamala…

    But, In Arizona, Kari Lake (R) is holding it close still. BUT notice that the Dem senator has received far more votes than Kamala did…

    Lake and campaign officials have been expressing confidence that Lake, who lost the 2022 gubernatorial election, will ultimately win the Arizona Senate race. They’ve been urging people to cure ballots, meaning fix mistakes on ballots so their votes are counted.

    Under Arizona law, voters have five days after Election Day to fix issues with their ballots.

    “There are lawyers and trained observers monitoring tabulation of ballots, duplicating, and adjudication until we are done. I’m in constant touch with Kari’s lawyers and supporters about this and we are watching every ballot drop,” Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who leads an election integrity team for state and national Republicans, said on the social media platform X.

    As of the current projections, Republicans will have 53 Senate seats in the next Congress, compared to 45 for Democrats or nominal independents who caucus with the Democrats.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 14:00

  • "Show No Mercy": Trump's Campaign Pledge To Annihilate Mexican Cartels Goes Viral
    “Show No Mercy”: Trump’s Campaign Pledge To Annihilate Mexican Cartels Goes Viral

    Now, as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, Mexican cartels, Chinese chemical companies, money laundering networks across North America, and US-based drug dealers are on notice that the boom times under the Biden-Harris regime’s open southern border policies will soon be coming to an end. 

    If Trump follows through with his 2023 campaign promise to “wage war” against Mexican drug cartels, then Americans could expect an end to the horrific 100,000 US drug death overdose crisis per year caused by fentanyl and other drugs – much of which starts as precursor chemicals shipped from China, cooked into fentanyl by Mexican cartels, then flooded in the Lower 48. 

    Here’s Trump’s action plan to destroy the cartels:

    • Restore all Trump border policies and fully secure border

    • Deploy all necessary military assets, including the U.S. Navy, to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels, to ensure they cannot use our region’s waters to traffic illicit drugs to the U.S.

    • Order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations

    • Designate the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations

    • Cut off the cartels’ access to the global financial system

    • Get full cooperation of neighboring governments to dismantle the cartels, or else fully expose the bribes and corruption that protect these criminal networks

    • Ask Congress to ensure drug smugglers and traffickers can receive the Death Penalty

    Trump’s team released this video in December 2023 titled “President Donald J. Trump Declares War on Cartels.” 

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

    Now the question arises: Does the Trump-Vance team still hold these strong cartel-busting views after announcing them nearly a year ago?

    Absolutely… 

    Here’s JD Vance on the campaign trail in late October: “On behalf of every American who has lost a loved one due to this border crisis, we’re going to kick some cartel ass when President Donald J. Trump takes office.”

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

    Not too long ago, Trump announced financial armageddon for Mexican cartels: “I’m announcing that for the first time under my administration, we are seizing the assets of the criminal gangs and drug cartels and we will use those assets to create a compensation fund to provide restitution for the victims of migrant crime.” 

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

    At the Republican National Convention, Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement between 2017 and 2018, told Mexican cartels: “You’re done.” 

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

    Americans are desperately hoping for closed borders and a resolution to this drug death chaos and illegal alien invasion. Trump’s historic election sweep shows just that. Now get to work, Mr. President.

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

    In our view, the Trump team next year could start by disrupting the financial networks – or command and control centers – of cartels. Trump already mentioned seizing assets, but what’s rarely mentioned is the possibility of sanctioning Mexican banks.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 13:25

  • Taiwan Receives Its First Batch Of HIMARS Rocket Systems From US
    Taiwan Receives Its First Batch Of HIMARS Rocket Systems From US

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the island received its first batch of US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which it first ordered in 2020.

    The HIMARS is a truck-mounted mobile rocket launch system that can fire a variety of munitions, including the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which Taiwan has purchased. The ATACMS have a range of about 186 miles.

    HIMARS training course graduates at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Fort Sill Facebook photo

    The US approval of a sale to Taiwan for HIMARS and ATACMS in 2020 was significant since it marked the first time the US offered weapons that could reach mainland China. The sale also included AGM-84H cruise missiles, which have a range of 168 miles and can be fired by Taiwan’s F-16 fighter jets.

    Taiwan ordered 11 of the HIMARS systems in 2020 and ordered another 18 in 2022. The island’s Defense Ministry said the first 11 have arrived, and Taiwanese troops are reportedly undergoing training to use them. 

    The US has deployed troops to Taiwan for training in recent years, including on the outer islands of Kinmen, which are just a few miles off mainland China’s coast.

    Taiwanese troops were recently in the US training on HIMARS at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that at least 17 soldiers from Taiwan completed training on the HIMARS in August, and Fort Sill’s Facebook page shared a photo of the Taiwanese troops.

    The US has continued to increase military support for Taiwan despite constant warnings from China that the island is the “first red line” in US-China relations that must not be crossed.

    The US has always sold weapons to Taiwan since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 as part of a normalization deal with China. Last year, the US started providing US-funded military aid, marking a significant escalation in US support for the island.

    ABC/GFX

    In September, President Biden approved a $567 million arms package for Taiwan using the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows him to ship weapons straight from US military stockpiles.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 12:50

  • Trump's Election Victory Proves That The Hollywood Elite No Longer Matter
    Trump’s Election Victory Proves That The Hollywood Elite No Longer Matter

    Kamala Harris is toast.  The political spin has been crushed underfoot.  The polls were wrong (again) and the presidential race wasn’t even close.  But Harris’ defeat is only a symbol of something much bigger; the national repudiation of an elitist system that has long thrived on the public worship of false idols.

    The narrative throughout the Joe Biden campaign was that the old ghoul was “sharp as a tack”.  That fantasy was quickly exposed to the masses in a single election debate.  The Harris campaign narrative was that Democrats are the “party of joy”, and they tried real hard to sell this illusion using a horde of celebrities and legacy media talking heads as a foil. 

    It’s difficult to artificially generate joy.  But beyond that, the era of the celebrity endorsement is long gone.  Americans don’t care anymore and this seems to be confounding the progressive media.  According to them Harris ran a “flawless campaign”.  Joy Reid argued that with the number of celebrity endorsements Harris received her victory should have been assured.

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    Kamala even had the cast of The Avengers on her side.  The problem is that The Avengers and Harris never presented a valid economic policy plan, which is what the public really cares about.

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    Though one could argue that the Trump campaign also highlighted their celebrity endorsements (or that Trump’s TV stardom years ago is an example of celebrity power), the difference is that actors and pop stars were central to Kamala’s presidential run while they were a side note for Trump.  He didn’t need Hollywood to rally for him. 

    There is an assumption by media pundits that movie star endorsements are somehow organic; but actors and singers can be bought.  Rumors abound that both Biden and Harris were paying big money to social media influencers in the early days of the election cycle and it’s a fair bet that they were doing the same thing with celebrity mascots. 

    How much Harris campaign money was flowing into the pockets of these people?  Recent reports indicate that the Biden/Harris camp generated double the amount of donations that Trump received, yet she spent so much bread her campaign is now allegedly $20 million in debt.  If this is true then it highlights the incredible expense involved in creating fake joy, as well as the pointlessness of the Hollywood cult.

    In other words, they can’t buy hype anymore. 

    Cash might have been a big motivator for celebrities to jump on the Kamala bandwagon, but there’s also the issue of impending investigations into Hollywood’s degeneracy and pedophilia.  With Trump in office there will be increasing public demands for the release of the Esptein client lists as well as the exposure of the alleged Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs tapes.  Trump is likely to oblige.

    Finally, the residents of Tinsel Town are notorious for living within a bubble of ideological delusion.  It’s true that decades ago celebrities had far more influence on the opinions of the general public, and perhaps they think they’re still living in that “golden” era.  It’s simply not the case, as the latest election proves.  The realization is hitting them like a ton of bricks.

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    Narcissists cannot handle the revelation that they are irrelevant, and so they quickly become unhinged.

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    The political left roots itself in the idea that they are the core of culture and they pride themselves on being the gatekeepers for what the public sees and hears.  They have long sought to dominate popular media through subversion and they’ll often brag about their success in infiltrating every corner of the entertainment industry.  But does any of this matter anymore?  Ricky Gervais answers this question in brilliant parody.

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    The alternative media today is dominating the establishment media.  Celebrities, once living behind a carefully crafted marketing image, are now exposed on social media as the dunces they really are.  Trump’s latest victory in the face of the La La Land army might just herald the total destruction of the old Hollywood regime.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 12:15

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Nov 09

Today’s News 9th November 2024

  • 'Fasten Your Seatbelts' – Pepe Escobar Explores The 'Trumpquake'
    'Fasten Your Seatbelts' – Pepe Escobar Explores The 'Trumpquake'

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    On the political Richter scale, that was a killer – literally. What was supposed to be a Liberal Totalitarian Show was brutally, unceremoniously, swept out of the park – any park. Even before Election Day, critical thinking was aware of the stakes. With fraud, Kamala wins.

    With no fraud, Trump wins.

    There were, at best, (failed) attempts at fraud.

    The key question still remains: what does the U.S. Deep State really want?

    My inbox is infested with loads of weepy reports from U.S. Think Tankland wondering, in disbelief, why Kamala could possibly lose.

    It’s quite straightforward – apart from her sheer incompetence cum utter mediocrity literally cackling out loud – the legacy of the administration she was part of is ghastly – all the way from Crash Test Dummy to Little Butcher Blinkie.

    Instead of bothering to care about the abysmal state of affairs, at every level, concerning that mythical entity, “the American people”, they chose to invest everything on a neocon-manufactured proxy war to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia – stealing Russian assets, unleashing a tsunami of sanctions, shipping an array of wunderwaffen. The weaponization of Ukraine led to countless Ukrainian dead and the inevitable, fast-approaching cosmic humiliation of NATO in the black soil of Novorossiya.

    They invested everything to support a genocide in Gaza conducted with a huge arsenal of American weapons: a lebensraum-coded ethnic cleansing cum extermination op directed by a bunch of Talmudic psychos – and marketed under the “rules-based international order” spewed out by Butcher Blinkie in every bilateral or multilateral gathering.

    It’s no wonder that West Asia and the wider Global South soon got the message of what may happen to anyone daring to go against the Hegemon’s “interests”. Thus the counterpunch: the strengthening of BRICS and BRICS+, celebrated for all the world to see two weeks ago in Kazan.

    At least this administration had a merit, strengthening the bonds between all major “existential threats” to the Hegemon: three BRICS (Russia, China, Iran), plus the indomitable DPRK. All that in contrast with a meager tactical victory – which may not last long: the absolute vassalization of Europe.

    Hanging Ukraine on Europe’s neck

    Of course, foreign policy does not win U.S. elections. Americans themselves will have to solve their dilemmas, or plunge into civil war. As for the bulk of the Global Majority, it harbors no illusions. Trumpquake’s coded message is that the Zionist lobby wins – again. Perhaps not so unanimously when we consider all strands of neo-cons and Zio-cons. Wall Street wins again (BlackRock’s Larry Fink said so even before Election Day). And prominent silos across the Deep State also win again.

