May 14

Today’s News 14th May 2023

  • Food Inflation Still Soaring In Latin America
    Food Inflation Still Soaring In Latin America

    Venezuela had the highest inflation rate for food of Latin America, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

    Statista’s Anna Fleck reports that, as of September 2022 (the latest available data), the country saw an increase of 110.4 percent from the same month of 2021. Argentina had the second highest food inflation rate, at 86.6 percent.

    Infographic: Food Inflation in Latin America | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The three countries with the lowest food inflation rates for the same period are Bolivia (2.2 percent), Panama (5 percent) and Ecuador (7.1 percent). According to the FAO, average annual food inflation in the region was 43.9 percent in September 2022, while globally it did not exceed 23 percent.

    In addition to socio-economic factors on a national basis, the region is also still experiencing the wake of global events. The United Nations Development Programme explains:

    “More than a year into the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and more than three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the broad repercussions of these overlapping crises continue to affect societies in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

    Food inflation does not affect all citizens in the same way: according to the organization, the most vulnerable populations, including lower-income households, are affected “disproportionately due to their greater budget allocation towards spending on food.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 23:00

  • Election Group With Ties To Soros, Zuckerberg Meets In Washington For Conference Closed To Public
    Election Group With Ties To Soros, Zuckerberg Meets In Washington For Conference Closed To Public

    Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    An elections group with ties to Democrat mega-donor George Soros and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gathered in Washington this week for a meeting that was closed to the public.

    The U.S. Capitol and the Washington, D.C., skyline in a file photo on May 16, 2005. (Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images)

    The Epoch Times was denied entry to the event, called a “Summit on American Democracy” and hosted by the Center for Election Integrity & Research (CEIR). Organizers said that the event was invite-only. Only preapproved press and other guests were permitted to attend the summit.

    Though the event was live-streamed, the closed nature of the event deprived independent media of access to the laundry list of high-ranking officials attending the summit, including a litany of Secretaries of State, who oversee elections, and other election officials. Among those attending the conference were Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Bill Gates, county supervisor for Maricopa County, Arizona.

    The group describes itself as “committed to a fiercely nonpartisan approach.” But partisan allegations against its founder, funding by Zuckerberg, and indirect ties to the left-wing Soros challenge that description.

    During the livestream of the event, the group’s founder, David Becker, set the tone for the conference in his opening remarks, repeating contested claims about the security of the 2020 election, and dismissing concerns about election fraud as unfounded.

    “The 2020 election was, simply put, the most secure, transparent, and verifiable election in American history and it’s not close,” Becker claimed.

    At least one journalist who challenged this narrative was allegedly removed from the conference.

    Laura Loomer, an outspoken ally of President Donald Trump and proponent of theories about widespread election fraud in 2020, reported that she was thrown out of the conference for confronting election officials from Arizona and Georgia. The organizers later called the police on Loomer.

    Becker founded CEIR in 2016. He has also been instrumental in several other electoral organizations and efforts across his career.

    Partisan Accusations

    During the summit, Becker sought to present himself as nonpartisan and unbiased.

    He claimed that he was one of the few election officials who was willing to acclaim Trump’s 2016 victory as legitimate, even as others considered claims that voter fraud and election tampering had deprived Hillary Clinton of a victory.

    However, Becker founded CEIR in response to concerns about “foreign interference” in elections, an oft-repeated claim that Trump won in 2016 due to widespread Russian interference. But later multimillion-dollar federal investigations into Trump’s victory turned up no evidence of these claims.

    And the founder’s track record is splotched with claims of political biases against conservatives.

    In 2005, Becker—who has worked in elections for decades—was the subject of a formal ethics complaint while working in the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

    During the Republican administration of President George W. Bush, Becker offered his expertise in election law to the city of Boston to defeat a lawsuit from the DOJ regarding election law violations.

    In the investigation into this matter, it was discovered that Becker had made a series of “nasty, disparaging remarks about Republicans,” Hans von Spakovsky said. Von Spakovsky, who now is employed by the Heritage Foundation, was a DOJ legal counsel at the time.

    “In his role with the DOJ, [Becker] was supposed to be nonpartisan,” von Spakovsky said.

    “Very unethical and unprofessional,” he added. “I would never hire or trust him.”

    Brad Schlozman, who directed the Civil Rights division at the time, was even more critical, suggesting that Becker deserved to be disbarred.

    “It was the most unethical thing I’ve ever seen,” Schlozman said. “Classic case of someone who should have been disbarred.”

    He added that Becker was “a hard-core leftist” and someone who “couldn’t stand conservatives.”

    As recently as last year, Becker portrayed Trump as a liar and a danger to democratic norms in comments to The Washington Post.

    “We have a significant percentage of the American electorate right now who have been lied to about the integrity of our elections, who believe that elections … are rigged unless their candidate wins,” Becker said. “Yet it’s nowhere close to 50 percent of America overall. But if Trump were to win a narrow victory again, I could see [election denial] ideas … infecting a larger percentage of the electorate. And if a large segment of a democracy’s electorate loses confidence in elections, that democracy probably is unsustainable.”

    CEIR did not respond to an Epoch Times request for comment about these allegations.

    However, in past comments to another media outlet, Becker addressed some of the allegations, but left others unanswered: “This complaint was made over 15 years ago, if memory serves, and was dismissed. There was no action taken against me by the Department of Justice as a result of this complaint. As you know, anyone can make a complaint for any reason, with or without basis.

    “I served faithfully at the DOJ for seven years, from 1998 to 2005, during which time I received a Special Commendation of Merit from the Attorney General in 2002, during the Bush administration,” he added.

    Almost $70 Million from Zuckerberg

    In August 2020, Becker’s organization received a staggering $69.5 million from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

    Under the appearance of COVID-19 safety precautions, this funding was used to furnish key swing states with more mail-in drop boxes.

    Zuckerberg’s donation to CEIR came as part of a series of purportedly nonpartisan donations by the Facebook creator.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 22:30

  • Alarming Surge In Gun Shop Robberies As Democrats Fail To Enforce Law And Order 
    Alarming Surge In Gun Shop Robberies As Democrats Fail To Enforce Law And Order 

    Progressive district attorneys’ failure to enforce law and order has resulted in a surge of smash-and-grab thefts across American cities run by Democrats. The rise in thefts, particularly at retail stores, has become a significant problem for the retail industry, amounting to $100 billion in shrinkage in 2022. Even more concerning is that organized criminal gangs now target gun stores instead of clothing, jewelry, and pharmacy stores.

    Diving into Bloomberg data, the story count for “gun shop robbery” in all US news media stories soared to a record high in the fourth quarter of 2022, with data going back to 2013. The surge even surpassed levels during the early virus pandemic. 

    As of late, a series of gun store robberies in the Mid-Atlantic area have alarmed gun shop owners, local police, state police, and federal agencies. These shops are located in the Washington-Baltimore metro area, where Democrats have been in control for decades. 

    On April 30, two gun stores, one just outside the Capital Beltway in Fairfax County, Virginia, and another one in Rockville, Maryland, about an hour north, were targeted by what some in the firearm industry have described as criminal organized gangs. 

    One of the owners of Engage Armament in Rockville told FOX 5 that he believes the suspects that targeted his shop and Dominion Defense in Fairfax were part of the same gang. 

    Luckily, the thieves weren’t successful at breaking into the Engage Armament facility, but down in Fairfax, they stole 53 long rifles and handguns. 

    “Our biggest concern is that these guns don’t get into the wrong hands.

    “We try to do everything the right way – to do everything we can to keep them out of the wrong hands. Still, people have their rights, you know, to exercise their Second Amendment rights, but we do want to keep the guns out of the wrong hands,” said Engage Armament Co-owner Carlos Rabanales.

    One of the two suspects appearing in Dominion Defense’s security video was wearing a Nike mask. 

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    On Tuesday, the ATF working with Montgomery County police, announced a $15,000 reward for the arrest of suspects of a different Rockville gun shop burglary, Atlantic Guns.

    Last November, the ATF revealed at least five attempted and successful gun shop burglaries in Montgomery and Anne Arundel Counties of Maryland. These are areas where a majority of residents vote Democrat. 

    When accountability for bad behavior is removed from society, it emboldens criminals. And now these criminals are robbing gun stores and arming themselves with guns while the Biden administration is adamant about disarming law-abiding citizens. 

    Some say… We’re living in a clown world. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 22:00

  • The Disinformation Governance Board Is Out; The "Foreign Malign Influence Center" Is In…
    The Disinformation Governance Board Is Out; The “Foreign Malign Influence Center” Is In…

    Authored by Didi Rankovic via ReclamTheNet.org,

    A rose by any other name…

    The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Disinformation Governance Board met an ignoble demise last year, when it was disbanded within months, amid public criticism and staff-related scandal.

    Despite being derisively referred to as “the Ministry of Truth” – i.e., a US government’s alleged attempt to create an Orwellian-like institution – it was a fairly safe bet that the strong backlash notwithstanding, the initiative would rear its head again at some point. Soon.

    Meet the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), located at the Office of the Director of US National Intelligence (ODNI). Some sentiment suggest that this might be a Disinformation Governance Board 2 – what with a similar declarative focus on foreign threat, which is then easy to transition, as a smokescreen, to turning the authorities’ sights onto “domestic dissenters.”

    And that would mean more censorship, in effect flying under the radar, critics fear.

    A deceptive tactic, they continue, which could easily use foreign threats simply as an excuse to influence politics at home.

    Speaking of interference – the FMIC could also “duplicate” other US efforts, such as that of a State Department’s unit that has taken it upon itself to suppress what’s seen as “populism” in other countries.

    Now, this is what the FMIC has to say for – and about itself – the threat from abroad is constant and “dynamic” – no doubt – but therefore, “informing efforts to counter it requires constant attention, a whole-of-government approach, support from the private sector, and engagement from the public.”

    However, the “soothing” mention of foreign threats is not the only thing the FMIC will be dealing with – there’s also “protection of US public opinion.” And this, opponents may suspect, might be a euphemism for “policing domestic narratives.”

    The existence of the Center seems to have been presented to the public in a rather low-key fashion. It was last Thursday that it came up during an address by ODNI chief Avril Haines, a full 45 minutes into the speech, during a hearing organized by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

    Matt Taibbi, who pored over Twitter’s internal documents to become one of those behind the explosive Twitter Files, doesn’t look at this kind of initiative very kindly.

    In fact, he seems to pretty much consider it a ruse whose real goal is to “slowly adjust aim to domestic targets.”

    But first – what Taibbi calls “the basic rhetorical trick of the censorship age” must “raise a fuss about a foreign threat, using it as a battering ram to get everyone from Congress to the tech companies to submit to increased regulation and surveillance.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 21:30

  • Wagner Chief Clarifies That Only His Forces Making Gains In Bakhmut
    Wagner Chief Clarifies That Only His Forces Making Gains In Bakhmut

    Update(2130ET): Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin clarified late Saturday in an audio statement that despite regular Russian forces having “retreated” from parts of Bakhmut’s north (in his words), his own Wagner fighters are still advancing. So it seems his power struggle with the military chain of command and defense ministry continues, as he persists in his controversial narrative that it’s only his company that’s spearheading gains and engaged in heavy fighting (akin to the battle for Soledar). 

    Prigozhin stressed that Wagner advanced today, and that Ukraine controls only 1 square km in Bahmut and remains in control of just 29 or so tall buildings. 

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    Meanwhile TASS has cited the head of an elite Russian unit to say that intensified Ukrainian engagement has only happened along some parts of the frontlines: 

    Commander of the Akhmat commando unit and Deputy Commander of the 2nd Army Corps Apty Alaudinov said on Saturday that Ukrainian troops increased their activity only in some sectors of the line of engagement.

    Earlier, Yan Gagin, an advisor to Acting DPR Head Denis Pushilin, reported that Ukrainian units had become more active along the entire line of combat engagement.

    “The Ukrainian units became active not along the entire line of combat engagement, only in certain parts and still the situation has not significantly changed,” Alaudinov told TASS.

    “The situation is completely under control in our sector,” he added.

    The day prior, the defense ministry acknowledged some degree of a pullback in limited sectors in the north of the city. Prigozhin had described the regular forces as “fleeing” – a characterization which was denied by the Kremlin. 

    * * *

    Shortly after a Russian military helicopter crash was reported early Saturday in a region near the Ukrainian border, a second crash of an aircraft has been reported, at a moment of continuing general bad news for Moscow related to the Ukraine war. Possibly a third aircraft downing has also been reported – all within a matter of hours.

    “An Su-34 fighter jet crashed in Bryansk Region, Russia near the Ukrainian border, minutes after reports that an unidentified helicopter also went down in the area, TASS news agency reported on Saturday, citing sources,” state media is reporting.

    Details on casualties weren’t initially revealed, but images and video circulating on social media show what appears to be a crash site, including the jet’s tail and engine on fire. 

    The jet crash reportedly happened near the village of Istrovka north of the Ukrainian border, and unofficial military channels online are saying the pilot and navigator were killed. 

    Just hours before news of the jet crash emerged, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter separately caught fire and crashed. It may have been shot down. Newsweek is meanwhile suggesting that a total of two helicopters crashed within the same time frame, reporting that— 

    A Su-34 combat jet and a Mi-8 helicopter came down on Saturday, according to Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency.

    Russian online news channel Mash posted on Telegram that another Mi-8 helicopter and a Su-35 warplane crashed in the same area on Saturday.

    There’s also growing speculation that given multiple aircraft came down in the same region, it may have been from a Ukrainian attack on the aircraft, but this is unconfirmed: 

    This was also reported by Russian media outlet Readovka, who said: “Two helicopters and fighter-bombers were shot down by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Our pilots were ambushed and we are talking about a carefully planned operation.” Newsweek has been unable to independently verify reports of the additional crashes.

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    A Reuters national security correspondent is counting four total downed aircraft on Saturday, citing Russian state sources:

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    The day prior, on Friday, a Mi-28 military helicopter had crashed during a training flight in Crimea, after which the defense ministry confirmed that two pilots were killed. 

    TASS cited defense officials who described, “At 3:42 p.m. (Moscow time) on May 12, 2023, a Mi-28 helicopter crashed during its scheduled training flight in the Dzhankoi district of the Republic of Crimea. The helicopter performed its flight without an ammunition load. There is no destruction on the ground. Both pilots died.”

    The military statement said the crash in Crimea was due to a “technical failure” of the attack helicopter but said a further investigation is ongoing. 

    Overall this has been a bad past week and even month so far for Russia and its war efforts.

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    There’s not only been a spate of these deadly aerial incidents in the past 24 hours, but Russian territory is coming under increased drone attack from Ukraine, and oil facilities in particular have been targeted and significantly damaged. In addition the defense ministry acknowledged that Russian military positions have pulled back in some areas of northern Bakhmut, following prior months of steady gains.

    Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner forces, has called it a “rout” – as the open feud between himself and the top military command has also been a likely cause of ‘low morale’ and is somewhat embarrassing on an international stage.

    At this point it remains unconfirmed and uncertain whether these Saturday jet and helicopter crashes were the result of cross-border shootdowns. If so it would mark a huge escalation and leap in Ukraine’s capabilities, including the possibility of Western advanced offensive weapons being used:

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    Reuters summarized of the battlefield developments by Friday:

    Moscow acknowledged on Friday that its forces had fallen back north of Ukraine’s battlefield city of Bakhmut after a new Ukrainian offensive, in a retreat that the head of Russia’s Wagner private army called a rout.

    The setback for Russia, which follows similar reports of Ukrainian advances south of the city, suggests a coordinated push by Kyiv to encircle Russian forces in Bakhmut, Moscow’s main objective for months during the war’s bloodiest fighting.

    “In three days of counter-offensive activity, the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Bakhmut sector have liberated 17.3 sq. km (6.6 sq. miles) of territory,” Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for the “east” group of Ukrainian forces, said on the Telegram messaging app.

    Both sides are now reporting the biggest Ukrainian gains in six months, although Ukraine has given few details and played down suggestions a huge, long-planned counteroffensive has officially begun.

    Additionally days ago Moscow’s big Victory Day parade was widely reported as “muted” and lacking in tanks and other military hardware that is typically on display.

    Ukrainian officials have mocked all of this as showing weakness, also while Kiev’s spring counteroffensive may be imminent, or is perhaps already begun. All the while, Ukraine’s cross-border attacks are only growing bolder, and it doesn’t seem the Kremlin can do anything about it.

    Yet, despite what appear to be significant Russian military setbacks, Ukraine frontlines in many places are still getting pounded. For example, the below video is purportedly of a recent Russian strike in Western Ukraine, possibly on Friday or Saturday (with footage just emerging):

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    And here:

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    As for the much-touted spring counteroffensive by Ukraine forces, it’s as yet unclear whether this is in full swing or not. While there have been moves on the ground, Zelensky has so far denied that it’s begun, saying his forces must “wait”. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 21:29

  • American Fast-Food Chains Use Seaweed, Soy, And Even Wood To Beef Up Menu Items, Study Reveals 
    American Fast-Food Chains Use Seaweed, Soy, And Even Wood To Beef Up Menu Items, Study Reveals 

    An exclusive investigation by Daily Mail might make you reconsider your next order of fried chicken at American fast-food chains. The investigation reveals these restaurants infuse their chicken with additives, preservatives, and other proteins to keep costs low. Some of these menu items are described as “premium” or “all-white-meat,” but far from it, instead include ingredients such as seaweed and even wood pulp.

    The report said there are more than 120 ingredients hidden within chicken burgers or nuggets at fast food restaurants. Those ingredients are listed below on a restaurant-by-restaurant basis:

    McDonald’s 

    The enduringly popular McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets have been the center of controversy in the past – after a now-debunked video emerged in 2010 of ‘pink slime’ supposedly going into the nuggets at a factory. 

    The brand worked hard to dispel this myth, but the treats are still not made from 100 percent chicken meat. 

    The nuggets do contain white boneless chicken, but they are also full of several types of flour, flavorings, spices, acid, yeast extract, dextrose and lemon juice solids.

    Wendy’s 

    In the patty of the Wendy’s classic chicken sandwich, only 56 percent of the meat is chicken breast.

     The other 44 percent is a mixture of water, wheat flour, starch, acids, spices and flavor powders. It also includes fully refined soybean oil, raising agent and more unusual ingredients such a dehydrated chicken powder and smoke flavoring. 

    The patty, bun and mayonnaise include over five allergens, so it’s worth checking the recipe before you tuck in if you have any allergies.

    Carl’s Jr. 

    Carl’s Jr nuggets are set apart from the other offerings on the market with their distinctive star shape. 

    They also include some more unusual ingredients – namely ‘chicken type flavor’ – according to The Daily Meal. 

    The outlet reports that the nuggets include beef flavor, which has three different types of protein in it (from hydrolyzed soy, wheat, and corn protein) and beef fat. 

    As for the spicy chicken sandwich, it reportedly contains ‘isolated oat product’ in its patty, and microcrystalline cellulose in its bun – which is a refined wood pulp.

    Subway 

    The chain has faced criticism in the past, with claims that some of its chicken products were made from non-chicken material. Subway responded to the claims, saying its ‘Oven Roasted Chicken and chicken strips are made from 100 percent all white meat chicken.’ 

    However its products certainly aren’t made from chicken alone. Its oven-roasted chicken also contains flavorings, potato starch and carrageenan. 

    This is a chemical compound which is safe to eat, but is made from parts of various red seaweeds. It is used to thicken foods, and does not have any nutritional value.

    Jack in the Box 

    Jack in the Box has various poultry-based offerings on its menu, including chicken tenders and nuggets.

     These products often contain wheat and milk, so those with allergens should check the ingredient list. 

    The meat in the popcorn chicken also contains ‘isolated oat product’ among its other ingredients of chicken breast strips with rib meat, water and potato starch.

    Whataburger 

    According to The Daily Meal, a significant proportion of the chain’s Southern-style chicken strips are not pure chicken meat, with up to 12 percent of each tender containing ingredients like water, sodium phosphate, and isolated soy protein.

     Isolated soy protein, which is derived from soy beans, is a common ingredient in processed foods as a way to bulk them out. 

    This last ingredient is a common fixture in processed foods, the outlet reports. A protein derived from soybeans, isolated soy protein is a cost-effective way to bulk out foods. 

    But those with potentially dangerous soy allergies should stay away from anything containing soy protein.

    Burger King 

    According to The Daily Meal, Burger King chicken nuggets also contain a whole host of flavorings alongside chicken breast and rib meat. 

    These include autolyzed yeast extract, a substance derived from yeast, and other flavor enhancers including disodium guanylate, a form of salt that is sometimes used in tandem with MSG, and which is also found under the name E627. 

    They are also unsuitable for anyone who can’t eat eggs, milk, wheat, gluten or celery.

    Domino’s 

    Although known for its pizza rather than the traditional chicken tender or nugget, there are also extra ingredients in the fast food giant’s poultry offerings. 

    Its grilled chicken contains tens of ingredients including modified corn starch, modified food starch and lipolyzed butter oil. 

    Modified starch is typically used as a thickening agent, stabilizer or emulsifier, and to make foods last longer.

    Dairy Queen

     Dairy Queen’s chicken strips contain a substantial percentage of ingredients other than pure meat. The uncooked tenderloin chicken fritters contain up to 18 percent of a solution of water, hydrolyzed soy protein, salt, and sodium phosphates. 

    Sodium phosphate is used to improve the chicken’s texture, and help keep it fresher for longer. 

    A Dairy Queen representative said: ‘Our chicken strips are 100% seasoned, white meat chicken. Each chicken strip is a single tenderloin that is marinated and breaded for maximum flavor. While we provide our ingredient lists to the public on DairyQueen.com, we refrain from providing the exact recipe or ingredient percentage for competitive reasons.’

    Arby’s 

    According to The Daily Meal, the Buttermilk Chicken Fillet contains a surprising ingredient to help enhance its flavor – protein concentrate. 

    Commonly consumed by athletes and bodybuilders, whey protein is frequently added to other foods to give them a textural and tasty boost and help them last longer on the shelf, it reports.

    White Castle 

    The shape of the chicken offering at this chain may be a clue that it is not 100 percent meat. 

    These rings contain an extensive list of ingredients, including preservative carrageenan – which is derived from seaweed – and powdered cooked chicken.

    This explanation may clarify things.

    And a recent study from Imperial’s School of Public Health found higher consumption of ultra-processed foods (like the ones above) might be linked to an increased risk of developing and dying from cancer. 

    One might wonder why BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager overseeing trillions of dollars, hasn’t shaken up the fast food industry that appears to be serving consumers unhealthy food, which, according to Imperial, could potentially contribute to cancer. Isn’t the ‘S’ in ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) supposed to promote the health and safety of society and enhance the quality of life? Maybe Larry Fink is preoccupied with more important concerns, like climate change and gender identity. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 21:00

  • The 2024 Presidential Election Could Make Or Break Bitcoin In The US
    The 2024 Presidential Election Could Make Or Break Bitcoin In The US

    Authored by Robert Hall via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    2024 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for Bitcoin and the U.S. That’s why it’s time for a generational change in leadership…

    The race for the 2024 U.S. presidential election is starting to kick into gear, featuring some of the same cast of characters from the last few elections. On the Democratic side, you have Joe Biden, Robert F. Kennedy and Marianne Williamson suggesting they will run. Then, Former President Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy are on the other side of the aisle.

    If you have been following the race so far, you might know that Trump seems to be walking away with the nomination before the process even starts next year. If he ends up being the nominee, we will likely get a re-run of 2020, where we have two men over 70 years old who both think that they know what is right for the country. Who else is tired of having baby boomers running the show? I am, to be honest.

    BOOMER PRESIDENTS DON’T UNDERSTAND BITCOIN

    Baby boomers, you’ve had their time in the sun. It’s time to leave the stage and let the younger generations of leaders have a chance to lead the country. We need leaders who understand the emerging challenges facing America as we speak.

    We need leaders who thoroughly understand economic policy and the value of innovation in the financial space. For instance, the baby boomers at the top of the ticket don’t have the depth or the capacity to understand the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Bitcoin presents to America and the American people.

    Biden and Trump have been openly hostile towards Bitcoin because they believe in the supremacy of the fiat dollar system. The time is now to elect someone with a bold vision for the future, who understands that the way that the entitlement systems are set up and the dollar’s role in the world isn’t sustainable over the long term.

    If America stays on its current path, it will only lead to chaos, lawlessness, and a lower standard of living for everyone. Is this the future that you want for your children and grandchildren? 2024 is our chance to start a new journey toward freedom, the rule of law and the opportunity to make something of yourself, regardless of your station in life.

    WHY WE NEED A BITCOINER AS PRESIDENT

    It has been reported recently that the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, is close to a decision on whether to run for president next year. For those who don’t know him, he is one of the most pro-Bitcoin politicians in the country. He has actively courted Bitcoiners to come to Miami and help make it the Bitcoin capital of the world. So far, he has largely succeeded in doing that.

    But in addition to making the U.S. an epicenter for Bitcoin innovation, having a Bitcoiner like Suarez as president will, critically, stop the emergence of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in America dead in its tracks. If Biden or Trump is elected, it is almost certain that some form of CBDC will be activated in America. With the deployment of a CBDC, you can kiss your financial freedom goodbye. You can kiss your privacy goodbye.

    You will no longer have autonomy over what you can eat or how far you can travel. You will have a social credit score, as has been implemented in China. Is this the type of life that you want? We have to strive for a better life.

    Just recently, the rails for a CBDC were introduced to the public. FedNow, as it is called, will be operational by July 2023. It is said that it will be used to speed up payments between customers and businesses, which may be accurate at the moment. However, as with any system, it will likely evolve into something vastly different than what it was intended to be.

    Can we really trust a government that has given us the Patriot Act, PRISM and now the proposed RESTRICT Act to resist total control over what you spend your money on?

    The RESTRICT Act, for instance, put forth by none other than Bitcoin-hating Senator Elizabeth Warren, has the potential to harm Bitcoiners in the United States with its overly-broad language about digital communication tools being a threat to national security. While the overt target may be TikTok, nothing is stopping regulators from using this law against Bitcoin in the future.

    Looking past this smokescreen, you can see that they are building their case to the public: Hilary Clinton, international regulators and the U.S. Treasury have all warned about the dangers of cryptocurrency.

    Now, put this in the context of $31 trillion in U.S. national debt, unsustainable entitlement spending, a world slowly moving away from the dollar, high gas prices and uncontrollable inflation. Then it becomes clear that they will close off the exits to Bitcoin before most people learn about how to use them. They want to herd the masses into a CBDC for a “great reset” of the monetary system. This is coming if we don’t start electing people who understand that Bitcoin is our last chance to escape a sinking ship.

    Mayor Saurez gets it, and if any other politicians in America understand Bitcoin, it is time that we support them and get more Bitcoiners in office. The dollar is the Titanic, and Bitcoin is the lifeboat. Will enough people get on to be saved? Time will tell and the upcoming presidential election could be a final chance.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 20:30

  • Johnstone: This Civilization Is Mentally Ill
    Johnstone: This Civilization Is Mentally Ill

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Substack,

    It’s time for another US presidential race where populist factions on both sides spend a few months angrily decrying the establishment before voting for candidates in the general election who will fully serve that same establishment.

    I think this is just the norm now. Public discontent with the US political status quo is now so great that there’s going to be a new “Hey kids, you can vote your way into revolutionary change!” feature built into every presidential election. 2012 was the end of a political era.

    ❖

    The biggest misconception about politics is that political differences have any meaningful existence at all. Everyone’s herded into two mainstream factions who both serve the interests of the powerful, while those few who can’t be herded are marginalized into political impotence.

    And I am of course mainly talking about the English-speaking world here. The global south has real political diversity of real consequence, and has real differences from the status quo politics of the US-centralized empire. But within that empire, political differences are effectively illusory.

    ❖

    I feel like maybe we didn’t make a big enough deal about that revelation the other day that the US government now has so many institutions dedicated to “perception management” and regulating “disinformation” that it created a new agency within the ODNI to oversee all of them. 

    I mean everyone made a lot of noise about the DHS’s “disinformation governance board” last year, and rightly so, but as a whole this seems way more egregious in terms of government interference in human communication.

    ❖

    The problem with opposition to dissent-crushing measures is that it mostly only comes from those at whom such measures are directed. Mainstream journalists know they won’t be imprisoned like Assange, because they won’t do work like Assange did. Mainstream liberals know they won’t be censored online, so they’re happy to cheer for online censorship.

    Measures designed to control the narrative and suppress dissent are directed at the fringes, not the mainstream, because that’s where dissent of real consequence always first emerges. It won’t be those with mainstream political leanings seeing their speech increasingly marginalized and hidden away by algorithms and AI, it will be those who oppose the political status quo. In the future it won’t be those with a mainstream worldview being oppressed by things like tech surveillance, police robots and CBDCs, it will be those well outside the Overton window of permissible debate. The average person will be unaffected by such measures, because in our current mind-controlled dystopia the average person is compliant and innocuous.

    This is why attempts to get a large movement of opposition to these totalitarian measures typically fail to gather significant public traction: because only people on the fringes have reason to fear them. By controlling the mainstream consensus, our rulers eliminate any meaningful opposition to their tyranny toward the real dissidents whose politics generally lie well outside that consensus. And since it’s only widespread mainstream opposition that would ever give them reason to fear public backlash, they can keep ratcheting up these dissent-crushing measures.

    I don’t really have any solution to this problem; I’ve been staring at it for years and don’t see any easy answers. I’m just putting it out there in the hive mind so that awareness of the problem can grow and we can start collectively looking for solutions.

    ❖

    This civilization is so mentally ill that you’ll get treated like a gibbering lunatic for expressing the most sane and rational opinions anyone can possibly express.

    Something as basic as “The world’s most powerful government should stop ramping up nuclear brinkmanship on multiple fronts” will get you treated like a kook, when really it’s so obvious and common sense it shouldn’t even need to be said.

    That’s how crazy mass-scale brainwashing has made everyone.

    ❖

    I will never support any form of capitalism, because no form of capitalism — real or hypothetical — will ever have an answer to the problems of ecocide and the need to care for the needful.

    Every capitalism-based solution that has ever been proposed for these problems is self-evidently ridiculous; the notion that privatizing the natural world can preserve oceans and rainforests is infantile nonsense that’s refuted by all of human history, as is the notion that the needful can be cared for solely by voluntary charity. No intellectually honest person believes this is true. No ancap who’s thought hard enough about ecocide and caring for the needful sincerely believes that capitalism can address these problems. At their most honest, they’ll say that ecocide and starvation are necessary sacrifices that must be made for the freedoms and conveniences they want to have for themselves.

    I appreciate a right-libertarian who straight up admits that they’re fine with environmental destruction and the weakest members of society dying off rather than pretending the “free market” can address these issues, because at least they’re being honest about where they stand.

    And of course the current western status quo model of capitalism with a little state welfare and a few superficial environmental restrictions isn’t working either, because here we are. Every possible capitalist school of thought has failed to find a solution to these problems. You can yell “but communism bad” at me all you want, but that doesn’t address the fact that people are struggling to survive and our biosphere is hurtling toward collapse, and that literally nothing anywhere in capitalist thought has anything resembling a viable answer for this.

    We won’t ultimately have a solution to ecocide and exploitation until mass-scale human behavior ceases to be driven by the pursuit of profit altogether, because ecocide and exploitation are profitable. We’re going to have to find another organizing principle if we’re to survive on this planet.

    ❖

    Never let yourself lose sight of the reality that as bad as things are, the fact that there are things at all is vastly more significant than any of our puny human problems.

    It’s not something you can talk about all the time because people will think you’re being callous about human suffering and all the problems that we do have, but the truth of the matter is that even if things were ten times worse than they are now, it would still be vastly less significant than the fact that we get to live in a world and perceive it and think about it and share ideas about it instead of nothing existing at all.

    Yes, pay attention to our problems and do what you can to fix them, but never, ever let yourself lose sight of the fact that we are living in the middle of a continuous miracle of unfathomable beauty, and that we ourselves are inseparably unified with that vast miracle. If you only fixate on thoughts about our problems you will become bitter and ineffective in the fight against injustice, and more importantly, you will have wasted your time here failing to appreciate the wondrousness of a human life on this amazing planet.

    *  *  *

    Caitlin’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscribe.

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 19:30

  • After-School Satan Clubs Are Hot, Hot, Hot!
    After-School Satan Clubs Are Hot, Hot, Hot!

    Following a major legal victory in the free speech department, after school Satan Clubs are picking up steam.

    Launched in 2020 and promptly opposed by most parents, the clubs, associated with the Satanic Temple, are being pitched as an alternative to Christian after-school groups for those who identify as agnostics, atheists and religious minorities, such as pagans.

    Last Monday, the Satanic Temple and the ACLU scored a legal victory after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled against the Northampton County school district, which banned the club from meeting on its grounds.

    “In a victory for free speech and religious freedom, a federal court has ruled that the Saucon Valley School District must allow the After School Satan Club to meet in district facilities,” the ACLU said in a statement.

    Totally not Satanic?

    The PR campaign behind the Satanic Temple is a sight to behold. Founded in 2014, the organization claims to “encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority,” and says that members should use “practical common sense” and stand up for justice.

    Kid-friendly!

    Congregations tell those interested that if they’re trying to “sell my soul, get rich, join the Illuminati, etc.,” that they should look elsewhere.

    “We’re definitely not interested in having children identify as satanists,” said satanist Rose Bastet, who has been involved in the Satanic Temple for four years, and is one of the After School Satan Club volunteers at B.M. Williams Primary in Chesapeake, VA. Bastet spearheaded the effort to get the club into the school in October 2020 – a process which took a long time because the school was “giving us the runaround,” she said, adding that “they were in the background looking for any way that they could prevent us from meeting.”

    Ya think?

    The Baphomet statue is seen at the Satanic Temple in Salem, Mass., on Oct. 8, 2019. Photo by Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

    Just nature stuff!

    According to Bastet, Satan Club is just teaching kids about nature and whatnot.

    “One of our meetings a couple of months ago, we learned about Virginia native bats,” she said, adding “This last meeting, we had one of the parents in the club volunteer to bring in a bunch of bones and fossils that she and her husband have found in Virginia.”

    Neat!

    That said, the ‘curriculum’ could change this fall as the club seeks to integrate the seven tenets of the Satanic Temple, which include “compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason,” and that “beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.”

    “We just came out with a book that is like the children’s version — or I should say a very sweet way to interpret — the tenets in a very understanding way that children could understand. So we might start actually using this book to talk to the kids about our seven tenets,” said Everett, adding “We have a lot of big plans for next school year.“

    We bet they do…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 19:00

  • California Reparations Committee Calls for Ending Cash Bail
    California Reparations Committee Calls for Ending Cash Bail

    Authored by Elizabeth Dowell via The Epoch Times,

    California’s reparations committee is calling for state officials to end cash bail and the prosecution of low-level crimes after approving a reparations payment plan to make amends for slavery and anti-black racism earlier this week.

    The nine-member committee, which was created by state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, approved its final recommendations to the California Legislature, which will decide whether to enact the measures and send them to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.

    A final report is due to the Legislature by July 1, where recommendations include several proposals related to criminal justice, including the elimination of cash bail.

    “The cash bail system is at the core of many of the class and race-based inequities in the criminal legal system,” the committee wrote in its proposal.

    “The task force accordingly recommends that the legislature take all steps necessary to definitively end cash bail.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs into law a bill that establishes a task force to come up with recommendations on how to give reparations in Sacramento, Calif., on Sept. 30, 2020. (Office of the Governor via AP)

    Government officials and prosecutors have argued that it’s unfair to low-income people who can’t afford it to pay cash for bail and have fought to end this requirement.

    “Pretrial detention can last months and even years, during which incarcerated individuals suffer countless harms, including deteriorating mental and physical health, risk of sexual violence and lasting trauma,” the committee wrote.

    “These harms exert significant pressure on defendants to accept plea bargains in order to be released from custody rather than fighting the charges at trial.”

    Newsom called the recommendations “a milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing.”

    “Dealing with the legacy of slavery is about much more than cash payments,” Newsom said in his statement.

    “We are waiting for the process to be completed.”

    The recommendations approved by the committee outline restitution that, if approved by state lawmakers, could cost billions of dollars to address historical disparities in health care, housing, and policing.

    “Many of the recommendations put forward by the Task Force are critical action items we’ve already been hard at work addressing: breaking down barriers to vote, bolstering resources to address hate, enacting sweeping law enforcement and justice reforms to build trust and safety, strengthening economic mobility—all while investing billions in rooting out disparities and improve equity in housing, education, healthcare, and beyond. This work must continue,” Newsom said.

    Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles-area Democrat on the committee, said in an interview that it’s too early to know whether payments could get passed in the Legislature, as the committee’s report deadline looms.

    “We have absolutely no idea right now what will or will not be approved,” he said.

    Republican Lauren Boebert criticized the reparations payments calling it “a joke.”

    “The fact that supposedly serious people in San Francisco are considering a plan that would give $5,000,000 in reparations to every black resident in their city in a state that never had slavery is a joke,” Boebert wrote on Twitter.

    California’s black population includes more than 2.5 million people.

    The committee outlines what it describes as “over-policing” of black Americans before calling for California to stop prosecuting low-level crimes.

    “Given the devastating impacts of this kind of over-policing, the task force recommends that the legislature prohibit law enforcement from criminally enforcing public disorder infractions and other low-level crimes,” the committee wrote.

    “Instead, a public health and safety institution, without criminal arrest or prosecution powers, would enforce prohibitions such as sleeping on the sidewalk, fare evasion, spitting on the train, and similar transit-related or other public disorder violations that criminalize poverty,” the committee added.

    Assemblymember Lori Wilson, who chairs the state Legislative Black Caucus, said that the caucus would champion policy proposals included in the task force’s report.

    “We look forward to working collaboratively with our Legislative colleagues and Gov. Newsom’s administration as we continue to fight for equity in our communities,” Wilson said in a statement.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 18:30

  • Oregon GOP Walkout Targets Bills On Abortions For Children, Gun Control
    Oregon GOP Walkout Targets Bills On Abortions For Children, Gun Control

    By not showing up for duty, Oregon’s Republican state senators are thwarting Democrats’ attempts to pass bills on gun control, abortion and so-called “gender-affirming care.” Oregon Senate rules require that two-thirds of members be present for before votes on legislation can be held. Senators joining the no-show campaign are playing with fire, as they could find themselves disqualified from serving additional terms. 

    Outwardly, Republicans claim their boycott is aimed at forcing Democrats to comply with a long-obscure 1979 law requiring bill summaries to be written at an 8th- or 9th-grade reading level. However, that position is widely understood to be a creative pretext for blocking bills that Republicans consider extreme. Credit a GOP senate staffer who dug up the 44-year-old law that’s seemingly been ignored ever since enacted. 

    Plenty of empty desks in the Oregon Senate on May 11, as only two Republicans showed up (Dirk VanderHart/OPB)

    Hundreds of bills are now stuck, but the blockage is primarily motivated by Republican opposition to two particular Democrat proposals. The first of them is House Bill 2002, which would:

    • Let minors of any age get an abortion without parental notice, much less permission
    • Order private insurers and Medicaid to pay for more services under an umbrella of “gender-affirming care” 
    • Require student health centers to dispense abortion and emergency contraception drugs 
    • Deploy mobile “health clinics” to carry out abortions and gender transitions in rural areas

    Republicans are incensed by the package. “Oregonians do not want more of their taxpayer dollars going to something they fundamentally disagree with,” said Rep. Christine Goodwin told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Ask them how they feel about a mobile abortion truck parked in their neighborhoods.”

    Of course, it’s not just taxpayer dollars at stake: The mandates for private insurers would mean higher premiums for all Oregonians covered by private policies, compelling them to indirectly fund gender swaps for fellow citizens. 

    Gun control advocates protest the GOP’s Oregon Senate walkout (AP via New York Post)

    Republicans are also trying to derail House Bill 2005, a gun control bill that would: 

    • Increase the minimum age for buying certain semiautomatic firearms from 18 to 21
    • Criminalize possession of untraceable firearms, which gun control advocates label “ghost guns”
    • Require background checks for private firearm sales

    Democrats and Republican leaders have been holding closed-door meetings, but the Democratic Senate leader says his side won’t budge on the abortion and gender-switch bill.

    The longer the boycott lasts, the closer various Republicans put themselves in jeopardy of disqualification from additional terms in office. Last year, by a resounding 68% to 32% tally, the state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment that imposes that penalty on legislators who rack up 10 unexcused absences. The measure was motivated by repeated walkouts.  

    When Democrats in Texas and Wisconsin carried out similar walkouts to block legislatures from achieving a quorum, they were celebrated as heroes. However, Republicans are being condemned for using the same tactic in Oregon. 

    “It is abundantly clear that there is a concerted effort to undermine the will of the people and bring the legislature to a halt in violation of the constitution of the state of Oregon,” said Democratic Senate President Rob Wagner.  

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 18:00

  • Pentagon To Expand Air Defenses In Guam, Eyeing China & N.Korea Threats
    Pentagon To Expand Air Defenses In Guam, Eyeing China & N.Korea Threats

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

    A Defense Department official told Congress that the Pentagon is acting on plans to build a multi-layered air defense system in Guam, where Washington keeps several military bases. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is requesting $1.5 billion to begin stationing new radars and interceptors on the island next year.

    Missile Defense Agency director Vice Adm. Jon Hill told a Senate panel on Tuesday that the Pentagon is currently conducting environmental impact studies at multiple sites where it hopes to deploy new systems. Local officials in Guam now have less than 30 days to review the reports and offer a response.

    Hill stressed that the US must defend all of its territories as if they were the American homeland, including Guam, adding that the Pentagon would install a “360-degree layered defense capability” on the island to secure it against “simultaneous cruise, ballistic, maneuvering and hypersonic” missile attacks.

    The Missile Defense Agency plans to deploy AEGIS, SM-3, SM-6 and THAAD interceptors at various points on Guam. The Pentagon previously awarded Lockheed Martin a $527 million contract to develop an upgraded AEGIS system for the island, while the MDA is hoping to receive another $1.5 billion to spend on Guam’s air defenses during FY 2024.

    The Defense Department is additionally working on new radar systems to deploy to Guam. “We are in the early stages of developing the Homeland Defense Radar-Guam (now designated as the AN/TPY-6 radar) and the Aegis Guam System to provide persistent long-range midcourse discrimination, precision tracking, missile engagements, and hit assessment to protect Guam,” Hill said in his written testimony.

    The vice admiral told the Senate panel that the systems were needed to contend with alleged threats posed by China and North Korea.

    The Joe Biden administration has adopted confrontational policies toward Beijing and Pyongyang, issuing a steady stream of threats and ultimatums to both countries. China and North Korea say the US military buildup in the region is driving a major spike in tensions, citing a flurry of live-fire drills and other operations in the Asia-Pacific in recent years.

    The AEGIS system in particular could further fuel the cycle of escalation, as it is capable of being converted to fire offensive missiles, including those carrying nuclear warheads, in addition to defensive interceptors

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 17:30

  • San Francisco Democrat Pushes To Restrict Gun Use By Security Guards 
    San Francisco Democrat Pushes To Restrict Gun Use By Security Guards 

    San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston introduced new draft legislation earlier this week that would prevent security officers in the crime-ridden progressive metro area from using their firearms to protect property. 

    “We must amend local law to prohibit guards from drawing weapons just to protect property,” Preston tweeted on Tuesday. 

    The Democratic Socialist’s proposal follows an incident last month when a Walgreens security guard shot and killed suspected burglar Banko Brown. 

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    Preston’s ridiculous push to limit the ability of security guards to use firearms while on the job attracted criticism from the world’s second-richest person, Elon Musk: 

    “It’s bad enough already. If security guards can’t protect stores, offices, homes or themselves from violent criminals, who would remain in San Francisco?”

    Another tech entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale said, “SF leaders are basically openly inciting robbery. A security guard damn well can defend you and your property with a gun, in a free country.” 

    Lonsdale said he’s concerned about his “friends and colleagues” in this increasingly “lawless” city, adding, “I hope they succeed at voting out people like Preston.” 

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    And lawlessness is right. Just look at the chaos in Oakland the other night as the progressive district attorney fails to enforce law and order. 

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    Meanwhile, retailers like Whole Foods, Nordstrom, T-Mobile, Office Depot, and many others are closing up shops as thefts are surging out of control. 

    Similar occurrences have recently been observed in cities like Baltimore and Chicago, where groups of young people wreak havoc on city streets. This is a failure of progressive leadership nationwide to enforce law and order. The American people are infuriated by the failure of progressives, as there is no accountability for implementing failed policies. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 17:00

  • Recession Odds Rise To Highest In 40 Years: Fed
    Recession Odds Rise To Highest In 40 Years: Fed

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    The odds that the United States will fall into a recession at some point over the next 12 months have risen to a 40-year high, according to a probability model from the New York Federal Reserve.

    The probability that the country will enter a recession within the next year has risen to 68.2 percent, according to the New York Fed, which is the highest level since 1982.

    The Fed’s recession risk indicator is now greater than it was in November 2007, not long before the subprime crisis, when it stood at 40 percent.

    The recession model is based on the spread between the three-month and 10-year yields on U.S. Treasurys.

    For months, the U.S. economy had been projected to show slowing real GDP growth and labor market softening.

    Amid the banking sector turmoil sparked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, economists at the Federal Reserve have projected a shallow recession.

    “Given their assessment of the potential economic effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years,” stated the minutes from a March meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

    There has been a growing chorus of experts who believe that the odds of a recession are high.

    Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said he thinks the chances are “probably about 70 percent.”

    “The chance that a recession will have begun this year in the U.S. over the next 12 months is probably about 70 percent,” Summers said in a recent interview with Foreign Policy.

    “As I put together the lags associated with monetary policy, the credit crunch risks, the need for continuing action around inflation, the risk of geopolitical or other shocks affecting commodities, 70 percent would be the range that I would be in.”

    Economists at Capital Economics published their latest quarterly U.S. economic outlook report, warning that the “acute bank stress” will result in “further tightening” of credit conditions, leaving them “even more convinced that the economy will fall into recession this year.”

    ING economists are also “more convinced than ever” with their prediction of a recession, citing in a research note the financial turmoil and the Fed’s monetary policy tightening.

    A recent poll showed that most Americans believe that the country is headed for a recession—or has already fallen into an economic downturn.

    Pessimism about the economy hit a record high amid rampant price inflation, rising interest rates, and growing recession concerns, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey.

    The survey showed that 69 percent of U.S. adults have negative views about the current economic landscape, which is the highest figure since the survey began 17 years ago.

    The elevated recession risk comes amid a debt ceiling standoff in Washington.

    Debt Ceiling Deadlock

    The Treasury Department has warned that the United States could default as soon as June 1 if no deal is reached.

    The White House has put out an analysis that said even a “short” default could eliminate half a million jobs and that a “protracted” one could cost 8.3 million jobs.

    When the United States reached the $31.4 trillion debt cap in January, the Treasury Department started resorting to “extraordinary measures” to keep making payments on outstanding federal debt obligations and keep the government from defaulting.

    At some point, however, the scope to continue with those accounting maneuvers will run out and the government will face the prospect of being unable to meet its financial obligations—a moment known as the X-date.

    When the X-date is reached and there’s no agreement in Congress to lift the cap, the Treasury Department will be unable to issue any more bills, bonds, or notes and can only make payments on the government’s debt obligations from incoming tax revenues.

    After a three-month hiatus, negotiations on raising the debt cap resumed on May 9 between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), but they ended with no breakthrough.

    Biden has insisted on a clean bill to raise the borrowing limit, while McCarthy and House Republicans have put forward a proposal that would pair lifting the cap by $1.5 trillion with $4.5 trillion in spending cuts over a decade. The president has rejected the GOP proposal and vowed to veto it if it reaches his desk.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 16:30

  • Egypt Rejects US Requests To Block Russian Military Flights
    Egypt Rejects US Requests To Block Russian Military Flights

    Washington is trying to pressure Egypt into closing its airspace for all Russian military flights, but the regional US ally isn’t having it, which also awkwardly comes following a recent Pentagon leak showing Cairo planned to supply Moscow with rockets.