    That begs a modified question; what if Trump feels emboldened enough after January 25 to launch a Stalinist purge of the Deep State?

    Election Day proceeded nearly simultaneously with the Valdai Club annual meeting in Sochi, where the superstar, not surprisingly, was eminent geopolitician Sergey Karaganov. Of course he directly referred to the Empire’s Forever Wars: “We are living in biblical times.”

    And even before Trumpquake, Karaganov stressed, calmly, “We will defeat the West in Ukraine – without resorting to ultimate means.” And that “will provide for a peaceful withdrawal of the U.S. – which will become a normal superpower.” Europe, meanwhile, “will move to the sidelines of History.”

    All of that spot on. But then Karaganov introduced a startling concept: “The war in Ukraine is a replacement of WWIII. Afterwards, we can agree on some kind of order in Eurasia.”

    That would be the “indivisibility of security” proposed by Putin to Washington – and rejected – on December 2021, part of the “Greater Eurasia Partnership” that was conceptualized by Karaganov himself.

    The problem though is his conclusion: “Let’s make the Ukrainian war the last major war in the 21st century.”

    Ay, there’s the rub: the real major war is actually Eretz Israel v. the Axis of Resistance in West Asia.

    Let’s have a quick pit stop in Europe before getting to the meat of this matter. Trumpquake is all set to hang Ukraine on Europe’s neck like a larger-than-life albatross. The shorthand: Exit American money financing the born-to-lose Project Ukraine. Enter German money filling the coffers of the weapons lobby inside the Ray McGovern-coined MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex).

    The U.S. Treasury has issued an internal memorandum valid until April 30, 2025 – when Trump will be already three months in power – allowing transactions with Russian banks on anything related to oil, natural gas, timber and any form of uranium.

    As for the gullible, Brussels-run EU, they will pay the heavy load on weaponizing rump Ukraine while accepting wave after wave of new refugees and saying goodbye to any of their funds already invested in that humongous black hole.

    Beware of that Tony Soprano wannabe

    Trumpquake – if taken at face value – is bound to further weaponize the U.S. dollar; Trump has threatened, on the record, to blacklist any nation that uses other currencies for international trade. BRICS and BRICS+ partners have registered it; and that will accelerate the testing of all models in the BRICS lab leading towards a multi-layered alternative trade settlement system.

    BRICS and the Global Majority also know that Trump in fact signed off on Nordstream sanctions – when he referred recently to “killing” Nord Steam. And they also know he did less than zero during Trump 1.0 to find a solution for the proxy war in Ukraine.

    Now we come to the clincher.

    Trump personally destroyed the JCPOA – the Iran nuclear deal – brokered by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). Moscow – and Beijing – know perfectly well how this led to further destabilization of the whole of West Asia, in conjunction to the Trump-ordered assassination of Gen Soleimani, which started what I termed the Raging Twenties.

    Last but not least, Trump brokered the bombastically-named “Deal of the Century”: the Abraham Accords, which if implemented will forever bury any possibility of an Israel/Palestine two-state solution.

    The deal – which may be considered as nefarious as the 1917 Balfour declaration – may be in a coma. But MbS’s Whatsapp pal Jared Kushner is back, and will certainly renew the pressure. MbS still has not made up his mind when it comes to BRICS. Trump will go bonkers if MbS increasingly starts to navigate the petroyuan way.

    All that brings us to a supremely nefarious character, Tony Soprano wannabe Mike Pompeo, who is a serious candidate to become head of the Pentagon. That would spell major trouble ahead. Pompeo was CIA director and Secretary of State under Trump 1.0. He is an uber-hawk on Russia, China and especially Iran.

    Arguably the pressing question from now on is whether Trump – whose life was spared by God, in his own interpretation – does what is expected of him by his uber-wealthy donors, appoints Pompeo and similar gangsters for key posts, and invests on Israel’s war against Iran and the Axis of Resistance.

    If that’s the case, he won’t have to worry about another failed sniper. But if he really tries to run his own independent game, there’s no question he will be a dead man walking.

    So the whole Global Majority waits with bated breath. How will Trumpquake translate in the geopolitical MAGA sphere? Sure bets focus on extensive use of private military companies (PMCs) for foreign policy “missions” and selected, targeted military “interventions”. Targets could include any Global South player from Mexico (to “secure the border”) to Venezuela (the Monroe doctrine “securing the oil”), Yemen (to “secure the Red Sea”) and of course Iran (a massive bombing campaign to “secure Israel”).

    In a nutshell: no new wars (as Trump promised), just a few targeted incursions. Plus Hybrid War on maximum overdrive. Brazil, watch out: Trumpquake will not tolerate a truly sovereign BRICS member increasing its Global South influence in the “Western Hemisphere”.

    Fasten your seatbelts: whatever happens, Trumpquake is bound to be a bumpy ride.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 23:25

  • Russia Dominates US As World's Largest Owner Of Natural Resources
    Russia Dominates US As World's Largest Owner Of Natural Resources

    Natural resources are the backbone of modern manufacturing, necessary to produce everything around us.

    According to 2021 data from Statista, 10 countries dominate the global natural resource landscape, each holding vast reserves critical for various industries.

    Russia’s $75 Trillion in Natural Resources

    Russia leads the pack with natural resources valued at $75 trillion, largely consisting of coal, natural gas, oil, and rare earth metals. At the end of 2018, Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment valued the country’s mineral reserves at approximately $1.44 trillion.

    In terms of global share, Russia is unmatched in natural gas, holding the world’s largest proven reserves at 1.32 quadrillion cubic feet as of 2020—nearly 20% of the global total. Russia also ranks as a gold powerhouse.

    Other Resource Giants

    The United States ranks second, with an estimated $45 trillion in natural resources, including coal, timber, natural gas, and valuable metals like gold.

     

    In Saudi Arabia and Canada, oil wealth drives natural resources, placing these countries third and fourth on the list. Saudi Arabia, with its vast oil fields, has been a leader in global energy markets. Canada, on the other hand, also benefits from substantial uranium deposits and is home to some of the world’s largest lumber companies.

    Further down the list, China has vast coal reserves, positioning it as the top producer of the fuel.

    Mineral-rich Brazil and Australia are leading producers of metals like iron ore, while Australia is also a top exporter of coal.

    If you enjoyed this graphic, make sure to check out this graphic that shows how global coal consumption is still rising.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 23:00

  • US Has A New Strategy To Counter China's AI Threat
    US Has A New Strategy To Counter China's AI Threat

    Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times,

    The White House has released the first-ever U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, developed to counter China’s ambitions to lead AI development globally and leverage it across military and civilian sectors for strategic dominance.

    On Oct. 24, the White House issued the National Security Memorandum (NSM) on Artificial Intelligence (AI), underscoring the urgent need for the United States to lead in AI governance and set global standards for security, transparency, and ethical use. This initiative seeks to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) efforts to dominate the AI field.

    Through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative and aggressive tactics within organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the CCP has shown its intent to reshape international rules in ways that favor Beijing’s interests, often disregarding established global norms. Allowing China to dictate AI standards could have far-reaching and severe consequences globally.

    The AI threat from the Chinese regime to U.S. national security is substantial and complex, involving China’s integration of AI across both civilian and military sectors as part of its long-term strategy. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has voiced concerns over China’s use of AI for internal surveillance and misinformation campaigns, which are now being exported and pose threats to U.S. and allied security.

    A key component of Beijing’s AI strategy is the “intelligentization“ of its military, aiming to use AI for advanced decision-making and autonomous systems, which could give the regime a strategic military advantage in ways that the United States may struggle to counter.

    China’s AI-powered military advancements include deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and uncrewed surface vessels (unmanned naval drones), as well as enhancing command and control operations. These capabilities could disrupt U.S. intelligence operations or destabilize military power balances in sensitive regions like the Taiwan Strait. Such risks highlight the urgency for the United States to monitor and counter these developments, as China’s rapid AI integration could make predicting and countering its moves increasingly difficult.

    Some analysts believe that AI will be so crucial in future wars that, without it, the U.S. military might be unable to defeat the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army. The recent U.S. memorandum directs defense and national security agencies to incorporate AI in defense, intelligence, and counterintelligence operations. The White House emphasizes integrating AI into national security while protecting AI resources from foreign threats, with a particular focus on mitigating risks like technology transfer and espionage in the AI supply chain. The NSM further prioritizes intelligence gathering on competitor activities in the U.S. AI sector to counter economic and technological espionage targeting American AI leadership.

    China’s national AI strategy prioritizes advancements in AI technology and active participation in global AI governance. Central to this strategy is military-civil fusion, where civilian AI advancements are rapidly applied to military technology, giving China a strategic advantage in innovation and resource use. While the U.S. government is also funding AI development, and the recent memorandum aims to integrate AI into intelligence and defense to maintain competitiveness and prevent AI-based operational advantages for China, especially in cyber and autonomous warfare, China may still be outpacing the United States in certain critical areas.

    “The 2023 National Security Scorecard: Critical Technologies Edition” report from Govini offers an in-depth look at the U.S.–China rivalry in key technologies essential to national security. It highlights vulnerabilities in U.S. defense due to a heavy reliance on Chinese suppliers, especially in AI. The report indicates that China now leads the United States in AI innovation, as evidenced by its high patent output and robust development of machine learning applications that impact both military and civilian sectors. This growing gap underscores the need for the United States to strengthen its AI research and development, secure its supply chains, and lessen its dependence on technology from adversarial sources, such as communist China, to maintain a strategic edge in national security.

    Alongside enhancing its AI capabilities, the United States must encourage its allies to strengthen their own. Speaking at the National Defense University on Oct. 24, Sullivan stressed the importance of international partnerships to provide secure alternatives to China’s AI-powered digital infrastructure, which poses risks of data compromise, surveillance, and censorship. He cautioned that reversing course can be difficult and costly once nations adopt China’s technology.

    The White House asserts that achieving U.S. dominance in AI requires both public and private collaboration to drive innovation, secure AI talent, and maintain computational advantages. Key initiatives include strengthening domestic AI research, enhancing cybersecurity, and ensuring a secure AI ecosystem. The CHIPS Act boosts U.S. capacity in advanced chip production critical for AI, while recent policies restrict China’s access to AI-enabling semiconductor technology to slow its military advancements.

    Although non-defense research funding has decreased in recent years, the Biden administration is coordinating with Congress to secure resources to improve AI capabilities, such as government supercomputers and supply chain security for semiconductor production. Without these measures, experts warn that China’s rapid AI adoption could shift military power in its favor, especially in contested regions like Taiwan.

    To counter the CCP’s AI threat, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) advises that the U.S. bolster its military AI capabilities, establish norms for responsible AI use in defense, and work closely with allies on these issues. CNAS recommends negotiating risk reduction and confidence-building measures with China specifically for military AI while simultaneously pursuing broader crisis management frameworks.