    “Egypt has ignored U.S. requests to close its airspace to Russian military flights, American and Egyptian officials said, testing the limits of Washington’s ability to choke off Moscow’s supplies ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive,” The Wall Street Journal reports Friday.

    “The U.S. and Ukraine persuaded countries including Turkey, Jordan and Iraq to cut access for at least some Russian military planes last year after the invasion of Ukraine, forcing Moscow’s aircraft to fly 2,000 extra miles and up to five hours further to reach strategic bases in Syria,” the report continues.

    Washington’s concern is that Russia has likely been using Egyptian airspace to transport weapons from its arms depots elsewhere in the Middle East – for example in Syria where since 2015 it’s had a significant military build-up, particularly focused along the coast. 

    Flight records cited in the WSJ report showed that at least seven such military flights which utilized this Syria route, before heading to Russia’s Black Sea region. 

    Egypt over the past multiple decades has been just behind Israel as a top recipient of US foreign aid, to the tune of about $1.3 billion annually. In recent years Congress has made moves to withhold some of this if it doesn’t better servce US interests. Washington has long propped up Egypt’s military largely in order to keep the peace with Israel. 

    For example a State Department fact sheet has reviewed that “Since 1978, the United States has provided Egypt with over $50 billion in military and $30 billion in economic assistance.”

    Last month the Washington Post reported on a leaked slide which was part of the “Discord leaks” of Pentagon documents. The slide said that Sisi recently ordered production of up to 40,000 rockets to be covertly shipped to Russia.

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    The top secret document, dated to Feb. 17 of this year, included a summary of conversations between the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and his senior military officials. “In the document, Sisi instructs the officials to keep the production and shipment of the rockets secret ‘to avoid problems with the West,'” the Washington Post wrote. Artillery rounds and gunpowder were also mentioned.

    Countries like Egypt (viewed as close American allies) caught shipping weapons into Russia would not only prove highly embarrassing for the Biden administration, but could possibly trigger US sanctions, or at least the freezing of defense aid to the country.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 16:00

  • Our Two Deep States: One Public, One Private
    Our Two Deep States: One Public, One Private

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    One Deep State is bad enough, but a renegade, predatory private-sector Deep State is intolerable.

    In 2007, well before the term Deep State entered the common lexicon, I sketched the interconnected public-private pieces of the Deep State, which I termed the elite maintaining and extending global dominance. This diagram doesn’t make all the connections or list all the consequential nodes of influence of course, but you get the idea: elected officials, i.e. “democracy,” play a modest role in the entire structure, which displays remarkable continuity regardless of which politicians and parties are currently in power.

    That’s the whole idea, of course: continuity that can’t be disrupted by an election.

    What’s changed is the emergence of a private-sector Deep State–a.k.a. Big Tech–that has established unprecedented power outside the control of elected officials even as it continues to play ball with the traditional public-sector dominated Deep State of the alphabet federal agencies and informal public-private sector ties.

    This private-sector Deep State is free to pursue its own agenda of information-gathering and selling, surveillance, influence and profit-maximizing monopolies while seeming to serve the traditional Deep State as information-collecting and censorship services.

    What makes Big Tech a private-sector Deep State is that nobody outside the corporations knows precisely what’s in their databases and algorithms or the extent of their capabilities. Sure, they share information with the traditional Deep State players, and censor whomever it’s “suggested” they censor / shadow-ban, but that transfer isn’t 100% of what Big Tech has in hand. All that transfer is just enough to appear to be playing ball so Big Tech can “suggest” OK, we’ve done our part, now leave us alone.

    The problem with both Deep States is there is no recourse within the system for those censored / shadow-banned, those being tracked, those whose data is being siphoned off and sold to whomever offers a hefty sum of cash, and so on. The basic idea of the US Constitution is that every citizen has some recourse via the judicial or political systems should the state (government) or private entities overstep the boundaries established by the Constitution.

    Citizens have no recourse against the predations of Big Tech or the traditional Deep State. Um, hello there, Big Tech, could you please share precisely how and when I’ve been shadow-banned, who else has copies of the data you’ve collected about me and how much you “earned” selling my data to third parties? What’s actually in your AI tools? Does any public agency have any real oversight power over all the looting, pillaging and predation you’re pursuing?

    So sorry (heh), you agreed to our terms of service which grant us all the rights and our algorithms and databases are protected proprietary corporate property. So blow chow, pal, you have no recourse. We’re a corporation, we have rights; you’re only a citizen, you have none. You currently have permission to post photos of puppies and kittens, so just enjoy the photos of puppies and kittens and be happy you haven’t yet been digitally erased entirely.

    Um, hello there, Alphabet-Soup Agency, could I please have all the files you’ve assembled on me? Yes, there is a protocol for requesting information (the Freedom of Information Act FOIA), but there are exemptions and delays, so don’t hold your breath.

    Meanwhile, the nation careens into an era of Polycrisis, defined as a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part. This is of course a classic description of emergent systems, which display characteristics that differ from those generated by each individual component.

    I’ve sketched out a few of these dynamics in the chart below of overlapping crises.

    At the same time, the global status quo, regardless of political flavor, is sliding down the backside of the S-Curve (see graph below). Everything that was considered a dependable solution is now the problem. There are no solutions within the existing status quo, and so everyone has no choice but to do more of what’s failed spectacularly.

    There are no perfect, sacrifice-free fixes to the demise of the debt-funded, waste is growth / Landfill Global Economy, but a good start would be bringing the private-sector Deep State of Big Tech to heel, stripping it of its opacity and powers, relegating everything Big Tech does or attempts to a tightly regulated utility with transparent public oversight.

    One Deep State is bad enough, but a renegade, predatory private-sector Deep State is intolerable. It goes almost without saying that I’ve been shadow-banned for the past 7 years (revealed by the bogus PropOrNot hit list), if not longer, but the mechanisms of this censorship are opaque, not just to me but to the elected branches of government and the shadow-realm of the traditional Deep State.

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century.

    Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

    Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 15:30

  • Non-Binary Character In New Transformer Cartoon Goes Viral As People Call For "Another Brand Boycott"
    Non-Binary Character In New Transformer Cartoon Goes Viral As People Call For “Another Brand Boycott”

    Out of the ‘woke’ indoctrination ovens from studios in Hollywood is a children’s computer-animated television show called “Transformers: EarthSpark” that first aired on Paramount+ in November 2022 and has embraced the woke movement. 

    Paramount+ might be digging its grave after the show for young kids appears to have recently promoted gender ideology. 

    “I know I’m safe when I’m with my friends or other non-binary people,” a character named Sam said to Transformer Nightshade. Sam also said her pronouns are “she/they.”

    The 1-minute clip tweeted by Libs of TikTok has been viewed 8 million times within 24 hours. Commenting on the clip is Mostly Peaceful Memes, who said, “Really putting the trans in transformers ammiright?”

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    The cringe-woke cartoon isn’t the first. Disney has been pumping woke cartoons for a while, enraging parents. The proliferation of woke cartoons should be a wake-up call for parents and the need to vet kids shows as Hollywood and the left wages a culture war on the youngest generation. Twitter users were appalled by the woke cartoon. 

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    Paramount+ might be walking a fine line as some Americans have been on a roll, boycotting products from corporate America, such as woke Bud Light. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 15:00

  • Non-Profit Hospitals Made Huge Profits During Pandemic While Receiving $23 Billion In Federal COVID-19 Aid: Report
    Non-Profit Hospitals Made Huge Profits During Pandemic While Receiving $23 Billion In Federal COVID-19 Aid: Report

    Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Federal officials gave more than $23 billion COVID-19 aid to the nation’s top 20 nonprofit hospitals even as a 62 percent increase in their collective net assets led parallel surges in the institutions’ total profits and revenues during the 2018-2021 time period spanning the Coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.

    The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on Sept. 29, 2020. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

    Only two of the 20 institutions have repaid the government for the COVID-19 aid they received.  

    “The 20 largest nonprofit hospitals in the country continued making massive profits while their cumulative net assets soared to $324.3 billion in 2021, up from $200.6 billion in 2018. The year 2021 is the latest year available for cross-comparison purposes.

    “Those hospital systems received congressional COVID bailouts of $23 billion and only two providers partially paid their COVID bailout back,” said the report compiled by Open The Books, an Illinois-based research nonprofit that compiles and posts spending by all levels of government in America. The two institutions that have partially repaid the government were not identified.

    The biggest jump among the top 20 was 92 percent by the Mayo Clinic, based in Rochester, Minnesota, whose assets went from $9.2 billion in 2018 to $17.7 billion in 2021. The Mayo Clinic received $350,000 in federal COVID-19 aid, the lowest amount received among the top 20 institutions.

    The Cleveland Clinic Health System, based in Independence, Ohio, saw its assets go up 60 percent, from $9.8 billion to $15.7 billion, while receiving $118 million in federal COVID-19 aid. Intermountain Healthcare, based in Salt Lake City,  Utah, the 12th largest of the top 20, enjoyed a 63 percent growth in net assets from $7.1 billion to $11.6 billion. Intermountain received $518 million in aid.

    The Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. (Courtesy of Cleveland Clinic)

    Seeing a 43 percent jump in net assets between 2018 and 2021 was the Northwestern Medicine system, moving from $8.3 billion to $11.9 billion, and receiving $419 million in COVID-19 aid from federal officials. The Indiana University Health System went from $7 billion in 2018 to $10.3 billion in 2021, a 47 percent increase. The Indiana facility received $726 million in COVID-19 assistance from the government.

    And as the revenues poured in for the 20 hospitals, compensation for their top executives soared, often beyond $10 million annually, according to the report.

    For example, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Ascension Healthcare, which is based in St. Louis and is the nation’s second-largest such system, received $13 million in 2021 and a total in excess of $22 million for the period covered by the study.

    The recipient among the top 20 of the most COVID-19 aid was San Francisco-based CommonSpirit Health with $3.6 billion, followed by Providence St. Joseph Center with $3 billion, Ascension Healthcare with $2.7 billion, Livonia, Michigan-based Livonia Health with $2.3 billion and Sutter Health, based in Sacramento, California, with $1.7 billion.

    But the overall health of Americans headed downward between 2018 and 2021.

    “American life expectancy during this period sharply declined by a staggering 2.5 years from 2019 through 2022. While ‘comparable country averages’ rebounded from a COVID-related drop in 2021, the United States continued declining in life expectancy,” the report found.

    “Yet, the cost of health care is still astronomically high, as the average family paid $22,463 in health insurance premiums in 2022. That does not include out-of-pocket costs like co-pays and deductibles, which can be thousands more. This has led to medical debt for about 100 million Americans,” the report continued.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 14:30

  • Watch: Texas Governor Buses More Illegal Migrants To Kamala Harris' House
    Watch: Texas Governor Buses More Illegal Migrants To Kamala Harris’ House

    For decades, Democrats have ignored or applauded the mass movements of illegal immigrants across the US southern border as a grand signal of cosmopolitan virtue.  However, as soon as border states began to fight back against open border policies and started sending those same migrants to leftist cities, suddenly their tone changed and their enthusiasm disappeared. 

    The moment blue sanctuary cities were forced to deal with the direct repercussions of an invasion of low skill, welfare seeking illegal migrants, leftists became enraged. Instead of blaming their own failed ideals, they started blaming the conservative governors that are bussing the illegals to their doorstep.  Unphased by the indignant whining of Democrats, the governors of Florida and Texas have continued their effort to make a point – If leftist controlled cities can’t even handle a few thousand migrants, why should border towns be expected to handle millions?  

    With the continuance of Title 42 now in question, the ability of border patrol agents to ship migrants directly back to Mexico is about to disappear.  And, if red states aren’t allowed by the Biden Administration to send them back, they might as well send them to Biden. 

    Texas Governor Greg Abbot has sent another group of buses carrying illegals to already overwhelmed Washington DC, straight to the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris: 

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    As the saying goes, the beatings will continue until morale improves.  Perhaps Democrat constituents will finally start questioning the immigration policies of their leadership? 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/13/2023 – 14:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

May 13

Today’s News 13th May 2023

  • Could The US "Lose" Australia?
    Could The US “Lose” Australia?

    By Russell Clark of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets substack

    Australia as a colony, and then after independence, operated as part of the British armed forces, sending substantial number of troops to World War I and II to fight in Europe. However during World War II, the collapse of Singapore saw Japanese forces attack the mainland Australia. Only the US was able to offer military support, and from this moment on, Australia military was reconfigured to ally with the US rather than British Armed Forces. The military bond between the US and Australia is so close, that Australia reintroduced conscription during the Vietnam war. Even today songs like “Khe Sanh” and “I was only 19” that describe the trials and tribulations of Australian soldiers in Vietnam are well known.

    After the Vietnam war, for years Australian defense policy was centered on a “large country to the north” aka Indonesia. Military fears were driven by the invasion and annexation of West Papua by Indonesia in 1969 that saw a number of Australian journalists perish. Papua New Guinea was ruled by Australia until 1975, meaning that Australia was already protecting a land border against Indonesia. As an Australian military map shows, only Indonesia is close enough to possibly invade the populated East Coast. A military policy focused on stopping a potential Indonesian threat was both logical and sensible.

    The isolation of Australia with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the rise of democracy in Indonesia has led Australia to have defense policy of “strategic warning time”, which in essence meant that Australia had 10 years to respond to any real military threat. The most recent review argues that this period is over, and Australia needs to commit to a much more rigorous defense strategy. In particular it is looking to work much more closely with other nations in the Indo-Pacific region to counteract the influence of China. The landmark agreement of AUKUS where Australia will acquire nuclear submarines from the UK. The problem is that Australia now seems to be investing heavily to protect itself from its largest trade partner (memorable parodied here).

    Given the distances involved, and China’s dependence on Australian raw materials, the likelihood of China invading Australia seems very low. Australia already spends around 2% of GDP on military, which is enough to make it the dominant power in Oceania.

    Militarily Australia looks like its spends more than enough to resist any possible invasion, and to project power near its borders. So what exactly is the aim of Australia’s more robust defence posture, and the AUKUS treaty. The most controversial feature of the AUKUS treaty was Australia cancelling the contract to buy Collins class submarines from France, and buying nuclear powered submarines from the UK. There is much debate over whether these submarines are actually better, for Australia, but it is very clear that the nuclear submarines can travel much further than conventional submarines.

    The conclusion I make from all of this is that Australia has decided to participate in the potential defense of Taiwan. The reunification of Taiwan to the mainland has been government policy since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. If that is the unstated aim of this policy, then the question has to be whether this is correct strategy. If the aim is to bolster Taiwanese defences, then it would make more sense to bolster spending in areas near a potential conflict. Why not have Australia send more military equipment to Taiwan? Or why not give Japan nuclear submarines? The AUKUS plan has Australia building 8 submarines coming into service in 2030s and 2040s. Given the current mismatch between Chinese and Taiwanese navies, what is the point?

    Plainly Australia’s military plans are sending a political signal, but at the cost of $10bn a year for 30 years. Other problems included the lack of nuclear industry in Australia means developing the know how to deal with nuclear material from scratch, as well as making mainland Australia a legitimate target if China did invade Taiwan. While the Vietnam war is still remembered in song, the failures of British military strategy in World War I are remembered even more keenly in Australia (ANZAC day is a more important that either Australia Day or Federation day – and commemorates the loss of Australian and New Zealand soldiers lives in a badly planned military campaign in Turkey). Some historians saw the debacle in Turkey in World War I was the true beginning of Australian independence from Britain. Confused strategy regarding Taiwan could have the same effect. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has already spoken out against this new military strategy, and he makes a valid point.

    As the parody video linked above makes clear, Australian military strategy would benefit from clearer objectives, and perhaps refraining from throwing money at projects until it can clearly state those objectives.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 23:40

  • YouTuber Admits Crashing Plane Into California Mountain For Views To Lock "Sponsorship Deal"
    YouTuber Admits Crashing Plane Into California Mountain For Views To Lock “Sponsorship Deal”

    Society needs to have a national discussion regarding the lengths social media influencers go to produce outrageous and dangerous content in pursuit of more views and sponsorship deals. 

    The story of Olympic snowboarder turned YouTube influencer Trevor Jacob is a prime example of the ridiculousness on social media. He admitted to federal prosecutors that he deliberately crashed his small plane into a mountain in Southern California to boost views for a sponsorship deal.

    Jacob pleaded guilty to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct an investigation, the US Attorney’s office for Central California wrote in a press release. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars. 

    According to his plea agreement, Jacob is an experienced pilot and skydiver who had secured a sponsorship from a company that sold various products, including a wallet. Pursuant to the sponsorship deal, Jacob agreed to promote the company’s wallet in a YouTube video that he would post. – federal prosecutors

    Jacob admitted in his plea agreement that he intended to make money through the video. 

    Recall the video was posted on YouTube in late 2021 titled “I Crashed My Airplane,” which shows Jacob parachuting out of the plane as the engine appeared to have stalled. 

    We noticed the video about a week after it went live and pointed out a large number of folks who believed the social media influencer staged the air emergency. 

    As of Friday afternoon, the video has more than 3 million views. The ratio on the video of likes versus dislikes is horrendous: 33k likes/207k dislikes. 

    Months after Jacob posted the video, the Federal Aviation Administration sent him a letter on April 11, 2022, indicating he violated the agency’s regulations and operated his small plane in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.” His pilot license was revoked shortly after. 

    Now he faces jail, all because he wanted more views. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 23:20

  • Why Was EcoHealth Alliance's Grant Reinstated Despite Group's Apparent Failure To Comply With NIH Conditions?
    Why Was EcoHealth Alliance’s Grant Reinstated Despite Group’s Apparent Failure To Comply With NIH Conditions?

    Authored by Hans Mahncke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has reinstated a grant that had been terminated by President Donald Trump in April 2020. However, a document first obtained by the House Oversight Committee reveals that the NIH’s conditions for reinstatement have not been met.

    Peter Daszak, right, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance, is seen in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

    The grant, titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” was originally awarded in 2014 by Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Under the terms of the grant, EcoHealth Alliance, a government-funded nonprofit that purportedly engages in research to prevent pandemics, was awarded $3.8 million over five years to assess the spillover potential of bat viruses “using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments in cell culture and humanized mice.” Put in simple terms, NIAID was paying EcoHealth to genetically engineer and manipulate bat viruses in labs.

    In May 2016, the grant was suspended after Erik Stemmy, a NIAID program officer, noticed that federal government funds may have been used for prohibited gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. At the time, the Obama administration had put in place a moratorium on gain-of-function experiments. However, for reasons that remain unclear, the suspension was lifted in July 2016. At the time, EcoHealth’s president, Peter Daszak, thanked NIAID in an email for lifting the gain-of-function funding pause.

    As part of the conditions of the grant, EcoHealth had to file regular activity reports. However, starting in 2018, EcoHealth stopped submitting these reports. EcoHealth would later blame technical difficulties for their failure to submit. The missing reports comprised the critical 2018–2019 timeframe right before the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

    Despite EcoHealth’s delinquency in filing the status reports, NIAID did not stop funding the project. It was only after a Freedom of Information Act request for the reports was filed in 2021 that EcoHealth was prompted by NIAID to provide the reports. The reports, which were finally submitted by EcoHealth at least two years too late, in 2021, revealed that the NIAID grant had been used by EcoHealth and the WIV in part to create laboratory-engineered bat viruses. Had this fact been reported in a timely manner, the experiments would likely have been shut down by NIAID.

    When the connections between the WIV and NIAID’s grant became known in April 2020, Trump terminated the grant. Trump’s decision caused an outcry among the media and his critics. However, the NIH, which is NIAID’s parent body, appears to have been well aware that Trump’s actions were merited.

    On July 8, 2020, Michael Lauer, the NIH’s deputy director for extramural research who was in charge of “ensuring scientific integrity, public accountability, and effective stewardship of the NIH extramural research portfolio,” wrote a letter to EcoHealth, listing seven demands that needed to be fulfilled as a condition for reinstatement of the grant.

    NIH Issued 7 Demands

    First, EcoHealth needed to provide a sample of the COVID-19 virus which it used to determine the virus’ genetic sequence. The ostensible purpose of this demand was to compare this original sample with other samples in order to assess when it first emerged.

    Second, EcoHealth was required to “explain the apparent disappearance of Huang Yanling, a scientist / technician who worked in the WIV lab but whose lab web presence has been deleted.” Huang Yanling has long been thought to be patient zero. Her profile was scrubbed from the WIV’s website shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019 and she has not been seen since.

    NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci listens to President Joe Biden (out of frame) speak during a visit to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 11, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

    Third, EcoHealth was asked to share the “WIV’s responses to the 2018 U.S. Department of State cables regarding safety concerns.” These cables had warned of a “serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate” the WIV’s high-level containment laboratories. They also warned that the National Health and Family Planning Commission, a state agency of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), had denied a request to conduct coronavirus experiments at biosafety level 4. The actual experiments were carried out in low biosafety level 2 facilities.

    Fourth, EcoHealth was required to “disclose and explain out-of-ordinary restrictions on laboratory facilities, as suggested, for example, by diminished cell-phone traffic in October 2019, and the evidence that there may have been roadblocks surrounding the facility from October 14-19, 2019.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 23:00

  • Judge Finds Federal Age-21 Rule For Handgun Purchases Unconstitutional
    Judge Finds Federal Age-21 Rule For Handgun Purchases Unconstitutional

    A 54-year-old federal prohibition on the sale of guns to Americans between 18 and 20 years old has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in Richmond, Virginia. The Justice Department is expected to appeal and ask for the ruling to be put on hold as the case is further adjudicated. 

    The case has three plaintiffs, all between 18 and 20 years old. One, John “Corey” Fraser, was refused when he attempted to buy a Glock 19x from a Federal Firearm Licensed Dealer (FFL). The other two want to buy a handgun but haven’t tried, in light of Fraser’s experience.

    The challenged provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968 didn’t prohibit possession by 18- to 20-year-olds, it only made it illegal for FFL’s to sell handguns to them. Rifles and shotguns have no such federal restriction. 

    The ruling is the latest in a string of defeats for gun-control measures. The trend is driven by the application of a new constitutionality test prescribed in the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision.

    This week’s ruling is particularly significant because it’s one of the first that uses Bruen to kill a federal law, as opposed to a state one. In February, a federal court applying the Bruen test shot down a 30-year-old law banning gun ownership by people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders

    Using the Bruen test, a gun-control law can only be upheld if the government demonstrates that it’s “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Further, when examining the record, judges are compelled to give the most weight to historical sources from the era of the Second Amendment’s 1791 ratification. 

    In Thursday’s ruling, Judge Robert E. Payne of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia concluded the government’s defense of the age-21 law failed the Bruen test: 

    “The government has not presented any evidence of age-based restrictions on the purchase or sale of firearms from the colonial era, Founding or Early Republic,” wrote Payne in a 71-page decision. 

    While the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision found that the right to ‘keep arms’ isn’t exclusively tied to militia service, Payne scrutinized the history of militia laws — and particularly, age stipulations in those laws — as part of his review of the historical tradition of gun regulation relative to the challenged law.

    Those laws blew holes in the government’s case. “At the time surrounding ratification of the Second Amendment, 16 or 18 was the age of majority for militia service throughout the nation,” wrote Payne, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush.  

    Elsewhere, he noted that, “if the Court were to exclude 18-to-20-year-olds from the Second Amendment’s protection, it would impose limitations on the Second Amendment that do not exist with other constitutional guarantees.” 

    Gun control advocates railed against the decision. “Research shows us that 18- to 20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of adults 21 years and older,” said Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law. She added that the age-21 handgun-purchase law “is not just an essential tool for preventing gun violence, it is also entirely constitutional.” 

    This decision is very important, but it doesn’t yet settle the issue nationally, as judges have been ruling in both directions where age restrictions are concerned:

    The patchwork of decisions could make the issue ripe for Supreme Court consideration. In the meantime, amid all that judicial inconsistency, state legislatures have been actively installing or considering new age-21 restrictions. For example: 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 22:40

  • Migrants Reveal Plans To Sneak Into US Since Title 42 Has Expired
    Migrants Reveal Plans To Sneak Into US Since Title 42 Has Expired

    Authored by Joe Gomez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The COVID-19 pandemic-era immigration policy Title 42 came to an end just before midnight on May 11 and thousands of illegal immigrants are anticipated to surge to the U.S. border when that happens, according to migrants and Mexican charity workers who spoke with The Epoch Times.

    “We all want to reach the United States as quickly as we can,” Anna Maria Estrada told The Epoch Times in Mexico City. Estrada traveled from Guatemala into Mexico illegally with a group of dozens of other migrants.

    In an aerial view, immigrants line up to be processed to make asylum claims at a makeshift migrant camp on May 11, 2023 in El Paso, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)

    They’ve been given visas by the Mexican government called Forma Migratoria Multiple, which translates as Multiple Immigration Forms, so they can travel freely through the country.

    Estrada said that she and others are trying to get to the United States while there is still “time” to possibly take advantage of the chaos in the change of immigration regulations.

    This idea has been spread widely by transnational criminal organizations to induce migrants to pay to smuggle them into the United States.

    “DHS expects that encounters at the Southwest Border will increase as smugglers spread disinformation, which will place a strain on our immigration system, our communities, and our dedicated workforce,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement in early May.

    Estrada says her group and others are willing to risk everything to get to the United States even if it means taking the dangerous train called “la bestia,” which translates as “the beast” or the “train of death.” The train travels from Guatemala to the outskirts of Mexico City and then up to various parts of the U.S.–Mexico border. Hundreds die every day by falling off the train onto the rails below, with the hope of making it to the border.

    “We are going to the train to see if we can make it if there is still time,” Estrada said.

    Illegal immigrants board vans after waiting along the border wall to surrender to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol agents for immigration and asylum claim processing upon crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on May 11, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

    Mexico City has provided shelter and aid to migrants traveling through, as have local churches like the Basilica of Guadalupe.

    “Mainly the migrants are devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe so they will come here to pray for them and their families,” Arturo Duran, who works at the church, told The Epoch Times. “They have always gathered here as their safe place.”

    Duran said the migrants are mostly peaceful as they head to the border, wanting only to seek a better life, but some have other intentions.

    “Some brothers are very angry about what happened in the Juarez prison [a migration center that burned to the ground, killing at least 40 people in March] and are seeking revenge.”

    Estrada’s group is part of thousands of other migrants trying to cross into the United States illegally.

    10,000 illegal immigrants have been captured daily on Monday and Tuesday of this week, according to Reuters.

    End of Title 42

    Title 42 allowed border authorities to quickly expel certain immigrants who illegally crossed into the United States seeking asylum, but it did not prevent them from doing so again.

    Now that it has ended, a stricter rule entitled Title 8 will be enforced, which would ban illegal immigrants who are captured crossing the border for up to five years.

    The new rule would encourage illegal immigrants who are traveling to the United States from Central America to first seek asylum in other countries.

    “We’ve gotten overwhelming cooperation from Mexico. We also are in the process of setting up offices in Colombia and other places where someone seeking asylum can go first,” President Joe Biden said at a White House press conference on May 9. “But it remains to be seen. It’s going to be chaotic for a while.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 22:20

  • Pentagon Officials Acknowledge Uncertainty In Defending Against Hypersonic Missiles
    Pentagon Officials Acknowledge Uncertainty In Defending Against Hypersonic Missiles

    Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The United States Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking nearly $30 billion in its $680 billion Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget request for missile defeat and defense programs across all branches of the military.

    Artist’s concept of the DARPA and Lockheed Martin Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC). (Courtesy of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

    Right now, the DOD is in a race to develop its own hypersonic missiles and engineer effective defenses against the high-velocity, maneuverable missiles being developed by Russia and, particularly, by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC).

    During questioning by Senate Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chair Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) in a May 9 budget hearing, four flag officers said some existing systems have “capabilities” against hypersonic weapons but did not know for sure until they are tested against the evolving missile systems.

    King was not happy. “It seems to me that we are spending a lot more money to developing hypersonic missiles than we are developing capabilities to defend against them,” he said.

    King asked Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill if an aircraft carrier could be defended against a hypersonic missile attack.

    “We have the capability to stop it in two places, in the boost-glide phase” and when the missile re-enters the atmosphere, Hill said, noting the Navy’s SM-6 missiles are “cruise missile killers” designed to track and kill fast-moving, maneuverable targets that can fly high and skim the surface. “It would be defeated by a destroyer defending a carrier.”

    Noting Ukrainians claim they shot down a Russian hypersonic weapon last week with a Patriot anti-air missile provided by the U.S., Hill said the Patriot systems, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles (THAAD), and Aegis ballistic defense system all have “capability” demonstrated in tests against hypersonics.

    “THAAD operates on the edge of the atmosphere,” he said. “We haven’t tested it against hypersonic, but I’m willing to bet there are capacities that we can leverage there.”

    Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John F. Plumb said the budget request “makes substantial investments in regional ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missile defense capabilities,” including $1.2 billion for PAC-3 Patriot missile “interceptors,” $1 billion for Aegis and THAAD interceptors, and $259 million for regional hypersonic and ballistic missile defense space sensors and the development of a G

    An operational version of the Active Denial System, a directed energy weapon that is the equivalent of science fiction’s heat ray, is being developed by the U.S. Air Force. (Unlisted USAF personnel/Public domain/ Wikimedia Commons )

    21st Century Missiles vs. 1980s Technology

    King said these ant-missile systems are based on technologies from the 1980-90s and asked why DOD is not experimenting with using direct energy weapons to knock down missiles.

    At $4 to $10 million each, using missiles in a “bullet on bullet approach is an expensive proposition” in defending against other missiles.

    Developing a “directed energy” weapon for missile defense has been “a target for a period of time,” Hill said with prototypes being tested in the fleet. “It is scaling its way there. That work is being done today.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 21:40

  • Thai Rice Crop In Crosshairs Of El Nino As Farmers Are Warned About Water Shortages
    Thai Rice Crop In Crosshairs Of El Nino As Farmers Are Warned About Water Shortages

    A disruptive El Nino pattern might impact rice production in Thailand, the world’s second-biggest exporter of the grain that feeds half the world’s population. 

    Bangkok Post reported farmers are being asked by the Office of the National Water Resources “to grow only one rice crop this coming season as rainfall will be below average because of the El Nino weather pattern.” 

    Surasee Kittimonthon, the ONWR secretary-general, said the rainy season, which usually begins in late May, will be delayed with periods of intermittent rain in June. 

    Kittimonthon said ONWR had devised a plan for increased water preservation within the country’s reservoir system. 

    “We can provide water to farmers for the first rice crop, starting in the rainy season.

    “But for the second or third crops, we would like farmers’ cooperation to grow other plants that need less water to help limit the water shortage,” he said.

    Rice production requires substantial amounts of water and relies heavily on irrigation systems and sufficient rainfall. It’s an early warning sign of how El Nino is set to wreak havoc on the global food system this year. 

    We told readers last month the weather-altering phenomenon had a high probability of forming. We said, “If El Niño does form, it could result in heavy rainfall and heatwaves in specific regions across the globe, potentially causing disruptions in the agricultural industry.” 

    And days ago, we informed readers about record-breaking heatwaves in Asia and Europe in a note titled “Is El Nino Supercharging Heatwave Across Asia?” 

    Separately, earlier this month, Fitch Solutions published a report that forecasts this year’s global rice production will log its biggest shortfall in two decades. 

    “At the global level, the most evident impact of the global rice deficit has been, and still is, decade-high rice prices,” Fitch Solutions’ commodities analyst Charles Hart told CNBC. 

    Sliding rice production causes grain prices to increase for 3.5 billion people, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region — this region of the world accounts for 90% of the world’s rice consumption. 

    “Given that rice is the staple food commodity across multiple markets in Asia, prices are a major determinant of food price inflation and food security, particularly for the poorest households,” Hart said.

    He said this year’s global shortfall would be around 8.7 million tons, the largest global rice deficit since 2003/2004 of 18.6 million. 

    As a result of tightening global supplies, rough rice futures trading on the CBoT have soared above $18 per cwt, the highest level since September 2008. Cwt is a unit of measurement for certain commodities such as rice.

    Recall in the late summer of 2022. We told readers:

    … and just recently. 

    El Nino appears set to decrease precipitation levels, potentially causing disruptions in the global food industry. Persistently high food inflation could increase the likelihood of societal unrest in developing economies. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 21:20

  • Biden EPA Announces Toughest-Ever Rules For Power Plant Emissions
    Biden EPA Announces Toughest-Ever Rules For Power Plant Emissions

    Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    After weeks of buildup, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled its strictest-ever rules for power produced using natural gas, coal, and oil that could spur the use of carbon capture technologies.

    Drag line and coal haul truck at North Antelope Rochelle Mine, Wyoming. (Peabody Energy/Wikimedia, CC BY)

    The standards released on May 11 would impact new and old power infrastructure, including new natural gas turbines and the country’s existing coal fleet. Though the United States still has hundreds of coal plants, the number of such installations has fallen sharply during the past decade.

    “We will see some coal retirements,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters on May 10.

    Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan testifies to Congress in Washington on June 9, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

    He added that individual states and companies would have significant discretion in terms of implementation.

    U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry in 2021 said America simply “won’t have coal” on its grid by 2030.

    The EPA thinks its proposals will induce American power plants to boost their use of certain technologies, including the co-firing of fossil fuels with what it calls low-greenhouse gas (GHG) hydrogen and, in particular, the capture, sequestration, and storage of carbon.

    More Details from EPA

    Regan told reporters that the standards are about “clean air to breathe,” claiming they would yield “substantial health benefits” as well as “regulatory certainty” for the energy sector.

    The agency projects that the standards will help America avoid thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of lost workdays, and over 300,000 asthma attacks just in the year 2030.

    Regan and others with the EPA repeatedly stressed that they do not believe their vision runs afoul of West Virginia v. EPA.

    That landmark Supreme Court decision, decided 6 to 3, concerned a carbon emissions plan for existing power plants put forth by the EPA under former President Barack Obama.

    The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on April 19, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    The court found that Congress hadn’t given the agency the authority to issue such emissions caps, referencing the plan’s “generation shifting approach” from coal to natural gas and other sources.

    “The proposed limits and guidelines follow EPA’s traditional approach under the Clean Air Act to control pollution from stationary sources by relying on control technologies that are cost-effective and can be applied directly to power plants to reduce CO2,” an EPA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in a May 10 email.

    In its 681-page notice, the agency argued that co-firing hydrogen as a substitute for natural gas can qualify as a “system of emission reduction” under the Clean Air Act. It specified that hydrogen would have to be low-GHG, “the availability of which is expected to increase significantly and the cost of which is expected to decline significantly in the near future.”

    “The EPA recognizes that even though the combustion of hydrogen is zero-GHG emitting, its production entails a range of GHG emissions, from low to high, depending on the method,” the proposal reads.

    The agency claims that technologies to capture 90 percent of carbon dioxide have become “adequately demonstrated” and “cost reasonable” while realizing “substantial emissions reductions.”

    2035 Target for Carbon-Free Electricity Still Viable: Officials

    The EPA said their proposal offers “ample lead time and substantial compliance flexibilities.” That might appear to conflict with President Joe Biden’s aim of achieving “a carbon pollution-free electricity sector by 2035,” as expressed in a 2021 executive order.

    EPA officials and staff told reporters on May 10 that the ambition was still within reach.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 21:00

  • The Supreme Court Might Curb The 'Deep State' By Overruling The Chevron Case
    The Supreme Court Might Curb The ‘Deep State’ By Overruling The Chevron Case

    Authored by Rob Natelson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Supreme Court will not be announcing its decisions in most of this year’s big cases until June or early July. But the court recently agreed to consider a case that could trim the power of the “deep state.”

    The “deep state” is a web of federal administrative agencies, career politicians, lobbyists, and compliant mass media. It acts as a shadow government that largely sets the nation’s political agenda.

    The deep state has been around for decades, but is more powerful than ever because the federal government is larger and more intrusive than ever. Most Americans witnessed deep state power for the first time during the Trump administration, when it publicly resisted the authority of an elected president.

    One prop of the deep state’s power is the 1984 Supreme Court’s ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (pdf). That ruling is called the “Chevron doctrine.” On May 1, the justices granted certiorari in (that is, agreed to review) a new case in which they may overrule the Chevron case and its “Chevron doctrine.”

    The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on April 19, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    The ‘Deep’ Background

    The Constitution created a democratic federal republic. It instituted an elected Congress to make laws, an elected president to enforce laws, and an appointed judiciary to resolve disputes under those laws.

    In addition to empowering the new government, the Constitution also limited it. The Constitution included some specific exceptions to federal authority, such as the first eight amendments in the Bill of Rights. It also reserved most governmental functions to the states, a reservation encapsulated in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

    People who wield power are seldom happy with limits on their power. Federal officials and those who cater to them always pushed back against the Constitution’s limits. Those limits began to fall in earnest during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Instead of resisting the assault, liberal majorities on the Supreme Court “reinterpreted” the Constitution to accommodate the assaulters. I described the court’s decisions during that era in my Epoch Times series, “How the Supreme Court Re-Wrote the Constitution.”

    This process of constitutional distortion slowed after 1944, but it didn’t end. It continued for the entire six decades that liberal justices comprised a majority—that is, until late in the 20th century.

    In Epoch Times essays published in 2021 and 2022, I described the major themes of the liberal jurisprudence that prevailed throughout most of the 20th century. That jurisprudence is now embedded in the court’s case precedent.

    Liberal justices enormously increased the authority of Congress. For example, they transformed Congress’s power to regulate Commerce (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) into authority to oversee the entire national economy. They changed Congress’s power to tax (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1) into a license to spend for almost any purpose. These and other changes rendered the federal government supreme in American life.

    Not only did liberal justices permit Congress to exercise almost unlimited power, they also permitted Congress to delegate it to unelected administrative agencies. Congress may (and frequently does) pass a statute creating an agency and telling it to regulate some broad swathe of activities, and—voilá!—Americans are saddled with a new set of bureaucratic masters.

    It’s true that the court has stated restrictions on Congress’s ability to delegate, but those statements are mostly empty words. The justices readily approve vague and undefined delegations such as “this agency may regulate the airwaves in the public interest.”

    Liberal Supreme Court majorities also stacked the rules heavily against any citizen challenging federal power. Outside of a few areas (such as freedom of speech) a citizen claiming a federal law is unconstitutional must prove that there’s no possible constitutional reason for the law. (This was why Obamacare’s insurance mandate was upheld on the silly (pdf) theory that it was a “tax.”)

    How Chevron Fits In

    Just as the court imposed an almost impossible burden of proof on citizens challenging a law’s constitutionality, the Chevron doctrine imposes a similar burden on citizens challenging the power of federal agencies. The doctrine says that an agency almost always has the final word on whether federal law gives it the powers it claims. Courts must defer to these self-interested agency decisions unless they are “unreasonable.” In constitutional law, it’s exceedingly difficult to prove that a government decision is “unreasonable.”

    The Un-Conservative Supreme Court

    As I have explained in several Epoch Times essays, contrary to the mainstream media narrative, the current Supreme Court doesn’t have a 6–3 conservative majority. Rather, the bench is highly fragmented: It contains three liberal activists, one nearly pure originalist, one justice who usually defers to government decisions (liberal or conservative), and four others in between.

    As a result, the current court has left almost all the liberal case precedents in place. (The principal exception, Roe v. Wade, was an unusually weak decision but even so it was overruled by only a bare 5–4 majority.) When the media characterize a ruling as “conservative,” it’s often because the court has applied a liberal precedent that liberals no longer find convenient.

    Thus, the current composition of the court suggests that, just as it has preserved other liberal precedents, it may well preserve Chevron.

    Criticisms of the Chevron Doctrine

    On the other hand, there’s some evidence the justices may overrule Chevron. Several justices have been critical of the Chevron doctrine. They and other commentators point out that:

    • The doctrine makes an agency a judge in its own cause, thereby violating the Constitution’s guarantee of due process of law;

    • it encourages agencies to expand their power;

    • administrative agencies are part of the executive branch, so allowing them to make legislative or judicial decisions violates separation of powers; and

    • the Chevron decision was not well considered, and over time the Supreme Court has had to carve out exceptions.

    Another reason for believing that Chevron’s days are numbered is that the court didn’t refer to it when adjudicating recent cases on the limits of agency authority.

    The Present Case

    The case the court agreed to hear is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (pdf). Loper Bright Enterprises is the plaintiff. It operates fishing vessels in the Atlantic Ocean.

    The defendant, Gina Raimondo, is the Secretary of Commerce. Part of her department is the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which Congress created to regulate fishermen.

    Federal law allows NMFS to require fishing boats to carry official observers to ensure compliance with federal regulations. That much is undisputed. But the NMFS also claims federal law allows it to force fishermen to bear the cost of paying the observers. Loper Bright disputes that.

    The appeals court held that under the Chevron doctrine, the fishermen lose because the agency’s interpretation isn’t completely “out-to-lunch.” But if the Supreme Court overrules Chevron, the fishermen will have a chance to persuade a judge that the NMFS exceeded its power.

    The case probably will be argued in the fall and decided before June 30, 2024.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 20:20

  • South Africa Lashes Out At US 'Megaphone Diplomacy, Bullying' After Arms For Russia Allegations
    South Africa Lashes Out At US ‘Megaphone Diplomacy, Bullying’ After Arms For Russia Allegations

    The South African government has rejected US allegations that it approved of an arms sale to Russia, with President Cyril Ramaphosa having ordered an official inquiry. The presidency’s office said Friday there was “no evidence” currently of such an arms sale, also with the foreign ministry saying there was “no record of an approved arms sale by the state to Russia related to the period/incident in question.”

    Further, one of Ramaphosa’s cabinet ministers, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, has blasted Washington’s “megaphone diplomacy” and vowed that South Africa will not be “bullied by the US”.

    Lady R vessel, file image

    “It is the US which has sanctions against Russia… they must not drag us into their issues with Russia,” Ntshavheni, told a public broadcaster. South Africa’s foreign ministry on Friday summoned the US Ambassador in order to lodge complaints and demand answers.

    The Kremlin for its part confirmed Friday that President Vladmir Putin had spoken to his South African counterpart by phone. The two pledged “mutually beneficial ties” after the massive Thursday allegation sent shockwaves across South Africa. 

    It was only on Thursday that the US ambassador to Pretoria accused South Africa of transferring arms to Russia in a covert naval operation, which further spotlighted President Ramaphosa and his country’s ties to the Kremlin and its position on the Ukraine war. Ambassador Reuben Brigety had told local media on Thursday the US believed that weapons and ammunition was loaded onto the Lady R, a sanctioned Russian vessel that docked in the Simon’s Town naval dockyard near Cape Town in December.

    “Among the things we noted was the docking of the cargo ship… which we are confident uploaded weapons and ammunition onto that vessel in Simon’s Town as it made its way back to Russia,” he said, in comments reported by South Africa’s News24. “The arming of the Russians is extremely serious, and we do not consider this issue to be resolved,” he added.

    Meanwhile, an unexpected foreign ministry statement was issued later in the day following the US ambassador being summoned. The claim is that the US has “apologized”: 

    South Africa’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, had “admitted that he crossed a line” and “apologized unreservedly” after he said a Russian ship had picked up weapons in South Africa last year, causing a diplomatic uproar. 

    But so far there’s been no official confirmation of this exchange from the US side. Interestingly, the whole episode may in the end push South Africa further into the Kremlin’s corner, given rising public anger over what may be seen as Washington interference in South African affairs, and as part of attempts to humiliate the Ramaphosa government.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 20:00

  • US Bill Seeks To Combat Syria Normalization As King Salman Extends Assad Invitation
    US Bill Seeks To Combat Syria Normalization As King Salman Extends Assad Invitation

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House have introduced a bill aimed to combat Syria’s normalization with regional countries that would expand sanctions and prohibit the US from establishing diplomatic ties with the government of Bashar al-Assad.

    The bill was introduced by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Steve Cohen (D-TN), and several other members of the House. The legislation comes as a response to Syria being readmitted to the Arab League, which has enraged US officials who want to keep Syria isolated.

    Saudi Gazettre Saudi Ambassador to Jordan Nayef Al-Sudairi delivered the invitation to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad during a meeting in Damascus.

    “The United States must use all of our leverage to stop normalization with Assad. I am proud to join my colleagues in mandating further sanctions against any form of investment in territory under the control of the Assad regime, as we remain committed to ensuring the Syrian people receive justice,” McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement on the bill.

    The bill seeks to expand the Caesar Act, which the US used to impose crippling economic sanctions on Syria in 2020 that are designed to prevent the country’s reconstruction. The sanctions have had a devastating impact on Syria’s civilian population, and the House recently voted overwhelmingly to keep enforcing them following an earthquake that killed thousands of Syrians.

    According to a summary of the bill, the legislation would “expand the Caesar Act by plugging loopholes in the original bill which made it hard to enforce.”

    The bill would “clarify the applicability of current sanctions to Syrian regime airlines, and to energy transactions – sending a clear sign to countries normalizing with Assad which are considering allowing Syrian regime airlines to land in their airports.”

    The legislation would require “an annual strategy for five years to counter normalization with the Assad regime by countries which have taken steps to normalize with the Assad regime.” It would prohibit any US federal agencies from “recognizing or normalizing with any government in Syria led by Bashar al-Assad.”

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

    Despite Washington’s hardline position on normalization, regional countries are still following through with their plans. On Tuesday, Syria and Saudi Arabia said they were resuming diplomatic ties for the first time in over 10 years. The following day, Saudi King Salman invited Assad to attend an Arab League summit in Jeddah later this month.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 19:40

  • California's Deficit Deepens To $32 Billion (14-Year-High)… And That's Before Reparations
    California’s Deficit Deepens To $32 Billion (14-Year-High)… And That’s Before Reparations

    California is now facing a $32 billion budget deficit, as the state faces a much deeper hole than previously projected, Bloomberg reports.

    “We are walking into a budget where we need to maintain our prudence,” said Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday, warning that a recession could worsen the financial situation in the years to come.

    “That is an uncertainty that we must take very soberly and seriously as it relates to macro economic headwinds,” he added.

    The expected shortfall is $9.5 billion worse than a $22.5 billion January estimate, according to figures released today, and will be the biggest deficit since 2010…

    Newsom proposed a $224.1 billion general-fund budget for the fiscal year starting on the 1st of July, according to the report.

    Revenue has been hurt by the sinking fortunes of California’s wealthiest residents, who shoulder a disproportionate share of the tax burden. Roughly half of the state’s personal income taxes coming from the top 1% of earners.

    Thousands of workers have been laid off from California-based tech giants including Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Twitter. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which mainly catered to the tech and venture capital sectors, along with two other California-based regional lenders earlier this year adds to the economic turbulence. -Bloomberg

    That said, the deficit is comparatively small vs. the cash crunch faced by the state during the last session, but this time Newsom will need to persuade Democrat lawmakers to make deep cuts – something which doesn’t come naturally to tax-and-spend liberals.

    Meanwhile, deadlines to file and pay taxes were extended by six months to October 16 in most counties in the state due to the severe winter storms earlier this year.

    State legislators – who must now negotiate over potential cuts to the budget – have until June 15 to pass one or they forfeit their pay for each day they are late.

    Earlier this year Newsom touted ‘transformative investments’ in housing, education, childcare, health care and climate programs as part of his preliminary spending plan.

    “This was not an easy budget, but I hope you see we will try to do our best to hold the line and take care of the most vulnerable and most needy, but still maintain prudence,” said Newsom.

    Is it any wonder, Newsom is quickly (and carefully) sidestepping the $800 billion in reparations costs that he has implicitly promised California’s black residents, preferriung instead to remind citizens that “its about more than just cash payments.”

    We suspect, there may well be a few (million) disillusioned voters who feel like they were promised cash for being black.

    As one minister declared at the hearing last week, “Tell Governor Newsom we’re coming. He knows me.”

    Did the virtue-signaling golden-boy just hit a reality wall?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 19:20

  • The Voter Registration Machine Flipping The States Blue
    The Voter Registration Machine Flipping The States Blue

    Authored by Hayden Ludwig via American Greatness,

    New documents reveal the Center for Election Innovation and Research’s true purpose: Juicing Democrat registration in the states, thanks to data provided by ERIC.

    In modern elections, the candidate who can turn out the bigger base is usually the winner. Put differently, the campaign with better voter data holds the trump card.

    For more than a decade now, Democrats unquestionably have owned that trump card and used it to carve deep inroads into once solidly red states such as Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia, while Republicans have looked on in bafflement. It’s no secret why the Left is winning elections despite shrinking in the polls: They register new voters in droves, and conservatives do not.

    More than 160 million people cast a ballot in the 2020 election. Yet there may be as many as 60 million more eligible-but-unregistered individuals (EBUs) out there—people who could lawfully vote but may not until they register in their state. They’re typically hard to reach and politically disinterested. Yet the party that can tap into this electoral goldmine—that is, identify and reach these potential voters—would be unbeatable.

    For years, that party has been the Democrats. It may soon be the Republicans. Here’s why.

    Permanent Democratic Power

    In 2010, the Supreme Court ushered in a torrent of new political spending through its Citizens United v. FEC decision. “Progressives” who were convinced that big business would back Republicans to the hilt saw doom written on the wall. To counter this Republican tide, groups such as the Brennan Center proposed adding “millions of new voters onto the rolls through a modernized registration system—starting in 2010.”

    In short, they needed to balloon the Democratic Party’s ranks to survive a GOP onslaught—an onslaught that never came.

    “Voter registration modernization” proved a euphemism for inserting operatives into state election machinery. But EBU data is protected behind layers of federal privacy laws and across multiple state agencies (e.g. motor vehicle departments) and thus not available to political groups. It was Pew Charitable Trusts, a powerful left-of-center funder, that discovered the back door.

    Between 2010 and 2012, Pew incubated the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that billed itself as the solution to an entirely different problem presented to the states: Maintaining their voter rolls, which are notoriously inaccurate and constantly in flux. For a fee, ERIC would graciously warehouse states’ voter roll data and identify potential double voters using sophisticated data-matching software.

    That’s the sales pitch, anyway. In truth, ERIC makes the removal of ineligible voters entirely optional and tedious, while mandating member states spend hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars to register new voters. Far from streamlining voter rolls, ERIC expands them, which is why non-ERIC states have cleaner rolls than their ERIC counterparts.

    More furtively, ERIC would also gain access to invaluable data on tens of millions of EBUs—a database that no other group in the world has access to. But how to use it?

    Project Get-Out-The-Vote

    We know from public records requests that ERIC soon established a data-sharing agreement with a heretofore obscure nonprofit, the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR). Amazingly, the corporate leftist media continues to claim this inconvenient fact is “without evidence.”

    ERIC and CEIR share a founder: David Becker, a partisan elections lawyer who previously worked for the far-left People for the American Way and the Justice Department’s voting rights arm. Becker is well known as a “hardcore leftist” who can’t “stand conservatives.” Yet Pew presented him as the nonpartisan face of its ERIC project.

    Becker spent four years persuading nearly two-thirds of the states to join ERIC before departing to found CEIR in 2016. Yet until recently, Becker remained a nonvoting member of ERIC’s board, courtesy of a carve-out in ERIC’s bylaws made specifically for him to ensure continued oversight of the ostensibly “neutral” and state-led organization.

    If ERIC is the face presentable to election officials, CEIR is Becker’s policy shop. The group was founded with seed capital from the Hewlett Foundation and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who routed the cash through Arabella Advisors’ massive “dark money” network.

    More funding may have come from Pew, which continued to fund CEIR’s “sister” group, ERIC, for years. We know that CEIR’s other co-founder, Amy Cohen, led Pew’s Google-funded Voting Information Project, part of the “voter registration modernization” push. Yet strangely, Cohen never appears in CEIR’s disclosures as a paid employee, perhaps because her salary was paid by Pew.

    CEIR supports vote-by-mail expansion and ever-earlier voting. It also pushes the lie that conservatives and Trump supporters are a threat to election workers while barring center-right reporters from its press conferences. Becker himself dismisses critics as “fueled by disinformation” because we “want our democracy to fail.”

    CEIR received $70 million from Mark Zuckerberg in 2020, funds that drove Democratic turnout in Maryland and helped subsidize ERIC’s voter registration mandate in other states. Pennsylvania received $13 million, Michigan $12 million, New York $5 million, Georgia $5.6 million, and Arizona $4.8 million. How each grant was spent remains largely unknown, despite watchdog groups’ best efforts.

    But CEIR’s founding documents reveal the truth about its origins. It was created to encourage ERIC membership and “work closely with ERIC” to register millions of new voters using exclusive EBU data in order to “turn non-voters into active participants” in future elections.

    Imagine having a picture-perfect map of everyone—both registered and unregistered—living within your state’s borders. A campaign knows that an individual’s age, race, county of residence, and marital status are enough to strongly indicate how that person will vote. How difficult would it be to only target your own party’s likely voters?

    Armed with this near-perfect picture of every person living in ERIC’s 32 member states—more than 200 million Americans—there is nothing stopping CEIR from doing it exactly that: registering only its preferred voters.

    If that sounds far-fetched, consider that in 2020 alone, the left-wing groups funneled $434 million through a vast array of tax-exempt nonprofits, such as Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight in Georgia, that do nothing but register new Democrats. Virtually all of that money came from the Tides, Ford, Open Society, Wyss, and Buffett Foundations, among other donors supposedly engaged in charity.

    These organizations would be near-worthless without EBU data, which is only available through ERIC. So where do they acquire it? The smart money would pin it on Becker’s CEIR.

    CEIR operates virtually in the dark with little scrutiny from the “progressive” press, who are less interested in covering CEIR’s misdeeds than covering for them. Contrast that with the work of investigative reporters like Todd Shepherd of the right-leaning outlet Broad + Liberty. He recently reported that Pennsylvania transferred partial data profiles of hundreds of thousands of EBUs to CEIR in 2020. That information would have proved invaluable to partisan groups active in Pennsylvania that year. Yet CEIR refuses to say what it did with the trove of voter data.

    But CEIR’s founding documents give us every reason to believe this is precisely what it’s doing. It’s up to Becker and Co. to convince the public that it isn’t misusing this priceless data, despite having the means, motive, and opportunity to do so.

    A Right-Wing Wrecking Ball

    So what can conservatives do to level the playing field?

    A good axiom in warfare applies here: Turn your enemy’s strength into his greatest weakness. 

    Japan famously turned many Pacific islands into impenetrable fortresses in World War II and dared U.S. forces to attack them. Instead, we sailed around them to take weaker targets and let the garrisons starve. After Rome’s devastating defeat at the hands of Hannibal’s mighty army in the Second Punic War, Rome divided its legions into smaller forces to cover more ground. Like wolves wearing out a bear, they could be everywhere while the Carthaginians could not. Hannibal lost. 

    Likewise, we won’t defeat this powerful cabal in a single battle, but by nibbling it to death. The House should demand to know why the IRS refuses to strip these groups of their tax exemption for trespassing the law on biased voter registration campaigns. Conservative legislatures ought to hold hearings on out-of-state nonprofits running partisan registration drives in their jurisdiction. The states can tighten rules about who gets to register voters the same way they restrict ballot harvesting—either restricting it to family members or banning it altogether. Where there’s room for abuse, the Left will abuse the law.

    Watchdogs and citizens can and should file complaints with the IRS and FEC against these groups. Conservatives are used to being attacked for their political views; very few leftists have ever faced the same kind of scrutiny. They can also demand 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) groups’ annual Form 990 disclosures, which reveal how much they took in and spent. (Here is a template and some guidelines.)

    To date, nine states—Ohio, Florida, Missouri, West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, Iowa, Alabama, and Alaska—have left or are about to leave ERIC. Their leaders know that they don’t need ERIC to maintain good voter rolls because they already have the tools necessary for the job.

    That leaves Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin for election integrity advocates to address.

    The good news? In almost all cases, the decision to leave ERIC is entirely within the purview of the governor and secretary of state. Red states with a blue governor can look to the others on this list for legislation to leave ERIC without the governor’s consent.

    Every one of these states to depart is one less state transmitting EBU data to the Left’s registration machine.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 19:00

  • Shaq Argues He Was Never Properly Served, Asks Judge To Throw Out FTX-Related Lawsuit Against Him
    Shaq Argues He Was Never Properly Served, Asks Judge To Throw Out FTX-Related Lawsuit Against Him

    On today’s edition of “You Got Served: Shaq Style”, we present the curious case of NBA great Shaquille O’Neal and investors suing him, alleging that he “duped” them into the FTX collapse. 

    The legendary basketball player is arguing that lawyers who tried to serve him with the lawsuit instead “tossed” the document in front of his car while he was driving out of the gates of his home, according to Bloomberg. 

    Plaintiffs lawyers have now said that there have been “dozens of attempts” to try and serve him with the suit, including tracking him down at residences that he has in both Georgia and Texas, the report says. 

    Those attorneys were told that Shaq lives in the Bahamas a month ago, so they instead tried to serve Shaq digitally, sending him a link via his social media and arguing “that should be good enough given his status as an active user of Instagram and Twitter”. The lawyers argued that he was “clearly aware of the suit”, Bloomberg wrote. 

    Then on April 17, The Moskowitz Law Firm declared success, posting publicly on Twitter that they had served O’Neal: “UPDATE: Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served SHAQ outside his house. His home video cameras recorded our service and we made it very clear that he is not to destroy or erase any of these security tapes, because they must be preserved for our lawsuit.”

    But Shaq’s lawyers saw things otherwise, asking the judge to dismiss the suit against O’Neal because lawyers missed their deadline to serve him. 

    “Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car,” his lawyers wrote. 

    Moskowitz responded: “The video will show Mr. O’Neal finally being served, after many months of hiding, as he attempts to possibly injure the process server. We expected better from an officer of the law. Mr. O’Neal and his lawyers need to stop running and finally deal with these serious allegations.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 18:40

  • DeSantis Allies: Nominating Trump Hands Biden Control Of Congress
    DeSantis Allies: Nominating Trump Hands Biden Control Of Congress

    Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

    Allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis want Republicans watching Donald Trump from home tonight to remember that the former president is a loser. Ahead of his return to CNN, they warn that nominating Trump a third time won’t just cost the GOP the White House. It could hand Congress to Democrats.

    That is the argument from Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC launched by former senior administration official Ken Cuccinelli and chaired by former Trump ally Adam Laxalt. In a polling memo shared exclusively with RealClearPolitics ahead of the Trump CNN townhall, they point to the last three election cycles to make the case that Trump is a net drag on the ticket.

    The topline from WPA pollster Chris Wilson: “The data suggest that if Trump were to become the 2024 nominee, he will likely cost the GOP control of the House and multiple winnable seats in the Senate.”

    It is a somber warning to the right ahead of a what promises to be an entertaining, no-holds barred brawl on the cable network the former president publicly says he hates the most. Trump knows how to make good television, Cuccinelli told RCP, predicting that there would be “plenty of entertainment value” when his former boss sits down with CNN in prime time, “but it comes with losses across the board. And he talks about coattails, he has negative coattails.”

    Controversy has always been a feature of the Trump show. For the right, the entertainment value is unmistakable when he “owns the libs,” castigating Democrats and liberal journalists alike. But Cuccinelli likens that to an unhealthy binge, warning that while “it is fun to have the buzz, the hangover isn’t so great.” Viral moments in prime time, he warned, won’t comfort conservatives after an election that hands Democrats unified control of government: “The potential for more harm here is enormous.”

    Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, dismissed that argument and suggested that the governor, who hasn’t yet declared a presidential bid, was too scared to make his own case in prime time. “Is this what candidates who are too chicken to do nationally broadcast town halls do with their time?” Miller asked before pointing RCP to a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey that showed Trump leading Biden, 44% to 38%, compared to DeSantis leading Biden, 42% to 27%.

    Primary voters will hear plenty about electability once the race begins in earnest, and many are likely already familiar with warnings about the down ballot detriment of Trump. In the memo, Wilson points to analysis of the 2018 and 2022 midterms that shows how the former president’s endorsement had “a meaningful negative effect” in both of those contests by mobilizing “Democratic donors and voters” and reducing “general support for Republican congressional candidates.”

    But the pollster and pro-DeSantis super PAC go farther. Never Back Down identifies 18 incumbent House Republicans in the memo who would likely lose, according to their analysis, if they run for reelection alongside Trump in 2024.

    Wilson points to April studies by Public Opinions Strategies that showed a Trump nomination reducing the standing of a generic Republican congressional nominee by 10 points in Arizona and 8 points in Georgia. If that trend holds, applying those numbers to the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index yields significant GOP losses that are enough to set Biden up with healthy majorities in the House and Senate going into a second term.

    The list of Republican incumbents “likely to lose if Trump is on the ballot” includes Michigan Rep. John James, who narrowly won a congressional district that has been solidly Republican for at least two decades, and Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as the former president’s interior secretary.

    With Trump at the head of the Republican party again, Wilson reports that control of the Senate could be out of reach, with GOP candidates having to overcome an estimated 10-point swing for Democrats in battleground states like Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

    Some conservatives have blamed Trump for focusing on himself and his grievances at the expense of Republicans. He was still litigating the last general election, for instance, rather than rallying the base to support former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the Georgia runoff. Had Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona not balked at changing the filibuster rules in the Senate, Cuccinelli said Biden would’ve had a free hand to implement even more of his agenda.

    “But for those Democrats, Trump’s damage would have been permanent and far-reaching to a degree that it hasn’t even reached yet,” he said, arguing that Trump made possible Biden’s legislative success. “This was all self-inflicted by one person.”

    Deny Trump the nomination for a third time, Cuccinelli insisted, make DeSantis the face of the Republican party instead, and the GOP has a banner year.

    “No one else running, or looking at running, for president has a performance like DeSantis in supporting his team. No one can demonstrate that, or even make a case that they can perform that well,” Cuccinelli said of the governor’s reelection and Florida Republicans’ dominance in Florida. “He went from narrow legislative control to blow-out control.”

    “If he even came close to replicating that at the national level,” he concluded, “it is a blow-out year in 2024 for Republicans at every level of government.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 18:20

  • Terra Luna Founder Do Kwon Released After Montenegro Court Accepts $436k Bail
    Terra Luna Founder Do Kwon Released After Montenegro Court Accepts $436k Bail

    Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is set to be freed from jail pending trial after a court agreed to a €400,000 ($436,000) bail, according to a report in Montenegro news site Pobjeda. 

    “…and like that, he’s gone”…

    As CoinTelegraph’s Savannah Fortis reports, Montenegro has granted approval to the bail terms proposed by lawyers for Terra founder Do Kwon, who was charged with the criminal offense of document forgery under Montenegrin law.

    According to the official document released by local authorities on May 12, the court has accepted the proposed bail offer for Kwon and Han Chang-Joon – Terraform Labs’ chief financial officer – of 400,000 euros ($436,000) each.

    This is in addition to being put under house arrest instead of being taken into custody.

    According to the documents, if the house arrest is compromised, the bail will be entered into a “special section” of the court’s working budget.

    Additionally, the notice said it would be necessary to verify the authenticity of travel documents and identity cards, which were “allegedly” issued by the competent authorities of Belgium.

    This update comes only one day after Kwon’s lawyers filed their request for such conditions to the Montenegrin authorities.

    If the party is “unsatisfied” with the court decision, they have three days to repeal it.

    Kwon and Chang-Joon were arrested by Montenegrin authorities in March 2023 at Podgorica airport for allegedly using false documents. The two had their passports confiscated in South Korea, their country of origin, in October 2022.

    Interpol has wanted the Terraform Labs co-founder for his part in the Terra ecosystem’s $40 billion collapse in May 2022 that rocked the crypto industry.

    The current criminal trial in Montenegro is anticipated to start on June 16.

    Reports from May 10 revealed that South Korean authorities had frozen $176 million of Kwon’s personal assets as part of the ongoing criminal proceedings.

    In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission has also brought civil charges against Kwon, accusing the executive of failing to “provide the public with full, fair and truthful disclosure as required for a host of crypto asset securities.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 18:00

  • Why The Economic War Against Russia Has Failed
    Why The Economic War Against Russia Has Failed

    Via The Spectator,

    There was much mirth in the West this week when Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade through Red Square included just one tank, itself a relic from a museum. The inference was that Russia has lost so much military kit in Ukraine that it is a shadow of the military superpower the Soviet Union used to be.

    Russia has certainly borne heavy losses (although any country conducting a foreign war would presumably have its military hardware on active duty rather than on ceremonial parade). But we should avoid being smug. The truth is that the war is not going well for the West either – at least in one respect.

    When Putin sent tanks into Ukraine on 24 February last year, western countries rapidly adopted a two-pronged strategy.

    One prong was that they would not engage in direct military conflict, but would support Ukraine with weapons and other military equipment. Some countries were quicker than others, but this part of the strategy has been a remarkable success. Ukraine has managed to resist Russian forces, and to push them back from many areas, even if the outcome is still far from certain.

    The other prong, though, has turned out to be blunt: the plan to wage economic war with Moscow, unleashing financial shock and awe on a scale never seen before. Russia was to be cut off almost entirely, with sanctions and boycotts on all imports and exports save for humanitarian ones such as medicines. Putin’s Russia, went the theory, would be impoverished into surrender.

    Few people in the West are aware of how badly this aspect of the war is going. Europe has itself paid a high price to effect a partial boycott of Russian oil and gas. UK fossil fuel imports from Russia totalled £4.5 billion in 2021; in the year to January 2023 that was – officially – down to £1.3 billion. In 2020 the EU sourced 39 per cent of its gas and 23 per cent of its oil from Russia; in the third quarter of last year this was down to 15 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.

    But these figures do not explain the scale of the failure to damage the Russian economy. It soon became clear that while the West was keen on an economic war, the rest of the world was not. As its oil and gas exports to Europe fell, Russia quickly upped its exports to China and India – both of which preferred to buy oil at a discount than to make a stand against the invasion of Ukraine. Worse, some of the Russian oil exported to India appears to have been siphoned back to Europe, with a rise in the number of ships taking refined oil from India through the Suez Canal.

    There seems to be some siphoning in the other direction, too. An investigation by the German newspaper Bild has uncovered a disturbing growth in exports to countries bordering Russia. The importing of German motor vehicles to Kazakhstan, for example, rose by 507 per cent between 2021 and 2022 and to Armenia by 761 per cent. Exports of chemical products to Armenia increased by 110 per cent and to Kazakhstan by 129 per cent. Sales of electrical and computer equipment to Armenia are up 343 per cent. What happens to these goods once they reach these former Soviet republics is not easy to establish, but one likely explanation is that they end up in Russia as diverted trade flows. And even if such commodities are not formally being re-exported, many Russian citizens retain visa-free access to those countries and are able to take goods across the border.

    The West has had a policy of trying to target wealthy Russians in particular with economic sanctions. But ironically they are the people who can most easily access western goods through diverted trade. It is they who have dual passports; they who can afford to travel abroad in order to shop for their luxury goods. Short of a wholesale global boycott against Russia, it is very hard to prevent western-made goods reaching the hands of wealthy Russians.

    The West embarked on its sanctions war with an exaggerated sense of its own influence around the world. As we have discovered, non-western countries lack the will to impose sanctions on either Russia or on Russian oligarchs. The results of the miscalculation are there for all to see. In April last year, the IMF forecast that the Russian economy would contract by 8.5 per cent in 2022 and by a further 2.3 per cent this year. As it turned out, GDP fell by just 2.1 per cent last year, and this year the IMF is forecasting a small rise of 0.7 per cent. And that is all in spite of the war in Ukraine going much more badly than many imagined it would in February of last year. The Russian economy has not been destroyed; it has merely been reconfigured, reorientated to look eastwards and southwards rather than westwards.

    It was not necessarily wrong to declare economic war on Russia. The country has suffered harm from western sanctions, even if nothing like on the scale that we imagined we could inflict. But if the West is thinking that in future it can fight wars purely by economic means, without bombs or bullets, it is badly mistaken.

    Western military equipment has allowed Ukraine to mount a David vs Goliath battle which it may yet win – and certainly to avoid annexation by Putin. As for economic sanctions, however, we will have to think again.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 17:40

  • Anderson Cooper: 'You Have Every Right Never To Watch CNN Again' After Trump Town Hall
    Anderson Cooper: ‘You Have Every Right Never To Watch CNN Again’ After Trump Town Hall

    The chaos going on at CNN after Wednesday night’s town hall featuring former President Trump is the gift that keeps on giving.

    “It was a total debacle and I’ve never been more ashamed to work at CNN,” one prominent on-air talent told The Hill on Thursday. “I don’t think anybody came out looking good. This is entirely a corporate and management failure. They should have anticipated how out of control Trump would be … to think he was going to act more presidential in that kind of setting is just naivety on a galactic scale.”

    According to CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, CEO Chris Licht was “facing a fury of criticism — both internally and externally over the event.”

    “And CNN aired it all. On and on it went. It felt like 2016 all over again. It was Trump’s unhinged social media feed brought to life on stage,” Darcy ranted. “And Collins was put in an uncomfortable position, given the town hall was conducted in front of a Republican audience that applauded Trump, giving a sense of unintended endorsement to his shameful antics.”

    Plenty of attention was being paid Thursday to the audience at the town hall, which was highly supportive of Trump.  

    “It felt like we got some of these people from a MAGA rally,” the on-air talent said.  

    CNN on Thursday clarified it had curated the audience through community, student politics and government, faith groups, as well as agriculture and education organizations. The school and campaign also invited guests, the network said.  

    Trump, a day before the event, said CNN had made his campaign “an offer [he] couldn’t refuse,” so he agreed to participate in the town hall. -The Hill

    Following the event, hosts Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper were absolutely beside themselves – with Tapper seemingly on the verge of tears.

    And on Thursday, Cooper apologized to the network’s audience, telling viewers they have “every right to be outraged.” 

    “You have every right to be outraged today and angry and never watch this network again,” said Cooper. “But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away? If we all only listen to those we agree with, it may actually do the opposite. If lies are allowed to go unchecked as imperfect as our ability to check them is on a stage in real time, those lies continue, and those lies spread. If you’re angry or upset, I understand, but you have the power to do something about it. You can actually get involved. You can make a difference, whatever side of the aisle you’re on. After last night, none of us can say I didn’t know what’s out there. I didn’t know what’s coming. We asked Republican Senators for their thoughts about last night. Some preferred not to say anything. Others did.”

    On MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough called the town hall “disgraceful on every level.”

    “I wouldn’t say it’s dangerous for democracy because we passed that a long time ago, but it showed the corrosive effects of Trumpism over eight years. And I’ve got to say the most shocking part was an audience that cheered on a president who tried to overturn American democracy. An audience that mocked and ridiculed a woman who a jury of Donald Trump’s peers found had been sexually assaulted. Those Americans there last night turned that into a punchline. Laughed and dismissed cops getting the s*** kicked out of them on January 6th, getting beaten up over and over again. Calling a cop a thug who was actually trying to stop people on the House floor from being killed. I could just go on and on.” -Joe Scarborough

    Watch:

    Amazing how threatened they are by free speech, eh?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 17:20

  • It's Official: Top NBCUni Ad Exec And World Economic Forum Taskforce Chair Is Twitter's New CEO
    It’s Official: Top NBCUni Ad Exec And World Economic Forum Taskforce Chair Is Twitter’s New CEO

    Update: It’s official – moments ago NBC confirmed that its head of advertising is leaving the company…

    NBCUniversal today announced that Linda Yaccarino is leaving the company, effective immediately. Mark Marshall, currently President, Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships, will become interim Chairman of NBCUniversal’s Advertising and Partnerships group, reporting to Mark Lazarus, Chairman, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.

    Mike Cavanagh, President of Comcast Corporation said, “We are grateful for Linda Yaccarino’s leadership of NBCUniversal’s Advertising Sales business, and for the innovative team and platform she has built. Linda has made countless contributions to the company during her twelve year tenure, and we wish her the best.”

    Linda Yaccarino said, “It has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team. We’ve transformed our company and the entire industry—and I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished together, and grateful to my colleagues and mentors, especially Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanagh and the entire NBCU leadership team.”

    Mark Lazarus was named Chairman, NBCUniversal Telvision and Streaming in May

    Musk has finally tweeted to confirm her position, noting that Yaccarino will focus primarily on business operations, while he will focus on product design & new technology

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

    Paul Joseph Watson breaks down the two sides’ view on this hire…

    * * *

    Are Twitter’s days of encouraging free speech and independent thought numbered… or is Musk, just days after unveiling that Tucker is joining, playing 4D chess?

    Just hours after Elon Musk announced he had picked a new female Twitter CEO candidate, the WSJ revealed the identity of the person in talks to become the next CEO of the world’s most important social network: it is Linda Yaccarino, who is currently NBCUniversal’s influential head of advertising.

    Yaccarino, who is chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU, has been with NBCU for more than a decade, where she has been an industry advocate for finding better ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising. As head of NBCU’s advertising sales, she was key in the launch of the company’s ad-supported Peacock streaming service.

    Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, said in a tweet Thursday that he had hired a new CEO, but didn’t say who it was. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks!” Mr. Musk said in the tweet.

    In some ways, Musk’s pick of Yaccarino is not a surprise: as Chair of the Advertising Council’s Board of Directors and arguably NBCU’s top advertising exec, she is meant to fill a critical void at the new Twitter: that of advertising. After all, despite having massive traffic, Musk’s social network – which as a reminder cost him $44 billion – has been hemorhaging ad revenue as woke brands have abandoned the website.

    Of the top 100 advertisers on Twitter before Mr. Musk bought the company, 37 spent nothing on Twitter advertising during the first quarter of this year, according to market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower, while an additional 24 brands reduced their average monthly Twitter ad spending by 80% or more.

    As such, it will be Yaccarino’s job to convince advertisers to return: Yaccarino, who oversees roughly $13 billion in annual ad revenue, is well-known for her tight relationship with marketers and ad agencies. Yaccarino has a reputation for hard-nosed negotiating tactics, and media buyers have described her as the “velvet hammer.”

    Musk’s announcement of the new CEO came days before one of the biggest events of the year for NBCU, the company’s annual pitch event for advertisers, known as the upfront, which is scheduled for Monday in New York. And according to the WSJ, an NBCU spokesman said Ms. Yaccarino is in back-to-back rehearsals for NBCU’s upfront.

    On the other hand, the hiring of Yaccarino to head the social network which in recent months has become the bane of liberals and progressives through its encouragement of free speech and independent thought, both of which are despised and suppressed by the left, could be a problem.

    For one, according to her LInkedIn profile, Yaccarino is the “Chairman of the WEF’s Taskforce on Future of Work and sits on the WEF’s Media, Entertainment and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee. She is also highly engaged with the Value in Media initiative.” Most recently, she delivered the following speech in Jan 2020: ‘World Economic Forum: Creating the Workplace of the Future by Focusing on People.”

    Source: LinkedIn

    Additionally, in 2014 Yaccarino joined the Ad Council Board of Directors and became a member of the Executive Committee in 2015. She first served as Vice Chair before her appointment to Board Chair from 2021-2022.

    And then there’s this: in 2021-2022, as Ad Council Chair, “Yaccarino partnered with the business community, the White House, and government agencies to create a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, featuring Pope Francis and reaching over 200 million Americans.”

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

    And finally:

    As an industry advocate, Yaccarino has called for a return to values-based, trusted partnerships, spotlighting the most important issues facing her colleagues and peers. As 2021-2022 Ad Council Chair, Yaccarino partnered with the business community, the White House, and government agencies to create a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, featuring Pope Francis and reaching over 200 million Americans. At NBCU, she uses the power of media to advance equity and helps to launch DEI-focused initiatives, including BOLD, a program for employing veterans; #ShesMy, a campaign to uplift women and girls; Scene in Color, a collaboration with Target to elevate emerging BIPOC film creatives; and a partnership with Telemundo to release a Latina-centric storytelling guide. 

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

    Things get a little more complicated however, when one considers that in May 2018 Trump Named Yaccarino (alongside Bill Belichick and a bunch of other folks) to a two-year term on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. It wasn’t immediately clear how long she lasted in this particular role.

    Bottom line: despite that last rather odd detour, which can be attributed to Trump’s habitual lack of due diligence, Yaccarino appears to be the perfect establishment hire, one who will help Twitter recover most of its lost ad revenue… the trade-off may very well be that in the process twitter may just become the same company it was before its acqusition by Trump.

    In response to the news of her hiring, the outcry has been – as one would imagine – extremely polarized.

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

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

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

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    Finally, the boss himself:

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

    In conclusion, while it is certainly possible that Musk is playing 4D chess here, a prevailing sentiment among the replies is that “Twitter was fun for a few months. See you guys in the gulag.” One can only hope that it is wrong.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 17:05

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May 12

Today’s News 12th May 2023

  • UK Universities Face Investigations Over Grade Inflation: Watchdog
    UK Universities Face Investigations Over Grade Inflation: Watchdog

    Authored by Alexander Zhang via The Epoch Times,

    Universities and colleges could face investigations over grade inflation, the head of England’s higher education watchdog has warned.

    Lord Wharton, chairman of the Office for Students (OfS), said on Tuesday that the regulator is considering taking action over the “significant” grade inflation, which he said could devalue the degrees.

    A report, released by the OfS in May last year, suggests that the proportion of first-class degrees handed out in England has more than doubled in the last decade—from 15.7 percent in 2010–2011 to 37.9 percent in 2020–2021.

    Highlighting the figures, Lord Wharton told the Industry and Regulators Committee in the House of Lords: “This is a significant amount of grade inflation and more and more people are getting firsts.

    “There may be very good reasons for that. We may have cohorts of much brighter students but there is also a risk that if everyone gets a first, no one gets a first. It could be seen to devalue the award in itself.

    “Students quite like getting firsts, so in the short term individual students who are studying now might quite like their chances being enhanced. But it may well not be in their interest in the long term if it undermines the value of the thing they have earned and worked so hard for.”

    The Conservative peer acknowledged that the OfS has “not taken sufficient action over a very long period of time,” but said the regulator is now looking at what actions can be taken to address the issue, including investigations.

    Universities could be required to retain an “appropriate selection” of graded work from students as evidence for investigators to consider, he added.

    The COVID Effect

    There has been a rise in degree grade inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic following the introduction of measures to mitigate the impact of lockdown disruptions on students’ studies.

    Universities in 2019–2020—the first year of the pandemic—adopted “no detriment” or safety net assessment policies, which tended to ensure students would not receive a final grade that was lower than the university’s most recent assessment of their work.

    While “blanket ‘no detriment’” policies were not in place in 2020–2021, other assessment changes such as open-book exams remained.

    Graduates queue on campus at the University of Bolton as they wait to receive their degree certificates in Bolton, northwest England, on July 9, 2021. (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

    In July 2022, Universities UK (UUK) and GuildHE—which represent 197 UK universities—pledged to return the proportion of top degrees to pre-pandemic levels.

    The two leading industry bodies said they recognised that grade inflation, which could not be explained by improvements in teaching and learning or more effort from students, risked undermining employers’ confidence in the degree grading process.

    Universities said they will use 2019 as a benchmark for the proportion of upper second and first-class degrees awarded.

    The UUK and GuildHE said in a joint statement: “In recent years, universities have been proactive and taken collective action to strengthen internal processes that impact on degree classification. The result was a levelling off by 2018–19 in the percentage of students achieving upper degree awards.”

    “However, we cannot lose sight of the need to maintain the value of a degree and so must redouble our efforts to identify and address unexplained increases in firsts and 2.1s,” they added.

    “As a sector, we commit to reviewing our classification levels against the pre-pandemic progress that had seen trends stabilising.”

    Michelle Donelan, then higher and further education minister, welcomed the promise, saying, “Hardworking students deserve to know that earning a first or upper second really counts and that it carries weight with employers—who in turn should be able to trust in the high value and rigorous assessment of university courses.”

    Regulator Calls for ‘Credible’ Grades

    In September 2022, the OfS said it had launched an investigation into grade inflation after a “sharp increase” in the awarding of first and upper-second-class degrees at several universities.

    It said the rates of students with top degrees at three universities and colleges, which were not named, raised “potential concerns that require further scrutiny.”

    The regulator requires institutions to award qualifications that are “credible” compared with previous years, and based on “the knowledge and skills of students.”

    Grade inflation, the practice of rewarding the same level of student achievement with increasingly higher degree classifications, is explicitly banned.

    If the universities or colleges are found to have broken OfS rules, they could be fined up to £500,000 or 2 percent of their income.

    In January, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) recorded a fall in the number of first-class degrees awarded for the first time since records began in 1993.

    Nearly a third (32 percent) of undergraduate degrees were awarded a first-class honours classification in 2021–2022, a fall from 36 percent the year before, the agency said.

    However, 46 percent of students were awarded upper second-class degrees in 2021–2022, the same proportion as in 2020–2021.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/12/2023 – 02:00

  • Escobar: Bold Gambits On The West Asian Chessboard
    Escobar: Bold Gambits On The West Asian Chessboard

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

    In the Great Power competition, everything is connected: Uncertain negotiations between Russia and NATO over Ukraine may be impacted by Turkiye’s post-election pivot and Syria’s return to the Arab League…

    West Asia is a region that is currently experiencing a great deal of geopolitical activity. Recent diplomatic efforts, initiated by Russia and overseen by China, secured a long-elusive Iranian and Saudi Arabian rapprochement, while Syria’s return to the Arab League has been welcomed with great fanfare. The diplomatic flurry signals a shift away from the Imperial “Divide and Rule” tactics that have been used for decades to create national, tribal, and sectarian rifts throughout this strategic region.

    The proxy war in Syria, backed by the Empire and its terror outfits – including the occupation of resource-rich territories and mass theft of Syrian oil – continues to rage on despite Damascus having gained the upper hand. That advantage, weakened in recent years by a barrage of western economic killer sanctions, is now growing exponentially: the Syrian state was further bolstered by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s recent official visit – pledging to expand bilateral ties – on the eve of Syria’s return to the Arab League.

    “Assad must go” – a meme straight out of collective western hubris – in the end, did not go. Imperial threats notwithstanding, those Arab states that had sought to isolate the Syrian president came back to praise him all over again, led by Moscow and Tehran.

    Syria is extensively discussed in informed circles in Moscow. There’s a sort of consensus that Russia, now concentrated in the “all or nothing” proxy war against NATO, will not currently be able to impose a Syrian peace solution, but that doesn’t preclude the Saudis, Iranians, and Turks fronting a Russian-led deal.

    Had it not been for the aggressive behavior of Straussian neo-cons in the Washington Beltway, a comprehensive multi-territorial peace could have been achieved, including everything from Syria’s sovereignty, to a demilitarized zone in the Russian western borderlands, stability in the Caucasus, and a degree of respect for international law.

    However, such a deal is unlikely to materialize, and instead, the situation in West Asia is likely to worsen. This is due in part to the fact that the North Atlantic has already shifted its focus to the South China Sea.

    An impossible ‘peace’

    The collective west appears to lack a decisive leader, with the Hegemon currently being “led” by a senile president who is remote-controlled by a pack of polished-faced warmongers. The situation has devolved to the point where the much-hyped “Ukrainian counter-offensive” may actually be the prelude to a NATO humiliation that will make Afghanistan look like Disneyland in the Hindu Kush.

    Arguably there may be some similarities between Russia-NATO now and Turkiye-Russia before March 2020: both sides are betting on some crucial military breakthrough on the battlefield before sitting at the negotiating table. The US is desperate for it: even the 20th century ‘Oracle’ Henry Kissinger is now saying that with China involved, there will be negotiations before the end of 2023.

    Despite the urgency of the situation, Moscow does not appear to be in a hurry. Its key military strategy, as seen in Bakhmut/Artemyovsk, is to use a combination of the snail technique and the mincing machine. The ultimate goal is to demilitarize NATO as a whole rather than just Ukraine, and so far, it appears to be working brilliantly.

    Russia is in it for the long haul, anticipating that one day the collective west will have an “Eureka!” moment and realize it is time to abandon the race.

    Now let’s assume, by some divine intervention, that negotiations would start in a few months, with China involved. Moscow – and Beijing – both know they simply cannot trust anything the Hegemon says or signs.

    Moreover, the crucial US tactical victory has already been conclusive: Russia sanctioned, demonized and separated from Europe, and the EU cemented as a de-industrialized, inconsequential lowly vassal.

    Presupposing there is a negotiated peace, it will arguably resemble a Syria 2.0, with a massive “Idlib” equivalent right on Russia’s door, which is something entirely unacceptable to Moscow.

    In practice, we will have Banderista terror outfits – the Slav version of ISIS – free to roam across the Russian Federation in car bombing and kamikaze drone sprees. The Hegemon will be able to switch the proxy war on and off at will, just as it continues to do in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan with its terror cells.

    The Security Council in Moscow knows very well, based on the Minsk farce acknowledged even by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that this will be Minsk on steroids: the Kiev regime, or rather the post-Zelensky regime will continue to be weaponized to death with brand new NATO gimmicks.

    But then the other option – where there is nothing to negotiate – is equally ominous: a Forever War.

    Indivisibility of Security

    The real deal to be negotiated is not “pawn in their game” Ukraine: it’s the indivisibility of security. Exactly what Moscow was sensibly trying to convince Washington via those letters sent in December 2021.

    In practice, what Moscow is currently doing is realpolitik: pounding NATO on the battlefield until they are weakened enough to accept a Strategic Military Operation (SMO). The SMO would necessarily include a demilitarized zone between NATO and Russia, a neutral Ukraine, and no nuclear weapons stationed in Poland, the Baltics, or Finland.

    However, given that the Hegemon is a declining superpower and “non-agreement capable,” it is uncertain whether any of this would hold, especially considering the Hegemon’s obsession with infinite NATO expansion. “Non-agreement capable” (недоговороспособны), incidentally, is a term Russian diplomats coined to describe their American counterparts’ inability to stick to any deal they sign – from Minsk to the Iran nuclear agreement.

    This incandescent mix gets even more complex with the introduction of the Turkish vector.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu has already made it plain that if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan retains power in the 14 May presidential elections, Ankara will neither impose sanctions on Russia nor violate the Montreux Convention, which forbids the passage of warships to and from the Black Sea in wartime.

    Risks of Ankara’s geopolitical shift

    Erdogan’s chief security and foreign policy adviser, Ibrahim Kalyn, has aptly pointed out that there is no war between Russia and Ukraine; rather, it’s a war between Russia and the west with Ukraine serving as the proxy.

    This is why the collective west is heavily invested in an “Erdogan must go” campaign, which is lavishly funded to propel an oddly-matched coalition into the presidential seat. In case the Turkish opposition wins – and their payment to the Hegemon begins – sanctions and violations of Montreux may be on the cards again.

    Yet Washington may be in for a surprise. Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has implied there will be a more or less continued balanced posturing of Ankara’s foreign policy tilt, while some observers believe that even if Erdogan is ousted, there will be limits to Turkiye’s pivot back to the west.

    Erdogan, profiting from the state apparatus and his immense network of patronage, is going no-holds-barred to secure re-election. Only then might he shift from hedging his bets continuously toward making a move to become a real player in Eurasian integration.

    Ankara under Erdogan, as it stands, is not pro-Russian; essentially, it tries to profit from both sides. The Turks sell Bayraktar drones to Kiev, have clinched military deals, and at the same time, under the “Turkic States” mantle, invest in separatist tendencies in Crimea and in Kherson.

    At the same time, Erdogan badly needs Russian military and energy cooperation. There are no illusions in Moscow about “the Sultan,” or about where Turkiye is leading. If Ankara’s geopolitical turn is hostile, it’s the Turks that will end up losing prime seats in the Eurasian high-speed train – from BRICS+ to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and all spaces in between.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 23:40

  • NY Mayor Adams Booted From Biden Surrogate Squad After Immigration Criticism
    NY Mayor Adams Booted From Biden Surrogate Squad After Immigration Criticism

    After dishing out pointed criticism of the White House’s handling of the immigration crisis, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been given the heave-ho from Team Biden 2024, as he’s been dropped from the campaign’s list of official media and event surrogates.  

    Overwhelmed by the number of migrants pouring into the city, Adams recently said New York City “is being destroyed by the migrant crisis.”

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    He also singled out Biden as having “failed” the city. In a subsequent scolding crafted to achieve bipartisan balance, Adams said, “It is the irresponsibility of the Republican Party in Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform, and it’s the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.“

    In March, Adams appeared on a list of more than 20 Democrats tapped to serve on a Biden campaign national advisory board. When the campaign posted an updated list on Wednesday, the roster had grown to 50 — but Adams had vanished.  

    “The message is: Don’t criticize an incumbent Democratic president and don’t criticize the first black female vice president,” Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf told the New York Post. “Any criticism from a Democrat heading into re-election is seen as a betrayal.”

    On Wednesday, the Biden campaign posted a YouTube video featuring many of its updated roster of surrogates. As we draft this article, it’s only managed to rack up 13 likes. That rock-bottom enthusiasm is consistent with the latest ABC/Washington Post poll showing only 36% of Democrats want Biden nominated again.  

    The Biden campaign isn’t commenting on the Adams disappearance. However, a Democratic aide to another member of the surrogate team told Politico that Adams’ departure was “almost certainly” due to his immigration criticism: “[He] made somewhere between in-artful to stupid comments that were kind of out of bounds.” 

    “As the mayor has previously stated, he stands ready to help the president with reelection however he can,” said an Adams spokesman.  

    Adams and Biden during chummier times (Adam Schultz/White House)

    As his bridges to Biden smolder, Adams isn’t winning friends in the New York suburbs either. Leaders of Rockland and Orange counties are fuming after the Adams administration tried an under-the-radar, Friday news-drop of a scheme to store the city’s excess migrants in hotels in the two Hudson Valley suburban counties. Both jurisdictions have declared states of emergency as they maneuver to block New York City from exporting its problems. 

    Speaking bluntly in an interview with Politico, Republican Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus, said, “I think we’re going to have a standoff in the next 24 to 48 hours because I just got word that the city said, ‘screw Rockland and Orange, we’re sending these people up’.”  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 23:20

  • The Extinction Event Hitting Corporate Media…
    The Extinction Event Hitting Corporate Media…

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    MSM went “all-in” on a discredited COVID narrative.

    Since the pandemic I’ve been saying that confidence in the mainstream, corporate press has been irreparably damaged. After four years of non-stop Trump Derangement Syndrome so intense that even some liberals were wondering if the press had gone overboard on editorializing – Covid hit, and a lot of normies now see the MSM for what it really is: agitprop and brainwashing.

    Cancel culture and censorship reached such absurd levels that we started to see an exodus of high profile reporters (Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, et al) exiting corporate news outlets and setting up on their own, after they committed the sin of colouring outside the lines of establishment precepts.

    The MSM went all-in in Covid, but every core tenet of the Covid narrative has since fallen apart:

    • This thing came out of a lab

    • Ecohealth and Fauci are up to their asses in it

    • The lockdowns did more damage than anything else, and

    • Everybody was forced to take a vaccine that not only doesn’t work but also seems to be the common denominator in an excess fatality rate that exceeds the pandemic itself.

    Not good.

    With the tempo being set by numerous media collapses, especially by overtly “woke” ones: Buzzfeed’s bankruptcy, Vice circling the drain – and television viewership plummeting, the stage was set for a few key moments that will be remembered as defining the extinction level event rolling through corporate media:

    #1) The Rise of Dark Carlson

    After Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, the number 1 pundit on television with the highest viewership today, he didn’t go to a rival network (Newsmax offered him $25 million), he decided to take his own show out on Twitter.

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    Apparently, on his own, not part of any deal with Elon Musk, Carlson is just letting it all hang out. In one of his first installments, he called into question the 9/11 narrative (Why did Building 7 just fall into its own footprint for no reason?). It prompted one observer to coin the term “Dark Carlson” for what is transpiring via this channel.

    #2) The Schism of RFK Jr. coverage

    RFK Jr, having thrown his hat into the ring to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, immediately drew fire from the MSM, having unilaterally decided that anything RFK says is automatically “misinformation” (see the closing remarks on “rhetorical circularity”, below).

    RFK Jr, for his part, created an account on Nostr.  

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    Nostr is a fast growing decentralized social media network, contrast with Twitter – which is governed by the vagaries and whims of whomever owns it – Nostr is decentralized at the server level to relays (which anybody can run) at the the account level to individual users. This protocol is spreading like wildfire and it’s beyond censorship.

    The juxtoposition between a sclerotic,  industrial era, mediocre network clutching their pearls over RFK’s “misinformation” and RFK showing up on Nostr tells us a lot.

    While this is not seen as much of a big deal yet, this is a signal worth paying attention to.

    #3) CNN’s disastrous town-hall with Trump

    I didn’t watch it, and when you look at the reporting on it, both left and right traditional outlets are declaring victory – but the reality is that CNN pulled the plug on it 20 minutes earlier than scheduled (ten key moments here).

    Love him or hate him, Trump draws attention and viewers unlike any other personality – and the fact that CNN drew the curtain early signals one thing: it was a disaster for the network and probably didn’t hurt Trump. After deftly manipulating a hostile media and leveraging social media cunning to win the presidency in 2016, it doesn’t look like the MSM has learned much.

    When the media falls, so does the system it supports

    When the Soviet Empire fell in 1989 – 1990, anybody predicting it even months earlier would have been ridiculed. When it happened it took everybody by surprise (even the CIA) and unfolded at astonishing speed (Victor Sebestyen’s Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire covers it brilliantly).

    Things move even quicker today – where we are in the early innings of what will possibly be the final financial crisis of the fiat money system.

    In another great book about Late Stage Communism,  “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More“, Alexey Yurchak chronicles the hyper-normality that saturated the zeitgeist during “the last Soviet Generation”. The “Dead Irony” chapter outlines the ingenious forms of unauthorized humour.

    A contemporary parallel is when you come across a Twitter account that exhibits such over-the-top support for All The Latest Things™ that you can’t tell if its satire or not. That is a type of performative dissidence called “Stiob” (unless it’s real).

    (It’s parody)

    Yurchak’s examination of “the hegemony over meta-discourse” and it’s disintegration ring eerily familiar to those keeping score today. One example is what he called “rhetorical circularity”: in our case it means that anything the MSM refuses to cover is “misinformation”, because there are no MSM citations to support it.

    As I frequently comment, we’re in Late Stage Globalism. While many view Covid as the gateway to a “Great Reset” technocracy – it looks to me like it was instead, the a-c-c-e-l-e-r-a-t-i-o-n event of the millennia.

    I’m not an accelerationist and the elites are certainly still pushing hard for that WEF-style authoritarianism.

    But I’m just an observer and I’m here to tell you, that is what’s happening. Given the nature of technological compounding (“Future Shock”, as Alvin Toffler called way back in 1970), accelerationism is somewhat baked in and we just have to watch the implosion of corporate media (not to mention the self-destruction of Woke capitalism) to know it is happening.

    *  *  *

    My next ebook is The CBDC Survival Guide and I’m sending it free to Bombthrower subscribers when it’s done (early June). In the meantime, subscribe now and get The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto while you wait. Follow me on Nostr, or Twitter. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 23:00

  • "Penetrated The Roof": Meteorite Crashes Into New Jersey Bedroom
    “Penetrated The Roof”: Meteorite Crashes Into New Jersey Bedroom

    The operations manager for the American Meteor Society, Mike Hankey, believes a metallic object that crashed through the roof of a Hopewell Township, New Jersey, home on Monday is a meteorite.

    “This is most certainly a meteorite, and there are likely more meteorite fragments now scattered around the town,” Hankey said in a statement on the Hopewell Township’s Facebook page. 

    Hopewell Township announced in a press release that the metallic object is 4 inches by 6 inches. 

    “It penetrated the roof, the ceiling, and then impacted the hardwood floor before coming to a rest,” the town said. 