    Additionally, CNAS suggests integrating military AI into diplomatic efforts on nuclear and strategic stability with China, addressing risks from AI’s rapid, unpredictable nature, and prioritizing intelligence on China’s military AI advancements.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 22:35

  • Wedding-flation: The State-By-State Costs Of Tying-The-Knot
    Wedding-flation: The State-By-State Costs Of Tying-The-Knot

    Weddings have always been monumental milestones. However, pulling off the perfect celebration can come with a hefty price tag.

    In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti visualizes the average wedding costs in the U.S. by state (excluding Alaska and Hawaii), according to data compiled by The Knot as of December 2023, which surveyed 9,318 couples across the country.

    Most Expensive Locations to Host a Wedding

    According to the study conducted by The Knot, the national average cost of a wedding in 2023 reached $35,000, compared to the $30,000 average recorded the previous year.

    Cities like New York, San Francisco, and Chicago are among the most expensive locations to host a wedding, while states with smaller populations, such as Idaho, West Virginia, and Wyoming, offer more affordable alternatives.

    State Cost
    New Jersey $55,000
    New York $49,000
    Connecticut $44,000
    Maine $44,000
    New Hampshire $44,000
    Rhode Island $44,000
    Vermont $44,000
    DC $42,000
    Massachusetts $42,000
    California $41,000
    Delaware $39,000
    Illinois $39,000
    Maryland $39,000
    South Carolina $39,000
    Pennsylvania $38,000
    Virginia $38,000
    Louisiana $37,000
    West Virginia $36,000
    Alabama $34,000
    Colorado $34,000
    Florida $34,000
    Mississippi $33,000
    Arizona $32,000
    Texas $32,000
    Minnesota $31,000
    North Carolina $31,000
    Georgia $30,000
    Ohio $30,000
    Oregon $30,000
    Washington $30,000
    Michigan $29,000
    Wisconsin $29,000
    Tennessee $28,000
    Missouri $27,000
    Indiana $26,000
    New Mexico $26,000
    Wyoming $26,000
    Arkansas $25,000
    Kansas $25,000
    Oklahoma $25,000
    Iowa $24,000
    South Dakota $23,000
    Nebraska $22,000
    North Dakota $22,000
    Nevada $21,000
    Idaho $20,000
    Kentucky $20,000
    Montana $20,000
    Utah $17,000

    What Drives Wedding Costs?

    Several factors contribute to the rise in wedding costs.

    On average, couples hire 14 vendors to execute their big day. The wedding reception venue, live band, and photographer are typically the priciest of these.

    Furthermore, the demand for wedding planners has seen a notable increase, with 37% of couples in 2023 opting for professional planning services, up from 30% in 2019. These experts help orchestrate everything from catering to decor, ensuring that each detail aligns with the couple’s vision.

    The costs on this map do not include another big-ticket item—the engagement ring, which averages over $5,000.

    If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out this graphic, which shows what you need to earn to own a home in 50 American cities.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 22:10

  • Trump Can Repair The Damage That Biden Dealt To Indo-US Ties
    Trump Can Repair The Damage That Biden Dealt To Indo-US Ties

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    Trump’s return to the White House is seen by India as an opportunity to repair the damage that Biden dealt to bilateral ties. Summer 2023’s alleged attempted assassination scandal, which readers can learn more about here, toxified their relations and was followed by American meddling in the latest Indian general elections. Bangladesh’s US-backed regime change several months ago was regarded by many Indians as a betrayal of their regional security interests. The US has also pressured India to dump Russia.  

    All of that might soon be water under the bridge if Trump brings Indian Americans and Indian-friendly officials with him back to Washington.

    This would be especially so if Kashyap Patel is confirmed as the next CIA chief like some have speculated that Trump is planning to propose.

    If the stars align, then the first order of business that India would want to have happen is for the US to crack down on Delhi-designated terrorists-separatists to the maximum extent that American law allows.

    The state protection that Khalistani leaders like Gurpatwant Singh Pannun enjoy while they openly imply threats to bomb Indian airliners and assassinate its diplomats among other crimes has convinced many Indians that these figures and their movement are being wielded as Hybrid War weapons against India. Trump campaigned on a law-and-order platform whose principles are incompatible with these provocations so there are hopes that he’ll put a stop to them as the first step to repairing ties.

    Next on India’s wish list is for the US to stop meddling in its domestic affairs. Criticism of its socio-political situation is seen as unfriendly, while the efforts of various NGOs to cultivate anti-state sentiment – especially in the Christian-populated Northeastern States – is considered absolutely unacceptable. Relations can never truly return to normal until these activities are ended. For that to happen, however, Trump must successfully rein in liberal-globalist elements of his “deep state”, which will be a challenge.

    Moving along, India also wants the US to pressure the new Bangladeshi government into respecting the rights of the country’s Hindu minority, who’ve been victimized by pogroms and other forms of violence since summer’s regime change. Truly free and fair elections should also be held as soon as possible. Speculative plans for a US military facility there are also troubling due to how much this could disrupt the balance of power in the region. The US should therefore keep India’s legitimate concerns in mind.

    Elsewhere on the regional front, India would appreciate the US once again treating it as its top partner instead of continuing to balance between it and Pakistan. The Biden Administration departed from the first Trump Administration’s Indo-centric regional policy partially due to its liberal-globalist ideological agenda that set it at odds with Modi’s conservative-nationalist government. His team also flirted with improving ties with China, and distancing the US from India to a degree was seen as a means to that end.

    American pressure on India to dump Russia should also stop if Trump wants to improve bilateral ties. He recently pledged to “un-unite” Russia and China, who he claims had been forced together by Biden, so India could argue that letting Indo-Russo trade blossom helps achieve this goal by preemptively averting Russia’s potentially disproportionate dependence on China. Trump’s team is expected to follow a Kissingerian Great Power balancing strategy so this appeal to its global role might resonate with them.  

    And finally, although India entered into a rapprochement with China just several weeks ago that the US was inadvertently responsible for as explained here, it wouldn’t mind if Trump took a tougher stance on China than Biden and privileged India as a counterbalance to the People’s Republic. In pursuit of that, the US could continue exporting high-tech military equipment to India and ideally make progress on negotiating a free trade deal. The latter is easier said than done but should still figure on the agenda.

    Altogether, the future looks bright for Indo-US ties so long as Indian Americans, Indian-friendly officials, and geopolitical pragmatists follow Trump into the White House, all of which is expected judging by the latest reports. In that case, the challenge will then be reining in liberal-globalist elements of the “deep state” in order to prevent them from subverting the Indo-US rapprochement, which would be greatly facilitated if the Guajarati-descended Trump loyalist Patel becomes the next CIA chief.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 21:45

  • FEMA Official Removed After 'Avoid Trump Houses' Message Leaks, DeSantis Orders Investigation
    FEMA Official Removed After 'Avoid Trump Houses' Message Leaks, DeSantis Orders Investigation

    An official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency was “removed from their role” and is under investigation after the Daily Wire obtained a leaked internal message in which they ordered workers to bypass the homes of Trump supporters as they surveyed the damage caused by Hurricane Milton in Florida.

    Microsoft Teams chat used by FEMA workers. (via the Daily Wire)

    In the leaked message, a FEMA supervisor told workers to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida to find residents who may qualify for federal aid.

    The supervisor, Marn’i Washington, told workers both verbally and in a group chat to avoid Trump supporters’ homes, multiple government officials told the Daily Wire.

    “When we got there we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay,” one of the employees told the outlet, adding that it was wrong to discriminate against Trump supporters when they were at their “most vulnerable.”

    One of the homes skipped by FEMA/ FEMA app tracking what homes were visited. (via the Daily Wire)

    “I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them,” said the employee. “It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help.”

    The guidance came as the Biden administration was criticized over its sluggish response to Hurricane Helene in rural areas across the country. In Roan Mountain, Tennessee, for example, locals told The Daily Wire it took nearly two weeks for FEMA to show up. The town is located in Carter County, which voted 81% for Trump on Tuesday. 

    The FEMA agents ordered not to help houses with Trump signs were operating in Highlands County, a deep-red area located in south central Florida that backed Trump by 70% on Tuesday. It was hit with tornadoes, torrential wind and rain, and flooding when Milton hit in October.  -Daily Wire

    Following the report, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) ordered an investigation into the incident.

    “The blatant weaponization of government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris administration is in its final days,” DeSantis wrote on X. “New leadership is on the way in DC, and I’m optimistic that these partisan bureaucrats will be fired.”

    FEMA, meanwhile, has “removed” Washington “from their role” within the agency.

    That wasn’t enough for some…

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 21:20

  • This Is What An Electoral Landside Looks Like… And The Consequences For Democrats
    This Is What An Electoral Landside Looks Like… And The Consequences For Democrats

    Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,

    While there are a few close states not officially yet called, Trump is on his way to what we called several weeks ago, something close to a 312 – 226 Electoral College vote victory.

    He’s swept all seven swing states. He made New Hampshire and Virginia competitive, expanding his electoral map and forcing Democrats to spend resources in the race’s waning days.

    Best of all, he won a resounding popular vote victory, the final numbers of which will come in the days to come.

    What did we learn from Trump’s victory in 2024? It played out much as it did in 2016 with the collapse of the vaunted Democrat “Blue Wall” of Rust Belt states. That it was Harris that had a ceiling below 50%, not Trump. With the exception of just one state, Michigan, where Trump won 49.8% of the vote, Trump won more than 50% of the vote in the six remaining crucial swing states.

    Down ballot, Republicans made sizable gains in the Senate and it’s now looking likely that there will be no Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries in place to derail the Trump 47 legislative agenda. Not having to work to be reelected, Trump is, in essence, a lame-duck president when he takes the oath of office on January 20, 2025. On Day One, the Trump Administration can start cleaning house of the Deep State operatives who infest every level of the federal bureaucracy, especially top appointees and executives. And the deportation of criminal aliens will start immediately with the support of both houses of Congress.

    That starts with the Department of Justice (DOJ), where on Wednesday it pulled off an unconstitutionally-appointed attack dog, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, from the two federal cases in DC and Florida. The Fani Willis election interference case in Georgia is on life support and faces the prospect of also being shut down by Georgia law. Only in the Alvin Bragg/Judge Marchon Stormy Daniels case in New York does Trump face the prospect of incarceration. But it’s likely until after his term ends, and this will cause far leftists’ heads to explode. Marchon is likely, if he has the good sense, to suspend the sentence while Trump’s attorneys wind the case through the appeals process.

    As we said months ago, the real cost of this election for Democrats will be that Trump will get to appoint at least two more Supreme Court justices to replace Clarence Thomas and Samual Alito (who have stayed on the court awaiting a Republican victory in 2025) from a crop of young Conservative jurists in their 40s, so Trump’s impact will last long after both Trump and both of us will be six-feet under.