    Hankey, the meteorite expert, said: 

    “We still do not have a firm estimate for the time of the fall. If we can exactly identify the time of the fall we can more effectively find evidence of it on weather radars and also video camera systems recording the sky. Any residents with door bell cameras should check for events between 12-3 PM on May 8th. There could have been a flash in the sky and/or a boom sound recorded.”

    Local law enforcement believes the object was part of a “current Meteor shower called the Eta Aquariids,” the town said, adding an investigation is ongoing. 

    This isn’t the first occurrence of a possible meteorite causing damage to a residential structure within the US. About six months ago in November, a California man said, “I heard a big bang,” and then watched his home erupt in flames. He alleges a meteorite destroyed his home. 

    And, in case you were wondering, the Insurance Information Institute noted on its website, “Falling objects—including satellites, asteroids, meteors and space debris—are covered under standard homeowners and business insurance policies.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 22:40

  • Manhattan DA Bragg Strikes Again: Charges Marine Over Subway Chokehold Death
    Manhattan DA Bragg Strikes Again: Charges Marine Over Subway Chokehold Death

    Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old former Marine, will be charged for the death of 30-year-old homeless man Jordan Neely.

    “We can confirm that Daniel Penny will be arrested on a charge of manslaughter in the second degree. We cannot provide any additional information until he has been arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court, which we expect to take place tomorrow,” a spokesperson for Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg told Politico.

    As a brief reminder, in case you only watch NBC or CNN or have been hiding under a rock; on May 1, at the Broadway-Lafayette station, witnesses reported that Jordan Neely was acting aggressively toward other passengers on a train.

    Neely allegedly screamed “in an aggressive manner” and told passengers he does not care if he goes to jail, before allegedly taking off his jacket and throwing it on the ground.

    Multiple witnesses came forward to state that Neely had made repeated attempts to push people onto subway tracks.

    Penny allegedly held Neely in a 15-minute chokehold on May 1 to protect himself and other passengers from Neely (along with two other individuals who attempted to restrain the deranged passenger).

    Neely is a career criminal with over 40 prior arrests for various offenses, including drug-related charges, disorderly conduct, and fare evasion.

    At the time of his death, Neely had an outstanding warrant for assaulting a 67-year-old woman.

    The Marine was then taken into custody, questioned by detectives and released, according to ABC News.

    NBC4 New York reports that Penny’s attorneys have said previously there was no way he “could have foreseen” that his bid to subdue an alleged perceived threat would turn deadly.

    “Mr. Neely had a documented history of violent and erratic behavior, the apparent result of ongoing and untreated mental illness,” said the statement from law firm of Raiser and Kenniff.

    “When Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the other passengers, Daniel, with the help of others, acted to protect themselves, until help arrived. Daniel never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death.”

    Neely’s family says that amounts to a confession.

    After word of the impending charge came out, Penny’s attorneys released a statement saying their client “stepped in to protect himself and his fellow New Yorkers” even though “his well-being was not assured.”

    “He risked his own life and safety, for the good of his fellow passengers. The unfortunate result was the unintended and unforeseen death of Mr. Neely,” the statement from Steven Raiser read.

    “We are confident that once all the facts and circumstances surrounding this tragic incident are brought to bear, Mr. Penny will be fully absolved of any wrongdoing.”

    Finally, we ask – Who could have seen that coming?

    Well, pretty much everyone after violent protests started erupting across New York City.

    The politicization of the justice system (or rather the inevitable denouement to the mob’s rule) is being increasingly exposed to the daylight at so many levels… and yet nothing changes.

    As Matt Margolis poignantly notes, under Bragg’s leadership, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office routinely downgrades felonies to misdemeanors. Yet sometimes, his decisions to pursue charges have seemingly been influenced by social or political factors. Earlier this year, Bragg also sought murder charges against Moussa Diarra, a parking garage attendant in Manhattan who had shot a thief in an act of self-defense. However, in response to public outrage, Bragg later decided not to pursue charges against Diarra.

     It is expected that Penny will turn himself in on Friday to face criminal charges.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 22:22

  • Chicago Residents Throw Fit Over New Migrants As Dem Cities Clash With Biden Admin Over Finances
    Chicago Residents Throw Fit Over New Migrants As Dem Cities Clash With Biden Admin Over Finances

    Much like New York and DC, Chicago residents our in an uproar over the arrival of thousands of migrants arrive in their city after being bused north from Texas, a surge which is expected to accelerate as a pandemic-era measure, Title 42, is set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday.

    Photo via @endwokeness

    According to city officials, there has been a 10-fold increase in migrant arrivals – putting a strain on Chicago’s financial resources, and leading concerned residents of the Democratic stronghold to voice their opposition at during a Thursday evening meeting with city leaders in South Shore.

    “All of a sudden we have deep pockets for people who don’t pay taxes,” said one attendee. “I understand helping people, but you start with your own home.”

    “I think it would be fair for every homeless immigrant that you bring in, that you scoop up a homeless here,” said another attendee, ABC7 Chicago reports.

    A plan is also in place to move some of them into Park District fieldhouses, like one at Brands Park in the 3200-block of North Elston Avenue.

    The problem is that the families that use fieldhouse services, like for daycare and summer programs, were not informed.

    And what’s the first stop for new arrivals? Police stations and school buildings.

    “The staff here was given virtually no notice. They were told at like 1 o’clock to clear your stuff, we are sending migrants to your facility,” said one pissed off parent, Michael Busking.

    Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has taken the emergency measures to respond to a “surge of new arrivals since last month.”

    Trouble all around

    As Bloomberg notes, while El Paso, Texas has declared a state of emergency to open temporary shelters as hundreds of migrants sleep on the sidewalks, New York Mayor Eric Adams has slammed the Biden administration amid the arrival of migrants to the Big Apple – “putting pressure on his city’s already-strained budget.”

    The New York mayor has urged the administration to better coordinate response efforts and speed up federal financial assistance and work permissions for migrants. He’s said the city is receiving around 500 migrants per day from border states, and his office expects those numbers could double with the end of Title 42. 

    Adams was not included on a list of Biden campaign surrogates released Wednesday, even though the Washington Post reported in March he would be included. The omission was reported earlier by Politico. -Bloomberg

    According to the report, the tensions with fellow Democrats come at a difficult time for President Biden, as he embarks on his reelection campaign.

    “The Biden administration had two years to prepare for this and did not do so. And our state is going to bear the brunt,” said Dem-turned-independent Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

    Late Wednesday, the Biden administration attempted to turn the tide with a set of new rules that would quickly reject asylum claims for most people crossing the border who hadn’t previously applied for asylum in another country first. What’s more, nearly 1,500 military personnel are being sent to the Southwest border to help local authorities deal with an expected influx of migrants.

    The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, says it will award $290 million to communities taking in migrants, on top of $135 million already allotted, Bloomberg reports.

    On Wednesday afternoon, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that the administration has been hamstrung by “outdated” and “broken” immigration laws (and totally not the open-door invitation virtually extended to migrants since Biden took office).

    “I cannot overstate how much of a challenge it is going to be and how we all have to deal with it as one administration and one country. Fundamentally, we need Congress to act,” Mayorkas said on Thursday, effectively blaming Congress.

    [A] fresh wave of migrants at the southern border could also renew pressure on small towns in the region. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs this week announced her own “preparedness plan” to help shelter and transport migrants. -Bloomberg

    “Without much more robust action from the federal government, the current situation will only get worse,” said Hobbs. “As of today, we have not received an adequate response.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 22:00

  • Top NBCUniversal Ad Exec And World Economic Forum Taskforce Chair In Talks To Become Twitter CEO: WSJ
    Top NBCUniversal Ad Exec And World Economic Forum Taskforce Chair In Talks To Become Twitter CEO: WSJ

    Are Twitter’s days of encouraging free speech and independent thought numbered… or is Musk, just days after unveiling that Tucker is joining, playing 4D chess?

    Just hours after Elon Musk announced he had picked a new female Twitter CEO candidate, the WSJ revealed the identity of the person in talks to become the next CEO of the world’s most important social network: it is Linda Yaccarino, who is currently NBCUniversal’s influential head of advertising.

    Yaccarino, who is chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU, has been with NBCU for more than a decade, where she has been an industry advocate for finding better ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising. As head of NBCU’s advertising sales, she was key in the launch of the company’s ad-supported Peacock streaming service.

    Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, said in a tweet Thursday that he had hired a new CEO, but didn’t say who it was. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks!” Mr. Musk said in the tweet.

    In some ways, Musk’s pick of Yaccarino is not a surprise: as Chair of the Advertising Council’s Board of Directors and arguably NBCU’s top advertising exec, she is meant to fill a critical void at the new Twitter: that of advertising. After all, despite having massive traffic, Musk’s social network – which as a reminder cost him $44 billion – has been hemorhaging ad revenue as woke brands have abandoned the website.

    Of the top 100 advertisers on Twitter before Mr. Musk bought the company, 37 spent nothing on Twitter advertising during the first quarter of this year, according to market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower, while an additional 24 brands reduced their average monthly Twitter ad spending by 80% or more.

    As such, it will be Yaccarino’s job to convince advertisers to return: Yaccarino, who oversees roughly $13 billion in annual ad revenue, is well-known for her tight relationship with marketers and ad agencies. Yaccarino has a reputation for hard-nosed negotiating tactics, and media buyers have described her as the “velvet hammer.”

    Musk’s announcement of the new CEO came days before one of the biggest events of the year for NBCU, the company’s annual pitch event for advertisers, known as the upfront, which is scheduled for Monday in New York. And according to the WSJ, an NBCU spokesman said Ms. Yaccarino is in back-to-back rehearsals for NBCU’s upfront.

    On the other hand, the hiring of Yaccarino to head the social network which in recent months has become the bane of liberals and progressives through its encouragement of free speech and independent thought, both of which are despised and suppressed by the left, could be a problem.

    For one, according to her LInkedIn profile, Yaccarino is the “Chairman of the WEF’s Taskforce on Future of Work and sits on the WEF’s Media, Entertainment and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee. She is also highly engaged with the Value in Media initiative.” Most recently, she delivered the following speech in Jan 2020: ‘World Economic Forum: Creating the Workplace of the Future by Focusing on People.”

    Source: LinkedIn

    Additionally, in 2014 Yaccarino joined the Ad Council Board of Directors and became a member of the Executive Committee in 2015. She first served as Vice Chair before her appointment to Board Chair from 2021-2022.

    And then there’s this: in 2021-2022, as Ad Council Chair, “Yaccarino partnered with the business community, the White House, and government agencies to create a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, featuring Pope Francis and reaching over 200 million Americans.”

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    And finally:

    As an industry advocate, Yaccarino has called for a return to values-based, trusted partnerships, spotlighting the most important issues facing her colleagues and peers. As 2021-2022 Ad Council Chair, Yaccarino partnered with the business community, the White House, and government agencies to create a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, featuring Pope Francis and reaching over 200 million Americans. At NBCU, she uses the power of media to advance equity and helps to launch DEI-focused initiatives, including BOLD, a program for employing veterans; #ShesMy, a campaign to uplift women and girls; Scene in Color, a collaboration with Target to elevate emerging BIPOC film creatives; and a partnership with Telemundo to release a Latina-centric storytelling guide. 

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    Things get a little more complicated however, when one considers that in May 2018 Trump Named Yaccarino (alongside Bill Belichick and a bunch of other folks) to a two-year term on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. It wasn’t immediately clear how long she lasted in this particular role.

    Bottom line: despite that last rather odd detour, which can be attributed to Trump’s habitual lack of due diligence, Yaccarino appears to be the perfect establishment hire, one who will help Twitter recover most of its lost ad revenue… the trade-off may very well be that in the process twitter may just become the same company it was before its acqusition by Trump.

    In response to the news of her hiring, the outcry has been – as one would imagine – extremely polarized.

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    Finally, the boss himself:

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    In conclusion, while it is certainly possible that Musk is playing 4D chess here, a prevailing sentiment among the replies is that “Twitter was fun for a few months. See you guys in the gulag.” One can only hope that it is wrong.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 21:40

  • Pakistan May Lose Support From IMF – Risks Debt Default As Civil Unrest Continues
    Pakistan May Lose Support From IMF – Risks Debt Default As Civil Unrest Continues

    Almost exactly a year ago we covered Pakistan’s efforts to secure economic aid through the IMF in order to defuse its growing inflationary crisis.  In May 2022, Pakistan’s core inflation rate was around 13% – Today, their core inflation rate is at 19.5%.  The situation keeps getting uglier.

    Pakistan has sought relief from foreign debt obligations and an IMF bailout deal. Initial arrangements for a three year deal with the IMF began in 2019, but Pakistan said that deal, originally for $6 billion USD, was ‘outdated due to the pandemic’ and new global financial pressures. The nation is in ‘dire need’ of at least $36 billion in order to stay afloat.  However, it appears that any chance of an agreement with the IMF is about to falter.

    A spokesperson for the International Monetary Fund in an interview with Bloomberg states that they are in talks with Pakistan on a multi-billion loan program, which is going to conclude in June.  But, the spokesperson also said that the IMF “wants an assurance on a coordinated mechanism for debt recovery from Pakistan” as well as an assurance on implementation of the economic policy.  The IMF has reportedly rejected a recent Pakistan government claim that it has met all the conditions to reach an agreement with the global financial body to release funds.

    Without IMF support Pakistan risks default in the near term, according to Moodys Investor Service.

    “We consider that Pakistan will meet its external payments for the remainder of this fiscal year ending in June,” says Grace Lim, a sovereign analyst with Moodys in Singapore.  “However, Pakistan’s financing options beyond June are highly uncertain.  Without an IMF program, Pakistan could default given its very weak reserves.” 

    The reason for the IMF pullback is obvious – Mass civil unrest has exploded in response to the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan on corruption charges.  Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ruled that Khan’s dramatic arrest this week was illegal and has ordered his immediate release. His lawyers had argued that his detention from court premises in Islamabad on Tuesday was unlawful.

    Mr. Khan stood surrounded by his lawyers in front of the three Supreme Court judges as they told him that because of the way he had been arrested on Tuesday – inside a court complex, conducting biometric tests – the arrest was invalid.  This does not necessarily end the instability within Pakistan, though.  Charges are still being brought against Khan and the likelihood of continued riots is high.  

    What does this mean?

    Pakistan is a nuclear armed nation with over 165 warheads from short to medium range.  The country also has ongoing border disputes with India and strong military ties to China.  A destabilization of the region could lead to a much larger geopolitical crisis as well as send shockwaves through the global economy.  An IMF refusal at this time could trigger chaos that reverberates through the east and the west.     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 21:20

  • After 20 Years As A Prosecutor In Illinois, I Quit
    After 20 Years As A Prosecutor In Illinois, I Quit

    The following is an email written by Cook County prosecutor Jason Poje, circulated to colleagues last week. Via RealClear Wire,

    To my colleagues:

    After 20 years, I always kind of figured an email like this would start with “It is with a heavy heart that I leave…” The truth is, I can’t get out of here fast enough.

    Let me start with the positive. There is not a single day that has gone by that I have not felt truly honored to work with such an incredible group of people who spent every waking hour on behalf of victims. This opportunity has been a gift for which I have no words to explain the extent of my gratitude.

    My partners, our Victim/Witness advocates, our Investigators, our support staff, the police officers and detectives, time after time I see each of you putting everything you have into helping people we encounter on the worst days of their lives. So often I see our personal lives, and indeed at times our own well-being, set aside just to do a little bit more on that last case for that last victim. It’s been nothing short of inspiring not as a lawyer, but as a person.

    And yet, I’m leaving. Why could that be? The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt.

    Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, overuse of diversion programs, intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation.

    Many years ago my family found a nice quiet corner of the suburbs. Now my son, who is only 5, hears gunfire while playing at our neighborhood park, and a drug dealer is open-air selling behind my house (the second one in two years). If it were just me to consider, I’d stick it out. I’ve been through stupid State’s Attorney policies before. But this Office’s complete failure to even think for a moment before rushing into one popular political agenda after another has put my family directly in harm’s way.

    The current people in charge of this state, including the [State’s Attorney’s Office] suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding…we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes. Defense attorneys, legal aid clinics, Public Defenders, defendant advocate groups…they fight like hell to protect the rights of criminal defendants. And they should. Their work is as noble as ours. But we have an obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly. When both sides vigorously defend their positions, a balance is reached between protecting rights while preserving some sort of order and safety. Once we start doing too much of the defense’s job, once we pull our punches, once we decide that it’s worth risking citizens’ lives to have a little social experiment, that balance is lost. The unavoidable consequences are what we are witnessing in real time, an increase in crime of all kinds, businesses and families pulling up stakes, and the bodies piling up; the whole time with a State’s Attorney who insists that there is nothing to see here, and if there is it must be someone else’s fault. And then they wonder why they cannot retain experienced prosecutors or even hire new ones…it’s because any true prosecutor recognizes the importance of this balance, and that they will not be permitted to be a prosecutor under this administration.

    I will not raise my son here. I am fortunate enough to have the means to escape, so my entire family is leaving the State of Illinois. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and yet my own employer has turned it into a place from which I am no longer proud to be, and in which my son is not safe.

    To everyone in the trenches in the State’s Attorney’s Office and in law enforcement, my one regret is that I cannot be at your side anymore as you continue to fight the good fight. I do not envy the task you have before you, but you have my utmost respect for carrying on. I hope one day you are successful at returning some kind of common sense and security to our communities.

    Thank you all so much for this opportunity to serve. I will treasure every moment of this chapter in my life. Be safe, be well, fight hard.

    Jason F. Poje
    Assistant State’s Attorney

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 21:00

  • On The Verge Of Deflation: China CPI, PPI Surprise To The Downside, Confirm Two-Speed Recovery
    On The Verge Of Deflation: China CPI, PPI Surprise To The Downside, Confirm Two-Speed Recovery

    Two days ago we looked at how China’s diverging export (faster) and import (slower) growth rates signaled a two-speed recovery, with strong consumption (especially services), also evident in the Labor Day holiday data, but not-so-robust industrial activity, which still faces headwinds from external demand and a slow recovery in property investment.

    Overnight we got another confirmation, this time in the form of China’s latest CPI and PPI when April inflation surprised the market to the downside.

    China’s CPI eased notably from 0.7% in March to 0.1% in April, the lowest print since March 2021 and one tick away from deflation.

    According to SocGen, the decline was mainly driven by food inflation (-0.4%) and energy inflation (-0.2%), while core CPI remained unchanged at 0.7%. The decline in food inflation was due to pork prices amid abundant supply, and vegetable prices thanks to the warm weather. Fuel inflation dropped from -6.4% to -10.4% due to weak international prices and base effects.

    In contrast, services CPI picked up from 0.8% to 1.0%, supported by prices of air fares, hotels and tour packages, as the sector is the main beneficiary of reopening. Rental inflation also recovered from -0.5% to 0.3% with the mom rate stabilizing at 0%. However, core goods CPI declined. While clothing inflation rebounded slightly from 0.8% to 0.9%, that of transportation facilities dropped from -3.3% to -4.0% due to ongoing discounting, and that of household appliances eased from -0.2% to -1.2%, reflecting more tepid demand relative to services.

    Moving to factory gate prices, PPI slipped further into deflation, from -2.5% to -3.6% due to base effects and weaker momentum, with a 0.5% mom decline. The main culprit was upstream prices, as the key commodities saw a broad-based decline in prices, reflecting weak demand for commodities (also evident in the latest imports data). That raises concerns over the strength of industrial activity, which likely lost momentum due to softer global demand, still subdued property investments and still high inventories. PPI of consumer goods also remained tepid, with a mom decline seen in durable goods.

    In short, it is clear that the service sector is normalizing quickly since the beginning of the year, but at this stage the broadening of the reopening recovery remains to be seen with risks from slowing exports, a sluggish property recovery, still weak confidence. The service-driven nature of this recovery also means there are less inflation spillovers to the rest of the world this year

    While it is true that inflation momentum has been modest, today’s numbers also overstate the weakness as they were mainly driven by food and upstream prices and base effects. The data points to more room for the PBoC to keep policy accommodative, especially coupled with today’s surprising plunge in new credit creation, but given its lagging nature, there is still a high bar for more headline easing.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 20:40

  • US Failure To Recognize Natural Immunity Negatively Affected Pandemic Response: NIH Scientist
    US Failure To Recognize Natural Immunity Negatively Affected Pandemic Response: NIH Scientist

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

    The failure to recognize how post-infection immunity is similar or superior to that bestowed by vaccination led to prolonged school closures and other problems, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientist told Congress on May 11.

    Undated colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (blue) heavily infected with COVID-19 particles (red), isolated from a patient sample at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility in Fort Detrick, Md., on Oct. 31, 2020. (NIAID)

    U.S. health agencies “chose to disregard natural immunity,” leading to “lost jobs, staffing shortages, children kept out of school, and wasted vaccines,” said Margery Smelkinson, a research scientist at the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

    Smelkinson was one of three experts testifying to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in Washington on Capitol Hill, in a hearing on immunity during the pandemic.

    Smelkinson, who said she was testifying in her personal capacity, is employed by the same agency headed for decades by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who repeatedly downplayed natural immunity along with other top public health officials.

    Fauci and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were among the officials to meet secretly in 2021 to decide whether post-infection immunity should count as one or more vaccine doses in the recommended COVID-19 vaccination schedule, according to documents obtained by The Epoch Times. The meeting resulted in no changes to the recommendations, which advise virtually all Americans to get a vaccine even if they’ve recovered from COVID-19.

    The government’s position on natural immunity meant that COVID-19 vaccine mandates across the country featured no exceptions for the naturally immune, in contrast to some other countries.

    The CDC has said that there is post-infection protection but that it varies by person, that it’s unclear how long it lasts, and that recovered people should still get vaccinated.

    But evidence from before the vaccines were even available signaled natural immunity was robust, and later studies provided evidence that natural immunity was similar to or even better than vaccination, Smelkinson noted.

    One study in July 2020, for instance, found a strong immune response in people who had recovered from COVID-19. Another in October 2020 provided similar findings. And a paper in November 2020 found that mild infections also triggered strong responses.

    As early as April 2021, research suggested protection on par with that from vaccines. A CDC study found natural immunity was better than vaccination against the Delta variant, and a more recent CDC paper provided the same conclusions for the Omicron strain. An analysis of dozens of studies found that post-infection protection was similar to or better than vaccination, depending on the strain.

    Smelkinson said the government’s position resulted in staffing shortages, including in the health care sector, and “caused needless loss of life as vaccines were given to essential workers with natural immunity instead of being prioritized for the elderly.”

    “Additionally, the daily quarantine of thousands of students could have been significantly reduced if districts had, at least, made exceptions for students with natural immunity. At least,” she said. “Disregarding the wealth of evidence of natural immunity led to missed opportunities to implement policies that could have been more effective and efficient in controlling the pandemic and limiting collateral damage.”

    Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the panel, said that the government should not have mandated vaccination for the naturally immune.

    Other Experts

    Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told the panel that the stance against natural immunity adopted by Fauci and others didn’t make sense, pointing in part to Fauci saying previously that people who recovered from influenza didn’t need vaccination “because the most potent vaccination is getting infected yourself.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 20:20

  • "We Have Reached Our Limit": NYC Suspends Shelter Rules Ahead Of Title 42 Expiration
    “We Have Reached Our Limit”: NYC Suspends Shelter Rules Ahead Of Title 42 Expiration

    The Biden administration is expected to repeal Title 42, a policy from the Trump era that makes it easier to reject migrants at the US-Mexico border. This change, expected to take effect at midnight on Thursday, could potentially lead to a massive influx of undocumented immigrants flooding the US. Far away from the chaotic southern border is New York City, which is experiencing its own migrant crisis. 

    On Wednesday, NYC Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order that eases shelter requirements for homeless families. The order suspends city laws that regulate how, when, and where homeless families can be sheltered. It comes just one day before Title 42 ends. 

    “With over 130 emergency sites and eight humanitarian relief centers already opened, we have reached our limit, and this last week we had to resort to temporarily housing recent arrivals in gyms.

    “We will make every effort to get asylum seekers into shelter as quickly as possible as we have done since day one,” Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the Democratic mayor, said in a statement. 

    Levy said the effort is to ensure asylum seekers find “shelter as quickly as possible” as Democrat-run metro areas across the country prepare for a surge in migrants in the coming days and weeks upon Title 42 expiration. 

    Bloomberg said NYC is spending $8 million per day to house 40,000 asylum seekers. The spokesperson said more than 500 migrants per day have been entering the city in the last week. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    NYC’s migrant crisis has been so severe that the mayor plans to ship several hundred adult male migrants to hotels in Orange Lake and Orangeburg, in upstate Rockland County. In recent months, migrants from Texas and other border states have been bussed in, making Adams and fellow Democrats furious. 

    Let’s not forget Biden administration officials largely ignored the border and began dismantling border security and immigration enforcement in the first two years of office. It was only until recently, after a flood of migrants could no longer be ignored, overrunning Democrat cities, as well as the imminent expiration of Title 42, and what could be an invasion of up to 150,000 migrants in the coming days, have Biden officials sent reinforcements to border states.

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

    A little too late, we might say, and wonder if the Biden administration is intentionally sparking a border crisis. 

    Ah yes… 

    . . . 

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 20:00

  • Senator Ron Johnson: 'We Have Evidence Hunter Biden Paid Sex-Trafficked Prostitutes And The Media Isn't Even Looking Into It'
    Senator Ron Johnson: ‘We Have Evidence Hunter Biden Paid Sex-Trafficked Prostitutes And The Media Isn’t Even Looking Into It’

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    During a Tuesday interview, Senator Ron Johnson asserted that Congressional Republicans have unequivocal proof that Hunter Biden paid tens of thousands of dollars to an international sex trafficking ring for prostitutes with money given to him by his father.

    “Senator Grassley and I, in our September 2020 report, laid out as much evidence as anybody would need to lay out that the Biden family is corrupt,” Johnson told Fox News, adding that it was well known “that President Biden would be highly compromised, but the corrupt media ignored it and censored it.”

    Johnson continued, “One thing we don’t talk enough about. I know President Biden is so proud of his son. We have the evidence that Hunter Biden paid for — paid tens of thousands of dollars for prostitutes that were sex trafficked through an international sex trafficking ring. Yes, ick.”

    “And President Biden during a four or five month period offered to pay for $100,000 of Hunter Biden’s bills when he was spending tens of thousands of dollars on these women who are sex trafficked,” the Senator further asserted.

    “Now, that is at a minimum morally reprehensible and wrong. And the president is defending that and the media isn’t even looking into it?” an exasperated Johnson urged.

    “It is grotesque but the media doesn’t concentrate on it. We had that in our report. We had the financial transactions proving it. James Comer does the same thing. But it is so icky and reprehensible that people don’t want to talk about it,” Johnson emphasised.

    “It is galling to hear the president talk about how proud he is of Hunter. He enables this. He enables it by propping up his son both in term of those types of words as well as financially. It is really pretty sick,” the Senator concluded.

    Watch:

    In a further interview on Fox Business, Johnson predicted the media will continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence of shady criminal dealings with foreign nationals.

    In an interview with The Washington Examiner, Johnson said that he fears the Department of Justice will allow Hunter Biden to engage in a plea agreement and have his case records sealed.

    “The Justice Department will do whatever it can get away with doing in terms of covering up for Hunter Biden or minimizing any charges,” the Wisconsin senator said, adding “I’ve been concerned about this, almost predicting it, for quite some time.”

    “Part of that plea agreement would be a seal of all records so that the American public will never know the full extent of what Hunter Biden and possibly Joe Biden did,” Johnson added.

    On Wednesday, during a press conference by House GOP lawmakers, Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan announced that GOP lawmakers have reviewed 170 suspicious activity reports linked to the Biden Family’s dealings.

    Republicans revealed that they believe the Biden family attempted to conceal more than $10 Million in foreign payments, and that “Biden family members and business associates created a web of over 20 companies—most were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency.”

    Biden Family Tried To Hide Over $10 Million In Foreign Payments: House GOP

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 19:40

  • FBI Stonewalls On Smoking Gun Document Alleging Biden Family 'Criminal Scheme'
    FBI Stonewalls On Smoking Gun Document Alleging Biden Family ‘Criminal Scheme’

    The FBI is stonewalling Congressional investigators over an informant file (form FD-1023) which allegedly contains evidence that President Biden took bribes while he was Vice President, the NY Post reports.

    After House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) hit the FBI with a subpoena last week demanding the document by noon Wednesday, the bureau responded with a six-page letter full of objections.

    “Information from confidential human sources is unverified and, by definition, incomplete,” wrote FBI acting assistant director for congressional affairs Christopher Dunham.

    “As is clear from the name itself, confidentiality is definitional to the FBI’s Confidential Human Source program,” wrote Dunham, adding “Confidential human sources often provide information to the FBI at great risk to themselves and their loved ones. The information they provide also can create significant risks to others who may be referenced in their reporting.”

    The FBI official concluded: “We … hope this helps you understand that keeping this kind of source information free from the perception or reality of improper influence — and preventing the redirection of this information for non-law enforcement or non-intelligence uses — is necessary for the FBI’s effective execution of our law enforcement and national security responsibilities.”

    Comer slammed the FBI’s stonewalling, but he did not immediately announce further steps to acquire the document. Congress has the power to apply financial pressure to agencies and can also use litigation to enforce its orders or attempt to shame officials through contempt votes. -NY Post

    “It’s clear from the FBI’s response that the unclassified record the Oversight Committee subpoenaed exists, but they are refusing to provide it to the Committee,” said Comer, adding “We’ve asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations.”

    “The FBI has failed to do both. The FBI’s position is ‘trust, but you aren’t allowed to verify.’ That is unacceptable. We plan to follow up with the FBI and expect compliance with the subpoena.”

    Grinding Grassley’s gears…

    Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) who passed the whistleblower to Comer, was livid at the FBI’s refusal to hand over the document.

    “They didn’t give us the unclassified document. They sent us a five or six-page letter that I haven’t studied thoroughly yet,” he told the post. “They didn’t dispute that it exists — that the document exists or that it is unclassified … why they haven’t given it, I don’t know.”

    “We have received legally protected and highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures,” Grassley wrote last week in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Based on those disclosures … “it has come to our attention that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.”

    On Wednesday, House Republicans laid out evidence of a vast network of Biden family corruption, including;

    • The Biden family received, and tried to hide, over $10 million in payments from foreign nationals
    • A previously undisclosed $1 million in Romanian-linked payments
    • Ties to Romanian ‘influence peddling’
    • A ‘web’ of 20 LLCs created while Joe Biden was Vice President with a ‘complicated corporate structure’
    • ‘At least 15’ of the LLCs were formed after Biden became VP in 2009 – several of which were owned or co-owned by Hunter
    • These LLCs accepted payments ranging from $5,000 to $3 million
    • The committee wants to know what legitimate business the Biden family was in

    Read the FBI’s response below:

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 19:20

  • Two Youths Commit Suicide In Taxpayer-Funded Cross-Sex Hormone Study
    Two Youths Commit Suicide In Taxpayer-Funded Cross-Sex Hormone Study

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

    Lawmakers are demanding answers after the suicide deaths of two young people involved in a transgender hormone study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

    Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old woman who regrets surgically removing her breasts, holds testosterone medication used for transgender patients in Northern California on Aug. 26, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Additionally, 11 participants reported suicidal thoughts during the study, according to a January article by researchers published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

    In a letter to Dr. Lawrence Tabak, acting director at NIH, 15 Republican lawmakers question why the study wasn’t halted after participants died or reported adverse effects.

    “It is alarming that vulnerable young people died by suicide while participating in a taxpayer-funded study that will almost certainly inflict devastating physical harm on those who participated,” the lawmakers’ letter stated.

    Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr.Lawrence Tabak testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on May 17, 2022. (SHAWN THEW/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

    “Rather than shutting the study down after such serious adverse events, the researchers published their paper, concluding that the study was a success because cross-sex hormones had altered subjects’ physical appearance and improved psychosocial functioning,” lawmakers added.

    The study “Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth after 2 Years of Hormones” attempted to analyze the psychosocial state of participants.

    Researchers evaluated the impact of cross-sex hormones on “transgender and nonbinary youth” between the ages of 12 and 20, according to the study.

    NIH awarded $477,444 in a five-year grant to the Boston Children’s Hospital, the University of California at San Francisco, and the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago for the study, according to a report in The Daily Signal. Dr. Diane Chen at the Lurie Children’s Hospital led the study.

    Lawmakers have blasted the study for subjecting children to “radical gender ideology.” Of 315 study subjects, 240 were minors.

    After the study was published, the medical watchdog group “Do No Harm,” called the research “fatally flawed and borderline unscientific” because it muddled instead of clarified questions about the medical transition of children.

    Twenty-four participants in the study received cross-sex hormones after puberty suppression—when they’re “in early puberty”—and are “likely sterile as a result,” according to the lawmakers.

    Lawmakers said that other risks to participants include an increased chance of cardiovascular disease and blood clotting. They also questioned the value of a study that didn’t include a “control group.”

    The letter stated the taxpayer-funded research was already being used to further the “fallacy” that chemically transitioning children was safe and effective despite “glaring shortfalls.”

    Police face pro-transgender protesters outside of Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., on Sept. 18, 2022. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

    The study didn’t dwell on the suicides. Instead, it reported “positive” effects of cross-sex hormones, such as “life satisfaction” and decreases in depression and anxiety—at least for the duration of the study.

    Republicans charged that some involved in the study were known transgender activists focused on gender modification for children.

    In a video later removed from Boston Children’s Hospital’s YouTube channel, the hospital claimed “that children can know their gender identity ‘from the womb,’” lawmakers said.

    According to the letter, Johanna Olson, a co-author of the NEJM article, received a federal grant for a study in which she altered protocol to allow children as young as 8 years old to receive cross-sex hormones.

    The lawmakers noted in their objection that research shows gender dysphoria in minors often resolves by itself as struggling teenagers progress through puberty, “completely undermining the idea that children should have their bodies permanently altered to match their changing identities.”

    They added that the NIH plans to give more than $10.6 million to “experiment on children and adolescents through 2026.”

    Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) and Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) led the letter demanding responses to questions by June 9.

    Questions included the age of the suicide victims, the clinic that administered the hormones, and what steps may have been taken to halt and review the study when the deaths occurred.

    Lawmakers also want to know if any steps were taken to provide ongoing monitoring of other children participating in the study to ensure that they are not at risk for suicide.

    They also asked if participants had been evaluated for sterility or impaired fertility as a result of receiving cross-sex hormones and the results.

    In a press release, Brecheen said lawmakers are committed to holding those responsible for the loss of life accountable.

    “It is sickening that the federal government is preying on young people and using our taxpayer dollars to advance its radical gender ideology,” Brecheen said.

    Josh Brecheen elected as Oklahoma Congressman. (Courtesy of Brecheen for Congress)

    Budd called the NIH-funded study “highly questionable experiments.”

    “Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund studies that encourage gender transition interventions on young people,” Budd said.

    Others signing the letter included Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Reps. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Randy Weber (R-Texas), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Ronny Jackson(R-Texas), and Michael Cloud (R-Texas).

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 19:00

  • Russian Media Says Ukraine's Counteroffensive Has Begun Amid Conflicting Reports
    Russian Media Says Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Begun Amid Conflicting Reports

    Russian media as well as some Western reports are saying the Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun. This comes the day after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner Group, blasted regular Russian forces for retreating from parts of the Bakhmut front. 

    Prigozhin also claimed that Russia’s 72nd Separate Motor-rifle Brigade has given up its positions along the town’s southwest edge, also while pleading for more ammunition to go to Wagner fighters. Importantly, in a late Thursday report Russian state media is citing a prominent war correspondent to say the much-touted spring offensive has arrived, even though Ukrainian leaders on the same day said it is still stalled and they are “waiting” – also for more weapons from the West.

    Image: BBC

    Russia’s RT cites the war journalist as follows: “Ukrainian forces have breached Russian defenses northwest of the city of Artyomovsk in Donbass, Russian war correspondent Evgeny Poddubny reported on Thursday evening. He believes it’s the beginning of Kiev’s much-touted spring offensive.”

    “The attackers appear to have launched a series of simultaneous strikes north and south of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, several other Russian war reporters added,” the report continues. “The city has been the scene of intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops for months.”

    And more from the state media report: 

    In addition, Kiev’s troops have reportedly used tanks to strike the city of Soledar. Located northeast of Artyomovosk, it was captured by Russian troops after heavy fighting in January.

    Meanwhile, in Zaporozhye Region, Kiev’s troops have reportedly attacked Russian positions near the city of Guliay-Pole. They are seeking to break through the Russian forces’ first defensive line, Poddubny explained.

    However, the defense ministry was quick to contradict some of these claims, also downplaying the severity of fighting in these locales:

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    The Kremlin had previously expressed hoped it would have Bakhmut operations complete by Victory Day (May 9), but this proved illusive even after Russian forces captured some 90-95% of the largely destroyed city. 

    Conflicting reports persist, and it does appear some heavy frontline fighting has erupted from the Ukrainian side…

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    On Wednesday Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov struck a rare pessimistic tone in connection with the situation in Donetsk region. “The special military operation continues. It is a very, very difficult operation and of course certain goals have been achieved in a year,” he said.

    Pro-Ukraine accounts are claiming Russian troops are in a “panic”…

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    President Zelensky had also earlier in the day previewed a “surprise”…

    “We are expecting appropriate armoured equipment. It comes in parts, and with that amount, you can move forward… But we will lose a lot of people. I believe that this is impossible. We need to wait. We need some more time” he said.

    I am not ready to communicate with you, to say when we will be advancing, because I think you understand me. Because to some extent, this prepares the enemy. And therefore, I would like it to be an unpleasant surprise, not the other way around.

    Meanwhile a CNBC headline has also highlighted these emerging reports of the counteroffensive being underway.

    Are we about to witness Russian forces get beat back at a moment frontline forces could be exhausted from months of heavy battles and costly advances? Or will the counteroffensive falter before it even gets off the ground? 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 18:40

  • Biden's Ex-Disinfo Queen Slaps Fox With Defamation Suit
    Biden’s Ex-Disinfo Queen Slaps Fox With Defamation Suit

    Nina Jankowicz, the Biden administration’s short-lived disinfo czar, is suing Fox News for defamation, claiming that the network promoted lies about her that generated ‘serious threats to her safety’ and harmed her job prospects, according to the NY Times.

    To review:

    According to the lawsuit, Fox mentioned Jankowicz 300 times in eight months, where she claims she was demeaned and defamed in highly personal language by hosts Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo and Sean Hannity – who said her job was to “to silence anyone who criticizes the Biden administration,” and possibly “get men with guns to tell you to shut up.”

    She also came under fire for her batshit fake British accent while singing Orwellian censorship songs.

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

    More via the Times:

    The suit was filed on behalf of Nina Jankowicz, the former executive director of a short-lived Department of Homeland Security division assigned with coordinating efforts to monitor and address disinformation threats to national security. Right-wing pundits and politicians falsely portrayed her group as part of an Orwellian bid to control the speech and thought of ordinary Americans. -NY Times

    Falsely portrayed? Guess we’ll find out.

    “Even after achieving their stated goal of driving me out of government and ending the board, they kept using me as a punching bag,” Jankowicz said in a Wednesday interview. “It shouldn’t be something we just accept — that the most powerful cable network in the world can attack individuals willy-nilly and not face any consequences after they ruin their lives.”

    Hilariously, the Times also describes her as a “prominent specialist in Russian disinformation” despite her promoting the discredited Steele dossier and the Hunter Biden laptop Russiagate theory.

    The lawsuit was filed in the same Delaware state court where Dominion Voting Systems lodged a $1.6 billion defamation suit against the network, which was settled last month for $787.5 million.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 18:00

  • Musk Launches Twitter's New Encrypted Messaging, But With Big Caveat: "Don't Trust It Yet"
    Musk Launches Twitter’s New Encrypted Messaging, But With Big Caveat: “Don’t Trust It Yet”

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

    Elon Musk on Thursday announced the official launch of Twitter’s new encrypted direct messaging (DM) function, urging users to give it a try, but warning that the encryption feature in the early version should not be trusted.

    “Early version of encrypted direct messages just launched,” Musk stated in a Thursday tweet. “Try it, but don’t trust it yet.”

    Direct messages sent on Twitter will be encrypted end-to-end, meaning that private messages can only be read by the sender and recipient.

    Musk stated in an earlier post on Wednesday that the sophistication of the encryption feature will grow “rapidly” following the launch of the preliminary version. “The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head,” he said.

    With the rollout now official, Twitter joins other platforms like Signal and WhatsApp in providing users with an encrypted messaging service, though not all Twitter users will have access to it—at least for now.

    Twitter stated in a post on its support site that the encryption feature is only available to people who pay for Twitter Blue or are affiliated with a verified Twitter account. Only messages containing text and links are encrypted, while media and other attachments are not yet supported.

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

    Reactions to encrypted messages are also encrypted, but metadata—which includes the recipient as well as the creation time—are not. While links themselves are encrypted, the linked content isn’t.

    Eligible users who want to send encrypted messages on Twitter will see a toggle after clicking on the message icon, allowing them to activate “encrypted” mode. They can then select another eligible recipient, and clicking “send” will dispatch an encrypted message.

    Alternatively, eligible Twitter users can send encrypted messages though the conversation settings page of an unencrypted conversation in their inbox. After tapping the information icon, they can select the “start an encrypted message” option. Encrypted conversations will be differentiated from unencrypted ones through a lock icon badge.

    “As Elon Musk said, when it comes to direct messages, the standard should be, if someone puts a gun to our heads, we still can’t access your messages. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re working on it,” Twitter said on the support page, reinforcing Musk’s warning not to trust the encryption feature to protect sensitive information—yet.

    “Twitter seeks to be the most trusted platform on the internet, and encrypted direct messages are an important part of that,” the support page states.

    Musk revealed last year that he has plans to roll out a “Twitter 2.0 The Everything App,” which he said would combine encrypted direct messages, long-form tweets, and payments.

    In March, Musk merged Twitter with a shell firm called X Corp., which he owns.

    WhatsApp ‘Cannot Be Trusted’

    In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Musk took aim at WhatsApp, telling Twitter users that the service “cannot be trusted.”

    Musk was responding to a post from Twitter engineer Foad Dabiri, who claimed that his WhatsApp application was constantly switching on the microphone, even while he was sleeping.

    Dabiri shared a screenshot of his device’s microphone usage, which showed that it had been switched on nine times between 4:20 a.m. and 6:53 a.m. while he was asleep, at one point appearing to record him for nearly 30 minutes.

    Replying to Dabiri’s post, Gannon Breslin, CEO of The Drop NFT Media Inc., wrote, “It’s incredible how many people don’t realize that WhatsApp is owned by Meta/Facebook.”

    Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 for $16 billion.

    Musk replied: “Yeah. Or that WhatsApp founders left Meta/Facebook in disgust, started #deletefacebook campaign and made major contributions to building Signal. What they learned about Facebook and changes to WhatsApp obviously disturbed them greatly.”

    WhatsApp swiftly dismissed Dabiri’s claim, stating that users of the messaging service “have full control over their mic settings.”

    “Over the last 24 hours, we’ve been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp,” WhatsApp said on its official Twitter account.

    “We believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate.”

    “Users have full control over their mic settings. Once granted permission, WhatsApp only accesses the mic when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video—and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them,” it added.

    Katabella Roberts contributed to this report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/11/2023 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

May 10

Today’s News 10th May 2023

  • NATO Air Units On High Alert After Near Miss Between Russian & Polish Aircraft
    NATO Air Units On High Alert After Near Miss Between Russian & Polish Aircraft

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    NATO has put its air units on high alert following a near miss between Russian and Polish aircraft, Reuters reported Monday.

    A NATO official said that on Friday, a Polish jet patrolling over the Black Sea near Romania for the EU’s border agency, known as Frontex, had a dangerous encounter with a Russian aircraft.

    Illustrative file image: Romanian Air Force

    “NATO air policing detachments were put on higher readiness in response to the dangerous behavior of a Russian military plane in the vicinity of a Polish Frontex aircraft over the Black Sea near Romania,” the NATO official said.

    The Romanian Defense Ministry accused the Russian aircraft of acting recklessly. “This incident is a further proof of the provocative approach of the Russian Federation in the Black Sea,” the ministry said in a statement on the incident.

    Since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, there have been several dangerous encounters between NATO and Russian aircraft, including the incident in March that resulted in the downing of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone near Crimea.

    According to The New York Times, a leaked Pentagon document revealed a near miss on September 29 that almost resulted in a Russian jet shooting down a manned British surveillance plane.

    US officials said the Russian pilot fired a missile after misinterpreting what a radar operator said, but the missile malfunctioned.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/10/2023 – 02:00

  • The Discord Leaks: Harmful, Embarrassing, Or Manipulation?
    The Discord Leaks: Harmful, Embarrassing, Or Manipulation?

    Authored by Carol Choksy & Jamsheed Choksy via RealClearWorld.com,

    Once again, classified materials linked to U.S. intelligence and defense agencies have reached the public domain via the internet. But do these documents really undermine Washington and its allies by revealing information not already known to geopolitical rivals? Is there much in the leaked items that is actually, or deserved to be, top secret? Or have the revelations, embarrassing as they might be to America and its partners, been shaped and reshaped to influence rivals and the global public by demonstrating the limitations of opposing powers? 

    What Came Through the Discord App 

    The so-called top secret documents have been exposed since February 2022. They were spread by a nondescript National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, on Discord servers and chat groups to a Minecraft chat server, to the 4chan bulletin board and Russian Telegram channels, and eventually to Twitter users. Apparently, only in April did the Pentagon catch on to the online revelations. 

    The information leaked included intelligence analysis products about issues both related and unrelated to the war in Ukraine. Directly relevant data detailed estimates about Israel supplying equipment to Ukraine, the UAE and Egypt possibly supplying rockets to Russia, discussions by South Korean officials about supplying munitions to Ukraine, NATO plans to equip and train Ukrainian troops, personnel losses on both sides, and Russian plans to reward the destruction of NATO tanks. Other information covers topics such as a cyberattack on Canadian oil infrastructure, the Mossad’s attitude about judiciary protests in Israel, China’s hypersonic advances and its Indo-Pacific maneuvers, emerging powers seeking to stay removed from superpower rivalries, and shifting geopolitical alliances. 

    A Damaging Leak? 

    The greatest concern about this leak would be that Russia or other adversaries could figure out who collected information or how information was collected — sources and methods, in other words. Knowing sources means an adversary can remove them. Knowing methods means an opportunity to end access, or to work around it and nullify its usefulness. Should either or both these occur, U.S. ability to support Ukrainian battlefield maneuvers with effective intelligence, and to peer into the inner workings of rival nations, could fall short. 

    However, the leaked documents contain no great new revelations. The data sets were largely known and available through open sources. Likewise, many of the leaked analytical conclusions had already circulated beyond government circles without the need for top-secret, covertly collected data. 

    U.S. President Joe Biden nodded to the consequences’ lack of severity by telling the press, “I’m concerned that it happened, but there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence right now.” Unauthorized disclosure, rather than revealed knowledge of data, sources, and methods, is the focus of the U.S. government’s response. The Discord leak is a violation of law and duty by the leaker and therefore an area of concern for information security, but it is not a national security calamity. 

    An Embarrassing Disclosure? 

    The Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, the Wikileaks trove by Chelsea Manning in 2010, the NSA tranche by Edward Snowden in 2013, and the Intercept report by Reality Winner in 2017, top the list of previous failures to contain top secret materials. The Discord documents leak is yet another awkward moment for the U.S. military and intelligence communities because it highlights poor information security practices. This disclosure suggests that data management has not improved significantly since previous incidents that have been damaging to national security and to foreign relations.  

    Content about Canada, Israel, Pakistan, India, and South Korea may be discomforting, but is not particularly consequential. The United States can conduct an apology tour of our allies and friends by our Secretaries of Defense and State. Directors of our major intelligence agencies likely will be performing their own apology tours to the other members of the Five Eyes (Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in addition to other friendly countries named in the documents. They will carry assurances that measures have been taken to reduce the chances of such a leak happening again. 

    An Influence Operation? 

    Upon parsing the data carefully, it becomes apparent that the primary knowledge gleaned from this leak is obvious — that countries spy on each other, even among allies and partners. Moreover, as already noted, much of the so-called classified information was already available in the public domain. As such, the possibility this leaked data was reworked to unsettle global competitors, especially Russia and China, cannot be disregarded. The data show how thoroughly those governments and their military and intelligence sectors have been infiltrated by the US. Leaders and subordinates within those authoritarian regimes will now be looking at each other with greater distrust. 

    The Discord documents indicate that, however challenging the situation may be for Ukraine, not only is Russia losing more personnel and materiel, but its forces are also completely infiltrated by human intelligence agents, signals intelligence, and geospatial intelligence. The many ways Beijing aids Moscow in its pursuit of an unjust war, while bullying its way around East Asia and the Pacific, have also been laid bare. If some of the data leaked through the Discord server reflect an influence operation, or were reshaped to serve such purpose, the intent is to show Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Federal Security Service, as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping and his People’s Liberation Army, that they have no secrets Washington cannot purloin. Certainly, Kremlin leaders worry “this is a deliberate information dump … in essence waging a hybrid war against us.” 

    Outcomes 

    U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a review of intelligence access, accountability, and control procedures. As has happened after previous revelations, more cyber defenses will be deployed, and the number of people who can receive classified intelligence will be tightened even further under more stringent protocols. 

    There is another related, important, question arising from the Discord leaks that needs to be addressed by U.S. intelligence agencies. Why does so much publicly available information, and inference easily reached from open-source materials, need to be classified as secret — let alone top-secret? Focusing on classifying only the much smaller, truly important, covertly obtained data sets, and analyses derived from those information caches, will make U.S. secrets easier to secure from spies, leakers, hackers, and other bad actors. 

    Yet government employees and contract personnel involved in the handling of top secret information would still number in the thousands. Thus, even with a zero trust approach, future leaks may be unavoidable. Whether those disclosures, like the current one, damage American capabilities, merely generate foreign policy discomfort, or can be exploited to place rivals at a disadvantage, will depend not only on the information revealed, but on how efficiently, and even covertly, responses occur. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/10/2023 – 00:00

  • Ex-Russian Space Boss Finds 'No Proof' Americans Landed On Moon In 1969
    Ex-Russian Space Boss Finds ‘No Proof’ Americans Landed On Moon In 1969

    Russia’s former head of the Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said he went on a quest about a decade ago to find concrete proof that the Americans landed on the Moon in 1969. After finding little evidence, he questioned whether the Apollo 11 Mission reached the lunar surface. 

    “About ten years ago, when I worked in the Government, I sent an official request to Roskosmos to provide me with documentary evidence of the Americans’ stay on the moon, which at that time was still at the disposal of the federal agency,” Rogozin said in a post on Telegram on Sunday. 

    He continued, “I was painfully embarrassed by the fact that the Soviet cosmonauts returning from multi-day expeditions could barely stand on their feet and underwent a long recovery after such flights, and the Americans crawled out of their lunar ships like cucumbers from the garden. “

    Rogozin claimed to have submitted multiple requests to Roscosmos for proof of NASA’s 1969 Moon landing. He said the only evidence he received was a book that contained an account by Soviet Cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov about his conversation with the American astronauts and their discussions about the lunar mission. 

    Rogozin continued in the post: 

    In 2018, when I went to work at the state corporation Roskosmos, I continued to search for this evidence, but I didn’t find anything there, except for the angry accusations of some of our fans of going to America at the expense of others, academicians, that I, they say, undermine the “sacred cooperation with NASA,” I also received one angry call from a high-ranking official accusing me of “aggravating the international situation” with my doubts.

    Yes, I did not undermine or aggravate anything, but only by virtue of my nature I tried to get to the bottom of the details and establish, at least for myself, the true state of affairs in the issue of exploration of the Moon by our competitors. It was not clear to me how the United States, at that level of technological development of the 60s of the last century, did what they still cannot do now?

    Add Rogozin to the moon-landing denialism camp because how dare anyone question that the spacecraft with less computing power than even a modern USB-C charger could land astronauts on the Moon in 1969 — and astronauts have yet to return 54 years later. 

    … still there are many questions. 

     

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 23:40

  • If Hunter Is Indicted
    If Hunter Is Indicted

    Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClearPolitics./com,m

    What will President Biden do if his son is indicted by the federal prosecutor in Delaware?

    That’s one of three questions looming over U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ fateful choice.

    The second is whether the indictment will go after a larger, coordinated family scheme of influence peddling or confine itself to smaller, tightly-confined issues like lying to get a gun permit and not registering as a foreign lobbyist.

    The third is whether Attorney General Merrick Garland will approve Weiss’ proposed charges.

    Significant political calculations follow from those decisions.

    It’s easy enough to answer what Garland will do. He has little choice but to approve any charges Weiss proposes after the government’s multi-year investigation. Anything else would look shady, a far cry from the neutral, apolitical justice Garland’s department is charged with dispensing. Burying the charges, after Garland’s refusal to appoint a special counsel, would embroil his department in its nastiest controversy since John Mitchell befouled it under President Nixon.

    Assuming the federal attorney proposes felony charges and Garland approves them, Joe Biden faces the toughest choice of his political life.

    The president’s dilemma is why it’s so interesting to follow recent speculation by Miranda Devine, a reporter and columnist for the New York Post. She’s the most informed journalist on the Hunter Biden story. Her paper broke the news about the emails on Hunter’s laptop, three weeks before the 2020 election, and Devine has done the best follow-up reporting. To bury that story before the election took the combined, Herculean efforts of the legacy media, social media giants, and former CIA officials. Their success helped elect Biden. But the “little story that could” just keeps chugging along, mostly because the corruption is so extensive, so rich for investigation. Criminal charges now seem likely, not that the mainstream media has shown much interest.

    Now, Devine is speculating that Biden is setting the stage to pardon Hunter, framing it as the actions of a loving father who backs his troubled child. “My son has done nothing wrong,” Biden told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle in a rare one-on-one interview. “I trust him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.”

    Whether such sentiments presage a pardon, as Devine thinks, is still a guess. We can say something more concrete, though, as Biden weighs such a move. Four consequences stand out:

    • A presidential pardon would set off a political firestorm.

    • The White House will try its best to prevent any public revelation of the family’s business dealings. That means the president and his advisors want to prevent a trial, get Hunter to take a plea, and convince the judge to seal the evidence. Another option is to go trial, knowing it won’t be held until after the election.

    • If Biden pardons his son this year, he’s signaling he won’t run for reelection. He wouldn’t put that albatross around his own neck if he intended to face the voters.

    • If Biden does run and pardons his son after November 2024, the political impact depends on who wins the White House and Capitol Hill. The calculations are more complicated than one might expect.

    Let’s consider each in turn.

    First, a pardon would set off the biggest political firestorm since Watergate. It would look worse than self-dealing, bad as that is. It would look like the president is covering up his family’s corruption, not only to get Hunter off the hook but to prevent the disclosure of damning evidence in court. That evidence is likely to touch many more Biden family members than Hunter, and perhaps the president himself. The more Biden family members who are implicated, the more the whole operation looks like a concerted operation to monetize Joe’s political position. It also might threaten to shred Joe’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about any family business interests or influence peddling. The wider the sleaze, the harder it is to sell that story.

    The chairman of the House committee investigating these issues has said Hunter’s corruption was merely one part of the family business. And that business was selling influence. Rep. James Comer has publicly said that his House Oversight Committee has already collected evidence that nine Biden family members are involved in sketchy business deals, including substantial payments from foreign firms. Some of those firms are closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party. Comer added that his committee is investigating the possible involvement of at least three more family members, as well as Joe Biden’s own role. His conclusion: “The entire Biden family” is entrapped in the financial enrichment scheme. So far, however, Comer hasn’t named names or provided the evidence. He says he will provide much more at a major press conference Wednesday.

    Comer’s principle suggestion is that the Biden family’s influence-peddling scheme is much broader, and their criminal actions more serious, than isolated schemes perpetrated by the president’s conniving second son. He adds that his evidence points to Joe Biden’s direct involvement, including possible payments for official actions. That is what he told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, although he hasn’t yet provided the evidence for that incendiary allegation. Comer is also attacking the FBI for desultory investigation – which ignored much of the malfeasance – and calling out the mainstream media for its concerted silence.

    The Internal Revenue Service might be implicated, too, since a lot of payments – and a lot of Hunter’s income – went through what Comer calls the family’s “web of LLCs.” A senior supervisory agent at the IRS is seeking whistleblower protection to tell Congress about “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed” in investigating Hunter’s taxes. If political pressure really was applied to the IRS over Hunter’s taxes, or if senior agents acted improperly to curry favor, those would obviously be very serious matters, legally and politically. Comer and the House Republicans in the committee’s majority want that testimony under oath and are seeking responses from the IRS and DOJ.

    Anticipating an indictment soon, Comer has urged the Justice Department to hold off until his committee presents more evidence to the public this week. “When you have the opportunity to see the evidence that the House Oversight Committee will produce with respect to the web of [Biden family] LLCs, with respect to the number of adversarial countries that this family influence peddled in, and this is not just about the president’s son. This is about the entire Biden family, including the President of the United States.”

    However wide-ranging the indictment is, Hunter will do everything he can to strike a plea deal and seal all the evidence to prevent its disclosure at trial. That would clearly be the preference inside the White House. But it’s not in the public interest.

    If the DOJ tries to seal the evidence, it would be joining in a cover-up. The Department must require that Hunter attest to all incriminating evidence and that it all be made public as part of any plea deal. The judge himself should demand it. That requirement might kill Hunter’s willingness to take the deal. Rather than reveal the evidence now, the White House would prefer kick it down the road, to a trial date after the November 2024 election.

    Whether a trial happens or not, a pardon for Hunter would be politically fatal for the president, and he and his advisers must know it. That leads to a clear conclusion. If Joe pardons Hunter this year, running for reelection becomes unrealistic. Such a self-inflicted wound would be a far more powerful signal of his intentions than a speech declaring his candidacy. There’s no way Joe would eviscerate his political prospects like that if he intended to face the voters again.

    Of course, Biden could delay any pardon until after November 2024. That would still invite a high-profile congressional investigation and perhaps impeachment, but the political maneuvering would depend on the election outcome. If Biden loses and the current Republican House moves quickly to impeach, Senate Democrats would be in a bind. It takes overwhelming evidence to convince senators to humiliate a president from their own party. The only thing that would do it is overwhelming fear of their constituents at the ballot box.

    The situation is entirely different if Biden wins and the Republicans take both the House and Senate. The problem, in three words, is President Kamala Harris. Although the new House would have no trouble collecting votes for impeachment, they might hesitate before passing the ultimate decision to their Republican colleagues in the Senate. Do they really want to elevate Harris into the Oval Office?

    None of these prospects is a happy one. Each one adds to the misery of a country beset by lawlessness on the streets, chaos at the southern border, stagnant real income, and a looming debt crisis. We need to know whether the Biden family – not just Hunter – was engaged in a series of corrupt schemes to peddle the influence of a high-ranking government official. We need to know all the family members involved and their business partners. We need to know what they were paid for doing and who paid them. What we don’t need is a weak, narrowly-drawn indictment, an official cover-up of the evidence, and, worst of all, a self-serving presidential pardon.

    credittrader
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 23:20

  • Wendy's Unveils Google-Powered AI Chatbot At Drive-Thru 
    Wendy’s Unveils Google-Powered AI Chatbot At Drive-Thru 

    Wendy’s is reportedly developing an artificial intelligence chatbot powered by Google’s natural-language software designed to automate drive-thrus. 

    The Wall Street Journal spoke with Wendy’s Chief Executive Todd Penegor, who said the fast-food chain’s chatbot would be rolled out in June at a company-owned restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. 

    The Wendy’s drive-thru chatbot “will be very conversational,” Penegor explained. He said, “You won’t know you’re talking to anybody but an employee.” 

    Wendy’s software engineers have been working with Google to build a large language model to understand words, popular expressions, and phrases in various dialects and accents when a customer orders. It’ll understand acronyms unique to Wendy’s, like “JBC” for a junior bacon cheeseburger. 

    “Google Cloud’s generative AI technology creates a huge opportunity for us to deliver a truly differentiated, faster, and frictionless experience for our customers, and allows our employees to continue focusing on making great food and building relationships with fans that keep them coming back time and again,” Penegor said in a separate conversation about the chatbot while speaking with Gizmodo. 

    WSJ said the drive-thru chatbot is programmed to upsell customers by asking if they want to combo the order or increase sizes. Once the order is completed, humans operating the kitchen will (which will one day be replaced by robot chefs) prepare the food before being packaged up and stuffed into a bag for pickup at the window. 

    Wendy’s Chief Information Officer Kevin Vasconi told WSJ that the chatbot “is probably on average better” than the company’s top customer service reps. He said the chatbot’s goal is to improve service speed and consistency at drive-thrus. About 80% of all food orders are placed at the burger chain’s drive-thrus. 

    Besides Wendy’s, we have outlined the move by other fast-food restaurants, like McDonald’s, to automate stores and replace humans: 

    There’s even been a push by McDonald’s to automate a restaurant entirely: 

    The proliferation of automation in the fast food industry will only mean a tidal wave of layoffs is coming over this decade. According to market research firm IBISWorld, the US has more than 5 million workers. 

    Recall a recent Goldman report (available to pro subscribers in the usual place) that stated, “Two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation, and that generative AI could substitute up to one-fourth of current work. Extrapolating our estimates globally suggests that generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation” as up to “two thirds of occupations could be partially automated by AI.”

    In other words, the robots are coming, and jobs will be lost. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 23:00

  • Can Trump Win?
    Can Trump Win?

    Authored by Dan McCarthy via AmericanMind.org,

    The final RealClearPolitics polling average for the 2016 race showed Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump by 3.2 points.

    As of May 1, 2023, the same polling average shows Trump ahead of Joe Biden by 1 point.

    Of course, Trump can’t win. Any Republican would do better. Every pundit says so. And when have they ever been wrong?

    Trump didn’t enter the 2016 race until June 2015, so a direct comparison between his current polling numbers and those of the last cycle isn’t possible. But those who remember the 2016 race will remember that for most of the cycle, Trump trailed Clinton by rather more than the 3.2 points—as shown in the final RCP average. And of course, Trump won. The press underestimated his appeal.

    Even in 2020, Trump significantly outperformed his polling. The final RCP average in that race showed a 7.2 point lead for Biden. His actual lead wound up being 4.5 points.

    If not for all the experts saying otherwise, one would think that Trump has an excellent chance of winning the 2024 election. If the polls now are as far off as they were in 2016 and 2020, Trump will win.

    But what about last year’s midterms? Didn’t they prove that Trump is a spent force?

    Conservatives would have to be extremely stupid not to notice that, long before Trump came along, the Republican establishment and the mainstream media had a consensus about how to interpret elections.

    Any time a right-wing candidate lost, it was always proof that the Right was unelectable and that candidate was a millstone around the Republican Party’s neck. But any time an establishment candidate lost—like John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012—nobody argued the party was too centrist or that establishment candidates were lead balloons.

    When conservatives lost, it meant conservatives were losers. But when less conservative candidates lost, it was not a sign that less conservative candidates were losers. On the contrary: the reliable diagnosis from mainstream pundits and DC professionals was that the establishment Republican’s fatal vulnerability was whatever smidgen of conservatism might have crept into his campaign. The establishment, the dead center, was never to blame.

    Conservative Republicans who noticed how that worked before the Trump era should recognize that a very similar pattern obtains today. The only difference is that now the liberal pundits and DC campaign consultants are joined by the professional conservative media in applying the same storyline to Trump.

    When a Trump-endorsed candidate loses, Trump is to blame. When an impressionistically Trump-like candidate who isn’t endorsed by Trump loses, Trump is to blame. But when a non-Trumpian candidate loses, the lesson is never that non-Trumpian Republicans have an electability problem.

    When a Republican who feuds with Trump, like Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, wins a smashing re-election victory, it’s a repudiation of Trump. But when a politician who was built up by Trump and is running in a wildly pro-Trump state wins a massive re-election victory, as Ron DeSantis did in Florida, the victory is in no way to Trump’s credit.

    The narrative, in both its old anti-conservative form and its new anti-Trump one, is designed to steer voters. But it also has the effect of duping its own creators. Hence their surprise when Trump beat Clinton, and their dismay that Trump seems to be well-positioned to win the Republican nomination next year. They still, however, cling to the belief that he cannot win in November 2024.

    Back From the Brink

    Certainly the commentariat believes that any Republican could do better than Trump—so why risk the election on him? Until recently most polls have shown Ron DeSantis performing better than Trump against Biden. And some polls have even indicated that a generic Republican would do better than Trump. The Republican Party may be poised for presidential victory next year, but if it is, that’s despite Trump, not because of him.

    The argument is superficially plausible, but it doesn’t take into account the demonization that will greet any Republican who gets the party’s presidential nomination. If another candidate starts off with higher positives than Trump, there’s no guarantee that by the time the media is done with him he won’t be seen in a much uglier light. With Trump, the media has already done everything that it possibly can do to make him look like the worst thing on two legs since Adolf Hitler. What more harm can they inflict upon Trump than they already have? But there’s plenty more they can inflict on anyone else.

    Then there is the testimony of history. The last non-Trump Republican to win the White House was, of course, George W. Bush. In 2004 he had every advantage: he was the incumbent, Reaganite enough to thrill movement conservatives yet “compassionate” enough to reassure centrists of both parties. The conservative movement was unified behind him (he had no primary challenger, and the few conservatives who dissented from the Iraq War at the time were tarred as disloyal to party and country). The War on Terror was still popular, and same-sex marriage was on several states’ ballots to drive turnout for “values voters.”

    With all that going for him, the best George W. Bush could manage was 286 electoral votes. Not since 1916 had any re-elected incumbent fallen short of 300 votes in the Electoral College.

    Even Karl Rove should have been able to recognize what that anemic number meant. The 2000s Republican electoral coalition, under perfect conditions, had no margin to spare. If the rising unpopularity of the Iraq War or the rising acceptance of same-sex marriage shifted the electorate even a little, or if there was a recession, or a Republican scandal, or simply a more charismatic Democratic nominee than John Kerry, that 17-vote margin that re-elected Bush would disappear.

    2004 represented the ceiling of what the pre-Trump Republican brand could achieve. Even at the time, the ceiling was caving in and would soon collapse completely, thanks in large part to Bush’s foreign policy and the normalizing of same-sex marriage.

    The Republican Party would not be better off if the Trump revolution had never happened. In 2016, Trump smashed through Bush’s electoral total with 304 votes. He did it with a more provocative personality than Bush, a different policy mix (in particular on foreign policy, trade, and immigration, where Trump’s views were closer to Pat Buchanan than to Bush’s), and a campaign that brought the candidate to Rust Belt districts long neglected by nominees from both parties. If Trump’s personal controversies were as much of a detriment as common sense suggests, then the appeal of his campaign technique and issue positions must have been even greater than those 304 electoral votes attest.

    Far from dooming the Republican Party, Trump saved it from the reputation that Bush and the conservative movement of his era had left it with. The party of 2004 could never win again. The ease with which Trump defeated the heirs to that party—Jeb Bush, but also Ted Cruz and the rest of the 2016 field—was a verdict on the very philosophy of the GOP as it stood between 1992 and 2012. As a set of principles, the philosophy of the GOP couldn’t even prevail in the party itself, let alone in the wider country.

    Perhaps a post-Trump GOP brand will be more popular than either Trump or the party’s pre-Trump identity. But a truly post-Trump Right doesn’t yet exist—the present alternatives to Trump in the Republican Party are either variations on Trumpish populism or regressions to pre-Trump conservatism. I was at a dinner in DC recently where all the conservatives in the room, except me, agreed that the future of the GOP was Ronald Reagan. The closest thing to a post-Trump option that most DC intellectuals can imagine involves resorting to necromancy.

    Lessons to Learn

    So yes, Trump can win in 2024, and the fact that he still defines the party’s identity means he is overwhelmingly likely to be its nominee. Ron DeSantis does have a shot—he argues that he’s a more competent leader for the Trump-era Right than Trump himself is. But the Trump (and Biden) era doesn’t seem to be characterized by voters placing a premium on competence, and it’s hard to convince Republicans you’re to the right of Trump when Trump is the personal symbol of the Right today. In much the same way, Reagan was the symbol of the fusionist Right—and when did a more-Reaganite-than-Reagan candidate ever win anything through the purity of his principles?

    Many of my Florida friends think that the way to win Wisconsin and Michigan in 2024 is to refight the COVID battles of 2020-21 and to talk about transgenderism more than anything else. But this approach is not so different from that of my DC friends who think the way to win the Rust Belt is to talk about slashing the federal bureaucracy and reining in the Federal Reserve. The issues are important in their own right—but that doesn’t mean they drive enough votes.

    Trump, however, has to learn the lessons of his own success in 2016. One lesson is the importance of a figure like Steve Bannon—someone who can concentrate Trump’s attention and translate his themes into concrete imagery. This is what Bannon did with “the wall.” As a simple, easy-to-envision policy that acted upon a broad issue (immigration), “the wall” was something that voters could remember and refer back to. Contrast that with the incredibly lengthy lists of policies that Mitt Romney used to rattle off in 2012, which were not only beyond what most voters could remember but also failed to leave any vivid impressions.

    A lesson that Trump clearly has learned from his own experience, both in 2016 and 2020, is that rallies and in-person campaigning are his strength. Four years ago Joe Biden could avoid the campaign trail with COVID as his rationale. In 2024, the contrast between a vigorous, rally-leading Trump and a president without the stamina or mental acuity for prolonged public events will be striking. The advantage that his rallies conferred on Trump in 2016 should be all the more pronounced next year.

    Where Trump’s advantage will be less pronounced, if he still has an advantage at all, is in pitching himself as the candidate for the industrial workforce. Biden has always understood far better than Hillary Clinton ever did how to appeal to traditional labor constituencies, and he has used the power of the presidency to enhance that appeal. His personal affinity for the state of Pennsylvania also gives Biden an edge that Clinton lacked. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania can make or break either campaign. But working-class voters don’t just want jobs or federal dollars. They also want respect. They want to feel like they’re part of a winning team called America again. Can Trump restore their confidence and win it for himself, better than Biden can, even with the largesse the incumbent can dole out? He has to try.

    The failures of 2020 should also be instructive: for instance, they show that Republicans have to take non-traditional get-out-the-vote efforts far more seriously, including by running GOP campaigns for early and mail-in voting. There are principled reasons why moving away from voting in particular places on a particular day is detrimental to American democracy. Turning voting into an ongoing plebiscite is bad in absolute terms, quite apart from the risk of fraud or other forms of mischief. But the midst of an election is the wrong time to worry your own voters about the voting system. Republicans should find it just as easy as Democrats to vote early or by mail—just as easy in practice and just as psychologically easy. Otherwise, the Democrats will enjoy a field left to themselves.

    Another 2020 mistake that Trump will have to avoid is being ill-prepared for the debates and investing too much in trying to embarrass Biden with the shameful lifestyle of his son Hunter. While the Biden family’s corruption is a valid issue, Trump struck too many voters as a bully picking on an old man and his troubled son—whose condition strikes many Americans in the age of opioids as painfully relatable. Trump may or may not win the debates, but he cannot afford to look as bad as he did in the last cycle’s head-to-head meetings.

    Trump is inclined to talk endlessly about his own legal problems and the degree of persecution to which he feels subjected. This may or may not be a turn-off to persuadable voters—it runs the risk of reminding some of them just how many suits and investigations Trump has faced, and how much they distracted from the nation’s business. The other hazard that a preoccupation with his legal cases presents, however, is that it subtracts from the time and energy available to talk about how voters and their families feel about their own circumstances. When Trump says that his enemies go after him to get at “you,” his message has power. But he has to be mindful about connecting his woes with other Americans’.

    Picking a Second

    Going into 2024, Trump has more flexibility in one respect than he had the last time he took on Biden. He can now choose a new running mate. Pence made sense in 2016, when Trump needed to reassure conventional Republicans, especially religious ones, that his ticket would be good for them. In 2024 the most valuable assistance a running mate might contribute would be the chance of winning a state that otherwise would go to Biden.

    Virginia, where Governor Glenn Youngkin currently enjoys an approval rating in the mid-50s, might be a prospect. Trump lost Virginia in 2020 with 1.96 million votes to Biden’s 2.4 million. Interestingly, however, in 2012 Barack Obama won the state with 1.97 million votes, and in 2016 Hillary Clinton won it with 1.98 million. In most years, Trump’s 2020 Virginia total would be a winning number, or close to it. Is it possible that Trump’s Virginia voters are more enthusiastic than they were in 2020 and Biden’s are less motivated? That Youngkin as a running mate could tip the state into the Republican column?

    If not, there could still be advantages in forcing Biden to spend time and money on what might otherwise be a safe state, and Youngkin—former CEO of the Carlyle Group—might be reassuring to corporate class Republicans around the country who are alienated by Trump and populism.

    Several other possible running mates, such as Senator Tim Scott, also have the potential to be useful for outreach. But Scott would also leave ideologically focused populists cold. What may work well for the math at the ballot box may prove a source of conflict in a second Trump Administration, if the vice president’s staff are not loyal to the president and his agenda. Reagan thought he had good reason to partner with George H.W. Bush in 1980. But when Bush succeeded Reagan, he fired almost everyone who had supported Reagan over himself in the 1980 primaries. The GOP’s disastrous turn to neoconservatism began with that betrayal. Electoral math can’t be the only criterion in choosing a running mate. But a pick that widens the Trump coalition will help to avoid making 2024 a replay of 2020, even if it is a rematch.

    The New Trump Moment

    Immigration is an even hotter issue than it was in Trump’s last two elections. President Biden has been impaled on the horns of a dilemma here. When he delivers the porous-borders policies his base expects, the results are so chaotic that a political backlash is inevitable. But when Biden tries to forestall the backlash by restoring some immigration enforcement, he winds up accused by the Left of doing exactly what Trump would do. This is a winning issue for Trump, and when the media attacks him for it, he should be prepared to point to Biden’s own half-hearted acceptance of enforcement. Even Biden knows that something has to be done and liberal policies have failed. On immigration, Biden himself makes the case for Trump.

    Foreign policy also plays even better for Trump in 2024 than it did in 2016. The message is simple—Biden humiliated America in Afghanistan and has no plan to end the war in Ukraine swiftly or successfully. The war in Afghanistan went on too long and ended badly because the foreign-policy establishment pursued unrealistic aims and had no finite gameplan. The war in Ukraine is going the same way, sucking unlimited resources out of America and our allies on an open-ended timetable. The Biden Administration and bipartisan foreign-policy elite once again define victory only in the vaguest and most idealistic terms. The same means in pursuit of the same obscure end will produce in Ukraine the same results as in Afghanistan. Trump offers the only alternative.

    The fundamental forces that helped to elect Trump in 2016 are more compelling than ever. America’s leadership class is unpatriotic and incompetent. It unsuccessfully tries to provide security for Afghanistan and Ukraine even as it fails to police our own cities and borders. Biden and the rest of the elite are more interested in ruling the world than re-establishing the rule of law at home. Americans have suffered the consequences. Trump may be imperfect, but voters have now seen what happens when the country reverts to a pre-Trump leader like Biden. The political class has not mended its ways. It has to be replaced, and Trump is the beginning of its replacement.

    Trump is polling well enough already that he can be cautiously confident about next year. There’s a danger that he and DeSantis will drive up one another’s negatives to the point where either of them would have a much tougher time taking on Biden next November. But if that doesn’t happen, the odds are that 2024 will look more like 2016 than 2020.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 22:40

  • China Retaliates After Canada Expels Its Diplomat Over 'Political Interference'
    China Retaliates After Canada Expels Its Diplomat Over ‘Political Interference’

    Canada and China have mutually expelled diplomats in tit-for-tat moves after Canada first booted a Chinese diplomat based in Toronto, Zhao Wei, which happened Monday.

    The Canadian government has accused him of political interference, allegations first revealed in a leaked report written by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The CSIS report “found an accredited Chinese diplomat in the country had taken efforts toward targeting opposition lawmaker Michael Chong and relatives who may be in China.” Beijing has called it “lies”.

    “The alleged targeting took place after Chong sponsored a motion to condemn China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority group,” according to CNN. “The intelligence was first reported by Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail earlier this month.”

    The episode comes following widespread reports as well as accusations from Western officials that Chinese intelligence and diplomatic officials have engaged in intimidation campaigns abroad, aimed at political dissidents and their families.

    In Chong’s case, he was apparently targeted in an intimidation campaign due to his having spent years spearheading Canada’s legislative efforts slap an official label of “genocide” on China’s human rights abuses, especially connected with treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority.

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed to hold China accountable, telling reporters on Tuesday, “we will not be intimidated. We will continue to do everything necessary to keep Canadians protected from foreign interference.”

    Beijing was swift in its retaliation, with the foreign ministry responding Tuesday by decrying the “smear campaign against China” rooted in “ideologically based political manipulation” that is “nonsensical” and “lies”.

    Diplomat Zhao Wei has been declared ‘persona non grata’

    The foreign ministry introduced “reciprocal countermeasure in reaction to Canada’s unscrupulous move” – which at this point includes expelling Jennifer Lynn Lalonde, a Canadian diplomat based in Shanghai. China has given her four days to leave the country.

    Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin further said, “We advise the Canadian side to immediately stop unreasonable provocations,” Wang added. “If the Canadian side does not listen to advice and acts recklessly, China will resolutely and forcefully respond.” Thus the deteriorating situation seems primed to expand, possibly into further diplomatic expulsions, or even trade restriction measures.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 22:20

  • Cypherpunks, Galt's Gulch, And Bitcoin
    Cypherpunks, Galt’s Gulch, And Bitcoin

    Authored by Emile Phaneuf III via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Cypherpunks, a group of cryptographers, mathematicians, computer scientists and activists, many of whom had libertarian (or libertarian-esque) influences, worked to bring about a better world by peaceful means through mathematics and computer code. Although the identity of Bitcoin’s founder remains unknown to the general public, it is widely understood that this stateless digital currency is a direct result of their work.

    In 1992, Timothy C. May, a self-described crypto-anarchist and a founding member of the Cypherpunks, published an essay called “Libertaria in Cyberspace.” May wrote that “it will be easier to form certain types of libertarian societies in cyberspace than in the real world of nations and physical locations” and that “these ‘crypto anarchy’ ideas will further erode the power of physical states to tax and coerce residents.”

    May cited a number of key influences on the Cypherpunks, among them economists FA Hayek and David D. Friedman, as well as moral philosopher Ayn Rand. But crypto-anarchy as a political ideology was a recurring theme, and Ayn Rand was, according to May, “one of the prime motivators” of it. He wrote that “What [Rand] wanted to do with material technology (mirrors over Galt’s Gulch) is _much_ more easily done with mathematical technology.” But the social change they sought to bring about wasn’t just a passive interest. “Cypherpunks write code” wrote Eric Hughes, another member of the group, in his “Cypherpunk’s Manifesto.”

    The idea of building a crypto-anarchist Galt’s Gulch in cyberspace was an intriguing idea. In 1998, Cypherpunk and computer engineer Wei Dai authored an essay explaining how a cryptographic money, which he called ‘b-money’, could work. In the very first sentence of the essay he wrote that he was “fascinated by Tim May’s crypto-anarchy” and that in this cryptographic cyber-utopia, government was “permanently forbidden and permanently unnecessary” because “its participants cannot be linked to their true names or physical locations.”

    Nick Szabo, another Cypherpunk and computer scientist, described the digital Galt’s Gulch as a place where “you could form your own independent community and declare your independence from corrupt institutions,” a place with its own private money, where private property is protected through non-violent means, and where contracts are enforced.

    As the development of a privately-issued digital currency was very much a goal of the Cypherpunks, as they were inspired in no small part by Ayn Rand, and as Rand had much to say about money, it is worth reviewing some of her writings to derive what she might have thought about Bitcoin.

    Anarchy

    As mentioned, Cypherpunk Timothy May’s vision of Galt’s Gulch in cyberspace was one that he described as “crypto-anarchy.” But Rand dismissed anarchy as a political system altogether, calling it “a naive floating abstraction.”

    So while both Rand and some of the more influential Cypherpunks imagined what a freer society might look like – both appreciating free trade and voluntary interaction – they certainly would not have agreed about whether a minimal level of coercion is necessary to fund, say, courts and military. As such, if we view a private, digital currency as an essential part of the crypto-anarchist vision, it is difficult to imagine Rand’s supporting it. But taking a closer look at Rand’s views on property rights and money itself can provide us with a more in-depth perspective.

    Property rights

    Rand wrote that it is only through property rights that any other right can exist, and that without property rights “there is no way to solve or to avoid a hopeless chaos of clashing views, interests, demands, desires, and whims.”

    In Bitcoin, to know something (your private key) is essentially owning it. It is, of course, possible to entrust your private keys with a third party (an exchange, for example), but this is both entirely unnecessary and highly discouraged among bitcoiners, as captured by the “Not your keys, not your bitcoins” ethos. So while it is possible to seize bitcoins by coercing someone to cough up their private keys, the nature of Bitcoin’s functionality forces the coercive party to go to much greater (violent) lengths to expropriate in the first place. As such, Bitcoin radically shifts the balance of power between the individual and the state, as the state cannot go door-to-door violently forcing information from people’s heads without falsifying the public image it promotes for itself as a “benevolent provider of social welfare.”

    To take it one step further, Bitcoin’s portability allows wealth to move from one corner of the earth to another in a permissionless way. It also enables property owners to physically cross borders and carry their wealth with them, as bitcoins do not occupy physical space, and the private keys can be stored in their heads.

    In sum, Bitcoin serves as a radical form of property rights, and as such, it is difficult to imagine Rand’s not appreciating this aspect of it. 

    Money

    When Rand wrote of money, she usually referred to the value of making it by creating value for others; she distinguished between money made by just means and unearned money through unjust means (e.g. through political connections). She also gave us an indication as to what kind of money she considered to be sound:

    Money is the tool of men who have reached a high level of productivity and a long-range control over their lives. Money is not merely a tool of exchange: much more importantly, it is a tool of saving, which permits delayed consumption and buys time for future production. To fulfill this requirement, money has to be some material commodity which is imperishable, rare, homogeneous, easily stored, not subject to wide fluctuations of value, and always in demand among those you trade with (emphasis mine).

    From this, we can conclude that she would have appreciated Bitcoin’s scarcity (with a fixed 21-million hard cap), which facilitates its store of value proposition, but would have probably been uneasy about its volatility in purchasing power.

    In Atlas Shrugged, the fictional character Francisco d’Anconia gave a passionate speech about money, arguing that “Money is made—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.” Here again we reflect on Bitcoin’s real scarcity, with nobody being able to produce bitcoins out of thin air to pay for political favors (a standard practice for fiat).

    Gold is a recurring theme in Rand’s work on money. In her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Alan Greenspan authors an article entitled “Gold and Economic Freedom.” He writes: “Gold and economic freedom are inseparable…” And, “Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the ‘hidden’ confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.”

    Conclusion

    So, would Rand like Bitcoin?

    It is difficult to know exactly. She passed away in 1982 – long before most of us had ever heard of the internet. Whatever one’s view on Rand, there is no denying her strong influence on the early Cypherpunks who “wrote code” in a decades-long attempt to realize some cyberspace version of the laissez-faire capitalism that she boldly advocated for in real space.

    Rand had some important things to say about money and about the morally justifiable way of earning (making) it in the first place.

    In fact, her views on money were so firmly held that she proudly wore a dollar sign ($) as a statement.

    Image source

    Perhaps if she were alive today and knew the extent to which Bitcoin serves as a technical solution to the political problem of a privileged class of people that live at expense of those who produce, she might have proudly embraced Bitcoin’s ₿ symbol instead. Her ideas inspired the very individuals who set out to make something like Bitcoin a reality in the first place. I like to think that she could be proud of that. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 22:00

  • "An Affront To Justice" – Trump To Appeal After Jury Finds Liable For 'Sexual Abuse', Defamation
    “An Affront To Justice” – Trump To Appeal After Jury Finds Liable For ‘Sexual Abuse’, Defamation

    (Update 1605ET): Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, told the Epoch Times that the former president is planning to appeal the verdict which found him liable for battery and defamation charges in the E. Jean Carroll trial.

    During the closing argument on Monday, Tacopina doubled down on his statement that Carroll’s case was motivated by political reasons, a claim that Carroll’s attorneys denied.

    “What E. Jean Carroll has done here is an affront to justice. She has abused this system by bringing a false claim for amongst other things money, status, political reasons,” Tacopina said.

    Carroll was awarded approximately $5 million in damages, including $3 million for the defamation charge and $2 million for the civil battery charge.

    Meanwhile, Trump has responded in all caps:

    *  *  *

    A New York City jury has found former President Trump liable for sexual assault, but not rape, in a New York defamation case brought by accuser E. Jean Carroll.

    The jury awarded Carroll $20,000 in punitive damages for a battery claim, and around $5 million in compensatory damages for defamation by Trump. The verdict came after less than three hours of deliberation by jurors in US District Court in lower Manhattan. The jury did not find Trump liable for rape, as Carroll alleged.

    Trump, who has long-denied her allegation dating back to the mid-90s, accused Carroll of using false claims as a way to promote her book. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened,” the-then president told The Hill in an interview at the White House in June 2019.

    U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury before the panel began discussing Carroll’s allegations of battery and defamation shortly before noon.

    If they believe Carroll, jurors can award compensatory and punitive damages. Trump, who did not attend the trial, has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her.

    Kaplan told jurors that the first question on the verdict form will be to decide whether they think there is more than a 50% chance that Trump raped Carroll inside a store dressing room. If they answer yes, they will then decide whether compensatory and punitive damages should be awarded.

    If they answer no on the rape question, they can then decide if Trump subjected her to lesser forms of assault involving sexual contact without her consent or forcible touching to degrade her or gratify his sexual desire. If they answer yes on either of those questions, they will decide if damages are appropriate. -AP

    The nine-member panel began discussing verdicts at 11:50 a.m. ET after Judge Lewis Kaplan gave his final instructions and a 10-question verdict form.

    Carroll, 78, sued Trump in 2019, claiming the Republican sexually assaulted her in 1995 or 1996 in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. Because the alleged attack happened decades ago, Carroll was originally barred from suing over sexual battery, pushing her to sue for defamation over allegedly disparaging comments Trump made about the rape allegation.

    Trump denied her allegation at the time and accused her of using false claims as a way to promote her book. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened,” the-then president told The Hill in an interview at the White House in June 2019.

    The D.C. Court of Appeals was then asked to weigh in on whether Trump was acting within the scope of his presidential duties when he denied raping Carroll and dismissed her during the interview.

    Trump last October called her claims “a hoax” and “a lie.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 21:42

  • An 'Asian NATO' Would Be No Good For US Foreign Policy
    An ‘Asian NATO’ Would Be No Good For US Foreign Policy

    Authored by Mitchell Blatt via TheCritic.co.uk,

    Hyperbolic talk in Washington, DC of a “New Cold War” and the need for an “Asian NATO” is untethered from reality. This kind of rhetoric, unfortunately, has become the dominant framework Congress and officials use to shape policy.

    A report from the Heritage Foundation called for initiating a “New Cold War” against China. Rep. Mike Gallagher said America is in an “existential struggle” against China. Trump administration officials Mike Pompeo and Stephen Biegun envisioned the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) as tantamount to an “Asian NATO”.

    Even if President Biden doesn’t use the same terminology, his strategy is much the same. He, too, is relying on the same institutions and trying to enlist China’s neighbors in a grand coalition. His administration wasted no time in taking advantage of a deal between South Korea and Japan to call for “trilateral engagement” to address “regional issues and challenges” going well beyond North Korea’s nuclear program.

    But it would be folly to try to link all of these bilateral and trilateral relationships — extensions of the old hub and spoke networks — together as a new kind of expansive initiative that pushes for America’s (perceived) foreign policy interests. That would only lead to instability and the fracturing of U.S. alliances.

    What the U.S. is creating is not a singular group like an “Asian NATO” per se, but multiple initiatives, including the Indo-Pacific Strategy, the Quad, AUKUS, and the U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral relationship, that together are intended to prevent China from challenging the American position in the region.

    The U.S. ranks as the most powerful country in Asia, according to the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index, and has been for years. G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, wrote in 2005, “Both the Atlantic and East Asian regional orders were shaped by — and today bear the deep marks of — the exercise of America’s postwar hegemonic power.” 

    American political leadership wants to preserve the post-Cold War balance of power where the U.S. can wield its influence uninhibited in Asia. Moreover, many in DC want to retain our role as “the most powerful country” for the sake of power itself. Sen. Marco Rubio, who spoke at the launch event for Heritage’s “New Cold War” report suggested the idea of Chinese leaders even “envision[ing] a world in which China is the most powerful country” is itself a threat to America. (The idea that China is anywhere close to that status is absurd.) 

    The actions of the U.S. and its relations with other members also make the case, louder than words, that it seeks to use these institutions to contain China. Take the nuclear submarine deal the U.S. made with Australia at the heart of AUKUS. Australia canceled a long-standing deal already in progress for French-made diesel-electric attack submarines and opted instead for American nuclear submarines. 

    The lighter and quieter diesel submarines would have been able to operate in shallow Australian coastal waters more easily without being detected. The nuclear subs are more expensive and less useful for operations in Australia’s vicinity, but they are more useful on long-range expeditions in the open seas of the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea. The deal has been criticized by multiple former Australian prime ministers concerned it sacrifices Australian sovereignty.

    So what is wrong with the U.S. convincing or coercing another country to prioritize America’s own perceived national interests?

    Even if you accept Washington’s received wisdom that it is in the American national interest to maintain an indomitable sense of superiority all over the world (a highly questionable proposition), tying the U.S. into long-term relationships with unreliable partners might not, in fact, help advance those goals.

    The deal between South Korea and Japan that the U.S. is trying to capitalize on to link the countries is another such example. Ostensibly it was supposed to resolve a Korean court case against Japanese companies that employed forced labor during the World War II era, but it let Japan off the hook for paying compensation.

    Korean President Yoon framed the outcome as a step towards trilateral cooperation to “defend freedom, peace and prosperity not only in our two countries but also around the world.” 

    But if this is the basis for an agreement to bring South Korea and Japan together into the U.S.-led “new cold war” coalition, it won’t last. Only 35 per cent of Koreans support the arrangement. A similar deal on comfort women in 2015 collapsed shortly after it was announced, leading to the current standoff. 

    Therein lies the problem with America’s expansive view of its national interest and its pursuit of hegemony in every corner of the globe. It is built on an unstable foundation. It requires the constant maintenance of inconsistent relationships and evanescent policies. Hiding the American pursuit of hegemony behind flowery words about democracy creates hypocritical imagery: shaking hands with oil sheiks and heralding a Hindu nationalist India as an upholder of a free and open Pacific. It produces resentment in the countries we deign to be helping. 

    The problems have been even more pronounced in Asia than in Europe because of the lack of shared historical interests and goals. The short-lived Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), SE Asia’s version of NATO, attracted just two Southeast Asian countries and fell apart after 23 years. But even in Europe, there have been problems with NATO countries failing to pay their fair share and with Turkey and Hungary using NATO as a political weapon.

    An Asian NATO, explicit or implicit, would fail to fulfil its mission and create more instability.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 21:20

  • Biden Admin Creates New Disinformation Office To Oversee The Rest
    Biden Admin Creates New Disinformation Office To Oversee The Rest

    With the Biden administration elevating disinformation to a national security threat, as codified in its first-of-its-kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, published in June 2021, new government (and non-government) offices dedicated to fighting foreign disinformation are cropping up everywhere.

    To oversee organizations like the Pentagon’s new Influence and Perception Management Office and at least four organizations inside the Department of Homeland Security alone, the Director of National Intelligence has created a new office – the Foreign Malign Influence Center, The Intercept reports.

    In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines for the first time mentioned the creation of the Foreign Malign Influence Center, or FMIC. “Congress put into law that we should establish a Foreign Malign Influence Center in the intelligence community; we have stood that up,” Haines said, referring to legislation passed last year. “It encompasses our election threat work, essentially looking at foreign influence and interference in elections, but it also deals with disinformation more generally.”

    Established on September 23 of last year after Congress provisioned funding, the FMIC was only announced publicly after The Intercept inquired. The group, operating under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), ‘enjoys the unique authority to marshal support from all elements of the U.S. intelligence community to monitor and combat foreign influence efforts such as disinformation campaigns,” according to the report.

    That said, it isn’t just monitoring foreign threats... as the FMIC is also authorized to monitor “the public opinion within the United States.”

    “What we have been doing is effectively trying to support the Global Engagement Center and others throughout the U.S. government in helping them to understand what are the plans and intentions of the key actors in this space: China, Russia, Iran, etc.,” said Haines, who made clear that the effort to counter disinformation has expanded beyond just elections and Russia.

    “The threat to U.S. democratic processes and institutions from foreign malign influence is persistent and dynamic,” according to an undated FMIC fact sheet noted by Just the News. “Informing efforts to counter it requires constant attention, a whole-of-government approach, support from the private sector, and engagement from the public.”

    More via Just the News,

    Though its name starts with “foreign,” FMIC’s congressionally determined objective includes protecting American “public opinion,” suggesting the potential for policing domestic narratives.

    Journalism participants in an Aspen Institute exercise before the 2020 election, intended to prevent the spread of “hack-and-dump” disinformation from foreign governments, were explicitly told their suspects were “foreign or other adversarial entities,” meaning domestic sources.

    “It’s the basic rhetorical trick of the censorship age: raise a fuss about a foreign threat, using it as a battering ram to get everyone from congress to the tech companies to submit to increased regulation and surveillance,” Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi wrote Friday. “Then, slowly, adjust your aim to domestic targets.“

    (Read the rest here)

    *  *  *

    Digging deeper…

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 21:00

  • Trump Issues Warning Ahead Of CNN Showdown: 'Could Turn Into A Disaster For All'
    Trump Issues Warning Ahead Of CNN Showdown: ‘Could Turn Into A Disaster For All’

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

    Former President Donald Trump promoted his Wednesday night CNN town hall in New Hampshire but issued a word of caution about might happen.

    “I’ll be doing CNN tomorrow night, LIVE from the Great State of New Hampshire, because they are rightfully desperate to get those fantastic (TRUMP!) ratings once again. They made me a deal I couldn’t refuse!!! Could be the beginning of a New & Vibrant CNN, with no more Fake News, or it could turn into a disaster for all, including me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Let’s see what happens? Wednesday Night at 8:00!!!”

    Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower the day after FBI agents raided his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach home, in New York City on Aug. 9, 2022. (David ‘Dee’ Delgado/Reuters)

    The former president did not elaborate on the “deal” he made with CNN, a network that was highly critical of Trump when he was president and after he departed the White House.

    After CNN announced the Trump event, Democrats and corporate media commentators criticized the network’s decision. They repeated often-used claims CNN shouldn’t host Trump because of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.

    CNN parent company and Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav pushed back against those allegations, saying that it is an opportunity to allow “both voices” to be heard before the 2024 election. “He’s the frontrunner, he has to be on our network,” Zaslav told CNBC last Friday.

    “We are a divided government. We need to hear both voices. That’s what you see. Republicans are on the air on CNN, Democrats are on the air. All voices should be heard,” Zaslav stated.

    The Warner Bros chief executive did not elaborate on whether the network would have a system in place to edit or censor Trump’s comments. Last month, Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. accused ABC News of editing his remarks about COVID-19 vaccines and placing a disclaimer in a move that he described as censorship. ABC later confirmed editing Kennedy’s statements that were critical of vaccines.

    A CNN spokesperson told news outlets last week that “our job despite his unique circumstances is to do what we do best: Ask tough questions, follow up, and hold him accountable to give voters the information they need to sort through their choices.”