    He might even get to pick Justice Sotomayor’s replacement, giving the SCOTUS a 7 – 2 Conservative majority. More than the false flag of Project 2025, this is what Democrats now face on crucial social issues like abortion (which turned out to not be enough to motivate Republican women to vote against Trump, Senate Republicans, and the incoming Republican/Conservative agenda). With a few Senate races still to be decided, Republicans will control the Senate on their way to a 53 – 47 or 54 – 46 majority. This means that squishy Republican RINOs like Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska will be unable to derail the Trump Train on legislative issues and court appointments.

    This is the nightmare scenario for Democrats that absolutely no one is talking about.

    Sometimes it’s hard to accept trends that we really want because, as Conservatives, we’re used to disappointment. This election is a good example; we wanted Trump but were ready to accept Harris due to all of the money and power behind her. Yet, the people stepped up and made the right choice. It restored faith in the American electorate.

    Thus far, we have not seen the massive cheat that took place in 2020 because the race was never close enough for the cheat to be plausible. Look at this chart comparing the popular vote over the past four presidential cycles:

    Source: ZeroHedge

    It starts with the 18 million “additional” votes in 2020. Harris did not benefit from the cheat machine this year because:

    • No pandemic lockdown

    • Lots of people watching for ballot fraud

    • The race was not even close, thus the cheating would have been too obvious

    • Kamala Harris…REALLY?

    Look at the trajectory going back when Biden was “elected” in 2020. The Dems figured they could cheat their way into power forever, no matter how incompetent or unqualified the candidate. Putting Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket was their way of sticking a thumb into the eye of America, stating, “We are in control and can do whatever we want, and there is nothing you can do about it.” What effing hubris.

    The election cycle’s biggest loser beyond Harris and her buffoonish running mate Tim Walz was Barack Obama and the cadre of so-called celebrities with their nonstop condescension toward America. Obama stands out, continuously expressing his “disappointment” at us. This cipher with a chip on his shoulder has always been the least accomplished person walking into any room yet portrays himself as some sort of statesman with no record of doing anything except feathering his own nest. Even many middle-of-the-road Democrats are tired of this guy and his outsized ego.

    Harris is toast; now that she’s lost and conceded, she will be memory-holed by the media and cast out to sea, never to be let anywhere near a position of power—well, maybe in California, the only place where she has any chance whatsoever at being elected to anything. But nationally, a huge embarrassment for Democrats who thought they could nominate a ham sandwich and get away with it.

    Democrats are now at a crossroads. They have no leadership that has any credibility due to the laughably ridiculous Harris-Walz campaign. We could write a scathing post-mortem on this but why even bother? This campaign was a joke—a fraud put upon the public by the Democrats who believed they were going to be in power forever and thought they could put a couple of stupid, malleable candidates with mental issues in front of the public and sell them as viable leaders of our country. This is worse than Chauncy Gardner in “Being There.” Chauncy could at least articulate his thoughts, as he fooled everyone into thinking he was some brilliant political and cultural philosopher. These two were a monumental train wreck, particularly when placed next to the Trump/Vance ticket.

    The Democrats are in a disastrous position that might not even be fixable for a generation or two. There is no back bench of viable young lefties, only socialists/communists with Big Government positions that can only be implemented in deep blue states (CA, NY, IL, VA, MI) and have no national appeal. And these blue states have a population that is growing tired of the conditions with which they have been living for decades and are now empowered by Trump to effect change.

    We strongly sense a cultural shift that is going in our favor. The abject bullshit that we as a nation have been force-fed over the past twenty years is coming to a reckoning that could only take place here in the U.S.

    With Trump’s likely SCOTUS appointments and the house cleaning that is likely to take place, it will be glorious to envision. Democrats in the House of Representatives like the reprehensible Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and his bunch will challenge the election results because they have nothing to lose in the effort. They must play to their far-left base to keep them placated so they can retain power in some reduced way. But this will turn out to be theater in the end…and Raskin will be relegated even more to the position of radical weirdo screaming from the back bench, which, we’re sure, he’s okay with.

    This is a second Reagan “Morning in America” moment, and it’s grand. It’s time to breathe a sigh of relief that we were correct in our prognostication for the 2024 election result.

    The four-year-long Biden-Harris national nightmare is now over. Trump’s decisive win will be the beginning of a decades-long Golden Age of freedom, prosperity, economic growth, and a smaller, more accountable government that actually works for its citizens.

    God bless Donald Trump and his band of happy warriors, ready for the battle ahead!

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 20:55

  • Judge Sets Monday Deadline For Giuliani To Hand Over Assets
    Judge Sets Monday Deadline For Giuliani To Hand Over Assets

    Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has until Monday, Nov. 11 to transfer some of his assets from his Palm Beach property to the law firm representing plaintiffs in the defamation suit against him.

    Former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani leaves the federal courthouse in Washington, Dec. 15, 2023. Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

    Giuliani was convicted of defamation after two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter, sued him after he claimed that they had illegally tampered with voting devices during the 2020 presidential election. He was hit with a nearly $150 million judgement.

    Last month, Judge Lewis Liman ordered Giuliani to hand over his Manhattan apartment and other valuables to the plaintiffs. His lawyer, Kenneth Caruso, has vowed to fight the judgement and have it overturned, and challenged aspects of the transfer order on technical legal grounds.

    During a Nov. 7 hearing, Caruso called it “vindictive” for the prosecution to force Giuliani to give up a watch that once belonged to the former mayor’s grandfather – prompting a rebuke from Liman, who told Caruso that New York law makes no distinction between items of sentimental value and items lacking any such value.

    As the Epoch Times notes further, the judge stated that he had an order from a Washington court, registered in his court, that mandated the transfer of assets to satisfy the defamation judgment, and that would guide his rulings.

    Nathan, the Willkie Farr & Gallagher attorney, said the defense hasn’t been transparent or cooperative.

    Nathan said he and his colleagues had only recently learned of the establishment of a limited liability company, Standard USA LLC, for which records indicate Giuliani held 88 percent ownership and associates of the former mayor held minority positions.

    Logistics

    During the hearing, the lawyers engaged in contentious exchanges with the judge about the location and value of certain of Giuliani’s assets. These included real estate, cars, jewelry, watches, and money.

    At one point, the judge grew irritated with what he saw as vague and evasive answers on the part of the defense.

    “The notion that your client doesn’t have any notion of where his assets are is farcical,” Liman told Caruso.

    Giuliani spoke briefly on his own behalf and criticized what he saw as overly aggressive questioning directed at people close to him about his assets.

    “Some of the questions are inappropriate, because of the way people have been treated,” Giuliani said.

    The judge maintained that the former mayor had not offered a legally material pretext for evading a question about his assets.

    “Nobody is going to exercise self-help. You’re going to answer that question fully and truthfully. Do you understand that?” the judge said, before overruling the former mayor’s objection.

    Caruso acknowledged that items of value, among them jewelry and watches, including the watch that once belonged to Giuliani’s grandfather, are currently in Palm Beach, Florida, and nothing is impeding their transfer.

     

    But other miscellaneous items of value are now in a storage facility in Ronkonkoma, New York. Caruso said his client is currently unable to get items out of that Long Island storage facility.

     

    Neither Willkie Farr & Gallagher nor Giuliani’s legal team responded by publication time to a request for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 20:30

  • What A Second Trump Administration Means For Energy And Natural Resources
    What A Second Trump Administration Means For Energy And Natural Resources

    By Simon Flowers, Chairman of Wood Mackenzie and author of The Edge

    The US has a President-elect with power to wield. A likely Republican trifecta would strengthen President-elect Donald Trump’s new administration across domestic and global affairs. Along with the White House, the GOP will have control of the Senate and (probably) the House of Representatives.

    President-elect Trump himself has declared he has a “mandate”, although he will be subject to the checks and balances inherent in the US political system. The Supreme Court, with six of its nine justices appointed by a Republican president, is also likely to be broadly supportive of his policy agenda.

    A Trump administration means radical changes for tariffs on imports, climate policy and international affairs. For the energy and natural resources sectors, the implications are many. A pathway nearer to our new delayed transition scenario is now more likely. Here are our team’s initial thoughts.

    Power and renewables and decarbonisation:

    The US will backtrack on net zero. Bipartisan support for measures in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) means that a full repeal is unlikely, but the expiration of tax cuts passed in President Trump’s first term will force Congress to re-examine incentives for low-carbon energy.

    Near-term growth expectations for wind, solar, battery storage and EVs rely on IRA incentives, including 10-plus years of eligibility for production and investment tax credits. Even if Congress doesn’t end those credits, various elements of the IRA – including tax credit timelines, financing mechanisms or bonus adders – are likely to be removed or modified.

    If those tax credits are phased out, tariffs put on equipment imports and restrictions on permitting, then we estimate renewable deployments could be reduced by a third. The Biden administration’s emissions standards for thermal power plants will be scrapped, although the rules are likely to be the subject of further legal battles.

    Prospects for new data centres and factories seeking an electricity supply look better under a Republican administration and Congress, especially if corporate buyers relent on meeting emission reduction goals. We have identified over 51 GW of new data centre announcements since 2023, and manufacturing is set to add at least 15 GW of new demand.

    Broad permitting reform to expedite infrastructure development has the best chance in decades. Construction of new gas pipelines, electricity transmission and power plants should be able to respond faster to market load growth.

    Support for domestic renewable energy manufacturing is one part of the IRA policy framework that is likely to be relatively resilient. And there’s potential upside for US manufacturers from increased protectionist measures. But if renewables deployment is lower, then that will mean a smaller market for US manufacturers. Plus, tariffs will raise the cost of low-carbon technologies for US consumers, dampening penetration rates.

    For vehicles, the new administration is expected to revise tailpipe emission standards from 2027, easing the pressures that were pushing manufacturers towards EVs.

    Reductions in support for low-emissions technologies will have implications for metals demand. But reforms of project approvals and a clear definition of ‘critical minerals’ could offer supply upside for large US copper and lithium project pipelines.

    Oil market:

    Tariffs could slow US and global economic growth, reducing oil demand by as much as 0.5 million b/d in 2025 – one-third of Wood Mackenzie’s current projection for next year’s global oil demand growth. This has the potential to soften oil prices by US$5 to US$7/bbl from current levels, assuming no other risks such as an escalation in Israel-Iran hostilities. Weaker oil demand growth represents a downside risk to the refining industry, but tariff protection should result in US refiners outperforming.

    The Trump administration faces a complex and dangerous conflict in the Middle East with the potential to escalate into a full-on regional war. Iran has promised to respond to Israel’s last round of strikes, which could, in turn, provoke Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear installations and oil infrastructure. That scenario could push oil prices sharply higher until spare productive capacity – currently about 6 million b/d – brings more barrels into the market.

    Liquefied natural gas:

    Of all the energy and natural resources sectors, the US LNG industry will arguably benefit the most from the election outcome. A Trump victory provides more clarity on the industry’s direction, potentially paving the way for much-needed investments to help maintain more affordable global LNG prices post-2030. But the route ahead won’t be all smooth sailing.