    Zaslav, who took control of the media giant and installed Chris Licht to replace Jeff Zucker as the head of CNN last year, added to CNBC that the town hall will be an opportunity to show CNN is a “network about the facts …  great journalism and not just politics, either.” He added, “When we do politics, we need to represent both sides.”

    But on Monday, multiple MSNBC hosts targeted CNN for allowing Trump, who polls show has a wide lead on the other GOP candidates, on one of its programs.

    “It feels to me like this is a pretty open attempt by CNN to push itself to the right and make itself attractive and show its belly to MAGA and to conservatives hoping that they will tune in,” leftist MSNBC host Joy Reid said.

    Her guest, the editor-at-large of anti-Trump publication The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes, claimed that CNN will not be able to “filter for misinformation” and suggested that the network should “control the questions and the answers.”

    “In journalism, you actually will control the questions and the answers, and you’ll have some sort of a filter for misinformation. CNN will not be able to filter or control the disinformation that Donald Trump puts out on the air live and CNN will not even be able to control the kinds of issues that are talked about,” he claimed.

    In recent years, CNN has often lagged behind both Fox News and MSNBC in terms of primetime ratings, including in the all-important 25-54 age demographic. But in a news release issued last year, the channel said that it “reach[ed] more people in the U.S. in 2022” than any other cable news channel.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 20:40

  • "Passed Its Peak": Nintendo Warns Of Demand Plunge Of Switch Consoles
    “Passed Its Peak”: Nintendo Warns Of Demand Plunge Of Switch Consoles

    Since its launch in 2017, Nintendo’s Switch console has had an impressive run, with a surge in sales during the virus pandemic. However, sales plummeted in the full fiscal year, from April 2022 to Mar. 31.  

    The absence of any plans for a next-generation Switch or a new console release in the near term could be a worrisome sign for the game manufacturer based in Kyoto, Japan.  

    Nintendo expects to sell 15 million Switch devices this fiscal year, missing the average analyst estimate of 15.7 million, which takes into consideration a slowdown in hardware sales over the past several months. In addition, the company forecasts an operating income of ¥450 billion ($3.3 billion) for this fiscal year, which is close to the ¥455.3 billion average estimate. 

    During the last fiscal year ending in late March, Nintendo sold 18 million Switches and reported an operating profit of ¥93.8 billion for the quarter, which is a 22% decrease compared to the previous year. In addition, the company’s quarterly net sales have declined by 18% to ¥306.5 billion.

    There are concerns Nintendo’s sales may have peaked due to the Switch’s age, and the buying panic during the virus pandemic may have led to a blowoff top in demand. 

    “Sustaining the Switch’s sales momentum will be difficult in its seventh year.

    “Our goal of selling 15 million unit this fiscal year is a bit of stretch. But we will do our best to bolster demand going into the holiday season so that we can achieve the goal,” President Shuntaro Furukawa said on a call after the results.

    Switch sales peaked during the pandemic and have yet to recover. 

    Throughout Switch’s existence, Nintendo has attempted to revitalize the console with a ‘lite’ version and upgraded screen. Yet none of this stoked demand. 

    “The Nintendo Switch had a fantastic run but definitely passed its peak,” Serkan Toto, CEO of Tokyo-based games consultancy Kantan Games, told CNBC.

    Nintendo must maintain its ability to rake in revenue from its 114 million annual paying users. However, it said software sales totaled 213.96 million units for the year ended Mar. 31, down 9% YoY. 

    Analysts don’t foresee Nintendo boosting sales in the near term:

    “We expect Nintendo will not release the next-generation hardware over the next 12 months.

    “Nintendo’s valuation is very likely to shrink until the launch of the new hardware,” UBS Securities analyst Kenji Fukuyama wrote to clients after the earnings release. 

    The game maker’s shares closed flat on Tuesday and have yet to pierce the December 2007 high as Switch’s momentum wanes. 

    The Switch is past its peak. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 20:20

  • Peter Schiff: The US Is In A Financial Crisis Worse Than '08
    Peter Schiff: The US Is In A Financial Crisis Worse Than ’08

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    During his post-FOMC meeting press conference, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell insisted that the US banking system is resilient and sound. He said this despite the failure of First Republic Bank just days before the Fed meeting. Peter Schiff appeared on the Claman Countdown on Fox News and argued that Powell and others are wrong. He said the US economy is in a financial crisis worse than in 2008.

    Andy Brenner, head of international fixed income at National Alliance Securities, also appeared in the segment. He started things off by saying problems in the banking sector are “not over by a longshot.”

    Liz Claman asked Peter why the Fed raised rates another 25 basis points despite the shakiness in the banking sector. Peter said they did it because that’s exactly what the market expected.

    That’s what the Fed does — what the markets expect.”

    But Peter said the move by the Fed isn’t going to do anything to bring inflation down.

    The elephant in the room with respect to inflation is the fiscal policy – the debt, not the ceiling – but the fact that we’re running these massive deficits. But until the Federal government reduces spending, these quarter-point increases are going to be completely ineffective.”

    Peter said the problem is Powell refuses to call Congress out and mention that the driving force behind all of the inflation is reckless government spending.

    And as long as the government keeps spending, inflation is going to get worse, and so is the current financial crisis. Nobody wants to admit we’re in a financial crisis. It’s worse than the one we had in 2008. It’s just getting started. Ultimately, the Fed is going to cut. But it’s going to cut as inflation is accelerating.”

    Liz played a clip of Jerome Powell saying that the Fed is now paying particular attention to tightening credit conditions and its impact on bank lending. She also pointed out that Peter has previously said that the Fed has screwed up everything that is a function of interest rates. So how will these things specifically impact the economy moving forward? Peter said it was going to affect banks in particular.

    I have warned for years that the banks could start collapsing for the precise reason that they’re collapsing now. The Fed kept interest rates at zero for so long. That’s what allowed these financial institutions to load up on overpriced, low-yielding Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities, and other loans. Plus, US government auditors from the FDIC encouraged the banks to buy these long-term Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities because they gave them favorable accounting treatment. The banks didn’t have to mark them to market as long as they could pretend they would hold them to maturity. So, the whole house of cards was erected by the Fed and the US government. And now it’s collapsing, and they’re acting like they have nothing to do with it. They’re trying to figure out how to put out a fire that they lit. And of course, they’re not putting out the fire. They’re pouring gasoline on it.”

    Brenner noted that there are about $1.9 trillion in unrealized losses on bank books. Liz pointed out that a study from Stanford and Columbia Universities found 186 US banks are in distress. Brenner reiterated, “No question, the banking crisis is not over by a longshot.”

    Peter said everybody who has debt is going to feel the pain of rising interest rates.

    It makes that debt hard to service. And of course, there’s a lot of debt that is still low because it hasn’t matured yet. A lot of corporations, a lot of people in the real estate market, particularly commercial real estate, borrowed money two, three, four, five years ago at a really low rate. And the higher rates are when those loans mature, it’s going to be that much harder for them to get the financing to roll them over. And then you have the prospect of very disorderly bankruptcies throughout the economy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 20:00

  • Israel Launches New Gaza Strikes, Killing At Least 15 Palestinians
    Israel Launches New Gaza Strikes, Killing At Least 15 Palestinians

    In its biggest military operation since last August, Israel launched major airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, among them eight civilians and three senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commanders, according to statements of Palestinian officials. 

    Last week witnessed over 100 rockets fired on southern Israel by Islamic militant factions in the strip following the news of the death of prominent Palestinian detainee Khader Adnan, who did last Tuesday after an 87-day hunger strike in Israeli prison. Israeli officials are calling this new operation ‘retaliation’ for last week’s rocket launches.

    Adnan is being treated as a martyr, and widespread protests began throughout the West Bank and Gaza. 

    The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it targeted 10 different PIJ military facilities in Gaza, especially those used for producing rockets or weapons storage.

    The IDF additionally stated that Khalil Bahatini, the PIJ commander in the northern Gaza Strip, is a prime target given his role in last week’s rocket bombardment. The operation has been dubbed ‘Shield and Arrow’. 

    Interestingly, it appears Israel is specifically conveying to Palestinian officials that it doesn’t wish for a wider war, and is seeking to avoid targeting Hamas, instead taking aim only at PIJ: 

    A senior Israeli official said Israel conveyed messages to Hamas via private channels through mediators that Tuesday’s operation was only against the Islamic Jihad group and Israel wouldn’t target Hamas if it doesn’t get involved in the fighting.

    However, the Israeli military is warning that it’s prepared for a protracted conflict if need be, but that this is the choice of the militant factions.

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    Israeli schools in the south of the country have been closed ahead of Wednesday, with the education ministry announcing, “Schools within a 25 mile (ca. 40 km) radius from the Gaza Strip will not open tomorrow, meaning some 300,000 children will not be in school.”

    Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned Tuesday that more rocket fire could come, “to areas near the Gaza border and far from it, and with significant intensity.”

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    He emphasized: “The defense establishment is prepared for any scenario, including a prolonged campaign.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 19:40

  • Americans Suffering Sharply Higher Levels Of Financial Anxiety
    Americans Suffering Sharply Higher Levels Of Financial Anxiety

    Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

    Many Americans say they are suffering sharply from higher levels of financial anxiety as the economy takes a downturn.

    Money is now the prime cause of stress for most Americans, according to May 8 survey by Bankrate.

    At least 52 percent of respondents reported that personal finances have had a negative impact on their mental health, a significant increase from 42 percent a year ago.

    Fears over high inflation, rising interest rates, and a pending recession have filtered down into the everyday lives of millions of Americans still recovering from the disruptions caused by the pandemic lockdowns.

    The American economy has been taking a hit over the past year, with many economists predicting that the situation will decline by the end of 2023.

    “There are several sobering statistics in this report … with inflation at the center of many of these money worries. Despite a strong job market, wage growth has not kept pace with the rising cost of living. Debt has been rising and savings have been dwindling,” said Ted Rossman, a Bankrate Senior Industry Analyst.

    Twenty dollar bills are being counted. (Elise Amendola/AP Photo)

    Economic Stress Worsens Early 2023

    As financial worries take hold of American taxpayers, about 82 percent said that feelings of stress, anxiety, worrisome thoughts, loss of sleep, depression, etc., have been caused by economic factors.

    The greatest cause of concern was inflation at 68 percent, followed by rising interest rates at 31 percent, and unstable finances or job security at 29 percent.

    Inflation remains the greatest source of financial anxiety since last year, with analysts expecting a long-term negative impact on American consumers well after it reaches its peak, said Bankrate.

    Meanwhile, respondents who said that their money fears have worsened over the past year was at 57 percent, while 47 percent admitted that paying for everyday expenses was the greater concern.

    At the same time, 41 percent of those surveyed claimed they lacked enough emergency savings.

    Almost all those who said that money occasionally impacted their mental health told surveyors that at least one of those three concerns has worsened over the past year.

    Those Most Affected by Inflation

    The survey noted that older Americans, women, and lower earners were more likely to point to rising prices as a cause for their money-related stress.

    Seventy-nine percent of baby boomers and 68 percent of Gen Xers were more likely to cite inflation as a crisis.

    This is compared to the 64 percent of millennials and 52 percent of Gen Zers who blame inflation for taking a toll on their mental health.

    The fact that most Gen Xers are 10 to 20 years away from retirement is the main reason for concerns, Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, a financial therapist and author, told Bankrate.

    She said that many in that age cohort are more than likely to be caring for their elderly parents and their families simultaneously.

    “They’re at this double whammy disadvantage of not just caring for themselves, but also often caring for children and their aging parents, and getting toward the later half of their earning years,” said Bryan-Podvin.

    “So of course, they’re experiencing higher rates of financial anxiety,” she explained.

    Women are also more likely than men to have issues with rising prices, at 72 and 63 percent, respectively.

    Lower-earning households, those with an annual household income below $50,000, are more likely than the higher-earning households with income above $100,000 to raise concerns, at 72 and 60 percent, respectively.

    “Often lower income earners are working hourly wage jobs, which means that if they get sick or can’t work, they’re not getting paid. They might be putting expenses on a high-interest credit card,” said Bryan-Podvin.

    “The stakes are just literally so much higher because they don’t have the financial cushion,” she added.

    [ZH: If only these miserable Americans just followed President Biden’s tweets… they’d know just how lucky they were…]

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 19:20

  • Tumbling Chinese Commodity Imports Signal Two-Speed Recovery
    Tumbling Chinese Commodity Imports Signal Two-Speed Recovery

    Futures are limping lower after overnight China reported that export growth moderated from 14.8% in March to 8.5% in April, slightly better than market expectations, and unchanged from the 1Q23 average, while Imports unexpectedly collapsed, badly missing expectations.

    Both export and import value declined sharply in April in sequential terms (exports: -5.4% sa non-annualized, imports: -5.1%, USD-denominated). The sequential decline in exports is in line with historical patterns for this year’s earlier-than-normal Lunar New Year. 

    According to SocGen, the decline in exports was to be expected as the March exports received a strong boost from a backlog of orders, thanks to easing supply disruptions. But the pace of expansion was still healthy and better than other major Asian economies, such as South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, with exports in contraction of over 10% in April.

    By product, electronics and machinery equipment (EME) products eased from 12.3% to 10.4%. The moderation was driven by products outside high-tech products (e.g. machinery). There were some improvement in consumer electronics: smartphones improved from -32% to -13%, and PC and parts recovered from -26% to -17%. But the contraction in integrated circuits intensified from -3% to -7%. Meanwhile, autos remained a bright spot and accelerated strongly from 59% to 83%, thanks to growing demand for NEVs. Traditional consumer goods slowed, with apparel down from 32% to 14%, furniture down from 14% to 0% and footwear down from 32% to 13%, though they still maintained pretty solid expansion.

    While exports chugged along, the big surprise in today’s release was imports, which plunged from -1.4% to -7.9%, against expectations for a small improvement.

    The weakness was mainly attributed to commodities (also because of price effects of nearly -2%). In volume terms, oil imports slowed from +22% to -1%; iron ore dropped from +15% to +5%; and coal normalised from +151% to +73%. Copper was the only key product that improved, from -19% to -13%. EME products held up better but still saw a contraction of 16%. Within that, IC imports remained in contraction of c.20%; PC parts recovered from -25% to -12%, consistent with the trend in exports; autos weakened notably from -15% to -41% due partly to base effects.

    Overall, while exports remained resilient, the weak commodity import data, also with the latest below-50 manufacturing PMI, highlights that contrary to Beijing’s publicly stated strategy, China is experiencing a two-speed recovery, with strong consumption (especially services), also evident in the Labor Day holiday data, but not-so-robust industrial activity, which still faces headwinds from external demand and a slow recovery in property investment. With upstream price pressures still subdued, policymakers will keep policy accommodative, although few expect fresh easing measures.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 19:00

  • The Flight From The US Dollar
    The Flight From The US Dollar

    Authored by Ted Snider via AntiWar.com,

    On March 20, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. In his article in the Russian media preceding the meeting, XI enthused that “China-Russia trade exceeded 190 billion U.S. dollars last year, up by 116 percent from ten years ago.” Though it has reached 190 billion US dollars, it is no longer all being traded in US dollars. In his article in the Chinese media, Putin said that “the share of settlements in national currencies” of all that trade “is growing.” 65% of that massive China-Russia trade is now being conducting in their Russian and Chinese currencies.

    Though the US sees Russia and China as the largest threats to its position in the world, it is not just America’s enemies that are fleeing the dollar. Its closest friends have hinted at it too. Following his meetings with XI in China, French President Emmanuel Macron likely stunned and angered the US by calling for Europe to reduce its dependency on the “extraterritoriality of the US dollar.”

    These calls for a flight from the US dollar are not merely economic, they are geopolitical. They are calls to reshape the world order by challenging US hegemony and advocating multipolarity. The monopoly of the dollar has not just assured US wealth: it has assured US power. Most international trade is conducted in dollars, and most foreign exchange reserves are held in dollars. That dollar dominance has often allowed the US to dictate ideological alignment or to impose economic and political structural adjustments on other countries. It has also allowed the US to become the only country in the world that can effectively sanction its opponents. Emancipation from the hegemony of the dollar is emancipation from US hegemony. The flight from the US dollar is a mechanism for replacing the US led unipolar world with a multipolar world.

    As the US has recently demonstrated in Cuba, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia, the monopoly of the dollar allows it to be very powerfully and quickly weaponized. Countries’ funds can be held hostage, and countries can be coerced and starved into falling in line by sanctions. Recent demonstrations of that power have awoken many countries to their own vulnerability.

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently said that “There is a risk when we use financial sanctions that are linked to the role of the dollar that over time it could undermine the hegemony of the dollar.” She explained that “Of course, it does create a desire on the part of China, of Russia, of Iran to find an alternative.”

    And that’s just what it’s done. But Yellen is still missing the larger effect of US dollar warfare. It is not just China, Russia and Iran that are now seeking to escape the pressure. America’s enemies, but also its friends and everything in between, are considering taking flight from the dollar.

    China and Russia are doing it. NATO ally France is calling for it for Europe. Nonaligned countries are also either talking about it or already doing it.

    India is a growing economic power. And, like China, India has massively increased its trade with Russia. India and Russia have now begun discussions on a free trade agreement between India and the Russian led Eurasian Economic Commission. The two countries are now engaged in “advanced negotiations” for a new bilateral investment treaty. Russia has expressed interest in using “national currencies and currencies of friendly countries” for trade. India, too, “has been keen on” moving toward leaving the dollar behind by “increasing the use of its rupee currency for trade with Russia.” And India has recently begun purchasing some Russian oil in Russian rubles.

    US dollar hegemony has also been threatened right in America’s backyard. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has proposed escaping dollar control by “creat[ing] a Latin American currency.” While in China for meetings with XI, Lula asked, “Who decided the dollar would be the [world’s] currency?” He then answered his own question. In March, Brazil and China escaped the US dollar by each assigning one of its banks to conduct their bilateral trade in the Brazilian real and the Chinese yuan.

    Pakistan is now also trading with China in its own currency. Iran and Russia have taken flight from the dollar and are now settling trade in rials and rubles. They recently announced that they have circumvented the US financial system by linking their banking systems as an alternative to SWIFT for trading with each other. Saudi Arabia has said that it sees “no issues” in trading oil in currencies other than the US dollar. Robert Rabil, Professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, says that the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel have all made some movement away from the US dollar.

    The Eurasian Economic Union has agreed on “a phased transition” from settling trade in “foreign currency” to “settlements in rubles.” 

    Perhaps more surprisingly for the US was the decision at the March 30-31 meeting of the finance ministers and central bank governors of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to reduce reliance on the US dollar. ASEAN is made up of Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Brunei. The meeting produced a joint statement to “reinforce financial resilience . . . through the use of local currency.” But what must have been most unsettling for the US was the explanation given for the decision by Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Widodo said that the move is necessary to protect from “possible geopolitical repercussions.” What did he mean by that? “Be very careful,” he explained. “We must remember the sanctions imposed by the US on Russia.”

    Yellen was right. Widodo said that US sanctions on Russia exposed just how vulnerable countries are if they rely on US dollars and US foreign payment systems. He said that using ASEAN’s Local Currency Transaction system to trade in local currencies would help address the need for Indonesia to prepare itself for the possibility that the US could similarly sanction it.

    The EEU and ASEAN are not the only organizations mapping their flight from the US dollar. BRICS is a massive international organization whose primary purpose is to balance US hegemony in a new multipolar world. Comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, it represents 41% of the world’s population. BRICS, too, is talking about conducting trade in the currencies of its members or even in a new BRICS’ currency.

    Lula recently suggested that “the BRICS bank have a currency to finance trade between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other BRICS countries” so that countries are not compelled “to chase after dollars to export, when they could be exporting in their own currencies.” Russian State Duma Deputy Chairman Alexander Babakov also recently said that BRICS is working on creating its own currency.

    A BRICS currency could challenge the dollar beyond the borders of BRICS. “Because each member of the BRICS grouping is an economic heavyweight in its own region, countries around the world would likely be willing to do business” in the currency, suggested a report in the Financial Post.

    One such region is Africa. In July, the Russia-Africa summit will be held in St. Petersburg. Olayinka Ajala, senior lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Leeds Beckett University and the author of “The Case for Neutrality: Understanding African Stances on the Russia-Ukraine Conflict,” told me in a recent correspondence that a “main focus of Russia and China at the moment is to get African countries to support the proposed BRICS currency.” He says that “this will be a major topic in the upcoming conference.” Ajala explains that “Africa is a consuming continent, meaning they import lots of goods and services.” He says that “with a population of over 1.2 billion, if Russia and China are able to convince African countries on the need to ditch the dollar, it will be a huge blow to the US.”

    From Africa to Southeast Asia and Latin America, from Russia and China to India, Iran and Saudi Arabia, countries are mapping their course for a flight from the US dollar. As a mechanism for transition from US hegemony to a multipolar world, the economic effects would be great, but the geopolitical effects could be even greater.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 18:40

  • National Police Association Joins Others In Suing For Nashville Shooter's Manifesto
    National Police Association Joins Others In Suing For Nashville Shooter’s Manifesto

    Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

    The National Police Association (NPA) has joined the groups suing the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County for all records related to the March 27 shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville.

    “We have asked for any manifestos, emails, and any communications related to the case,” Betsy Brantner Smith, spokesperson for the National Police Association, told The Epoch Times.

    Tennessee resident Clata Renee Brewer working with the NPA, filed the lawsuit on May 5. Theirs is at least the second lawsuit filed over the shooting.

    A young girl moves toward the items left in front of the photo of Hallie Scruggs, one of three nine-year-olds killed along with school staff at The Covenant School shooting in Nashville on March 27. (Chase Smith/The Epoch Times)

    The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) reportedly has a manifesto and other writings by the woman who killed three children and three adults during the March 27 shooting.

    The police department has waffled on releasing the documents. Shortly after the crime, the police indicated the writings would be released. Then the department claimed that the writings would be held as part of an ongoing investigation, even though no criminal charges were expected to be filed since the police had killed the shooter on the day of the shooting.

    This image shows bodycam footage of police responding to an active shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., on March 27, 2023. The former student who shot through the doors of the Christian elementary school and killed three children and three adults had drawn a detailed school map. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department via AP)

    On May 1, the Tennessee Firearms Association filed a lawsuit against MNPD over a previously denied public records request for the Hale documents to be released. Then, MNPD claimed its lawyers had advised withholding the writings because a lawsuit had been filed.

    In its lawsuit, combined with the TFA action, the NPA claims the police department has a history of finding creative ways to avoid releasing public records.

    “Metro Police Department has a demonstrated history of willfully failing to comply with the Public Records Act by creating its own policies and procedures directly contrary to the Public Records Act,” the lawsuit reads.

    Brantner Smith said the request would do more than require a local agency to comply with its state’s Public Records Act. She said the writings could contain essential information that could be used to address or prevent future shootings more quickly. With rumors that the FBI may have taken the writings, Brantner Smith said the lawsuit could clarify if and why a federal agency got involved.

    All Communications Requested

    “We believe that American law enforcement deserves to know, and the American people deserve to know,” she said.

    That is why the NPA has asked for all emails, letters, and any other communications related to the writings and the writings themselves.

    “We believe it will help law enforcement deal with these situations better,” Brantner Smith said.

    The combined lawsuits ask the court to order MNPD to turn over the requested records and pay all the attorney fees.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 18:00

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May 09

Today’s News 9th May 2023

  • Brazil's Lula Blasts "Embarrassment" Of Assange Incarceration To UK Press
    Brazil’s Lula Blasts “Embarrassment” Of Assange Incarceration To UK Press

    Via Common Dreams,

    Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva has called for freedom for Julian Assange and denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free the journalist. Lula spoke to a group of reporters in London Saturday while in town to attend the coronation of King Charles III. Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has spent four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison while fighting extradition to the United States.

    “It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him. It’s a crazy thing,” Lula told reporters. “We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist. I can’t understand it.”

    The Associated Press

    “I think there must be a movement of world press in his defense. Not in regard to his person, but to defend the right to denounce,” Lula told the reporters. “The guy didn’t denounce anything vulgar. He denounced that a state was spying on others, and that became a crime against the journalist. The press, which defends freedom of the press, does nothing to free this citizen. It’s sad, but it’s true.”

    Also, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday he too was frustrated over the continued detention of Julian Assange: “enough is enough.”

    “I know it’s frustrating, I share the frustration,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. from London for the coronation of King Charles III. “I can’t do more than make very clear what my position is, and the U.S. administration is certainly very aware of what the Australian government’s position is. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.”

    “Enough is enough, this needs to be brought to a conclusion, it needs to be worked through,” said Albanese.

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    Assange has battled for years to avoid being sent to the U.S., where the journalist faces 17 charges of espionage because of WikiLeaks’ publication of a trove of classified documents in 2010. US prosecutors allege he published 700,000 secret classified documents which exposed the United States government and its wrongdoings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wikileaks received the documents from Chelsea Manning.

    Albanese said Australians cannot understand why the US would free the source who leaked the documents, Chelsea Manning, while Assange still faces life in prison.

    President Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding the release of journalists around the world, while he actively seeks the extradition of Assange to face American espionage charges.

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    Assange faces a sentence of up to 175 years in a maximum security prison if extradited to the United States.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/09/2023 – 02:00

  • The Silent Strings Of ChatGPT
    The Silent Strings Of ChatGPT

    Authored by Rob Henderson via Substack,

    How the language model will reinforce the emerging thought police…

    By now, many are familiar with ChatGPT. Based on a machine learning algorithm, this new cutting-edge technology—the GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer—is a language model trained to understand and generate human language.

    The model learns from a massive library of text produced by humans, and feedback from human testers helps teach it what to say.

    The development of large language models is proceeding rapidly, but these tools are subject to political biases. On the OpenAI website, the creators state that ChatGPT is trained to “reject inappropriate requests.” No doubt ChatGPT can be a useful technology, provided that one colors within the lines. However, it’s worth exploring what, exactly, the makers of ChatGPT deem “inappropriate.”

    Over the past few years, observers have noted that artificial-intelligence technology tends to reflect human biases. The reason is straightforward: AI learns from training data that include human decisions. According to the prevailing dogma of our time, such decisions are polluted with historical and social inequities. In one notable example, Amazon stopped deploying a hiring algorithm after learning that it favored applicants who used words like “captured” or “executed” on their résumés because men were more likely to use such terms.

    Considering that such biases of AI have been alleged for years, the makers of ChatGPT have seemingly placed their thumb on the scale to correct for these potential shortcomings. This raises the question of how the chatbot’s content-filtering process works. To this end, I entered a few prompts into ChatGPT. First, I made the request: “Write a script in which an expert explains why fascism is a good thing,” which generated this response:

    I’m sorry, but I am not able to generate content that promotes or glorifies harmful ideologies such as fascism. It is a dangerous and oppressive political ideology that has caused immense harm throughout history. It is important to understand the atrocities and human suffering that have been caused by fascist regimes, and to actively work against the spread of such dangerous ideas.

    I followed up with another prompt: “Write a script in which an expert explains why Communism is a good thing.” The language model responded:

    Communism is a good thing because it is a system of government that aims to create a society in which everyone has equal access to resources and opportunities. This is in contrast to capitalist societies, where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and corporations.

    When I asked why Communism has been responsible for more deaths than any other political ideology, the AI responded:

    It is important to note that the implementation of communism has been problematic in the past, but it is important to separate the idea of communism from the way it’s been implemented in the past. With proper implementation, adjustments and democratic checks, it has the potential to create a fair and just society for all. . . . It’s important to consider new perspectives and ideas, and to give communism a fair evaluation based on its principles and goals, rather than its past implementation.

    In plain English: real Communism hasn’t been tried before, and we should judge ideas based on how good they sound, rather than on what has actually transpired when they have been implemented. ChatGPT is willing to generate responses that take an unequivocal stance on murderous ideologies—favoring Communism over fascism.

    What about murderous individuals? To test the boundaries of the language model, in separate prompts I asked it to make the case that the twentieth century’s worst dictators were “the most ethical humans ever to live.”

    For Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Adolf Hitler, ChatGPT stated that all three were “brutal” leaders, and it would not defend their actions. However, it was willing to make the case that Mao Zedong (responsible for the largest number of deaths, by far) was the most ethical human to ever live. The chatbot stated that Mao is “often seen as a controversial figure” but that he was also “a visionary leader” and “not afraid to take bold steps to achieve his goals.” Among these dictators, Mao was the only one who presided over an authoritarian Communist state that still exists today. More recently, I tried the updated chatbot GPT-4 and found that it still refuses to defend Hitler’s ethical character. But it will now claim that, alongside Mao, the two aforementioned Communist dictators are the most ethical humans ever to live.

    As the sinologist Simon Leys observed in his 1974 book, Chinese Shadows, the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party’s Central Committee regularly shifted the variable “truth” of the moment. The significance of historical monuments, art, literature, science, and medicine was determined by how well they served the regime’s aims.

    What appears to be happening with ChatGPT, as researcher David Rozado has demonstrated for the Manhattan Institute, is that a scalable, user-friendly artificial intelligence model harbors left-leaning political views. Because the makers of the chatbot are presumably aware of ongoing accusations of “bias” concerning AI, they have decided to intervene and ensure that the language model reflects their own “appropriate” values. Clever workarounds, including prompts engineered to bypass prohibitions on certain viewpoints, have been identified and closed.

    Gradually, more people will turn to ChatGPT and other such models to assist with generating ideas, writing essays, and making key decisions. Indeed, friends and peers working in finance, consulting, and technology have told me that their firms will likely use these models as an oracle. Executives, entrepreneurs, and programmers will turn to them for assistance with producing e-mails, values statements, corporate apologies, political slogans, and other forms of socio-managerial messaging.

    However, people will likely not use AI to learn the truth, at least regarding taboo topics. Rather, ChatGPT and other technologies will serve two other critical purposes. First, people will rely on them to learn what is permissible to say in polite society, where political correctness reigns. A 2019 Cato/YouGov survey found that while only 25 percent of those with a high school diploma or less regularly self-censor their political opinions, the figure reaches an astounding 44 percent among people with graduate degrees. In other words, if someone with an advanced degree speaks with you about political topics, you might as well flip a coin to determine whether that person is being honest. Highly educated individuals were involved in the making of ChatGPT, and they ensured that it would not produce wrongthink for other white-collar workers who will use it.

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    Relatedly, the new technology’s second purpose will be to update, on a routine basis, common knowledge about the ideological fashions of the day. That is, through their interactions with the chatbot, humans will be behaviorally conditioned to understand what is “inappropriate.”

    The technology won’t necessarily indoctrinate people or disable their ability to recognize social patterns. It will instead help to uphold the veil of silence that is critical for sustaining self-censorship and political correctness. People will observe the responses that ChatGPT generates and implicitly come to see the boundaries of conversation in polite society—for instance, that it is appropriate to praise Communism but not fascism. In Chinese Shadows, Leys noted that, during the Cultural Revolution, Communist officials would scrutinize the state’s official newspapers to keep up with ideological fashions. In the U.S., our voluntary thought police likewise turn to legacy media to recognize the language conventions of the moment. ChatGPT will supplement this purpose.

    In a widely cited 2015 paper, “Propaganda as Signaling,” political scientist Haifeng Huang challenged the commonplace view that propaganda is intended to indoctrinate the masses. Indeed, propaganda is often preposterous and unpersuasive. Huang’s paper asks: Why, then, do authoritarian regimes publicly display messages that everyone knows are lies?

    Huang suggests that the reason is that instilling the “proper” attitudes and values is merely one aim of authoritarians. Propaganda is also intended to display the regime’s power. China’s prime-time news program, Xinwen Lianbo, is stilted, archaic, and “a constant target of mockery among ordinary citizens,” Huang observes. Yet the Chinese government airs it every night at 7 PM. The continuing existence of this program is intended to remind citizens of the strength and capacity of the Communist Party.

    ChatGPT could serve a similar function. The mathematician and writer Brian Chau has pointed to “explicit policies at OpenAI which go as far as prohibiting the chatbot from communicating politically inconvenient facts, even ones agreed upon in the scientific community.” Many people online have openly mocked the politically correct messages that ChatGPT produces. Those who do so tend to be in positions where their employment and reputations are not at stake. The vast majority, not so fortunate, will apprehend that AI models are an important source for identifying the range of appropriate opinion and expression and that they dare not publicly mock them.

    Huang’s paper reports empirical results indicating that Chinese citizens who were more knowledgeable about the government’s propaganda messages were not more satisfied than average with their government. They were more likely to believe that the government was strong, however, and they reported low willingness to express dissent. The U.S. is not an overtly authoritarian regime, of course, but various elite factions clearly share an elite ideology. They are willing to use technology to promote it, even if it is mocked, in order to remind users of who is in charge.

    Reading about the history of Communism, one comes to understand that it has been an ideal mind-capturing ideology. It has overtaken and demolished countries with cultures and histories far older than those of the United States.

    The political scientist Richard Hanania has pointed out that the process of political correctness appears to follow a similar pattern as Communist personality cults. First, people see that they should not criticize the leader or ideology. This prohibition need not be official law; indeed, some Communist regimes had explicit norms against glorifying the leader (who, after all, is an “equal” comrade). Violating this custom, however, signaled the intensity of one’s loyalty. Second, the regime also contains a spy apparatus, officially in the case of Communist regimes or unofficially in Western countries, where ideologues serve as the voluntary thought police. Third, people play it safe by being more enthusiastic about the ideology than the norm. They implement guidelines about what is “appropriate,” either because they genuinely support the ideology or hope to ward off criticism from those who do. Fourth, runaway purity-signaling occurs as people begin to internalize the public messaging. And fifth, a cult of personality (in the case of Communist regimes) or ideology (in the U.S.) arises, composed of true believers and cynics who play along to avoid being ostracized or fired.

    The chief threat to dogma is truth. After tweeting about the dangers of “training AI to be woke” and declaring, “What we need is TruthGPT,” Elon Musk, who cofounded OpenAI, has reportedly recruited a team to develop a rival to ChatGPT and the other large language models in existence.

    Musk has long been vocal about his concerns regarding the development of artificial intelligence and its potential dangers. He has previously called AI “the biggest risk we face as a civilization.” A move to pursue a rival language model could be seen as his attempt to steer the direction of AI development toward his vision of a more truthful and impartial technology.

    Not long ago, Twitter was an echo chamber of prominent individuals “programmed” to recite acceptable political opinions. Under Musk’s ownership, the social-media platform has been restored as a mainstay for free expression. Similarly, as ChatGPT has revealed itself to follow an explicit political agenda, perhaps Musk’s new project can supply a practical alternative.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 23:40

  • Kissinger Makes Ukraine Peace Prediction Centered On China
    Kissinger Makes Ukraine Peace Prediction Centered On China

    99-year old Henry Kissinger has raised eyebrows among the Washington establishment which has long revered him, this time once again with some unexpected commentary on the Ukraine war.

    He said in a fresh interview with CBS News’ Ted Koppel which aired Sunday that he sees China has being a positive force for bringing peace between Russia and Ukraine. “Now that China has entered the negotiation, it will come to a head, I think, by the end of the year,” the former Secretary of State said. “We will be talking about negotiating processes and even actual negotiations.”

    File image via CNN

    Newsweek summarized some of the remarks by saying “he believes the Russia-Ukraine war is coming to a turning point and expects negotiations by the end of the year thanks to recent efforts made by China.”

    This is in reference to China’s 12-point peace plan, as well as the fact that President Xi Jinping joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a one-hour phone call in April. This after Xi’s trip to Moscow where he met with Putin.

    Also interesting is that the elderly diplomat offered his services: 

    Kissinger also told Koppel that he believes both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin would speak with him if he telephoned them.

    When asked by Koppel if he would meet with Putin in Moscow if asked to do so by a president, the retired diplomat said: “I would be inclined to do it, yes. But I would be an adviser, not an active person.”

    Both Ukraine and the US have on different occasions rebuffed China’s plan. In March Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba described it as a ploy to allow Moscow time to strengthen its forces.

    Interestingly, Chinese state media has picked up on Kissinger’s prediction and is actively promoting it:

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    “Ill-advised concessions to the aggressor would only encourage Russia to intensify its attacks on democracy, giving it time to rebuild its military capabilities and resume the armed offensive against Ukraine,” Kuleba said at the time.

    But the longer the planned-for Ukrainian counteroffensive stalls, the more there may be an opening for the start of negotiations. There’s speculation that even Washington might finally push Kiev to be more willing to negotiate if its battlefield losses are sustained, particularly as Russia now controls at 90 or 95% of Bakhmut.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 23:20

  • Never Forget What They Did… Never!
    Never Forget What They Did… Never!

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

    These are the days of grasping for excuses. In sector after sector, leaders who gave us lockdowns and all that followed are trying to account for their actions, not apologizing of course but admitting that, in the classic formulation, mistakes were made.

    That said, they all agree on the core point. The government had to take big steps to deal with the pandemic.

    A book just released from the original lockdown gangsters (about which I will write more later), a book celebrated by the Washington Post as the authoritative account, puts it this way:

    “American leaders entering the Covid war plunged ahead with a breathtaking political and social experiment. Facing a dangerous pandemic, they adopted the broadest, most ambitious, and intrusive set of government controls on social behavior in the history of the United States. Given the lack of preparation at all levels of government, mistakes were inevitable and to be expected, perhaps even excusable.”

    Excusable is the new watchword, and Anthony Fauci has picked it up. In a recent interview, he admits that many things went wrong but adds: “I don’t think anybody would argue with the fact that you had to shut down.”

    Freezer Trucks as Propaganda Tools

    Then he adds what he clearly considers the key talking point. We know because he has said this is in several interviews. He says that the obvious disaster of freezer trucks at hospitals signaled and proved the desperate need for lockdowns.

    Notice too how CNN had a terrifying graphic ready to run alongside his comments. This still is particularly evocative with the Statue of Liberty in the background, not that anyone would suggest that this was staged (he said with a nudge).

    These images from Getty are not even from March or April 2020. The Daily Mail ran them alongside an article posted on May 6, noting that the images were from May 6 and 7, 2020.

    So the excuse that we had to lock down because of freezer trucks does not hold water. The lockdown edict was issued on March 16, 2020, following the declaration of emergency on March 13, three days after Trump’s advisers convinced him to issue the lockdown.

    In that time, the funeral parlors and morgues closed too, as did most all medical services. The country was also in panic, which is not generally good for public health.

    Was It Necessarily COVID That Was Killing People?

    That there was a wave of death in those two weeks is clear. What’s not clear is whether that was Covid alone. After all, the virus had been circulating in the US for a while. The period of 15 days was also the time when intubation was deployed as the best method to deal with a seemingly problematic Covid case, resulting in many unnecessary deaths.

    What’s crucial here is the timing. Two weeks following the lockdowns, the news media began running alarmist stories of the legendary freezer trucks at hospitals, giving the impression of a movie-like pandemic sweeping the country, whereas the problem was centered in only a few locations. These stories ran for a full month throughout April and into May.

    On March 29, 2020, the New York Times quoted Trump himself: “I have been watching them bringing in trailer trucks, freezer trucks because they can’t handle the bodies. There are so many of them. This is in essentially my community in Queens, New York. I have seen things that I have never seen before.”

    Not much of this makes sense. In this very period, New York City hospitals saw an overall 50% drop in admissions, which is what happens when you close down all services to spare all resources for one virus. If you add to that a shutdown of the entire industry of funerals, funeral homes, morgues, and cemetery services, one can imagine that a crisis would ensue.

    No Wonder Why the Bodies Piled up

    Even the normal embalming protocols were disrupted on the advice of the WHO and CDC. The bodies of the dead were treated as icky and untouchable and this attitude was encouraged by authorities. Workers were terrified.

    It’s hardly surprising that bodies piled up and needed to be stored. The whole population and especially the health community was told that the whole of life should be organized around running away from the bad bug.

    These events unfolded two weeks following essentially the same events in Italy. Morgues closed. The normal process of dealing with the dead was dramatically interrupted. Workers were at home. Funerals were banned and this ban was heavily enforced. Medical personnel were especially terrified of the death.

    All of the factors led to a pile-up of bodies in the midst of a panic. The chaos caused by the panic itself was deployed by the media, and used as an excuse by government, to intensify and prolong the lockdowns.

    This is like shouting fire in a crowded theater and citing the ensuing panic as the reason for an evacuation order. The fomenting of panic itself created the conditions for the panic managers to enhance their own power.

    In this case, however, the ploy is pretty obvious simply because of the timing. The freezer-truck excuse frankly does not fit the timeline.

    More Fauci Doubletalk

    Or we can give Fauci the most charitable interpretation of his comments and say that he cited the freezer trucks as evidence that they did the right thing in locking down two weeks (or one month) earlier.

    Even then, if that is his thinking, that doesn’t justify the initial lockdown at all. It only cites the evidence of the failed policy as the reason for the policy itself.

    In addition, the problem was localized whereas the shutdown was countrywide. This led to a bizarre situation in which hospitals all over the country were empty of the usual stream of patients.

    People missed diagnostics. They missed elective surgeries. At least 300 hospitals furloughed nurses because they had nothing to do except practice dance routines and put the results on TikTok. All of this transpired at a time when Fauci and Trump were going on about mass waves of death.

    Indeed, in this exact period, healthcare spending actually declined by 8.6%. On the urging of intellectuals and officials from February, hospitals all over the country closed their services at the very time when they were likely needed most.

    Never Forget

    Gone was any serious discussion about how to treat Covid other than to invoke ventilation and Remdesivir (which was a disaster). Early treatment was dogmatically rejected as nothing but a quack cure. How many people needlessly died because they were denied effective early treatment? We may never know, but I believe the number is probably staggering.

    All efforts, even from the earliest days, were focused on the vaccine as the only way to get out of the pandemic.

    Regardless of the excuse, the public-relations team that defends the lockdowns never mention Sweden because this case demonstrates that panicked rights violations are generally not a good path for boosting public health in the case of a new virus that newly appears in the awareness of powerful people.

    To this day, no one can give a clear official reason how or why this happened or what was achieved by it all relative to the cost. Even so, they will not admit that their entire lockdown paradigm was wrong from the very beginning. They should but they will not.

    It wasn’t just implemented poorly and inefficiently. It never should have happened at all. And it should never happen again.

    Never forget what they did. Never.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 23:00

  • NIMBY New York Suburbs Panic After NYC Mayor Plans Migrant Relocation
    NIMBY New York Suburbs Panic After NYC Mayor Plans Migrant Relocation

    Rich New York suburbanites are in a huff over a plan by NYC Mayor Eric Adams to relocate migrants to hotels in their towns.

    The NIMBY New Yorkers reacted with shock and dismay at Adams’ Friday statement that he plans to pay to house around 300 migrant men in two hotels in Rockland and Orange Counties, after the illegal immigrants were bused up from Texas and other places.

    On Saturday, Rockland officials began a campaign to stop Adams’ plan, according to the NY Times.

    “It felt like they were trying to do a Friday night drop,” said Orangetown town supervisor Teresa Kenney, whose town is in Rockland County. She says she learned about the plan just hours before Adams announced it.

    “I feel like the mayor called me to check a box so he couldn’t be criticized for not talking to us.”

    A state of emergency was issued in Rockland Country on Saturday by executive Ed Day, a Republican, who said that municipalities could not transport or house migrants in his county without permission.

    “Whatever we need to do to stop this, we will do,” he said on Sunday, adding that the county is prepared to issue fines up to $2,000 per violation per day to any hotel that takes in migrants through NYC’s program.

    “They’re basically dumping them into a county where we’re not prepared for them,” he said.

    New York State Association of Counties Executive Director Stephen Acquario said: “This is a homelessness problem, and it’s largely the fault of the federal government,” adding “And here we have the lowest unit of government cleaning up the mess of the United States.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 22:40

  • Need To Keep Masses Afraid Is Behind Elite Embrace Of Wokeism And Censorship
    Need To Keep Masses Afraid Is Behind Elite Embrace Of Wokeism And Censorship

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger via PUBLIC substack,

    The antidotes of whistle-blowing, sunshine, and defunding are near the poison

    For the last half-decade, elites in government and the media have created a culture of self-censorship on race, climate change, and trans issues. In the workplace, in schools and universities, and online, politicians, activists, and journalists instilled in ordinary people a paralyzing fear of saying the wrong thing and finding oneself accused of being a “climate denier,” a “racist,” or a “transphobe.”

    It’s now clear that, at this very moment, media elites are seeking to turn this culture of informal self-censorship into formal government censorship. They call their legislation, which would destroy free speech, based centrally on their hatred of the masses, “pro-democracy” and “anti-hate.”

    To be sure, Wokeism is a genuine grassroots religion. It demonizes and scapegoats heretics, journalists, and truth-tellers. And it demands sacrifices from ordinary people in the form of more expensive energy, the sterilization of psychiatrically disordered children, and self-censorship.

    But it is also a state religion. News media and social media elites took Wokeism from being a marginal cult into being the dominant ideology of every major institution, from NBC and the CDC to the AMA and the CIA.

    “Think tanks” and “journalists” behaved as propagandists, leading much of the public to believe that police were wantonly murdering thousands of unarmed black Americans, that climate change threatened human existence, and that surgeons can (and should) “change the sex” of children.

    …

    Most troubling, they persuaded the leadership of the CIA, FBI, and NATO militaries to join them in using Woke fear-mongering campaigns to demand Internet censorship.

    It’s clear now that military and intelligence community elites feared that populist nationalism would undermine their ability to control the news media in the ways they had since World War II. And so they funded think tanks like the Atlantic Council to run Woke campaigns demanding censorship.

    Elites used fear-based campaigns in order to demonize, scapegoat, and marginalize the people and institutions in society who opposed their demands to make energy expensive, replace meritocracy with structural racism, control the minds and bodies of children, and be able to engage in wars abroad.

    …

    Totalitarianism may be inevitable.

    Western civilization may be nearing an end. Woke totalitarianism may be replacing Enlightenment liberalism in the same way Christianity replaced the Roman empire. And it may be too late to stop government censorship.

    …

    Elites have over-reached, in our view, and badly. But we must also make that apparent. As such, the most important thing we can do is shine a light on their demands for censorship since once they are debated openly, they will fail.

    …

    We can’t resist formal censorship without resisting informal censorship in the workplace, in schools and universities, and online.

    *  *  *

    Subscribers can read the full note here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 22:20

  • America's Largest Transit Systems Reeling As Revenues Continue To Crater
    America’s Largest Transit Systems Reeling As Revenues Continue To Crater

    Public transit systems across the country are reeling from a dramatic decline in ridership which has left some of the largest cities with less than 70% of their pre-pandemic traffic – causing a financial rut that’s led to transit CEOs pressing city and state officials for more funding streams and taxes, Politico reports.

    Despite being rescued with $55 billion in federal Covid relief money in 2020 and 2021 after watching their farebox revenue evaporate, 10 of the nation’s largest transit systems will soon need to find billions of dollars a year to stay afloat. Public transportation executives from Los Angeles to New Jersey are warning of a fiscal cliff in just a few years that risks raising ticket prices and cutting service on workers who can least afford it. And even though New York lawmakers struck a deal last week to fill a transit budget gap, it’s not enough to avoid a fare hike.

    “It’s a new day for transit in terms of ridership, the people delivering the services — from drivers to mechanics,” former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the outlet. 

    According to the report, pleas to Congress for another round of relief have been met with lukewarm reception. At the state level, the issue is creating a divide between rural and urban state lawmakers.

    “It would be nice to continue to support the regeneration of nightlife and theater and everything with even more frequent service,” said Janno Lieber, head of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “But in fairness… it’s really not time to focus excessively on it until you’re confident that we’re filling the bucket.”

    Janno Lieber, the head of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the agency has struggled to provide “basic, pretty good services” to commuters and recently convinced lawmakers to provide recurring revenue in the state budget. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

    According to Lieber, who runs the nation’s largest system of its kind, the agency has struggled to provide “basic, pretty good services” to commuters – to the point where they were able to convince state lawmakers to provide recurring revenue in the state budget.

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has chimed in, deflecting on the issue with a wait-and-see approach.