    President-elect Trump has promised that, on his first day in office, he would end the Biden administration’s pause on new LNG export permits for sales to countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the US. Inevitably, it will take time for the Department of Energy (DOE) to re-staff and satisfy requisite legal and environmental reviews, despite Republicans’ likely control of both legislative branches. New permits might only be issued after the spring, enabling projects to FID in the second half of the year.

    But some risks remain. The Trump administration will have limited influence on the lawsuit that threatens to vacate FERC approval for the Rio Grande and Texas LNG projects. And while President-elect Trump might well shelve the soon-to-be-published DOE study on the environmental impact of the US LNG industry, environmentalist groups will likely step up legal efforts to stop projects, possibly leveraging the study itself. Trump’s economic manifesto also poses a risk. Proposed import tariffs could make US LNG exports a target for retaliation while the anticipated increase in domestic gas prices could still prompt second thoughts on how much additional LNG should be exported.

    US upstream oil and gas:

    A second Trump administration emboldens support for expanding domestic oil and gas production, but it’s unlikely to spur additional growth anytime soon.

    Familiar Republican rhetoric such as “drill, baby, drill” resurfaced during the election campaign, and the president-elect even discussed opening new supply geographies previously inaccessible. However, for the large public E&Ps that control half of the US Lower 48’s rigs and develop much of the best leasehold, it’s the return of capital frameworks that will dictate investment. And increased tariffs threaten to expose the industry to cost inflation.

    There will be some positives. Policy adjustments to streamline well permitting could encourage more niche onshore drilling on federal land. A new Republican administration may also attempt to overturn a lower court’s ruling in order to preserve legacy Gulf of Mexico permitting laws that are currently under review.

    For private US Lower 48 producers, in particular, conditions to raise fresh capital could improve because investors perceive less terminal value risk under an oil- and gas-oriented Washington. And if corporate M&A becomes more streamlined, a build cycle of new private E&Ps could support some activity growth in the coming years.

    The president-elect has been relatively outspoken about emissions regulations and we expect some rollback of the EPA’s new oil and gas framework. However, many E&Ps have already undertaken considerable self-regulation, as they did with their drilling activity, to lower their scope 1 and 2 emissions.

    US economy:

    President-elect Trump has pledged to hike tariffs on imports to at least 10% globally, with a more penal 60% rate for Chinese imports. The tariffs could be enacted early in 2025 by executive order, supplanting existing trade agreements.

    In the short term, increases in domestic production to substitute for imports will be minimal. Shifting trade patterns, especially to reduce imports from China, will be material. But with tariffs rising for all trading partners, import costs will increase.

    We estimate raising tariffs could cost an additional US$450 billion in import duties in 2025, a burden that US businesses and households would carry. And this is before any global retaliation.

    While President-elect Trump is promising corporate tax cuts to compensate, gambling on aggressive protectionism is unlikely to pay off. We expect higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher debt.

    Geopolitics:

    US-China competition is set to remain the defining strategic relationship of the 21st century, as President-elect Trump’s tariff plans make very clear. His trade strategy is aimed not just at rebuilding US manufacturing industry, but also at strengthening US military capabilities and influence relative to other countries, especially China.

    He will withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on climate and possibly the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, symbolic of his rejection of international efforts to limit global warming. The result is likely to be a more fragmented picture of global climate policy, with different countries and regions pursuing varying strategies to reduce emissions, rather than attempting to forge a global consensus on action. The US voice at the upcoming COP29 discussions will carry much less weight.

    On the campaign trail, Trump had pledged to bring peace to Ukraine and the Middle East. He can be expected to attempt to defuse international tensions by putting pressure on Ukraine to agree a peace settlement with Russia and will also try to broker agreements in the Middle East.

    However, he remains a staunch supporter of Israel and will be expected to ramp up pressure on Iran with tougher enforcement of sanctions.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 20:05

  • Biden Lifts Ban On US Defense Firms In Ukraine Ahead Of Trump Entering Oval
    Biden Lifts Ban On US Defense Firms In Ukraine Ahead Of Trump Entering Oval

    The lame-duck Biden administration has lifted a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine. The change had reportedly been formally approved a month before the election, but is officially taking effect now.

    The move is being framed as necessary in order to maintain sophisticated equipment and defense technology provided to Ukraine by Western allies. “In order to help Ukraine repair and maintain military equipment provided by the US and its allies, DoD (Department of Defense) is soliciting bids for a small number of contractors who will help Ukraine maintain the assistance we’ve already provided,” a defense official was quoted in CNN as saying.

    Via BBC/Anti Terror Academy

    “These contractors will be located far from the front lines and they will not be fighting Russian forces. They will help Ukrainian Armed Forces rapidly repair and maintain US provided equipment as needed so it can be quickly returned to the front lines,” the official added.

    And yet this clearly marks another huge step toward opening the floodgates for US private military firms. Already, there’s a significant presence of American foreign fighters in Ukraine, and this has already included foreign contractors on the ground.

    However, American companies have never been able to operate inside Ukraine while servicing DOD contracts. US companies have so far been there under Ukrainian government contracts.

    The Pentagon has further explained this as necessary in order to urgently work on systems like F-16s and Patriots missile batteries, which “require specific technical expertise to maintain.”

    “It is worth noting that there already are a wide array of American companies who have personnel in Ukraine fulfilling contracts for the Ukrainian government, so this will not lead to a substantial increase of employees of US companies working on the ground in Ukraine,” a defense official was quoted separately in Stripes as saying.

    In a sense this just cuts out the Ukrainian ‘middleman’ – given that Washington has sunk billions of dollars into Kiev’s coffers. From there, Ukraine used the American funds to then go and hire American companies.

    So to a large degree billions in US taxpayer’s funds have been flowing the whole time from main street into the pockets of the major defense firms… who were already operating in Ukraine. Just now it will be a more direct process – the funds will get to the US defense companies faster.

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

    President-Elect Trump has meanwhile promised to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “within 24 hours” if being sworn into office. As for the lifting of the ban on US defense contractors, it’s unclear whether he’ll keep that policy in place. Very likely he won’t do anything to reverse it.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 19:40

  • The System Worked
    The System Worked

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

    These have been a dark few years in which many suppositions about the U.S. system of government have come into question. You can see it in the polls showing the loss of trust. It has pertained to everything from medicine to media to tech to academia and of course government.

    In addition, the sources we once associated with expertise have pushed agendas that have contradicted all experience and hence have been rejected by vast numbers.

    The United States is hardly alone in this. Most countries of the world today are dealing with a wrenching upheaval in politics and social order generally. Stability has turned to instability, certainty to uncertainty, and clarity to the fog of war. The resulting thicket seemed to offer no way out.

    As an inevitable part of this, many people have questioned whether the democratic system of choosing leaders works properly anymore. Protests following election returns are common worldwide, not necessarily because people have stopped believing in the ideal but because they doubt that the count is accurate and the ballots are legitimate. Technology has not helped this problem but rather introduced more doubt.

    This problem has massively afflicted the United States in recent years. There have been doubts at every point, not helped by a well-documented loosening of voting rules during the pandemic response (the CDC encouraged mail-in voting) and then after during a refugee wave that has disrupted many communities around the country. This is a serious problem: when people have doubts about such a core functioning of the system, there is a feeling of being caged in a machine only the elites control.

    This is a major reason for the shock concerning election results. It’s not just that the Republicans swept the presidency and one if not both houses of Congress but also the popular vote, which no one really believed possible. The betting markets gave such an outcome very low odds.

    Many people this year trudged the polls with grave doubts about the relevance of what they were doing. Is the system so broken that the will of the people no longer matters as compared with the power of the elites?

    This was a real shock, from people from all sides. It was that the people’s voice rose above all the money, manipulation, claims of fraud, uncertainties over voter ID, technology, and so much more. For years now, people have habitually found fault with nearly everything. The prediction was that the conclusion of the vote in the presidency would take days, weeks, or even months. Such a prospect is enormously depressing for a nation that imagines itself to be a great one.

    But sure enough, the results came in on a perfect schedule, as the polls closed, culminating in a result for a candidate that had for years now faced down attacks from every angle. It was the least expected conclusion to the most contentious election of our lives or perhaps in a century or more.

    It was a clean victory for Donald J. Trump, including the popular vote. Not only that: it was a credible result. That’s the key.

    The result accomplished much. It wiped out several years of partisan agitation against the system of the Electoral College as established in the U.S. Constitution. The purpose of this institution is to grant a more even representation of the states as entities over the popular will. This traces to the federalist system established by the Founders, not a unity government from the center but a federation of states that have come together for their common betterment. Wiping that structure out would have been transformative.

    But with a victory of the popular vote, that is no longer an issue. It would not have changed the result. This feature, truly blessed, of the outcome also quelled much-predicted street violence. Even the concession speech by Kamala Harris was conciliatory, and contained not even one hint of funny business or rigging. It was a clear and challenged expression of popular will to which everyone on all sides had to accede.

    As she said, this does not mean giving up principles or disappearing. It means working harder in the future for causes in which one believes to make them ascend in the public mind, waiting to be embodied in a candidate who can carry those concerns to the halls of power.

    In other words, we have been granted, and mercifully, a peaceful transition of power. Herein lies the genius of the democratic form. It was never created or defended because it produces perfection. It is messy and difficult. Its purpose as forged hundreds of years ago, even tracing to ancient times, is to provide a better solution to public discontent than war and revolution. To prevent violence, bloodshed, and social dissolution is the whole point.

    And that is precisely what has happened. We had in contest here two dramatically different visions of the role of government. Instead of civil war, we had ballot boxes and peace.

    If you voted this time, you know this interesting feeling of being handed a ballot and given a private space to make your selection. It confers on the individual a sense of responsibility and influence, not ultimate power of course but something else: a right of participation in the civic commonwealth. The remarkable thing about 2024 is the voters were able to see how their participation makes a crucial difference.

    This experience alone has done more to restore American patriotism than anything to occur in many years. Americans could feel pride in the wisdom of the Founders. Crucially, the results echoed around the world, encouraging millions and billions to see how it is possible to go against the grain of the establishment, the media, the academic elites, and the whole system of intimidation and control, and do so in a way that is consistent with civility and public order.

    Once again, America provided a beautiful lesson to the world in how it is done. It’s been many years since we could feel pride in that. Many people around the world, watching the lockdowns unfold and the political conflicts grow ever more intense, had begun to wonder if we still had it, if this country was still capable of leading by example. Well, we did. And the example will resound all over the world, encouraging “populist” movements in all countries. We did it not through force of arms or financial pressure but rather by being an example of light in the darkness.

    We should not underestimate the power of this. Many people the world over are looking to the United States to protect free speech, guarantee election integrity, uphold the ideal of democracy, and celebrate the possibility of living together under a system of transparent integrity.