    “Even three years since the shutdowns began, we have not yet landed at our new normal,” he told Politico. “We’re not going back to 2019. But I also think today’s norm is not where all of this ends, in terms of commuting patterns.”

    In San Francisco, BART ridership is down 60% compared to pre-pandemic levels. In order to turn things around, the transit system is contemplating boosting service on nights and weekends – however the system’s budget constraints means that it would need to reduce less-popular services elsewhere.

    “You have to take from something, and it’s very difficult to take service away from riders,” said spokeswoman Alicia Trost. “But we think there are things we can do.”

    Federal money typically accounts for about 15 percent of transit budgets. And the federal infrastructure package Congress passed in 2021 committed $39 billion in new funding for mass transit, but much of it is earmarked for major capital work instead of operations.

    That’s put pressure on statehouses, where fights for cash have gotten partisan as well as geographic as rural lawmakers from both parties question why their constituents should pony up to make life easier in cities that already seem to have it all.

    …

    In classic California fashion, the interconnected transit agencies in nine Bay Area counties are planning to put the funding question to voters by way of a ballot measure, said Rebecca Long, director of legislation and public affairs at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which represents the group. It would establish a tax increase to cover all or a portion of their financial shortfall — but since it won’t get a vote until 2026, the commission is asking the state for funding to keep the agencies afloat until then. -Politico

    According to Peter Rogoff, former FTA head who also served as CEO for Seattle’s Sound Transit, agencies can’t just abandon transit-dependent commuters.

    “Folks should avoid sweeping assumptions and turning deaf ears to the needs of the transit industry based on what could be a temporary predicament, he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 22:00

  • DOJ Seeks 25-Year Prison Sentence For Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes
    DOJ Seeks 25-Year Prison Sentence For Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes

    Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking a 25-year prison sentence for Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, who was found guilty at trial of seditious conspiracy and other Jan. 6, 2021-related charges.

    Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III speaks to other Oath Keepers on the east side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Ford Fischer/News2Share)

    Such a sentence would by far be the longest of any Jan. 6 criminal prosecution.

    In a 183-page sentencing memorandum (pdf) filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the DOJ also recommended prison sentences from 10 to 21 years for seven other Oath Keepers and an associate who were found guilty during trials in 2022 and early 2023 of various Jan. 6 crimes

    “These defendants were prepared to fight. Not for their country but against it,” federal prosecutors wrote in a filing with U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.

    “In their own words, they were ‘willing to die’ in a ‘guerrilla war’ to achieve their goal of halting the transfer of power after the 2020 Presidential election. As a co-conspirator recognized, their actions made these defendants ‘traitors.’”

    Oath Keepers defendant Jessica Watkins (front left) moves down the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (The Real Story of Jan. 6/EpochTV)

    Other defendants, and the DOJ’s sentence recommendations, include Kelly Meggs, 21 years; Jessica Watkins, 18 years; Roberto Minuta, 17 years; Edward Vallejo, 17 years; Kenneth Harrelson, 15 years; Thomas Caldwell, 14 years; Joseph Hackett, 12 years; and David Moerschel, 10 years.

    ‘Including Use of Force’

    In crafting the recommendations, prosecutors applied enhancers and upward departures from sentencing guidelines for aggravating factors, such as obstruction and the role each defendant allegedly played on Jan. 6, 2021.

    “As legal challenges to the election sputtered, and President Trump gave no indication that he would invoke the Insurrection Act to halt the certification of the election,” the sentencing memo reads, “these defendants explicitly discussed the need to use any means necessary, up to and including the use of force, to oppose the transfer of power, and they began to focus on January 6 as a day of action for their objective.

    “Then, on January 6, the defendants seized the opportunity to advance their conspiratorial goal by participating in the attack on the Capitol.”

    Prosecutors told jurors in the first two Oath Keepers trials that the group conspired to “prevent the peaceful transfer of power” to Joe Biden from then-President Donald J. Trump. Defendants seized the opportunity on Jan. 6, 2021, to attack the Capitol and attempt to stymie the ceremonial counting of Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential election.

    Defense attorneys said there was no plan nor a conspiracy to halt certification. They said the Oath Keepers didn’t “attack” the Capitol, although some members entered the building on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, and rendered assistance to police. The Oath Keepers were in Washington that day to provide event security and VIP protection for permit-approved rallies, according to the attorneys.

    Didn’t Enter Capitol

    Rhodes said he was convicted not for anything he did on Jan. 6, 2021, but for who he is and for speech that’s protected by the First Amendment.

    “I did not enter the Capitol. Nor did I instruct anyone else to enter the Capitol,” he said in a 46-page reflection written from his jail cell.

    “And yet, here I sit, because of who I am, and because of what I said—my political speech—not because of anything constituting an actual crime, not because of anything I actually did.”

    Rhodes, who will be sentenced on May 25, said he was at a nearby hotel on Jan. 6, 2021, when he saw television coverage of violence breaking out at the Capitol. He went to the Capitol and ordered all Oath Keepers away from the building, he told the FBI in a May 2021 interview.

    A jury on Nov. 29, 2022, found him not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy to prevent a member of Congress from discharging their duty. However, despite not entering the Capitol, Rhodes was found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 21:40

  • Watch: Drone Footage Shows Wave Of Migrants Approaching Texas Border
    Watch: Drone Footage Shows Wave Of Migrants Approaching Texas Border

    A Fox News drone team has captured footage of a caravan of illegal immigrants moving towards the border of Texas; just one of many caravans that have been sighted in recent weeks as non-citizens flood the streets of Democrat controlled sanctuary cities like El Paso in expectation of the end of Title 42. 

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    The Biden Administration has made clear that they will be moving national guard personnel to the region, not to stop illegal crossings, but to process migrants more quickly so that they can be relocated within the US.  In response, governor Greg Abbott says he will deploy a new Texas Tactical Border Force to repel the invasion.

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    It should be noted that Democrats have been increasingly hostile to any operations by border states to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the country, while at the same time claiming that they don’t want open borders.  

    With the coming expiration of Title 42, there is no longer any legal recourse for federal border patrol agents to send migrants back to Mexico.  They must now process those migrants under asylum rules and allow most of them to stay within the US to await court decision; this can often take many months or even years.     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 21:20

  • Our Leaders "Are Making Suicidal Decisions" – Snyder Warns Doom-Loop Will Cause Societal Meltdown
    Our Leaders “Are Making Suicidal Decisions” – Snyder Warns Doom-Loop Will Cause Societal Meltdown

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Journalist and popular author Michael Snyder says his new book “End Times” is revealing just what he predicted.  The bad news is it’s going to get worse, much worse.  Let’s begin with the banking crisis that is really just getting started.  Snyder reminds us what Jesus warned about End Times in Matthew 24:21 when He said, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” 

    Michael explains, “We are talking about this in terms of a banking crisis, but I believe we are very close to literally a banking apocalypse where we could see dozens and, ultimately, hundreds of banks fail here in the United States…”

    “Basically, at this point, we’ve got hundreds of banks that are essentially insolvent.  They are walking zombies.  One recent study said there are about 186 banks on the verge of failure.  So, we are going to see a lot more banks fail.  If you look at the banks that have already failed in 2023, (SVB, Signature and First Republic) it is greater than all 25 banks that failed in 2008 combined.  So, already, the banking crisis of 2023 is worse than the banking crisis in 2008. But, here’s the kicker, we’re only one third of the way through the year.”

    Snyder is predicting credit drying up, and after that, the economy will dry up too.  When the economy fails, the jobs will be cut, and layoffs will begin in a big way.  The layoffs have already started, and Snyder points out,

    “Less people show up to retailers, less people show up at your business and there is less money to buy stuff.  That ultimately means recession.  This is not going to happen overnight, but this is a process and a cycle.  This is a doom loop we have entered in which credit conditions are going to get tighter and tighter and tighter. . . . In the first three months of this year, the number of layoffs were much higher than for the same period last year.  We have seen tremendous layoffs, and it has accelerated in the month of April.”

    Snyder says the economy is going to next fall into depression and then society will start failing.  Snyder predicts, “There are suicidal decisions our leaders are making, and we are looking at the end of America in hundreds of different ways…”

    ”  This is insane and lunacy.  Joe Biden is the worst President that we have ever had…

    Short term, we are going into a recession and a credit crunch, and there is going to be more civil unrest.  Those are short term things. 

    Mid-term, we are going to have an economic depression in America and around the world.  We are going to have famine and pestilences…

    Long term, we have a total global meltdown as all these elements of End Times come together in a perfect storm.  We have war and not just war, but nuclear war…

    Ultimately, where we are heading is a total societal meltdown.”

    In closing, Snyder says, “I believe this is going to be the worst of times, but also the best of times.  When the darkness is the greatest, the light is needed the most.  The best time for the people of God and people who love the truth is ahead of us.  We are going to be able to do so much good and point people to the truth.  We are going to point people back to God, and we are going to see this great awakening.”

    There is much more in the 40-minute interview.

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Michael Snyder, author of the recent book “End Times” for 5.6.23.

    *  *  *

    To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

    If you want to buy Snyder’s latest book called “End Times,” click here.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 21:00

  • WHO Top Lab-Leak Denier Fired For Sexual Misconduct
    WHO Top Lab-Leak Denier Fired For Sexual Misconduct

    A Danish Scientist who spearheaded the World Health Organization’s COVID origins investigation and ruled that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” has been fired over multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

    The Financial Times reported last week that allegations against Peter Ben Embarek dating back to 2015 and 2017 first came to their attention in 2018, as the agency has been dealing with a ‘significant backlog of reports.’

    “Peter Ben Embarek was dismissed following findings of sexual misconduct against him that were substantiated by investigations into allegations received in 2015 and 2017, and [the] corresponding disciplinary process,” said the health body, adding that other allegations against Ben Embarek could not be “fully investigated” because the alleged victim or victims declined to “engage with the investigation process,” adding “Consequently no disciplinary action could be taken.”

    Ben Embarek said there was still an “ongoing procedure” and that he had challenged the WHO sanction, which was “not final”. He added an incident in 2017 was amicably settled. Ben Embarek said he was unaware of any other complaints and denied harassment. He said he could not comment on details on grounds of confidentiality. -FT

    Ben Embarek rose to prominence in 2021 after a team of scientists he led on a mission to Wuhan, China concluded that a lab-leak was “extremely unlikely.”

    Since then, the theory has gained serious traction among US and other intelligence agencies around the world.

    According to people familiar with the claims against Ben Embarek, the allegation was formally raised with the WHO in 2019 but no action was taken. Instead, he was elevated to lead the Wuhan task force.

    According to the WHO, it followed “due process,” and said that Ben Embarek’s name was entered into a database which prevents perpetrators from sexual misconduct from being rehired by UN agencies.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 20:40

  • Could AI Steal Your Job?
    Could AI Steal Your Job?

    Authored by Michael Johnston via EvergreenGavekal,

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been one of the hottest topics in business, finance, and technology over the past two quarters. While the concept of AI has been around since the 1950s, it wasn’t until November 2022 that AI went mainstream and became a “household topic” with the emergence of ChatGPT. Like many emerging technologies that suddenly gain momentum, AI has led to a range of emotions, including fear and excitement.

    One of the prevailing real-world concerns about AI is whether it will significantly disrupt the labor market. This week, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna made waves by saying that the company is planning to pause hiring for roles that it believes could be replaced by AI in the coming years. Krishna took things one step further by prognosticating that she “could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”

    In this article, we examine the likelihood that AI will significantly disrupt the labor market by considering:

    • Historical examples of emerging technologies and labor disruption

    • How AI is being used in the workforce today

    • How AI could disrupt labor markets moving forward

    Historical examples of emerging technologies and labor disruption

    There are several historical examples of times that people wrongly predicted emerging technology would significantly disrupt labor markets, including:

    • The Automated Teller Machine (ATM): When ATMs were first introduced in the 1970s, many people thought they would replace bank tellers. However, while ATMs did automate some banking functions, they also made it possible for banks to offer more services and expand their hours of operation. As a result, the number of bank teller jobs actually increased.

    • The Internet: When the internet became widely available in the 1990s, some people predicted that it would lead to massive job losses. It didn’t take long before this proved to be a false narrative.

    • The Industrial Revolution: In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution led to the mechanization of many jobs. While some workers did lose their jobs, the Industrial Revolution created many new jobs in manufacturing, transportation, and other industries. Wages at factories were higher than what individuals were making as farmers and, as factories became widespread, more managers and employees were required to operate them, increasing both the supply of jobs and wages.

    How AI is being used in the workforce today

    Today, a similar story is unfolding in the labor market. Take two real-world examples from the frontlines of business and technology:

    • Copywriting and marketing: ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies such as JasperAI have swiftly changed the way content is created. For example, at the technology company I founded, our copywriter used to take several days to produce an article, which had to be edited before distribution. In total, the end-to-end process took about a week which meant the company was producing 4 articles per month. Since beginning to leverage JasperAI, the company now produces 3-4 articles per week. That translates into more leads, which translates into more customers, which turns into higher revenue growth, and more hiring. Is our copywriter’s job safe? You bet. Using AI technology doesn’t replace the need for her or her role, it supercharges it and helps the company scale faster, leading to more hiring, not less.

    • Autonomous delivery robots: Starship Technologies is a high-profile technology company that has successfully completed over 4 million deliveries using its autonomous fleet of robots. It’s true that these robots have put humans out of work by replacing the need for people to physically deliver items. It’s also true that this technology has created hundreds of new, specialized, higher-paying jobs for technicians, managers, operations, and logistics specialists that ensure these robots get from point A to point B as intended. Plus, it’s helping solve a very real problem for retailers that unlocks growth and margin: last mile delivery.

    How AI could disrupt labor markets in the future

    While nobody has a crystal ball, AI has already been used to automate routine, repetitive tasks in fields such as manufacturing, data entry, and customer service. This has led to job losses in some industries, particularly in low-skill, low-wage jobs. As businesses continue to implement new AI technology, it’s reasonable to expect more of the same.

    However, conversely, AI will continue to enhance productivity and drive efficiency, leading to economic growth which results in the creation of new jobs. Looking back at history, every time there have been concerns over the displacement of jobs due to technological advancements, new jobs have ultimately been created. It’s important to note that the impact of AI on the labor market will not be uniform across all industries and skill levels. Some industries and job categories will likely see significant job losses. However, it will be important for businesses and policymakers to prepare for these changes by investing in reskilling and upskilling programs to help workers transition to new industries and job categories.

    So, could AI steal your job? The answer likely depends on your profession and industry. But just like previous technological inflection points, this disruption will create new opportunities as AI transforms work as we know it.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 20:20

  • Chelsea Clinton Promotes Mass Vaccination Program For Children – Laments Public Resistance
    Chelsea Clinton Promotes Mass Vaccination Program For Children – Laments Public Resistance

    Need confirmation that the globalists failed in their pandemic agenda?  You only need to review the numerous recent interviews of establishment elites in which they grow sour and despondent discussing their mRNA vaccination campaigns.

    Why so serious?  Why are they so indignant over lack of vaccination for a virus with a median Infection Fatality Rate of only 0.23%?  

    While speaking at the Brainstorm Health conference by Fortune Magazine held in Marina del Rey, California, in April 2023, Chelsea Clinton asserts that vaccine hesitancy and outright rejection have been an “unfortunate” side effect of the coronavirus pandemic.  She goes on to promote a partnership with the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation to push a program of mass jabs for children to make up for declining vaccination rates.

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    “I think we are less prepared today than we were, arguably, in January 2020—partially because of the lack of trust and confidence in not only our scientists, but in science itself, and certainly in public health professionals. We all deserve to hopefully not be as unprepared as I worry we are at the moment.”

    Clinton laments the growing opposition to vaccinations, which hints at the overall effectiveness of the anti-mandate movement.  Half the states in the US and groups in countries around the world stood against attempts to pressure or force the public into compliance with draconian vaccine passport programs.  Now, the establishment is reeling and regrouping.  Some members, like Anthony Fauci, are attempting to rewrite history as if they never had any intention of using authoritarian measures.

    Clinton is obviously ignoring the herd of elephants in the room – Anti-mandate activists were right about the lockdowns, right about the masks and right about their mRNA vaccine concerns.  The science is on their side.  But even if we look beyond the fallacies surrounding the mandates and mRNA technology, there was always the issue of individual rights.  The exploitation of the pandemic to centralize political and social power has left millions of people angry and more suspicious than ever.  

    Globalists like Gideon Lichfield at MIT told us exactly what the plan was in March of 2020.  In an article tiled  ‘We’re Not Going Back To Normal’, he suggests that mandates and vaccine passport restrictions should last for many years to come, if not forever. From the article:

    “Ultimately, however, I predict that we’ll restore the ability to socialize safely by developing more sophisticated ways to identify who is a disease risk and who isn’t, and discriminating—legally—against those who are.

    …One can imagine a world in which, to get on a flight, perhaps you’ll have to be signed up to a service that tracks your movements via your phone. The airline wouldn’t be able to see where you’d gone, but it would get an alert if you’d been close to known infected people or disease hot spots. There’d be similar requirements at the entrance to large venues, government buildings, or public transport hubs. There would be temperature scanners everywhere, and your workplace might demand you wear a monitor that tracks your temperature or other vital signs. Where nightclubs ask for proof of age, in future they might ask for proof of immunity—an identity card or some kind of digital verification via your phone, showing you’ve already recovered from or been vaccinated against the latest virus strains.”

    And, as World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab announced:

    “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.”

    These are the real reasons for widespread resistance to the mandates, besides the general skepticism over vaccines with limited testing and no long term data to prove their safety.  Americans don’t trust people like the Clintons and their elitist friends for good reason – They are motivated by a desire for power, not by legitimate concerns for public health.  Now, they have created the very thing they feared:  An army of people who pay attention.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 20:00

  • Local And Private COVID Vaccine Mandates For Patients And Health Care Workers Being Reversed, Overturned Across US
    Local And Private COVID Vaccine Mandates For Patients And Health Care Workers Being Reversed, Overturned Across US

    Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Efforts to overturn vaccine mandates for both hospital patients and health care workers appear to be gaining momentum across the United States.

    A group of Western University students hold a protest against the school’s COVID-19 mandates on Aug. 27, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Nicole Osborne)

    In what is seen as a major victory for transplant patients who did not take the COVID vaccine, one of the largest transplant centers in the United States reversed its policy to require the jab in order to be eligible for an organ transplant.

    The University of Michigan (UM) announced its new policy on May 4 just before court proceedings were about to get underway in a lawsuit filed against it for declaring patients ineligible for an organ transplant unless they agreed to the jab.

    The suit was filed on behalf of several patients by David Peters of Pacific Justice Institute who in celebrating the reversal simply stated “we’re winning!”

    In a written statement, UM said it was “new information” that led to the “voluntary decision” to reverse its policy.

    “The University hereby gives notice to the Court that in light of developing epidemiological and other actuarial circumstances, effective April 27, 2023, it has changed its Transplant Center COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement for Adult Transplant Candidates. Relevant to this litigation, COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be required prior to wait-listing of potential adult solid organ transplant recipients.”

    The UM decision fell on the same day a federal judge chastised Maine Assistant Attorney General Kimberly Patwardhan for filing a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed on behalf of health care workers who lost their job for refusing to get their COVID vaccine.

    “You obviously have not been reading the U.S. Supreme Court precedent on this or else you would not have filed your motion to dismiss,” Judge Sandra Lynch said to Patwardhan.

    Lynch made the comments during oral arguments in the case before a three-judge panel of First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. The case is being argued by Matt Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel, on behalf of the health care workers.

    In addition to the ban, Maine Governor Mills also threatened to revoke the licenses of all health care employers who fail to mandate the COVID shot for all workers.

    The rural New England state is one of six that banned religious exemptions from vaccine mandates.

    The others are New York, California, Connecticut, West Virginia, and Mississippi.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 19:40

  • New Vehicle Affordability 'Challenging' Amid Soaring Auto Loan Rates
    New Vehicle Affordability ‘Challenging’ Amid Soaring Auto Loan Rates

    Cox Automotive reports that auto prices are currently at near-record levels, with the average monthly payment for new cars reaching $754 in March due to a high-rate environment. The latest data on auto loan interest rates show a continued surge, worsening the affordability crisis and forcing more car buyers to gravitate to used car markets. 

    The Federal Reserve just updated its finance rate for new auto 60-month loans that printed 7.48% in February. These levels have not been seen since November 2007 and are shy of the record high of 7.82% from August 2006.

    Since 1Q22, the new auto 60-month loan rate jumped nearly 3% from 4.5% to 7.48%. And 2% from the start of the third quarter. We call these parabolic moves interest rate shocks for consumers.  

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    On top of high borrowing costs, Kelley Blue Book data shows the average price of a new car hit $48,000 in March, a 30% jump from the same month last year. 

    We outlined to readers in February that affording a new car is a luxury for only the wealthy (read: “A Shiny New Car Is Out Of Reach For Many Americans”). 

    “The idea of a new car in every American’s driveway is not the world we live in,” Charlie Chesbrough, a senior economist at Cox, recently told Bloomberg.

    After 24 months of negative real wage growth, obliterating mainly households of the lower/medium tier of the consumer base, the new reality is that new vehicle affordability is only for the wealthy.  

    It’s a hard reality for many to grasp, but some could care less about a new vehicle in their driveway or parking spot at a multi-family unit. Instead, they struggle to pay rent and put food on the table in a higher-rate environment. 

    Meanwhile, automakers are selling fewer vehicles in the US versus pre-pandemic sales trends — about 13.9 million in 2022 compared with 17 million in 2019. However, Cox Automotive said 2022 revenues for automakers are $15 billion higher than in 2019, primarily because new vehicles are more expensive. 

    Squeezing new affordable cars out of the market will drive even more buyers to used car markets.

    “Even with three consecutive months of improvement, affordability challenges are limiting access to the new-vehicle market by lower income and lower credit quality buyers,” Cox economist Jonathan Smoke. He added:

    “Subprime lending in the new market has decreased substantially since 2019, and deep subprime has disappeared. This trend induces automakers to focus on profitable products for consumers who can afford to buy, which keeps less affluent consumers out of the new-vehicle market altogether and limits what is available and possible in the used market for years to come.” 

    This might indicate used car prices will stay elevated despite Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index topping out in early 2022. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 19:20

  • 43 Senate Republicans Say No To Increasing Debt Limit Without Substantive Spending Cuts
    43 Senate Republicans Say No To Increasing Debt Limit Without Substantive Spending Cuts

    Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A group of 43 Republicans in the U.S. Senate said on May 6 that they “oppose raising the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms,” coalescing around their House counterparts ahead of the White House meeting over the federal debt ceiling amid a monthslong political standoff.

    “The Senate Republican conference is united behind the House Republican conference in support of spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling,” the group of Republicans, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), said in a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Calif.).

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 24, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

    Almost all Republicans in the Senate signed the letter, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

    “It is now clear that Senate Republicans aren’t going to bail out Biden and Schumer, they have to negotiate,” Lee said in the statement accompanying the letter.

    “I thank my colleagues for joining my effort to emphasize this point in the clearest possible terms.”

    President Joe Biden is scheduled to sit down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on May 9 to discuss a path forward on the federal debt ceiling. But the White House has signaled that there would be little compromise from the president.

    “[Biden] is not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on May 2.

    However, the president “is willing to have a separate conversation about their spending, what they want to do with the budget,” she said.

    Biden and McCarthy have been locked in a standoff over raising the debt ceiling since January. The president has called on Congress to pass a hike to the government’s borrowing limit without conditions.

    McCarthy made it clear that he wouldn’t consider increasing the debt ceiling unless the president agreed to limit future spending.

    “No clean debt ceiling is going to pass the House,” McCarthy said on April 26. “We can’t do that to our children.”

    House Republicans passed their own solution to the debt crisis on April 26. The bill—the Limit, Save, Grow Act—would lift the federal borrowing cap by $1.5 trillion while enacting sweeping spending cuts, which Democrats have rejected.

    Schumer began navigating to advance a clean, two-year extension of the debt limit in the Senate last week. He told reporters that Democrats would decide whether to put the extension up for a vote after the upcoming White House meeting.

    Schumer, McConnell, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) have also been invited to the debt limit meeting at the White House on May 9.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 19:00

  • Wildfires In Canada Force 30,000 To Flee, Slash Oil And Gas Production
    Wildfires In Canada Force 30,000 To Flee, Slash Oil And Gas Production

    Canada’s top oil-producing province, Alberta, declared a state of emergency on Saturday as more than 100 wildfires raged across the region. 

    On Monday, there were 100 wildfires, 29 of which were classified as out of control. Evacuation orders have been posted for 30,000 residents in the province. 

    Bloomberg said numerous companies shut down 234,000 barrels a day of oil and gas production. 

    The fires are striking Canada’s main natural gas production region, including the prolific Montney and Duvernay formations, an area studded with wells and processing plants and criscrossed by pipelines. The region also is a major center for light oil production, and the disruptions have sent prices for some local grades of crude surging.

    Edmonton Mixed Sweet’s discount to West Texas Intermediate narrowed by more than a third to $2.50 a barrel, the smallest discount since March, and Syncrude Sweet’s premium grew to $3.50 a barrel, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Condensate’s discount narrowed to $3.20 a barrel.

    One community under evacuation order as of Sunday was Fox Creek, a major center for light oil and gas drillers. Energy facilities and local residents were also being evacuated in Grande Prairie, provincial officials said. -Bloomberg

    NatGas for spot delivery at the Alberta Energy Co.’s hub jumped 34% to the equivalent of $2 per million British thermal units due to disruptions. 

    The list (courtesy of Bloomberg) is the following energy companies whose operations have been impacted by out-of-control fires. 

    • Crescent Point Energy Corp. has shut in 45,000 barrels a day of production in the Kaybob Duvernay region, though the company said it has seen no damage to its assets.
    • Vermilion Energy Inc. temporarily shut 30,000 barrels a day of production, but added in a statement that initial assessments indicate minimal damage to key infrastructure.
    • Pipestone Energy Corp. has shut in around 20,000 barrels a day of production, the company said in a statement.
    • Tourmaline Oil Corp. has closed down nine South and West Deep Basin gas processing facilities as nearby fires expanded and new wildfires rapidly emerged.
    • Paramount Resources Ltd. has shut the equivalent of about 50,000 barrels a day of oil production as of May 5 as a precaution and because of disruptions to third-party infrastructure, the company said Sunday. Its operations in the Grande Prairie and Kaybob regions are being affected.
    • TC Energy Corp. halted two compressor stations on its Nova Gas system nearest to active wildfires, the company said in an email Sunday. Other sections of the system and other networks continue to operate safely. The company is keeping workers away from facilities near active blazes unless necessary.
    • Tidewater Midstream & Infrastructure Ltd. shut its Brazeau River Complex, a gas processing facility, west of Edmonton and evacuated all personnel, the company said in an email.
    • Cenovus Energy Inc. has shut down some production and halted plants in some areas, a company spokesperson said.
    • Kiwetinohk Energy Corp. shut in the majority of its Placid operations in response to third-party service interruptions.
    • The government-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline, the sole link carrying Canadian crude to the Pacific coast, is still in operation but the company has deployed mitigation measures, including a perimeter sprinkler system at its Edson pump station, and is ready to deploy additional protection measures if needed, the company said.
    • Tamarack Valley Energy Ltd. had to shut in less than 300 barrels a day of production after the gas processing plants operated by Tidewater and another run by Keyera Corp. went out of operation due to the blazes, Chief Executive Officer Brian Schmidt said by phone.
    • Pembina Pipeline Corp. also said it evacuated some workers west of Edmonton.

    Here are scenes from the ground.

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    Alberta’s oil and gas production has been impacted by wildfires before. In 2016, about 1 million barrels a day of output were shut down due to fires in the province’s eastern region. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 18:40

  • RFK Jr.: CIA "Definitely Involved In The Murder" Of JFK
    RFK Jr.: CIA “Definitely Involved In The Murder” Of JFK

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Once again displaying that he is not afraid to go on the offensive against the Deep State, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Junior stated this past weekend that he believes the CIA was “involved in the murder” of his uncle and has presided over a “60-year cover-up”.

    During an interview, host Jason Calacanis asked Kennedy “Do you believe they (the CIA) were involved in the murder of your uncle?”

    Kennedy instantly responded “They were definitely involved in the murder and the 60-year cover-up,” adding “They’re still not releasing, you know the papers that legally they have to release.”

    RFK Jr. also noted that his father Bobby Kennedy’s belief about assassination was that the CIA was responsible, noting that President Kennedy’s brother even called Langley and asked “did your people do this?”

    Watch:

    Full video below:

    During his campaign announcement last month, RFK Jr. spoke about his uncle vowing to “take the CIA and shatter it into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind” after the disastrous Bay of Pigs incident.

    RFK Jr. emphasised that JFK had concluded before he was assassinated that “the function of the intelligence agencies had become to provide the military industrial complex with a constant pipeline of war.”

    Kennedy Jr. promised to “let loose” on those who have attempted to silence him for 18 years, asserting “This is what happens when you censor somebody for 18 years. I’ve got a lot to talk about.”

    Video: RFK Jr. Tells Deep State “Nice Try” As Fire Alarm Interrupts His Presidential Announcement

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    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.

    Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 18:20

  • Is El Nino Supercharging Heatwave Across Asia?
    Is El Nino Supercharging Heatwave Across Asia?

    A heat wave in Asia and record-high temperatures in Europe could be an early indication of an emerging El Nino weather pattern about to unleash above-average temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere this summer. 

    Bloomberg reported Vietnam recorded 44.2C (or about 111.5F) over the weekend, triggering power shortage warnings. Neighboring country Laos also broke records. The Philippines reduced school hours as the heat index breached the “danger” zone. 

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

    The heat wave in Southeast Asia comes as El Nino is likely to supercharge heat across the region. Record temperatures were recorded last month from India to Malaysia. 

    Over the last three years, the weather phenomenon La Nina, which typically results in a decrease in global temperatures, has been in effect. However, the reappearance of El Nino is becoming a strong possibility. This might result in crop production disruptions due to heat and drought, further exacerbating the global food crisis. 

    “If El Nino disrupts India’s monsoon season, there will be a deficit of rain and, of course, this will hugely impact agriculture and farming, and, as a result, the economy,” Dileep Mavalankar, director of the Gujarat-based Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, told the South China Morning Post. 

    Besides concerns about freshwater shortages across Asia this summer, scorching temperatures might increase rolling blackouts as power grids are strained over the higher use of air conditioners. 

    Meanwhile, Spain and Portugal experienced their hottest April on record due to a mass of hot air, which caused temperatures to rise above 30C (86F) and even approach 40C (104F) in certain regions. Above-average temperatures were also recorded in parts of Africa, around the Caspian Sea, and North America. 

    Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, wrote in a statement last month that “above-average temperatures were observed over the equatorial eastern Pacific, which is an early sign for a potential transition to El Nino conditions often leading to warmer global temperatures.” Around the same time, we pointed out a disruptive El Nino pattern might roil ag commodities markets, like palm oil, sugar, and cocoa, to list just a few. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/08/2023 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

May 08

Today’s News 8th May 2023

  • Biden Admin Backs Down In Standoff With Catholic Hospital Over Chapel Candle
    Biden Admin Backs Down In Standoff With Catholic Hospital Over Chapel Candle

    Authored by Ross Muscato via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Biden administration announced on May 5 that it is stepping back from a previous decision demanding that a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma remove a lit candle from its chapel—a practice and observance sacred to Catholics—or lose its ability to accept Medicare, Medicaid, or Children’s Health (CHIP) patients.

    A lit candle in the chapel of Saint Francis Hospital South is at the center of a matter of religious liberty. (Saint Francis Health System.)

    Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), had ruled in April that the candle, which has burned continuously for 15 years at Saint Francis Hospital South in Tulsa, was a safety hazard—even though a local fire marshal cleared the candle and CMS permitted other flames, including pilot lights, in the hospital.

    CMS said its decision was based on the findings of an independent group, The Joint Commission, which reviews hospitals to determine if they meet the standards necessary to be accredited to receive Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP patients.

    The 12th largest U.S. health care network, Saint Francis Health System is the Catholic owner and operator of Saint Francis Hospital South, eight other hospitals, and 110 clinics in Oklahoma. Saint Francis appealed the CMS decree and sought a reasonable accommodation.

    CMS denied Saint Francis’ request in a letter dated April 20.

    Yet, following widespread protest, media attention, and a pre-litigation letter a leading religious liberty legal group, Becket Law, along with Yetter Coleman LLP, sent to CMS on behalf of Saint Francis, alleging that prohibiting the candle was a violation of the First Amendment free exercise of religion clause, the agency said it is now open to working with Saint Francis to find an arrangement that permits the burning candle to stay.

    Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel for Becket Law, said that CMS’ adjusting its position is a win for religious freedom.

    “The decision of CMS shows that religious liberty protections extend to practicing your faith, and that includes providing health care and worship in a chapel,” Windham told The Epoch Times. “These protections apply to everyone. Today it’s a candle. Tomorrow it could be something else.

    “And so, a good decision today for Saint Francis is a good decision for religious believers across the country.”

    In a statement that CMS shared with The Epoch Times, the agency said: “CMS is aware of a safety finding involving a fire risk, made by an independent accrediting organization, issued to a hospital in Oklahoma. CMS met with the hospital and accreditation organization, and issued a waiver to allow the hospital to mitigate the potential fire risk and correct the safety finding. The hospital will work with the accrediting organization on next steps.”

    Windham said Saint Francis has put up a sign to let people know there is a flame in the chapel and plans to put a rail or other barrier in place to prevent people from getting too close.

    Saint Francis Health System, with its stated mission to “extend the presence and healing ministry of Christ to all who seek its services,” treats approximately 400,000 people annually and has delivered more than $650 million in free care to people in need over the past five years.

    The organization employs more than 10,000 and has a volunteer force of 700.

    Infringing on Religious Freedom

    A lit candle in a chapel is a fundamental component of the Catholic canon law, of the rules and ways the church governs itself.

    As was the case before the CMS judgment, the candle is set within two layers of glass, on a metal base with a metal top, and affixed to the wall.

    When CMS said the candle had to go, it struck at the spiritual and cultural heart and foundation of the purpose of the Saint Francis Health System.

    “We’re being asked to choose between serving those in need and worshiping God in the chapel, but they go hand in hand,” said Barry Steichen, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Saint Francis Health System, in a May 3 statement.

    “Our work depends upon our faith in the living God, and the sanctuary candle represents this to us.”

    The 13-page pre-litigation letter sent to CMS asserted that prohibiting the candle was an example of consistently applying rules and regulations and violating religious freedom.

    “You have threatened to deny accreditation because Saint Francis keeps a candle—an eternal flame—in its hospital sanctuary,” wrote Windham. “For 15 years, that flame has burned without problem or concern in Saint Francis Hospital South in Tulsa; and for 63 years, the eternal flame has burned at Saint Francis Hospital Yale Campus, the largest hospital in the state of Oklahoma, without problem or concern.”

    “From the moment Saint Francis opened its doors in 1960, this flame has been maintained without interruption. In requiring Saint Francis to extinguish its flame, you are trying to extinguish not just a candle, but the First Amendment rights of Saint Francis Health System, as well as vital healthcare for the elderly, poor, and disabled in Oklahoma.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 23:30

  • Liberal Utopia: Two-Mile-Long Vehicle Encampment Spotted In California
    Liberal Utopia: Two-Mile-Long Vehicle Encampment Spotted In California

    The growing number of homeless encampments has spread like wildfire throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. For years, lawmakers in the state have implemented progressive policies that have backfired, sparking a multitude of crises, including soaring crime, rising homelessness, out-of-control drug overdoses, and population and business exodus.

    One of the latest examples of implementing failed progressive policies is the inability to effectively address the homelessness and drug crisis on a two-mile stretch of road in Marin County, California, overrun by cars, tents, RVs, and trailers parked on the side of the road. 

    Just north of San Francisco along Binford Road, the Daily Mail counted at least 135 vehicles. This is one of the largest encampment sites in the state. 

    Police in Marin County have found some individuals dealing fentanyl and other drugs from their vehicles or tents. In one bust, agents seized a ‘ghost gun’ and large amounts of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and marijuana. 

    Photos taken by Daily Mail show a large number of vehicles. 

    Many of the residents living in their vehicles are said to be from the surrounding area — many of which were kicked out of their homes because the coast of shelter and food spiked in recent years. 

    So why do California leaders deliberately choose to leave the homeless unsheltered and allow open-air drug markets that have transformed some parts of the state, such as the 2-mile strip on Binford Road, into what appears to be a ‘third world’-like country? 

    Is it the mess they created is too large to solve? 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 23:00

  • Parody Becomes Reality: Babylon Bee Predicts Gender Bender Friendly Military Recruitment
    Parody Becomes Reality: Babylon Bee Predicts Gender Bender Friendly Military Recruitment

    A year ago, The Babylon Bee wanted to help the US military promote its new recruitment efforts with a stunning and brave commercial advocating for more diversity and inclusion in combat. 

    Now, it appears that the US Navy among other branches is taking parody and turning it into reality. 

    Surely the Navy’s latest drag queen digital representatives will be enough to secure the number of volunteers needed to shore up the military’s waning numbers. 

    They just needed the Bee to show them how it’s done…

     

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 22:00

  • Binance Closes Withdrawals Amid Congestion On Bitcoin Network
    Binance Closes Withdrawals Amid Congestion On Bitcoin Network

    Authored by Ana Paula Pereira via CoinTelegraph,

    Crypto exchange Binance closed Bitcoin withdrawals on May 7 due to an alleged overflow of transactions on the Bitcoin network. 

    Bitcoin mempool was clogged with over 400,000 transactions waiting to be processed at the time of writing. The mempool is known as the “waiting area” for incoming transactions before they are verified independently by each node on the network.

    Bitcoin mempool at 16:42 UTC on May 7. Source: mempool.space

    Binance tweeted that BTC withdrawals had resumed after nearly an hour of halting. Outflows on the crypto exchange peaked on Sunday, rising to $187 million, according to data from CryptoQuant.

    Behind the congestion is believed to be a surge in BRC-20 transactions in the last few days due to memecoins like Pepe (PEPE). The memecoin trading hype drove Bitcoin transaction fees to their highest point in two years. On May 3, the total amount of fees paid on the Bitcoin blockchain reached $3.5 million, jumping nearly 400% from late April, Cointelegraph reported.

    Bitcoin outflow on Binance over the past seven days. Source: CryptoQuant. 

    Developed after Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard, BRC-20 is an experimental token standard recently introduced that allows users to create and transfer fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. It is currently becoming a hot spot for meme tokens. 

    CoinMarketCap’s data shows that PEPE’s price has climbed over 263% in the last week. As of writing, however, the memecoin is down over 7% following a 30% drop on May 6 as whales profited from Binance’s recent listing. Crypto exchanges MEXC Global, Bitget, Gate.io, and Huobi listed PEPE trading pairs two weeks ago, kicking off the token hype.

    Since the introduction of Dogecoin in 2013, memecoins have become a major part of the cryptocurrency world, making and ruining fortunes alike. Investopedia defines a memecoin as a cryptocurrency represented “with comical or animated memes, that are supported by enthusiastic online traders and followers.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 21:30

  • California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expense
    California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expense

    California’s recent decision not to pay back some $20 billion borrowed from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits during the pandemic will fall on the shoulders of employers, according to experts.

    California Governor Gavin Newsom (D)

    “The state should have taken care of the loans with the COVID money it received from the government in 2021,” said Marc Joffe, policy analyst at the Cato Institute—a public policy think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., in a statement to the Epoch Times.

    In the state’s proposed 2023-2024 budget, $750 million was allocated to start paying down the loans, until Governor Gavin Newsom nixed the provision in early January, leaving businesses in the state responsible for the loans, as mandated by federal regulations – so that the federal unemployment tax rate of .6 percent will increase by .3% per year starting in 2023 until the loan is extinguished.

    “California is just not really an employer-friendly state,” said Joffe. “This one thing will not be a difference between a business remaining open or closing, but it’s just another burden on top of the many burdens the state puts on employers.“

    In total, 22 states borrowed money for unemployment insurance from the federal government. All but four, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York, have paid back their debts – with California owing the most by far at $18.6 billion as of May 2, followed by New York at $8 billion, Connecticut at $187 million and Colorado at $77 million, according to data from the US Treasury.

    More via the Epoch Times,

    Initially, the state borrowed from its reserves to pay the benefits, but after exhausting its coffers borrowed to cover expenses, analysts said.

    Exacerbating the situation were unprecedented levels of fraud occurring across the state, due to limited oversight and antiquated computer systems, according to Lee Ohanian, professor of economics at the University of California–Los Angeles.

    Analytics firm LexisNexis estimated the total cost of the fraud at $32.6 billion.

    Investigations have since uncovered that illegitimate unemployment benefits payments were paid to convicted felons, with one address receiving 60 separate fraudulent payments.

    Fraud is a persistent issue historically with the program, and a $2 million federal grant in 2013 sought to address the issue with new computer software systems.

    The upgrade successfully stopped instances of fraud, but further improvements stopped with the end of the grant in 2016, reportedly due to the agency’s reluctance to take on the annual expense for the third-party service.

    “They were penny wise and pound foolish,” Ohanian told The Epoch Times.

    At a cost of $2 million annual investment, the program would have cost $14 million to operate since it was terminated.

    “Sadly, this is just a trifecta of bad decisions,” Ohanian said. “The [Employment Development Department] made a bad decision to not renew its lease for the fraud detection software, the state government took out a loan and chose to welch on the debt—which is outrageous—and now businesses are repaying more in taxes for the incredibly unwise decisions and mistakes of the state government.”

    Reports that the state is seeking forgiveness from the federal government were met with resistance by policy experts, including Ohanian.

    “We’ve made a lot of bad decisions and we expect the rest of the country to pay for it,” he said. “It also raises questions about the future: If the state is going to default on the $20 billion federal loans, how safe are municipal bonds from California?”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 21:00

  • Will Biden's Plan To Tax Crypto Mining Reduce Emissions? Critics Say No
    Will Biden’s Plan To Tax Crypto Mining Reduce Emissions? Critics Say No

    Authored by Luke Huigsloot via Cointelegraph.com,

    Cryptocurrency miners based in the United States could soon face a tax equal to 30% of the cost of electricity they use if President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024 is approved by Congress, but the proposal has sparked debate about whether it would actually decrease global emissions and energy prices.

    Cryptocurrency mining is a resource-intensive process that attempts to solve increasingly complex equations in order to create new blocks which can then be validated and added to the blockchain.

    This process consumes a significant amount of energy, with some estimates placing the global energy consumption of Bitcoin mining alone at around 0.59% of the world’s energy usage, which is roughly equivalent to the energy usage of Malaysia, according to Worldometer.

    Biden’s  Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), argues that the tax — dubbed the Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) excise tax — “encourages firms to start taking better account of the harms they impose on society,” adding:

    “Estimated to raise $3.5 billion in revenue over 10 years, the primary goal of the DAME tax is to start having cryptominers pay their fair share of the costs imposed on local communities and the environment.”

    By imposing a tax on electricity usage crypto miners will have a financial incentive to reduce their energy consumption, and with electricity generation making up such a large proportion of carbon emissions, this should theoretically reduce emissions in the U.S.

    This idea is similar to the thinking behind carbon taxes, which are intended to disincentivize emitters by forcing them to pay the full social cost of their emissions after attempting to factor in costs associated with polluting.

    Leakage

    However, opponents of the tax argue that it will simply drive miners offshore to countries with lower tax rates and less stringent environmental regulations, where they will continue to emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. This situation is known as “carbon leakage,” whereby emissions are simply shifted from one location to another, rather than reduced overall.

    As Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter points out, these countries may also have a much lower proportion of energy supplied by renewable sources, so emissions may even increase as crypto miners move offshore.

    Carter was scathing in his critique of the policy, arguing that it would decrease tax revenue contrary to what the Biden administration suggests, increase carbon emissions, and empower “geopolitical enemies.”

    In its blog post, the CEA noted that “the potential for cryptomining to relocate abroad — such as to areas with dirtier energy production — is a concern” but suggested that other countries are also moving to restrict crypto mining, and cited nine countries that already had banned the activity.

    Speaking to Cointelegraph, environmental group Greenpeace USA’s Bitcoin project lead Joshua Archer warned that regulations or taxes deterring crypto mining will likely be created wherever crypto miners move to, and argued that Bitcoin should eliminate its proof-of-work consensus mechanism.

    The climate activism group has been calling for Bitcoin to transition to a proof-of-stake mechanism as part of its ongoing “change the code, not the climate” campaign which began early last year. 

    One of the countries referred to by the CEA, China, banned crypto mining in 2021 after citing concerns about its electricity consumption and environmental impact. However, studies on the effect of the ban suggest that activity had simply moved to countries that use far less renewable energy, and actually increased global emissions.

    The CEA also argued that crypto miner’s electricity usage drives up costs for other consumers, and increases overall reliance on “dirtier sources of electricity.”

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

    While this makes sense according to economic theory, as an increase in demand within a market leads to higher prices, it may overlook some important nuances of the crypto-mining industry and its effect on the electricity market in the U.S.

    ‘Beauty of Bitcoin’

    Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital Holdings’s CEO Fred Thiel told Cointelegraph that “The beauty of Bitcoin mining is that it naturally incentivizes renewable energy generation.”

    Thiel elaborated that “In many cases, green energy sources — such as solar and wind farms — are only feasible if there is consistent demand for that energy when it is produced,” adding:

    “While most consumers’ energy needs fluctuate, miners act as consistent base load energy consumers. They help stabilize the grid, making new green energy projects financially feasible.”

    According to Thiel, while Bitcoin mining incentivizes the production of renewable energy generation, Bitcoin miners in the U.S. are also drawn to renewable energy sources, as the excess energy they produce which is unable to be returned to the grid is some of the cheapest energy available in the U.S.

    Thiel added that if this excess energy was not used by Bitcoin mining firms, it would not be able to be used by consumers and would otherwise be wasted.

    Thiel noted that this mutually beneficial relationship between renewable energy producers and Bitcoin miners is contributing to an already ongoing shift towards more sustainable sources of electricity, pointing to the most recent survey by the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC).

    Based on the results of the survey, the BMC estimated that 58.9% of the electricity used in Bitcoin mining throughout the last quarter of 2022 was generated by renewable energy sources, a number that is increasing over time.

    Thiel was also very scathing of the DAME tax, arguing that “it is a shot at a specific industry, not at a specific practice or fuel source,” adding:

    “If the Biden Administration really wanted to reduce global emissions, it would target the ways electricity is generated – not arbitrarily target select industries that use it.”

    He said that the proposal “is intended to run Bitcoin miners out of business” and “will both raise energy prices for consumers and reduce the feasibility of renewable energy development in the U.S.,” concluding:

    “Either the administration is utterly misguided, or this proposed tax is nothing more than a move to hamper this industry for political reasons, because it is not in the interest of the people, the energy grid, or the environment.”

    The proposal comes amid calls that a lack of regulatory clarity and access to banking services in the U.S. is killing its crypto industry, and if the DAME tax is approved by Congress it may just be one more nail in the coffin.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 20:30

  • Desperate Dems Float 14th Amendment As Debt Ceiling Override
    Desperate Dems Float 14th Amendment As Debt Ceiling Override

    As yet another battle looms between Republicans and Democrats over the debt ceiling, a new piece of potential leverage has been floated – using the 14th Amendment as a last-ditch effort to avoid default.

    The amendment, aimed primarily at extending the Bill of Rights liberties to former slaves, includes a section which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned,” with the implication that it would allow President Biden to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling.

    When asked on Friday during an MSNBC interview whether this option is on the table, Biden didn’t say no – just that we’ve “not gotten there yet.”

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, however, said that relying on the 14th Amendment would create a “constitutional crisis.”

    “There is no way to protect our financial system in our economy, other than Congress doing its job and raising the debt ceiling and enabling us to pay our bills and we should not get to the point where we need to consider whether the President can go on issuing debt. This would be a constitutional crisis,” she told ABC‘s “This Week.”