    There is a long way to go with much-needed and far-reaching reform, and everyone must hope that the new administration is willing to do what is necessary. That said, Election Day was a wonderful start, an example to the world that freedom still works and is still valued here and should be everywhere.

    Do you feel a sudden sense of pride in what we have here, despite all the flaws and missteps? I certainly do. It’s been a long time coming but it seems finally to be here. For that we should all be deeply grateful.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 19:15

  • Maximum Pressure 2.0: Trump Planning To 'Drastically Throttle' Iran's Oil Sales
    Maximum Pressure 2.0: Trump Planning To 'Drastically Throttle' Iran's Oil Sales

    A strong indicator of what a second Trump presidency’s approach to the Middle East will be has been seen in the appointment of Brian Hook, who was special envoy for Iran in the first Trump administration. Hook is expected to receive a high level national security post this time around, and he previously led the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against the Islamic Republic.

    It’s being widely reported that ‘maximum pressure’ against Tehran is back on, for example in the Wall Street Journal on Friday: “President-elect Donald Trump plans to drastically increase sanctions on Iran and throttle its oil sales as part of an aggressive strategy to undercut Tehran’s support of violent Mideast proxies and its nuclear program, according to people briefed on his early plans.”

    “I think you are going to see the sanctions go back on, you are going to see much more, both diplomatically and financially, they are trying to isolate Iran,” a former White House official was quoted in the report as saying. “I think the perception is that Iran is definitely in a position of weakness right now, and now is an opportunity to exploit that weakness.”

    Brian Hook, Donald Trump’s former Iran envoy

    Also likely to inform Trump’s policy are the reports claiming that agents of Iran are trying to assassinate him. While there have been propaganda videos coming out of Tehran suggesting such, it remains that there’s no publicly disclosed proof or smoking gun evidence of any active plotting in place. However, top officials of President Biden’s intelligence community say that there is evidence, and earlier this fall briefed Trump and his team.

    Mick Mulroy, a top defense official within the first Trump administration observed that “People tend to take that stuff personally.” He added that “If he’s going to be hawkish on any particular country, designated major adversaries, it’s Iran.”

    As for Brian Hook, he recently told CNN that measures will be taken to further “isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken them economically” to prevent it from supporting regional proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Houthis.

    “It’s going to be maximum pressure 2.0,” Robert McNally, a former US energy official, is also predicting. This will likely involve seeking to disrupt sales to China, which remains Iran’s largest oil purchaser, through bans on Chinese ports receiving the shipments. But enforcing this will present another problem.

    In prior years the US has been known to attempt direct naval intercepts of tankers carrying Iranian oil en route to places like sanctioned-starved Syria. And the reality is that even during the last four years of Biden, Tehran has remained highly isolated internationally, and with industries like aviation and auto devastated by sanctions already long in place.

    Of course, currently there is also the backdrop of potential war between Iran and Israel looming, though for now both sides have appeared to back off following each’s tit-for-tat recent strikes. Trump is expected to take the US in an even more hawkish direction concerning defense and aid given to America’s ‘number one Mideast partner’. Part of this is also likely to include cementing Saudi Arabia’s entry into the Abraham Accords, which has clearly and indefinitely been put on hold by the Gaza war.

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

    But there’s still a potential Catch-22 which is sure to complicate a max pressure 2.0 campaign. A new op-ed in Foreign Policy lays it out as follows:

    There are still comprehensive sanctions on Iran, but the Biden administration has tended to look the other way at Iran’s oil sales. That had everything to do with the political calculations of a president who was stung early on in his administration by high energy prices. The collective pain of Americans at the gas pump contributed to Biden’s persistently low approval rating.

    That dilemma will not go away as Trump’s team enters the White House and seeks to ratchet Washington’s already hawkish anti-Iran policy:

    It remains an open question if Trump would risk the same through tougher sanctions enforcement. It depends on how he calculates his parochial interests: Does he want to be the guy who got “the better deal”—consistent with his self-image as master dealmaker—or does he want to ensure that Americans enjoy cheap oil and gas? Does he think he can do both? Only President-elect Trump could know the answers to those questions—and he may not either.

    The same author and national security pundit, Steven Cook has highlighted that even during his first term where Iran has heavily targeted, and IRGC Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani was taken out by a US drone, Trump still showed a high degree of pragmatism in backing off at certain key points.

    “No interest in regime change…”

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    Cook writes that “Trump was otherwise quite dovish on Iran. At moments when it would have been legitimate for Trump to use military force—after the IRGC seized oil tankers, mined the Persian Gulf, shot down an American drone operating in international airspace, and bombed Saudi oil facilities—the president chose (with bipartisan support) not to respond.”

    There’s also the question of what Israel’s actions will be, given it will likely feel even more of a free reign to respond how it wants to Iran, now with a stauncher supporter in the White House – and with hawks like Hook at the helm of Mideast policy.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 18:50

  • Harvard Prof Says People Are Better Off Than They Think, Blames Media For Harris Loss
    Harvard Prof Says People Are Better Off Than They Think, Blames Media For Harris Loss

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Jason Furman, a Harvard professor and Chair of Obama’s CEA lectures people on how well off they are…

    You might be thinking this is another Mish satirical fiction post, but it’s not. Here are some ideas to ponder by Jason Furman.

    It’s the Media’s Fault

    • “The macroeconomy is strong–high growth, low unemployment, falling inflation–the best of any advanced economy. But there was a reluctance to present/understand how families were still not out of the deep inflation hole. And too much masked by cherrypicking/misleading stats.”

    • “Selective amplification has been rife. How many times did you see a chart of US GDP exceeding other G7 economies?”

    • “Cherrypicking also rife.”

    • “Most wage data shows that wages have, indeed, risen more than prices. BUT, most wage series show that it was well below trend but the few that showed above trend amplified much more often to the exclusion of showing other measures.”

    • “Or the endless repeating of that graph w/ the increase in spending on manufacturing structures (often shown nominal, ignoring the big price increase) as a sign of a manuf resurgence when other manuf investment was down, manuf employment down & prodn flat.” [Mish Note – I never once saw that chart and if I didn’t, who did?]

    • “Yes people suffer from money illusion (thinking they deserve their raises but price increases happen to them).”

    • “Yes, many problems were amplified by misleading media and partisanship.”

    • “I don’t pretend to know what message politicians should use. Maybe Harris should have bragged more about how great everything was by using selective data. Maybe she should have been more negative. I really don’t know.”

    • [Mish comment: Gee, I wonder if lying about the economy on top of lawfare, calling Trump a fascist, and pretending to support fracking while saying she could not think of anything she would have done differently than Biden, would have helped. Then again perhaps telling people they were better off than the average person in Germany may have worked. I really don’t know.]

    • “A lot of horrendous right-wing misinformation out there.” [Mish comment, note the irony of that statement vs the previous two bullet points.]

    Reflections on Academic Wonderland

    Academic clowns sit in their ivory towers telling people how good they should feel. On top of that they blame the media.

    If I posted a chart of GDP of the US vs Europe, who the heck would have seen it other than those in academic wonderland, stock market investors, and a select few of us on Twitter?

    More to the point, the idea is idiotic. The average person does not give a damn if US GDP is better than Europe. Only those in wonderland would concoct such a construct.

    And seriously, has anyone here seen the “endless repeating” of the chart of manufacturing that Furman refers to?

    Furman proves how much out of touch academia is with the lives of ordinary people.

    Here’s Your Money Illusion

    Hello Jim Bianco, please give Jason Furman a call.

    Blaming the Media for Amplification

    Blaming the media is an amazing hoot of its own. Hell yes, everything was amplified, about 15-1 against Trump.

    The media repeated every charge of racism, lawfare (without calling it lawfare), and finally, things accelerated so much we had Obama and Biden calling Trump a Nazi and a fascist.

    Wage Revisions

    Real hourly compensation fell 4.2 percent in 2022. And it fell a revised 0.2 percent in 2023.

    Damn that BLS Productivity Report.

    That report was out yesterday. So, Furman believed things were better in 2023 than they were. But people didn’t. It’s “money illusion” says Furman.

    Professor, can we discuss the real world instead of your illusion?

    The Brookings Institute Wonders Why Consumer Sentiment is So Bad

    The Brookings Institute is right there with Furman. It called low consumer sentiment a paradox.

    I gave a helping hand to the Brookings Institute.

    Dear Brookings, Here’s Your Paradox

    • The Immigrant Crime Spree is Real, Not Imaginary

    • Negative 818,000 job revisions

    • Job openings crash

    • Full Time Employment: -1,000,600 from a year ago

    • Total employment: only +216,000 from a year ago

    • Excluding government, year-over-year employment is negative for the last 9 consecutive months

    • Non-agricultural employment excluding government peaked in August of 2023 at 138.026 million and is now 137.240 million, down 786,000 since the peak.

    • The unemployment rate is up 0.7 percent from the low at a pace that strongly suggests recession.

    • Home prices are up 49 percent in less than five years to new record highs.

    • A $150,000 house in 1988 now costs $707,500.

    • The mortgage rate is back above 7 percent.

    • The share of first-time buyers of existing homes is at a record low.

    • Even if you have a home, what about flood insurance, fire insurance, and car insurance.

    • The Fed’s Beige Book looks very recessionary

    • The immigrant crime spree is real. The FBI lied about the crime rate dropping.

    • Evictions are at record highs in many states and might be everywhere were it not for eviction moratoriums.

    • Tens of millions of people want to buy a home but can’t afford one and a different set of tens of millions of people are trapped in their homes but won’t because of mortgage rates.

    • A Bank of America survey shows over 40 percent of the nation is living paycheck to paycheck.

    Please consider The Brookings Institute Wonders Why Consumer Sentiment is So Bad, I Can Help

    In my post, I offer 10 charts and many links that I challenge Furman and The Brookings Institute to refute.

    Please click on the above link, and give it a crack. Tell me and my readers why GDP and warm fluffy thoughts would have mattered more than my allegedly cherrypicked data.

    Citing GDP, the stock market, CEO confidence, and even increased air travel (things the average Joe does not give a damn about), the Brookings Institute could not figure out why sentiment is in the gutter.

    I am pleased to report Jason Furman has figured this out.

    It’s the Media!

    In academic wonderland, if we do not tell people they are losing money to inflation, then they wouldn’t know.

    And then they would have voted for Harris. And that’s why she lost.

    Silly Me

    I thought that 40% of the nation living paycheck-to-paycheck mattered. I thought negative year-over-year employment for the last nine months, except for government, mattered.

    I thought that millions of people trapped in their homes unable to move, somehow mattered. And I thought millions of other people unable to buy a home (but let’s not call that inflation) mattered.

    For more of my thoughts, please see Why Trump Won the Election in One Clear Picture

    Please check it out and tell me where I went wrong.

    Bottom line, Furman nailed it.

    Harris lost because of the media. If only we would have told people they were better off than they were, people would have believed it.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 18:25

  • Hezbollah Targeted Israel's Trump Heights The Day After Election
    Hezbollah Targeted Israel's Trump Heights The Day After Election

    This week Hezbollah rockets targeted Israel’s Trump Heights settlement, a remote community in the central Golan Heights – which was taken from Syria after the Six Day War of 1967.

    Iranian state media as well as a report in Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen indicated that Hezbollah specifically targeted Trump Height the day after he won the Tuesday US presidential election.

    Via AFP

    “Sirens sounded in Trump Heights as Hezbollah rocket attack targeted the Golan Heights on Wednesday,” an Israeli regional sources also said. “The attack came shortly after the election results were announced, indicating that Trump was the victor.”

    The tiny Jewish settlement was named after Trump in 2019, during his first term, in acknowledgement of his declaring that the US recognizes Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

    It was an ultra-controversial move at the time, given most of the rest of the world considers it “Israeli-occupied territory” belonging to Syria.

    At the time of the attack sirens blared not just in Trump Heights, but across other locations of northern and central Israel.

    But the “Trump Heights” designation has always been more about a PR move for the existing community to improve and expand, as the Associated Press explains:

    But a large-scale influx of new residents never materialized after that 2019 ceremony, and just a couple dozen families live in Trump Heights, or “Ramat Trump” in Hebrew. Job opportunities are limited, and Israel’s more than yearlong war against Hezbollah militants in nearby Lebanon has added to the sense of isolation.

    Trump’s election has inspired hope in the community that it will attract more members and also more funding for security improvements.

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    One resident observed that “President Trump’s return to the White House definitely puts the town in the headlines.”

    It had also made big headlines when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went there for an unveiling ceremony in 2019. During that June 2019 ceremony, BBC noted that “Building work has yet to begin but a sign bearing Mr Trump’s name and US and Israeli flags was unveiled. However, it also noted that “Critics called the move a publicity stunt with no legal authority.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 18:00

  • Early Warning Signs Of A Total Economic And Social Collapse
    Early Warning Signs Of A Total Economic And Social Collapse

    Authored by J.G.Martinez via The Organic Prepper blog,

    A total economic and social collapse is a catastrophic event characterized by the widespread dysfunction of critical systems, including government, economy, infrastructure, and basic services. While such a scenario is extreme, recognizing early warning signs can be crucial.

    I have been monitoring the Cuba scenario.

    To me, that is the definition of a failed State holding to the remains of a collapsed country ruled by thugs terrified of a popular armed uprising.

    As our economy was destroyed by design, to control the population and crush the opposition among other goals, I believe I can describe the indications better than someone who never watched this happening.

    In my research, a few events arose, as expected. Nevertheless, there were a couple of not-so-evident things that I’m going to point out.

    By now, most of you reading this are very much aware of the loom and doom that destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and even these days, we feel panic every time the exchange rate with the USD changes.

    For this past month (Oct. 2024), it went up 13%.

    Enough to shake many people and make others begin thinking again about migrating.

    Meanwhile, we have a single-digit “growing”, and a 50% inflation…in USDs. (This year!)

    It is awesome to see how, despite oil production increasing at a snail’s pace, inflation seems to be looming again. It has been up almost 15% since 2022.

    Here are some key indicators:

    Economic Indicators

    • Hyperinflation: Uncontrolled inflation that rapidly erodes the value of currency. Shortly after the bus driver got into the Palace we started to see how our currency started this infamous process. This was so severe that it wiped off most of the wealth and living standards. We haven’t been able to recover it ever since 2015 when it started. This is so self-explanatory that there is not too much need for further discussion.

    • Commodity Shortages: Severe shortages of essential goods like food, water, and fuel. At the present moment, supermarkets are overflowing with all kinds of products. Of course, getting the money to buy them is the hard part. Most of them come from Brazil, for the sake of money laundering schemes related to gold, and the fees charged by the concession of the narcotics trafficking routes control to the “producers”. But can’t prove it though.

    • Mass Unemployment: it occurs when a significant portion of a nation’s workforce is unable to find suitable employment. Here, “suitable” refers to jobs that align with an individual’s existing skills and experience. Unemployment in large amounts, is often viewed as a symptom of a deeper malaise within a society. It can serve as a powerful indicator of a nation’s economic health and can signal the onset of more severe societal problems. Mass unemployment is a financial issue at its core. When a large number of people are out of work, it has a ripple effect throughout the economy. Consumer spending decreases as people have less disposable income. Businesses are forced to lay off more workers because of the decline in demand, in a downward spiral.

    • Recession/Depression: This can lead to a recession or even a depression, depending on the severity and duration of the unemployment. The effect of mass unemployment deteriorates the nation’s tax base. With fewer people working and paying taxes, governments have less revenue to fund essential services like education, healthcare, and infrastructure. This can lead to a decline in the quality of life for citizens and further erode the nation’s competitiveness. The social consequences of mass unemployment are equally profound. High unemployment rates are often associated with increased crime rates, societal unrest, and political instability.

    • Uptick in property crime: When people are searching for work without success, they may turn to desperate measures to support themselves and their families. I have seen this happening. This means an increase in property crime, drug use, and other serious antisocial behaviors. We have experienced first-hand how mass unemployment is eroding the social cohesion. It is not as if we had faith in the ruling gang to begin with, but re-engineering of our social fabric executed by Cuban agents made it much worse. This led to a breakdown of social trust and made it difficult for communities to come together to solve problems. Mass unemployment can have a significant impact on a nation’s political landscape, and Venezuela is (sadly) one of the most relevant examples in modern History. Discontent with the handling of the economy can lead to political instability and even regime change (as it is already happening, happily!). Populist politicians often exploit the economic anxieties of unemployed workers to gain power, promising easy solutions to complex problems.

    • Unsustainable Debt: A national debt that exceeds a country’s capacity to repay. An enormous external debt has exacerbated Venezuela’s economic crisis. This situation brings along a payload of negative consequences that have made our circumstances even worse. Let’s define this: debt is considered unsustainable when a country is incapable of paying back the interest or principal on its loans. This situation is known to generate a crisis involving both economic and societal aspects. The government is then forced to allocate a large portion of its resources to debt service, rather than investing in areas such as health, education, and infrastructure.

    Traditionally, our country has experienced a weakness in the public sector regarding these three areas mentioned above. The trend then goes downhill with time, as the real responsible for the crisis are those controlling all the aspects of the public financial system, including the monetary policy. There are no experts that want to be involved in that mess, by the way; most of the “official” public “servants” with middle rank and choice makers don’t have neither the skills nor the will to do something to improve the situation. Their only goal is to perform as financial operators to help them in the cover-ups. The 100% control of the price of the USD is what makes our Central Bank a joke.

    • Financial Market Collapse: The collapse of stock markets and a general loss of confidence in financial institutions. Mind you, in the most recent post-apo movie that sparkled our interest in one of the streaming sites, one of the main characters could read something was happening…in the charts of the stock exchanges of the world. I have read some good fiction, and it’s quite interesting to see how some of the characters are related to the financial world and can read the writings and make some predictions.

    Social Indicators

    • Increased Violence: crime, civil unrest, and social conflict are (obviously) among the most visible.

    As a side note, why wait for this to happen? Any sane prepper should know that leaving early to avoid a potentially harmful situation is the way to go. You don’t have a place to Bug Out? Can you Bug in safely for a while until things clear up? Can you Bug out at all? Include here the State-sponsored actions to “pacify” the country and you will see how advanced the collapse is. Another failed State that we should be looking at is Cuba. The collapse is total there. Over one million people left in 2023 only. 

    Add this book to your library to keep all the Organic Prepper articles on dangerous times in your library.

    • Mass Migration: A large-scale exodus of people seeking better living conditions. I consider this as the most painful indicator. Being part of these statistics, I can say I share encountered feelings regarding this. This is not only the most painful but the most visible. If things were livable, people wouldn’t flee away.

    • Family Breakdown: A rise in family disintegration and social issues like poverty, mental health issues like depression, and substance abuse. Another catastrophic effect of all the circumstances mentioned above.

    • Infrastructure Collapse: Failures in essential services such as electricity, water, and sanitation.

    • Erosion of Trust: A widespread loss of confidence in government, businesses, and other institutions. This should have disappeared in Venezuela like back in the early 60s. The influence of the red Caribbean gang dates from that era, indeed.

    Political Indicators

    • Political Instability: Weak governance, frequent regime changes, and internal conflict.

    • Corruption: Widespread corruption at all levels of government.

    • Human Rights Abuses: Restrictions on freedom of speech, political persecution, and state-sponsored violence.

    Environmental Indicators

    • Environmental Degradation: Severe pollution, deforestation, and biodiversity loss.

    • Resource Depletion: Scarcity of essential resources like water and energy.

    • Natural Disasters: Increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

    It’s crucial to note that these indicators often interact and can exacerbate one another.

    A total collapse is typically a gradual process, marked by a series of interconnected events. It won´t be like your typical Hollywood collapse, where the family is someday having dinner or hanging out in a mall and the next fighting for survival with a horde of…whatever your favorite monster is.

    While it may seem like a distant possibility, understanding the warning signs can help mitigate risks and prepare for potential challenges.

    This is not intended to be a political article; on the contrary.

    I found it amazing to learn that a war does not have to be necessarily declared; it can unfold without such formalities.

    If it’s like this, then I’m afraid we should be pretty much aware of the facts, and the actions of everyone involved in such plays; and pay much less attention to the biased mainstream media nonsense.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 17:40

  • ​​​​​​​Mountain Miracle: One Of Maryland's Poorest Elementary Schools Outperforms Thanks To "Our Community"
    ​​​​​​​Mountain Miracle: One Of Maryland's Poorest Elementary Schools Outperforms Thanks To "Our Community"

    A remarkable education success story in Western Maryland plays out in the heart of Trump’s coal country—where “Trump Digs Coal” signs lined the roads during this past election cycle. It’s a heartwarming story of how community, family, traditionalism, and conservative values come together and foster the proper learning environment that allows children at one of Maryland’s poorest elementary schools to achieve massive education outperformance compared with hundreds of other schools in the state. 

    Investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore visited Crellin Elementary School, Maryland’s westernmost school, just about a mile from West Virginia. It’s a Title 1 school, meaning it has a massive concentration of impoverished students. Of the more than 1,400 public schools in the entire state, 464 are considered Title 1.

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    Of those 464 schools, Crellin is the only one earning a five-star educational excellence rating from the Maryland State Department of Education. 

    Even though the children come from some of the poorest households in the state and possibly the nation, the educational miracle at Crellin is very simple: community. 

    “We took the walls down to the school and open it up to the community. So, the community is part of our school,” Principal Dana McCauley told Papst. 

    Papst’s report continues:

    Principal Dana McCauley knows her school, Crellin Elementary, in Garrett County is unique. She knows Crellin is Maryland’s westernmost school, just about a mile from West Virginia. She also knows it’s likely the only one in the state where elementary students walk chickens at recess.

    “The kids have a stake in the school?” Asked Project Baltimore’s Chris Papst.

    “Oh yes. Yeah. So, they’re responsible for there’s many chores that need done around here. Many chores,” explained McCauley.

    “The kids do chores?” Replied Papst.

    “They do chores. Yes,” replied McCauley. “There’s all the barn work that needs done. The stalls have to be cleaned, the animals need fed and watered every day. The eggs need collected.”

    So, how does this translate to educational success? McCauley says the students feel like the school is “their place” and “they’re invested in it”.

    …

    So, how did that happen? The story begins 23 years ago.

    McCauley has been leading Crellin Elementary since 2001. Not just as its principal, but also as a teacher. And it was in that role that, 23 years ago, she made a life-changing discovery.

    “I remember my first year here sitting in class watching some of the kids. And then going outside with them, going down to the stream and watching some of our squirrel-iest kids in the classroom thrive. I thought, there’s got to be something to this,” McCauley told Project Baltimore.

    Soon after, McCauley learned Crellin sits on the polluted land of an abandoned coal mine where acid mine draining has colored the rocks orange. At first, to McCulley, that seemed like a big problem. But it was within the rocks that she had an idea.

    “It’s good to not know what you don’t know. That makes sense? So, you’re not afraid of the obstacles because you’re not even aware of what they might be,” explained McCauley.

    On a whim, McCauley gathered community support and petitioned Garrett County, which awarded the school ownership of a six-acre site of the mine to clean up. That was the moment Crellin’s unique story began.

    “We took the walls down to the school and open it up to the community. So, the community is part of our school,” said McCauley.

    Over the next few years, the students, staff, parents and neighbors worked to restore the land. Now, there’s thriving wetlands, a hemlock forest and trout stream, which is all made possible by a limestone retention pond the school built to naturally filter and clean the acid mine drainage.

    Once the school had fully cleaned the six-acres, McCauley expanded her vision. Maryland does not have sanctioned agricultural programs for elementary schools. So, in 2013, McCauley started her own. Today, Crellin has an apple orchard, greenhouse, vegetable garden and multiple barns with goats, sheep and – of course – chickens.

    Parents, according to McCauley, built the hen house. And now it is maintained by the school community, which includes the students.

    You see, where the students work is also where they learn. A classroom amphitheater is built from a giant pile of coal covered in dirt. Class is held in the greenhouse all winter long.

    Crellin Elementary is a public school. But McCauley says no public education dollars were used for any of the school’s agricultural or coal mine reclamation projects. Over 23 years, McCauley has applied for dozens of local, state and federal agricultural and reclamation grants. She won most of them, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for the school and its many projects.

    “It’s a lot of work,” McCauley told Project Baltimore.

    Work that over two decades has culminated in Crellin’s five-star rating which makes this school one of one in Maryland.

    “Is what you’re doing here. Could it be done at any school?” Questioned Papst.

    “I think it’d be different. Because this is unique to our community,” explained McCauley. “Because it’s not about the stream. It’s not about the stream. It’s about those who help make that all possible. That’s what it’s all about.”

    The education miracle in the mountains of Maryland, at one of the state’s poorest elementary schools, shows that massive budgets aren’t necessary to improve test scores. Instead, community, family, tradition, hard work, and conservative values create an environment that money can’t always buy, uplifting these children spiritually and setting them up for success.

    Must Watch: 

    On the opposite side of the state, in the liberal hell-hole of Baltimore City, education budgets for the city are nearly $2bln annually, yet test scores are some of the worst in the nation. Papst has led an investigation into a massive grade-switching scandal in the school system.

    The educational miracle happening at Crellin should be examined by the folks on Trump’s transition team, some of whom will be lining the education department. Apparently, success can be achieved with local communities—not necessarily by throwing endless amounts of taxpayer funds at school systems hoping for test scores to rise.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 17:20

  • FBI Stopped Iranian Plot To Assassinate Trump
    FBI Stopped Iranian Plot To Assassinate Trump

    Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The EPoch Times,

    U.S. authorities thwarted an Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, new documents reveal.

    The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges on Nov. 8 against three men who it is alleged were involved in a murder-for-iran network orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the United States designates as a terrorist organization.

    “The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in an associated statement.

    “We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.”

    The Justice Department said that authorities arrested Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt in New York, and that a third man, Farhad Shakeri, remained at large and was believed to be in Iran.

    Shakeri immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported in or about 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for a robbery conviction.

    The criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in the IRGC instructed a Shakeri in September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump.

    Shakeri was unable to create a plan by then, the complaint said, and the official told him Iran would pause its plan until after the presidential election because the official believed Trump would lose and it would be easier to assassinate him then.

    Shakeri then went to work building a network of accomplices, offering $100,000 to locate and kill Trump and other individuals of U.S. and Israeli origin, according to the complaint.

    “We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime,” Garland said.

    The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil. The Justice Department’s statement said that these efforts include assault, kidnapping, and murder, both to repress and silence dissidents critical of the Iranian regime and to take vengeance for the January 2020 death of then-IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by a Trump-ordered U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

    “The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in an associated statement.

    “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a designated foreign terrorist organization—has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to target and gun down Americans on U.S. soil and that simply won’t be tolerated.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 17:00

  • US Banks' Domestic Deposits Tumble For Second Week In A Row
    US Banks' Domestic Deposits Tumble For Second Week In A Row

    Money market funds saw a very small net outflow (-$2.2BN) last week, leaving them still just shy of the record high…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On the bank side of the savings world, total deposits (SA) rose $17.5BN to its highest since Sept 2022…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, total deposits jumped a huge $148BN (reversing the prior week’s $133BN deposit decline)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Rather oddly, excluding foreign deposits, domestic US banks saw a $22BN net deposit outflow last week on an SA basis during the week-ending 10/30 (but a $113BN inflow on an NSA basis)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On an NSA basis, Large banks saw $86BN inflows and Small banks $27BN inflows. However, on an SA basis, large banks saw $21BN outflows and small banks $1.5BN outflows.

    Interestingly, loan volumes shrank at small banks but surged for large banks…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, bank deposits at the Fed rose last week (and so did US equity market capitalization to a new record high)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Will this ever recouple?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 16:40

  • "We Won't Be Certifying The Election…"
    "We Won't Be Certifying The Election…"

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

    Aborted

    “Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office.”

    – Jamie Raskin (D-MD)

    At last, it appears that the Party of Chaos got its fondest wish: it aborted itself in the 2024 election. “Joe Biden” was the coat-hanger it used: this miserable, grifting, now-senile hack politician who will be remembered only for driving his country to the verge of ruin. And for what? All in an effort to cover-up a long train of crimes and abuses against the American people perpetrated by a permanent bureaucracy gone rogue that was the party’s partner-in-crime. And now it’s over. 

    The childishness of the Left — AOC whining about “fascism” — is under-appreciated. Note how the party’s most august mouthpiece, The New York Times, pretends to soul-search in the aftermath of the election debacle.

    “Many Democrats were considering how to navigate a dark future, with the party unable to stop Mr. Trump from carrying out a right-wing transformation of American government. Others turned inward, searching for why the nation rejected them. They spoke about misinformation and the struggle to communicate the party’s vision in a diminished news environment inundated with right-wing propaganda”

    – The New York Times

    The New York Times diminished itself. It drove itself crazy with narratives — just as a crazy person with disordered thoughts can’t discern what’s real and what’s not. What they need is a serious mental health check. The time for incessant lying, hoaxing, and performative hysteria is over. On Thursday, in a three-minute speech, the President-elect set out a clear list of measures to reconstruct a national consensus based on reality. It includes firing a lot of people in the agencies, dis-embedding all the inspector-generals from the departments they oversee, establishing a “truth and reconciliation commission” to declassify and publish documents “related to alleged deep state activities, including spying, censorship, and corruption,” and finding out who exactly at the CIA / FBI / DHS / and other places has been leaking fables and falsehoods to the news media. In other words, clear away a shit-ton of untruth that burdens the consciousness of country.

    Though the statement omitted to say so directly, it’s very likely that a number of public officials will find themselves before grand juries in the years ahead. If you haven’t figured it out already, you’ll learn that the term “misinformation” was just the gas in the gaslight used to confound the country about what has really been at stake — which is your personal liberty in what is supposed to be a free country. The Democratic Party and the Deep State blob really did try to steal that from you.

    As they stole the 2020 election — which is probably one of the things to be revealed in the process. Look at this bar graph. Note how many millions more votes were cast in the 2020 elections than in the two previous and now in the 2024 contest. How did that happen? Where did that surplus supply come from? The Covid-19 scam provided the cover for a profligate mail-in ballot operation. They deluged the country with paper. Mark Zuckerberg provided $450-million through his cut-out charities to hire thousands of party activists to harvest and fill-out fraudulent ballots, and stuff them in drop-boxes by the hundredweight, with special attention to the crucial precincts in swing states — and that’s what landed the basement-cringing candidate, “Joe Biden,” in the White House.

    It was that simple, and that much in-your-face, and for four years the official organs of the news swatted the truth away claiming they were “false, baseless, conspiracy theories” — and half the country was credulous enough to believe that. Or mentally ill, not able to tell fantasy from reality, especially in the newsrooms. Even more shamefully, this half of the country was led by the better-educated, credentialed, managerial class of citizens, who, amazingly, managed to turn intelligence into a new kind of personal liability. (The simplest explanation for that astounding failure is that people who consider themselves “experts” eagerly believe other experts and credentialed authorities, making them easiest to dupe. That’s why the faculty lounges are full of Jacobins.)

    The winning side in this contest didn’t vote against Kamala Harris so much as they voted against the Democratic Party, the Party of Chaos, of BLM riots, of drag queens in the school library, of men in the women’s swim lane (and locker room), of forced vaccinations (your bodily autonomy, sister?), of locking up grandmothers who walked through the Capitol rotunda, of state-driven censorship, of malicious political prosecutions, of ruinous proxy war, of flooding the country with criminal alien mutts, of Mao Zedong style erasing of history, of FISA court surveillance, and, finally, of the same sort of self-loathing for the nation that a three hundred pound sophomore with a nose ring and sleeve tattoos feels for herself.

    Indeed, the page is turning, but the story has suddenly changed. It remains to be seen whether the Democratic Party blows up altogether now in what’s shaping up to be a time of harsh recrimination, or whether its front-line activists, Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco and Company skulk in the background hatching new schemes to try to drive the republic insane. They’ll have to work fast because the law might be coming after them in January. But they surely know that.

    Between now and then, prepare to put your shoulder to the wheel. It’s not just the US government that begs for reform, but many of the secular operations of daily life in America, especially of an economic scene dominated by freakishly gigantic monopolies that have impoverished so many local communities, destroyed livelihoods and whole ways of life, and made slaves of citizens. That story has hardly begun to be told.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/08/2024 – 16:20

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