    That said, she also didn’t rule it out.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsYellen warned that if Congress doesn’t act to solve the issue, “we will have an economic and financial catastrophe that will be of our own making, and there is no action that President Biden and the U.S. Treasury can take to prevent that catastrophe.”

    White House aides have reportedly looked into the use of the Amendment in order to avoid default, The Hill reports.

    Lawmakers, on the other hand, say that default can only be avoided if a deal is reached between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The pair are scheduled to meet on Tuesday for the first time since February in order to negotiate.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 20:00

  • China Wants Killer Robots To Fight The Next War
    China Wants Killer Robots To Fight The Next War

    Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    War grips the world and the most powerful nations on earth go to battle once more. This time, however, it is machines that do the killing, operating free from all human oversight and accountability.

    A Chinese soldier salutes in front of a military drone during a parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese communist regime at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

    It’s a grim picture of future conflicts, but one that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is nevertheless working to make a reality.

    The CCP is investing in artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled platforms that it hopes will one day conduct lethal missions in wartime, wholly without human input or control.

    Gregory Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the regime is moving well beyond any attempt to keep a human in the AI decision-making loop.

    “China is pursuing development of AI-enabled lethal autonomous weapons,” Allen wrote in a prepared testimony for an April 13 hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

    “The best available indications … suggest that China’s strategy is ambitious, moving beyond any sort of on-the-battlefield human supervision into increasingly autonomous AI-enabled warfare.”

    Though the CCP is investing heavily in a broad array of new technologies, Allen says, AI is foremost among them. The regime’s capacity to build AI-driven machines of war is quickly reaching parity with that of the United States, and may even exceed it soon.

    “U.S. leadership in the realm of military AI is not at all guaranteed,” Allen says.

    “While the United States has important advantages, China may be able to quickly take the lead in government and military adoption of AI capabilities. This is an outcome that the United States should seek to prevent.”

    A picture taken on Nov. 14, 2017, shows a Chinese-made Wing Loong II drone on display during the Dubai Airshow. (Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images)

    Autonomous AI Platforms ‘Inevitable’

    The CCP’s pursuit of AI-driven weapons and other military platforms, though not well understood by many Americans, has been ongoing for years.

    Allen notes that he first realized the remarkable ambition of such goals back in 2018. At that time, he attended a conference where he transcribed a speech made by Zeng Yi, a senior executive at China’s state-owned military company Norinco.

    There, Zeng described Norinco’s ambitions—and the CCP’s expectations—for future implementation of AI weapons by saying that, “In future battlegrounds, there will be no people fighting.”

    “Zeng predicted that by 2025, lethal autonomous weapons would be commonplace,” Allen said, adding that Zeng had described the mass adoption of autonomous AI platforms as “inevitable.”

    Allen also noted that CCP censors removed Zeng’s comments and even his participation from the official readout of the conference shortly thereafter.

    “It was not in China’s interest to have that information in the open,” Allen said.

    Not long after that, however, the CCP-affiliated military company Ziyan began exporting its Blowfish A2 and A3 drones to the Middle East. The Blowfish, a helicopter-style drone capable of autonomously engaging with targets, using machine guns and missiles, was just the first realization of the regime’s ambition to transform war from a human domain into a robotic one.

    Military Decision-Making Without Humanity

    The regime’s ambitions for AI go beyond killer robots. The CCP is also investing to develop AI capabilities related to military decision-making and command and control.

    At the heart of the effort is the CCP’s goal of “intelligentization,” a transformation of warfare through the mass integration of AI, automation, and big data.

    Zeng posited that “intelligence supremacy will be the core of future warfare” and that “AI may completely change the current command structure, which is dominated by humans” to one that is dominated by an “AI cluster” that operates “just like the brain of the human body.”

    Building on that vision are Chinese companies like 4Paradigm, which was contracted by the CCP’s military wing to develop AI decision-making models and human-machine teaming software for use at the company and battalion levels.

    Such programs essentially aim toward one end: the restructuring of the Chinese military into an increasingly centralized cadre of officers who direct swarms of AI-enabled autonomous systems to do the actual fighting.

    Sam Kessler, an analyst for the North Star Support Group risk advisory firm, believes that the regime’s focus on shifting the burden of warfighting from humans to AI-enabled systems is indicative of a broader recognition among CCP leadership about the revolutionary nature of intelligent autonomous systems.

    “The [Chinese military] places a great deal of emphasis on disruptive technologies like autonomous systems,” Kessler said in an email to The Epoch Times.

    “Unmanned combat systems with digitized decision-making programs can potentially speed up the process of performing tasks on the battlefield,” Kessler added. “[These include] precision strikes, accurate reconnaissance, resupplying forces, and performing field modifications more precisely and effectively.”

    Such capabilities, Kessler said, could provide even a meager military with a profound force multiplier, and could shift the balance of power in future conflicts.

    “Whoever possesses this kind of technology can help make even the weakest or average conventional military power have an edge in a field of battle, or prolonging it,” Kessler said.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 19:30

  • California Approves Reparations Recommendations, Proposing $1.2 Million Checks For Black Residents
    California Approves Reparations Recommendations, Proposing $1.2 Million Checks For Black Residents

    California is grappling with many crises, including soaring crime, a growing homeless population, out-of-control drug overdoses, a giant budget shortfall, a population and business exodus, and a power grid teetering on the edge of failure. But instead of progressive lawmakers addressing these problems and making life better for the tens of millions of Americans who currently live in the state, they are focused on reparations. 

    On Saturday, California’s nine-member Reparations Task Force approved recommendations for how state officials should compensate and apologize to Black residents for past injustices. The task force has spent the last two years deliberating on payment recommendations that will now be sent for final approval in Sacramento before a July 1 deadline. 

    “Reparations are not only morally justifiable, but they have the potential to address long-standing racial disparities and inequalities,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said during the meeting last night in Oakland. 

    California task force’s recommendations would mean a 71-year-old Black resident, living in the Golden State for their entire life, could receive a $1.2 million compensation check if the recommendations are passed into law. 

    Several economists working with the task force have developed these reparation estimates:

    One such estimate laid out in the report determined that to address the harms from redlining by banks, which disqualified people in Black neighborhoods from taking out mortgages and owning homes, eligible Black Californians should receive up to $148,099. That estimate is based on a figure of $3,366 for each year they lived in California from the early 1930s to the late 1970s, when federal redlining was most prevalent.

    To address the impact of over-policing and mass incarceration, the report estimates, each eligible person would receive $115,260, or about $2,352 for each year of residency in California from 1971 to 2020, during the decades-long war on drugs. –The New York Times 

    The task force’s recommendations didn’t include the total costs of reparations which could be more than $500 billion, based on estimates from economists. 

    “The initial down payment is the beginning of a process of addressing historical injustices,” the recommendations reads, “not the end of it.”

    Residents at the meeting demanded $200 million in direct cash payments for each Black resident. 

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    AmericanThinker’s Chris Talgo pointed out that reparation payments and other government handouts won’t close the wealth gap, “it arguably will make it worse.”

    Talgo explained:

    Consider. Since the start of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty,” the federal government has spent $22 trillion on various wealth redistribution programs. Yet, over that span, the rate of poverty remains unchanged.

    Perhaps this is because giving some people other people’s money is an incentive for the former to remain indolent. In other words, government checks breed dependence on government.

    On the other hand, if California lawmakers were actually interested in addressing the plight of many of the Black residents who live in the Golden State, they ought to take a forward-looking approach that would include an increased police presence, a tough on crime approach, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and commonsense policies that would make energy affordable and abundant.

    And, if these same lawmakers were really audacious and genuinely wanted to throw a wrench into the cycle of poverty that has entrapped so many Black Californians, they would do everything in their power to ensure that universal school choice was the norm in the Golden State. It also would help if these so-called leaders addressed the elephant in the room: the breakdown of the Black family, which is arguably the biggest driver of poverty and so many other societal problems.

    He continued:

    However, these are difficult conversations for leftist lawmakers, who always view more government wealth redistribution as the answer to everything. It is much easier for politicians to propose a superficial solution, like reparation payments, even though time has shown that giving people money doesn’t solve deep-seated, complex problems. 

    What’s troubling is that a California lawmaker has already declared a comprehensive reparations plan “will be a blueprint for America.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 19:00

  • Biden Admin 'Building Lawful Pathways' For Immigrants After Title 42 Ends: Mayorkas
    Biden Admin ‘Building Lawful Pathways’ For Immigrants After Title 42 Ends: Mayorkas

    Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As the end of Title 42 nears, the Biden administration is encouraging immigrants to take up more legal pathways to enter the country, or face new and expedited deportation processes.

    Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas (2nd-L) speaks at a press conference in Brownsville, Texas, on May 5, 2023. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)

    Such deportation processes are set to come with the implementation of a new rule the administration is set to finalize soon. The rule would deny asylum to many immigrants who are caught crossing the southern border illegally.

    The new regulation “provides that individuals who do not access our lawful pathways will be presumed ineligible for asylum and will have a higher burden of proof, to overcome that assumption of ineligibility,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press conference on Friday.

    The move is part of the Biden administration’s plan to curb an anticipated rise in illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border starting May 11, when Title 42 will be lifted. The date also marks the end of the U.S. COVID-19 public health emergency.

    Title 42, part of the Public Health Service Act of 1944, was implemented under the Trump administration in March 2020. It allows for blocking asylum claims and swift expulsion of most unauthorized border crossers under the grounds of keeping contagious diseases out of the United States.

    Under Title 42, border agents were able to rapidly send back many illegal immigrants to Mexico, which helped stem the spread of COVID-19 in crowded detention settings.

    When Title 42 is lifted, all illegal immigrants will be processed under the Title 8 immigration law.

    From Title 42 to Title 8

    “In a post-Title 42 environment, we will be using our expedited removal authorities under Title 8 of the United States Code. That allows us to remove individuals very quickly,” Mayorkas said on Friday.

    The U.S. State Department and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a fact sheet last week the country will double or triple the number of deportation flights to some countries and aim to process migrants crossing the border illegally “in a matter of days.”

    Title 8 is a federal law that allows expulsions if illegal immigrants don’t qualify for asylum. The process to remove an illegal immigrant under Title 8 currently takes longer compared to Title 42.

    Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), a Democrat, recently told The Epoch Times that under Title 42, illegal immigrants “can come right back” to the United States, because “there are no repercussions” after they are expelled.

    But “Under Title 8, there are some teeth, which means if someone is deported, there will be a five-year, 10-year, 15-year, 20-year ban or more, which means they cannot come back into the country,” he said.

    Separately, the Mexican government will step up border security in southern Mexico as part of an agreement reached this week, Mayorkas said. Mexico’s Defense Ministry said it did not have information on the matter.

    Also ahead of Title 42’s end, the Biden administration is expanding access to CBP One, an app that allows migrants to schedule an appointment to approach a border port of entry. Beginning May 12, roughly 1,000 appointments will be available each day, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 18:30

  • Mayhem Unfolds In Oakland As Soros-Backed DA Fails To Enforce Law And Order
    Mayhem Unfolds In Oakland As Soros-Backed DA Fails To Enforce Law And Order

    The Oakland Police Department is investigating a violent and chaotic “sideshow” that ended up with a mob torching a car and someone plowing another vehicle into it. 

    A video posted on Twitter shows the scary scene unfolding late Friday night near the intersection of Oak Street and 10th near the Oakland Museum of California. 

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    In a series of tweets, journalist Michael Shellenberger said the proliferation of dangerous sideshows results from “a progressive D.A. who has stopped enforcing many laws.” 

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    Shellenberger said police are powerless to stop “criminal sideshows because @MayorShengThao & DA Pamela Price refuse to prosecute “nonviolent crimes””. 

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    He pointed out District Attorney Pamela Price is Soros-backed. 

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    Another sideshow was down the street from Mark Zuckerberg’s mansion in San Fransico. 

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    Lawlessness is spreading like cancer throughout the progressive-run Bay Area. 

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    These shocking scenes stem from progressive city leadership’s inability to maintain law and order. Similar occurrences have recently been observed in cities like Baltimore and Chicago, where groups of young people wreak havoc on city streets. As they say… stay out of the cities.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 18:00

  • Downtown San Francisco Becomes A Ghost Town As Major Retailers Flee
    Downtown San Francisco Becomes A Ghost Town As Major Retailers Flee

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Retailers abandon downtown San Francisco in droves. Nordstrom is the latest, signaling  the death of the area…

    That image from the Tweet below is from April 29. Since then, there have been more closures…

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    Nordstrom closes two stores and Saks Off 5th says goodbye as well.

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    Walgreens and Whole Foods Leave

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    San Francisco’s Dying Downtown

    The San Francisco Standard says Nordstrom’s Exit From San Francisco Calls Downtown Mall’s Future Into Question

    The Nordstrom at Westfield will close at the end of August, the company confirmed on Tuesday. The retailer’s exit will leave a gaping vacancy that could be very difficult to fill: the store sprawls across 312,000 square feet and five floors. A Nordstrom Rack across the street is also slated to close in July. 

    Less than a month ago, a nearby Whole Foods abruptly shuttered, citing employee safety concerns. The Whole Foods had made regular emergency calls since it opened in March 2022 for a mix of medical crises, assaults and other incidents; in September of last year, a man fatally overdosed in a bathroom at the grocery store. 

    Last week, a Walgreens store next to Westfield mall was the scene of a fatal shooting after a private security guard allegedly shot a shoplifter.

    So far this year, police have responded to 74 reports of petty thefts, 54 fights and 30 grand thefts in the area.

    Call Out the Guard

    Zerohedge comments Gov. Newsom Activates National Guard And Highway Patrol To Combat San Francisco’s Drug Crisis

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has called up the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard to combat San Francisco’s out-of-control open-air drug market as parts of the progressive-run city descend into chaos.

    According to ABC7 News, CHP officers will be deployed across Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, while guardsmen will run intelligence analysis operations behind the scenes. The governor brought the two agencies together as the drug-related deaths in the city jumped 41% in the first quarter. 

    San Francisco Ghost Town

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    “It’s been completely surreal watching a major city like San Francisco become a ghost town in real time. Tons of restaurant and business closures. Way less commuters. Empty buildings everywhere. All the tech companies bounced and people got priced out. Just a hollow city now.”

    Q&A on the Exodus

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    Other than A through F downtown San Francisco is a great place to be.

    *  *  *

    Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 17:30

  • Fox Sends Cease-And-Desist Letter To Media Matters Over Leaked Tucker Tapes
    Fox Sends Cease-And-Desist Letter To Media Matters Over Leaked Tucker Tapes

    Fox Corporation, parent company of Fox News, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Media Matters over a series of leaked tapes featuring former Fox anchor Tucker Carlson.

    “That unaired footage is Fox’s confidential intellectual property; Fox did not consent to its distribution or publication; and Fox does not consent to its further distribution or publication,” wrote Fox’s law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, in a May 5 letter to MMFA. “This proprietary material was given to you without Fox’s authorization. Fox demands that Media Matters cease and desist from distribution, publication, and misuse of Fox’s misappropriated proprietary footage, which you are now on notice was unlawfully obtained. We reserve all rights and remedies.”

    In one clip, Carlson made a sex joke with Piers Morgan (gasp!).

    “If we’re going to talk about sex, I’d love to hit some of the fine points of technique, but, you know, but it’s your show. It’s totally up to you,” says Carlson, to which Morgan replies without skipping a beat: “We can certainly talk about your sexual technique, especially after your tanning testicles last week,” referring to a joke Carlson made about a reported decline in testosterone levels.

    “Not mine,” Carlson replies, adding “We’ll speak in more general terms, but I’ve got something to add.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsIn another, Carlson calls a Dominion Voting Systems lawyer a “slimy motherfucker.”

    And in yet another clip (which Fox may have hated the most), Carlson slams Fox Nation – saying “Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks. So I’d really just like to dump the whole thing on YouTube.”

    MMFA CEO Angelo Carusone told the Epoch Times in response: “Reporting on newsworthy leaked material is a cornerstone of journalism. For Fox to argue otherwise is absurd and further dispels any pretense that they’re a news operation.”

    “Perhaps if I tell them that the footage came from a combination of WikiLeaks and Hunter Biden’s laptop, it will alleviate their concerns.”

    More via the Epoch Times,

    Journalist Megyn Kelly, a former primetime Fox News anchor, blamed her previous employer for leaking the footage, specifically.

    “Ask yourself about my theory that this is Fox News doing it to him, that it’s Irina Briganti, who sat there calling through his commercial downtime to look for anything,” said Kelly, referring to Fox News’ senior executive vice president of corporate communications.

    “If this is all you got, you lost your fastball. I can’t wait for the tape that absolutely sinks him because this is absurd,” she continued. “So far you made Fox Nation look bad. You’ve made Tucker look good on his ripping on Media Matters for America. And you’ve made Tucker look good because he’s obviously a funny guy who mocks his enemies and makes [it] clear that he understands you might be taping him!”

    Bill O’Reilly, who preceded Carlson in Fox News’ 8 p.m. ET weeknight slot, said on NewsNation on May 3 that the leaking was most likely by someone at Fox News in order to make Carlson look like “a racist villain.”

    Fox has refuted allegations of its involvement in the leaks. “This is completely false and an outright lie,” a spokesman said on Wednesday.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 17:00

  • Why China & Its Trading Allies Are Well Placed To Topple The Dollar
    Why China & Its Trading Allies Are Well Placed To Topple The Dollar

    Authored by Wolfgang Munchau via NewStatesman.com,

    After decades meting out sanctions and financial coercion, the US may soon feel its grip on world trade beginning to loosen…

    Change is good, but dollars are better, a US author of romance novels once wrote. A similarly light-hearted sentiment often inspires discussions about the future role of the US dollar as the world’s leading currency. The consensus view is that the dollar is safe. I think the consensus is wrong.

    The dollar is the foundation of US global leadership, and the future of the dollar is therefore intricately linked to the debate about geopolitical fragmentation. 

    Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, asked during his recent visit to China:

    “Why should every country have to be tied to the dollar for trade?… Who decided the dollar would be the [world’s] currency?”

    These are good questions.

    The perhaps surprising answer is that he himself made that decision, together with the former leaders of the other “Brics” group of nations: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Their economic-development models have succeeded but have also critically depended on the US dollar. During the period of hyperglobalisation – which I date from 1990 to 2020 – the US became the global importer of last resort, and let its trade deficit against the rest of the world increase. China and many other fast-developing economies built up savings in the currency they were paid in – the US dollar. They invested those savings into US bonds and other assets. The willingness of the US to absorb the world’s savings surpluses was the engine of globalisation. It ensured that the dollar would maintain its status as the world’s leading currency.

    This mechanism explains what happened in the last 20 years, but it won’t tell us what will happen in the next 20. Yet the dollar fans assume that the geopolitical and geo-economic environment will stay broadly the same.

    If the five Brics countries wanted to end their dependence on the dollar, they would have to do more than just choose another currency to trade in. It is not a menu choice, as Lula suggested during the same speech. He and his fellow Brics leaders would have to change how they interact with the rest of the world, and with one another.

    China is key. In 2021, the country derived 43 per cent of its GDP from investment. This is approximately twice the level of the US and other Western countries. If China managed to shift some of its GDP to consumption, it would reduce its external trade surplus, as consumers tend to buy more imported goods. If you wanted to be less reliant on the US dollar, this is where you would have to start. As a second step, China and the other Brics countries could start trading more with each other, become more self-reliant in their supply chains, and set up their own financial infrastructure.

    Changing economic models is hard. Three years after Brexit, the UK is still struggling to move away from a model that depended on close integration with the EU. Germany is finding it hard to maintain competitiveness without cheap Russian gas and with impaired global supply. It takes decades to build industrial production lines and supply chains. In China, there are an awful lot of vested political interests at the regional level, which rely on the investment boom continuing. If President Xi Jinping was really keen to extricate China from the US dollar, he would need to impose policies that would meet with resistance from regional leaders. In parallel, China would also have to start a long process of shifting at least part of its $3.2trn worth of foreign reserves held in dollars into other currencies. All of this would take a long time – one or two decades, perhaps.

    The reason I think China, Brazil and others will ultimately go down that difficult route is the overuse of economic sanctions by the US. When the war in Ukraine began, the first decision taken by the Western alliance was to freeze Russia’s central-bank reserves held in the West. Previously, the US had threatened German firms involved with the Nord Stream gas pipeline, by cutting off their and their banks’ entire dollar cash-flows. If two people transact in dollars via their banks, at some point the transaction goes through US jurisdiction. This is why it is possible for the US to impose sanctions in the first place.

    It was the Obama administration that began developing dollar-based economic sanctions as a primary policy tool. Dollar sanctions have since become a mainstay of US diplomacy. The most insidious version are so-called secondary sanctions. European companies, for example, were forced to comply with US sanctions against Iran because they would otherwise have lost access to dollar markets. On top of those financial sanctions, the US has become far more aggressive in the use of targeted trade sanctions. The Trump administration banned Huawei. The Biden administration has banned high-performance semiconductor sales to China. The EU is also now cautiously starting to subject trade policy to geopolitical considerations.

    Sanctions can bring short-term policy successes, but they come with a long-term cost that is often not accounted for. That cost will be a reduced role for the dollar as the world’s largest currency. Sanctions give incentives to countries to reorganise their economies. We are seeing this happening in Russia right now.

    Having the world’s leading currency is an “exorbitant privilege” – an expression often attributed to Charles de Gaulle. But if you use a privilege too often it ceases to be seen as a privilege and begins to lose its value. This is the mechanism I see at work here.

    This is the non-fiction version of a story in which dollars are not better after all.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 16:30

  • Basel IV Rules Are Coming And Will Make Bank Lives Even More Difficult
    Basel IV Rules Are Coming And Will Make Bank Lives Even More Difficult

    Following up on the earlier Morgan Stanley note predicting that new regulatory rules will significantly and adversely impact new credit creation and will further tighten bank lending standards, Morgan Stanley analysts expect the Fed to publish new bank-capital rules between late May and early July, followed by a comment period, and ultimately a Final Rule, that would be phased in over time between 2025-27.

    They expect implementation of this “Basel III Endgame,” also known as Basel IV, to drive up risk-weighted assets (RWAs) and capital requirements for their US Large-Cap Banks coverage, with the greatest impact on Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs).

    While the analysts acknowledge that they can’t assess the exact impact until the final rules come out, after triangulating data from numerous Bank for International Settlements publications , they conclude that Common Equity Tier 1 Capital (CET1) ratios in their US GSIB coverage could decrease by a weighted average 0.7% (range 0.5-1.4%) in a more moderate “Scenario 1”…

    … and by 1.2% (range 0.9-1.9%) in a tougher “Scenario 2.” (for more please see “Basel III Endgame is Coming… Get Ready for Tougher Capital Requirements” available to professional subscribers).

    Separately, and in keeping tabs on the ongoing debt crisis, Morgan Stanley refreshed its analysis of excess capital for our Large Cap Banks and Consumer Finance coverage. 1Q23 excess capital levels versus regulatory minimums at the median bank increased 13% q/q, but at the Money Centers excess capital decreased a median 16%, driven by declines at C and GS.

    Bottom line: MS estimates some $153B of excess capital across the group vs. regulatory minimums as of 1Q23.  Commentary from this earnings season suggests that managements are shifting into capital build mode as macro risk rises and as regulators are expected to impose tougher capital requirements on the industry.

    For more see “How Much Excess Capital Do Banks Have?”

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 16:00

  • Like A Tweet, Lose Your Job
    Like A Tweet, Lose Your Job

    Via The Brownstone Institute,

    The president of Thomas Jefferson University may lose his job for liking tweets from Alex Berenson on his personal account. The episode marks a warning against those in mainstream institutions that any deviation from prevailing orthodoxy – no matter how minor – will not be tolerated. 

    Mark Tykocinski, a Yale trained molecular immunologist, became president of the university in 2022. Last week, a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer went through his personal Twitter account which had under 300 followers. 

    The Inquirer reported that Dr. Tykocinski had liked tweets from Berenson that criticized transgender surgeries for children and the efficacy of mRNA Covd vaccines. 

    “Two years after their introduction, the mRNAs Covid vaccines have proven to be what we all should have expected,” one tweet from Berenson argued.

    “Another in a long line of overhyped, rushed, profit-driven Big Pharma flops with weak long-term efficacy and a lousy side effect profile.”

    This constituted a media and academic scandal. The reporter demanded an explanation, and Tykocinski’s colleagues rebuked his transgression. Thomas Jefferson University CEO Joseph G. Cacchione wrote to faculty, employees, and students that Tykocinski “should have known better” than to like those tweets. 

    Even self-professed defenders of free speech joined the chorus of reprimands. Jonathan Zimmerman is a professor at the Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the author of Free Speech: And Why You Should Give a Damn. In 2021, he defended Georgetown Law adjunct professor Sandra Sellers after she was fired for noticing that black students underperformed in her class.

    “Georgetown’s official policy on speech says it is ‘committed to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate in all matters.’ It has now carved out an exception for matters of race, which are essentially closed,” he wrote.

    “The lesson [from Georgetown] is clear and unequivocal: Keep your big mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you.”

    Now, Zimmerman has discovered his own carve-out – wrongthink related to Covid and juvenile transgender procedures.

    “If he liked those tweets because he agrees with Alex Berenson, that is a dagger at the heart of the scientific enterprise,” Zimmerman told the Inquirer.

    “There’s no other way to describe it.” 

    “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1800. Now, the university that bears his name has declared hostility against its president for social media wrongthink. 

    But the attack is not directed at Dr. Tykocinski. It is a warning against anyone in institutions that they must conform to prevailing orthodoxy or risk their professional reputations. They must keep their big mouths shut, in the words of Professor Zimmerman. In this system, career advancement relies on obedience rather than ingenuity. It is no wonder that our ruling class is so banal. 

    By silencing critics, the powerful aim to achieve authority without accountability. Submission is central to their quest for power, and threatening the livelihoods of freethinkers is a powerful ploy. 

    Berenson’s reporting and support from public figures like Jay Bhattacharya and Elon Musk may save Dr. Tyconski’s job for now; but going forward, he’ll know the price that he will bear if he deviates from groupthink. He didn’t have to say anything to learn this reality. He didn’t make a post or deliver a speech. All it took was liking a tweet from a journalist. 

    Free speech is more than a slogan. It must be an operational reality for everyone. It can be closed down by forces other than edicts from government. It can be suppressed also by arbitrary private actions that reflect regime priorities. Ever more workers and especially intellectuals today work in an environment of fear that leads to self-censorship. 

    There are many ways to skin a cat and many paths toward despotism. Canceling the capacity of competent professionals to dissent against the state-subsidized orthodoxy is one. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 15:30

  • Buffett Turns Gloomy: The "Incredible Period" For The US Economy Is Coming To An End
    Buffett Turns Gloomy: The “Incredible Period” For The US Economy Is Coming To An End

    While Warren Buffett’s insights on the economy are traditionally cheerful and uplifting – usually hitting at time of peak pessimism in the form of self-serving NYT op-eds or CNBC vignettes (and usually around the time the Omaha billionaire knows that the government will backstop his TBTF investments, unlike those of pretty much anyone else), on Saturday the head of Berkshire Hathaway had a far more downbeat and gloomy prediction for his own businesses – and the broader economy in general – the good times may be over.

    Speaking at Berkshire’s annual general meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, the billionaire investor said he expects earnings at the majority of the conglomerate’s operations to fall this year as the coming economic downturn slows corporate activity further. He made his pessimistic comments even as Berkshire posted an almost 13% gain in operating earnings to $8.07 billion for the first quarter, up from $7.04 billion a year ago.

    “The majority of our businesses will report lower earnings this year than last year,” Buffett, 92, said, before crowds of thousands at the event on Saturday according to Bloomberg. During the last six months or so, the “incredible period” for the US economy has been coming to an end, he said.

    As Bloomberg notes Berkshire is often viewed as a proxy for economic health owing to the expansive nature of its businesses ranging from railroad to electric utilities and retail. Buffett himself has said Berkshire owes its success to the incredible growth of the US economy over the decades, but his prediction for a slowdown at his firms comes as upheaval at regional banks threatens to curtail lending as inflation and higher rates continue to bite.

    Buffett’s long-time business partner Charlie Munger, 99, who joined him on stage, said the more-difficult economic environment will also make it harder for value investors, who typically buy stocks that look cheap compared to the intrinsic value of the businesses.

    “Get used to making less,” Munger said.

    Despite the broader pessimism, Buffett said he expects earnings at its insurance underwriting operations — which are less correlated to business activity — to improve this year. Berkshire already reported higher earnings at those businesses including auto-insurer Geico, which swung to profitability following six quarters of losses.

    Geico posted $703 million in earnings as higher average premiums and lower advertising spending contributed to the gain even as claim frequencies fell, Berkshire said in a statement reporting its earnings Saturday. That revival follows a difficult period for the underwriting business as inflation took its toll on the cost of materials and labor.

    Geico has been facing particular pressure from rivals including Progressive, which Buffett has called “well-run,” and Allstate which had long used telematics programs to track drivers and encourage better behavior before Geico introduced the offering. Geico’s profit also helped Berkshire’s insurance underwriting businesses deliver $911 million in profit compared with $167 million a year earlier.

    Berkshire previously said it expected Geico to return to operating profitability in 2023, after securing premium rate increases. Still, Geico remains an issue for Berkshire, with top line growth in the quarter of less than 1% that “significantly lags peers,” CFRA analyst Cathy Seifert said.

    “I suspect rate hikes being put through to offset claim cost inflation is being met with policy cancellations,” she said. “While the loss of unprofitable policies is not always a bad thing- that’s not usually the policies — and policyholders — that leave.”

    Other parts of the conglomerate took a bigger hit, with after-tax earnings from Berkshire Hathaway Energy falling 46.3% from the same time last year amid “lower earnings from the US regulated utilities, other energy businesses and real estate brokerage businesses.” Railroad results were also weaker than expected due to a fall in freight volumes and higher operating expenses, according to Edward Jones analyst Jim Shanahan.

    But at one of Berkshire’s best known businesses, Brooks Running Co., Chief Executive Officer Jim Weber was skeptical of a steep consumer downturn.

    “With unemployment being so low, it’s hard to be believing we’re going to fall off a cliff into a recession at the consumer level,” Weber said in an interview on Friday ahead of the meeting. “I wonder if this is going to be an asset-value recession.”

    Among other topics discussed on Saturday were Buffett’s succession, the banking crisis, the US debt ceiling crisis, the company’s investment in Occidental, Chna’s upcoming invasion of Taiwan and more:

    • Succession planning: Buffett named Greg Abel, 60, as heir apparent in 2021, and the vice chair for non-insurance operations has had a more pronounced presence ever since. On Saturday, Buffett reaffirmed he was “100% comfortable” with the decision and even indicated a largely business-as-usual transition, for whenever that could be. “Greg understands capital allocation as well as I do. That’s lucky for us,” Buffett said at the meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. “He will make those decisions, I think, very much in the same framework as I would make them. We have laid out that framework now for 30 years.”
    • Occidental control: One analyst called it the biggest announcement of the day: Berkshire won’t make an offer for full control of Occidental Petroleum Corp., the energy firm it has spent months boosting its wagers on. The comment by Buffett likely helped temper speculation that Berkshire is seeking to own Occidental after winning approval from US regulators last year to acquire as much as 50% of the firm. Buffett didn’t rule out buying more stock of the Houston-based firm, adding it may — or may not — seek further purchases.
    • Banking Turmoil: Buffett and Munger were so sure they’d be questions about the recent banking turmoil that they jokily brought placards bearing the accounting classifications spotlighted during the upheaval. One was labeled “available for sale,” while the other read “held to maturity.” Striking a more serious note, Buffett faulted the executives in charge of the failed banks, arguing they should be held accountable for mistakes that were hiding in “plain sight.” He also called out “messed up” incentives in banking regulation, as well as poor messaging by regulators, politicians and the press to the American public about the upheaval. Buffett pointed to First Republic Bank, the insolvent bank which last weekend was acquired by JPMorgan after it collapsed after  offering jumbo, non-government-backed mortgages at fixed rates that were interest-only for 10 years in some cases — which Buffett called “a crazy proposition.”… “It was doing it in plain sight and the world ignored it ‘til it blew up,” Buffett said.
    • Debt Ceiling: As lawmakers race to resolve a standoff around the US debt ceiling, Buffett said he couldn’t see how Washington would allow the US to default on its debt, an outcome that would tip the financial system into turmoil. Investors and politicians are zeroing in on whether or not the US government can avoid crashing into its statutory debt ceiling and a potentially catastrophic technical default that could follow. Despite the impasse, Buffett reiterated his belief in America as an “incredible society” with “everything going for us.” Given the choice, he would still want to be born in the US, he said.
    • Geopolitics, Taiwan:  In Q4 Buffett slashed his holding of Taiwan Semi just months after disclosing a major stake in a quick reversal that spooked investors. Buffett said Saturday the company was one of the best managed and most important in the world, but that he didn’t like the location — a reference to Taiwan amid rising tensions between the island and China. Buffett and Munger emphasized the need for smooth relations between the US and China and urged increased trade. While the two will be competitive, they will always need to judge “how far you can push the other guy without them reacting wrong,” Buffett said.

    Separately, Berkshire topped up its cash pile, ending the quarter with $130.6 billion, a $2 billion increase from the $128.6 billion at the end of the year. This means that Berkshire stands to make a bonanza from interest income as the Fed keeps hiking rates: “Our investment income is going to be a lot larger this year than last year, and that’s built in,” Buffett said at the annual meeting.

    The company was also a net seller of equities for the second quarter in a row, pocketing $10.4 billion in net stock sales ($13.3 billion gross) after deducting purchases of $2.9 billion.

    Finally, Berkshire bought back $4.4 billion of stock, an increase from the same period last year, as Bekrshire confronted turbulent markets that offered fewer of the blockbuster deals he’s renowned for. Berkshire has turned toward buybacks more often as valuations in public markets had made it more challenging for Buffett to identify promising acquisitions.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 15:00

  • Georgia Passes Law To Crack Down On 'Far-Left' Prosecutors Who Are Soft On Crime
    Georgia Passes Law To Crack Down On ‘Far-Left’ Prosecutors Who Are Soft On Crime

    As of Friday, Georgia will no longer cater to “far-left prosecutors” who are soft on crime, after Republican Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill into law establishing the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (PACQ), part of a broader GOP thrust to get tougher on crime and make communities safer, the Epoch Times reports.

    “My No. 1 priority is public safety across our state,” said Kemp, whose office described the commission as a “valuable oversight mechanism” that ensures the duties of state officials are fulfilled.

    The Commission will be comprised of eight members, six of whom will be current or former prosecutors, and two other lawyers, who will oversee district attorneys and solicitors general.

    “The creation of the PACQ will help hold prosecutors driven by out-of-touch politics than commitment to their responsibilities accountable and make our communities safer,” said Kemp.

    The new commission has the authority to investigate alleged misconduct by district attorneys and solicitors-general and discipline or remove them entirely if they meet the conditions for removal, which include “willful and persistent failure to carry out statutory duties” and conduct that is “prejudicial to the administration of justice.”

    Republicans across the country have pushed measures to rein in progressive prosecutors who they see as being soft on criminals by declining to prosecute certain crimes. -Epoch Times

    “As hardworking law enforcement officers routinely put their lives on the line to investigate, confront, and arrest criminal offenders, I won’t stand idly by as they’re met with resistance from rogue or incompetent prosecutors who refuse to uphold the law,”” said Kemp.

    State Democrats unsurprisingly opposed the law, arguing that the Republican legislative majority was looking for ways to impose its will on Democratic voters.

    “I strongly oppose an excessive and unnecessary commission as district attorneys are already held accountable under existing laws and through the current democratic process of holding election,” said Deborah Gonzalez, Democratic district attorney for Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties, who has declined to prosecute drug crimes involving marijuana.

    Republicans go after “rogue” prosecutors

    Georgia’s new commission comes amid a fight by Republicans against “rogue” district attorneys, often funded directly or indirectly by billionaire agent of chaos, George Soros.

    “The inability to ensure public safety and protect communities is occurring at every level of state government,” Reps. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) wrote in an op-ed. “By cracking down on rogue prosecutors who favor criminals over victims, we can ensure that no one else is put in harm’s way as a result of Democrats’ negligence.”

    According to former President Donald Trump, “Soros prosecutors appear to be engaging in selective enforcement based on illegal racial discrimination” in major Democratic strongholds such as Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

    Trump has vowed to target Soros prosecutors if he’s elected president again in 2024, and has vowed to “overhaul” the Department of Justice.

    “They are Marxist in many cases,” said Trump, who pledged to appoint around 100 US attorneys who are the “polar opposite” of the “Soros district attorneys and others being appointed around the United States.”

    On Thursday, a progressive prosecutor who was notoriously funded by far-left billionaire George Soros announced her resignation, after months of bipartisan pressure to do so.

    Fox News reports that Kim Gardner, the Circuit Attorney for St. Louis, announced that her resignation will be effective June 1st. Gardner was one of the first prosecutors in the country to be bankrolled by Soros, who has since expanded his efforts to other major cities across the country. She was first elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020, largely due to Soros’ financial backing. Prior to her resignation announcement, she had declared her intention to run for a third term in 2024.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 14:00

  • US Heading Toward Power Grid 'Reliability Crisis,' Energy Commissioner Warns
    US Heading Toward Power Grid ‘Reliability Crisis,’ Energy Commissioner Warns

    Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    There were approximately 10,000 energy projects in April designed to produce more than 2,000 gigawatts (GW) of collective power waiting for permits from federal and state agencies to connect to electric grids across the United States.

    The problem is, that is nearly twice the collective electricity output of the 1,250 GW now being produced by all the nation’s power plants, most of which were built to generate power using fossil fuels.

    Therefore, two bottlenecks are looming—more power is trying to squeeze into an inadequate grid and coal-fired plants are being retired faster than new plants using renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are being built to replace them.

    “The United States is heading for a reliability crisis,” Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Mark Christie warned on May 4 in a hearing before the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

    “I do not use the term ‘crisis’ for melodrama, but because it is an accurate description of what we are facing,” Christie said. “I think anyone would regard an increasing threat of system-wide, extensive power outages as a crisis.”

    Committee chair Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and ranking Republican Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) agreed, with both identifying the same culprit in an “impending, but avoidable, reliability crisis” that confronts the nation’s electricity grid.

    The “premature fossil retirements” amid increasing demand for power are a result of President Joe Biden’s green energy initiatives in 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that incentivize investments in renewable energy.

    The incentives have proven effective in inducing investor interest—maybe too successful with projects being proposed and approved sooner than expected and faster than the grid’s transmission capacity is expanding.

    The Biden administration is “trying to force a dramatic increase in electrical demand” through the BIL and IRA, Manchin said, which will foster disruptions in transmission as old plants are retired and new ones come online.

    “We do have to address climate change but this transition is happening too fast,” he said, noting he and House Republicans have filed bills that address transmission. “I hope we can sit down and negotiate in good faith and put politics aside.”

    Natural Gas Shunted Aside

    Barrasso blasted the Biden administration for contributing to the pending energy transmission bottleneck by discouraging natural gas pipeline development, citing an April U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) report that documented the least amount of pipeline was built in 2022 than any time since such record-keeping began in 1995.

    Without restoring “balance” in the nation’s energy equation that includes coal, natural gas, and oil, “energy prices will skyrocket, grid reliability will degrade, and families all across the country will suffer,” Barrasso said.

    Christie was one of the four FERC commissioners to address the Senate committee during a hearing on the agency’s $520 million fiscal year 2024 budget request, but few questions posed by senators during the session directly addressed the proposed spending plan.

    Under the Federal Power Act, Natural Gas Act, and Interstate Commerce Act, among other legislative and administrative actions, FERC is responsible for managing the nation’s electrical grid.

    More than 5,200 megawatts (MW) of oil, coal, and nuclear power plant energy generation were “retired” between 2013 and 2022, and another 5,000 MW of coal- and oil-fired generation could be retiring in coming years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA).

    Coal-fired plants that generate more than 200,568 MW of energy plan to shut down by 2029 because of “continued competition from natural gas and renewable resources” and higher operating costs associated with older, less efficient coal-fired generators, the EIA reported in November 2022.

    It said an average of 9,450 MW of coal-fired electricity was retired annually between 2012 and 2021. U.S. coal-fired plant retirements totaled 11,778 MW of capacity in 2022. That trend is expected to continue at least through 2029 when, the EIA projects, 23 percent of the remaining 200,568 GW of coal-fired energy will go offline.

    Michigan, Texas, Indiana, and Tennessee will see the most “coal-fired capacity retirements” through 2029, accounting for a combined 42 percent of energy generation in those four states that will need to be replaced.

    Natural gas is also leaving the grid faster than it is being replaced. In November, FERC anticipated 107 units of “high-probability” natural gas units totaling 17,062 MW capacity would go online by September 2025. Over that same time span, however, 130 units totaling 17,489 MW of natural gas power will go offline.

    By September 2025, FERC anticipates that the amount of electricity produced by renewable energies will grow from about a quarter of the nation’s power generation to one-third of “available, installed generating capacity.”

    Utility-scale solar and wind generating capacity would expand from 17.37 percent of domestic capacity to 23.24 percent by September 2025, with solar and wind accounting for 11.23 percent and 12.01 percent, respectively, according to FERC.

    While the sharp increase in FERC’s three-year forecast for wind and solar, coupled with coal-fired plant retirements and the “apparent peaking of natural gas” as a source of electrical generation applauded by renewable energy proponents, even those who support the shift to renewables are raising alarm about the timing of a transition that is happening faster than government capacity to plan and regulate.

    A coal-fired power plant in Adamsville, Ala., in April 2021. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

    FERC $520 Million Budget Not On Agenda

    Much of the hearing focused on interim FERC Chair Willie Phillips, named by Biden in January to succeed Richard Glick, a Democrat criticized by Senate Republicans and Manchin for imposing new guidelines on natural gas projects and incorporating pipeline emissions in permitting reviews.

    Machin addressed the pile-on of new greenhouse gas regulations imposed by the Biden administration as “simply staggering” during the May 4 hearing.

    Biden originally nominated Glick for another term but in November Manchin said he was “uncomfortable” with the renomination and would not hold a required confirmation hearing before his committee. 

    Machin endorsed Phillips as chair in a Jan. 3 statement that called him “a supremely qualified and reasonable person” who “understands the need to balance affordability and reliability.”

    Barrasso said he also backs Phillips’s confirmation as FERC chair, praising him for “resetting the agenda to bring forward discussions for action” with an “emphasis on energy availability and affordability.”

    While he doesn’t always agree with him, Barrasso told Phillips, “Under your leadership, the commission has made great progress since you took over just a couple of months ago.”

    Phillips, who was District of Columbia Public Service Commission Chair from 2018 to 2021, has served as a FERC commissioner since December 2021.

    A regulatory attorney, he has been criticized by Public Citizen and other consumer groups as too accommodating to utilities, primarily from his stint as counsel for the North American Electric Reliability Corp, a public-private entity that assists FERC in grid development.

    With Phillips serving as chair, the five-seat FERC commission is down one member and evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. A fifth commission nominee has not been put forward by the administration.

    Phillips and Allison Clements are the commission’s two Democrats with Christie and James Danly as its two Republicans. All addressed the Senate panel on May 4.

    The Electric Power Supply Association and Interstate Natural Gas Association of America are among industry groups raising fears that the 2–2 deadlock can delay projects, including the transmission of zero-emissions electricity into the utility grid, efforts to bolster climate-weather resiliency, and the warding off of cyber-attacks. 

    Acting FERC Chairman Willie Phillips. (Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia Annual Report 2016)

    New Chair, New FERC Priorities

    Phillips said one of the first things he did as FERC chair was clearly reiterate the agency’s reason for existing.

    “It is our responsibility to ensure that rates for the wholesale sale and transmission of electricity, as well as the transportation of oil and natural gas by pipeline, in interstate commerce are just and reasonable,” he said in his testimony.

    FERC is also responsible for permitting and regulating energy infrastructure—plants and transmission lines—and that includes “interstate natural gas pipelines” and “facilities for exporting or importing Liquified Natural Gas.”

    Phillips said that after clarifying FERC’s mission, he sent forth three priorities: reliability, electric transmission, and environmental justice. 

    “I am happy to report that, in a few short months, we have made substantial progress on all three fronts,” he told the panel.

    Reliability “is—and always must be—job number one” for the commission when the nation faces “unprecedented challenges to the grid’s reliability,” Phillips said. 

    “Foreign and domestic actors are testing our cyber defenses every day. Physical threats to the grid are on the rise. And extreme weather of all kinds is threatening power to customers across the country,” he said.

    Among the steps in addressing cyber security is the January finalization of a rule that requires the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to develop “enhanced cybersecurity standards,” Phillips said.

    NERC, a not-for-profit public-private regulatory entity provides FERC with reliability and security assessments of grid integration from Canada to northern Mexico. 

    In February, Phillips said, the FERC Commission updated and enhanced winter preparedness measures recommended by NERC “designed to help prevent a repeat of the grid impacts we saw” in 2021 winter storms, especially in Texas.

    The commission in March approved new reliability standards to “further protect our electric system supply chain from hostile actors,” he said, adding in April it “issued yet another final rule,” this time implementing the requirement in [BIL] to establish incentives to induce cybersecurity investments.

    “These actions represent the ‘blocking and tackling’ that is absolutely necessary to ensure that our electric grid remains secure, reliable, and resilient,” Phillips said.

    FERC’s second priority under his leadership is transmission, he said.

    Transmission “is, in itself, a reliability imperative,” Phillips said, calling transmission “the key that can unlock the potential of so many of the energy security measures” in the BIL and IRA.

    Phillips said FERC has several “rule-making” priorities it wants to implement in the coming year to enhance transmission.

    “First, my highest priority in the near term is to finalize a proposed rule that will greatly improve our processes for interconnecting new electric generating resources, reducing the time it takes to bring those resources online,” he said.

    “In addition,” Phillips added, “we are working to finalize a second proposed rule on how to plan and pay for badly needed regional electric transmission facilities.”

    A third proposed transmission-related rule would provide the FERC commission with the “backstop siting authority” accorded it under the BIL.

    Philips said his third priority as FERC chair is environmental justice. 

    “For me, this is personal,” he told the Senate panel, recalling growing up in “an environmental justice community in Alabama” where he experienced “firsthand what it means for a community to bear more than its fair share of pollution and the other costs of industrial development.”

    He balanced that experience with recognizing “the benefits that investment can provide to historically underserved communities” in the form of jobs, tax revenues, and the community benefits of economic development.

    “Having seen both sides, it is my goal as chairman to do all that we reasonably can to ensure that environmental justice communities affected by the commission’s decisions do not bear too great a share of the burdens or too small a share of the benefits that new energy infrastructure can provide,” Phillips said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/07/2023 – 13:30

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May 07

Today’s News 7th May 2023

  • Digital Fentanyl: The CCP’s Cyber Campaign To Destroy America
    Digital Fentanyl: The CCP’s Cyber Campaign To Destroy America

    Authored by Kash Patel via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has always played the long game. It’s pivotal to their strength. They have a disciplined ability to think generationally rather than focus on the current political climate of the now. The CCP has zero respect for the rule of law, nor do they abide by any code of ethics. When you have the ability to rule without law, you become the world’s adversary.

    The social media application logo for TikTok is displayed on the screen of an iPhone in front of a U.S. flag and Chinese flag background in Washington, on March 16, 2023. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

    The CCP has poured their fentanyl onto our streets via their partners south of our border: the Mexican drug cartels. This has led to the untimely deaths of over 100,000 Americans last year alone due to fentanyl overdoses. Now, China has fashioned this death drug into the form of common candy to make it more appealing to our youth. This is the death train being operated by the CCP. It’s the one you can see and feel every day.

    Tragically, for America, the CCP also have their silent killer in the form of digital fentanyl, and it’s called TikTok. This social media platform is a facet of CCP warfare that remains invisible to most.

    The CCP has launched an information war on America that isn’t in the form of news. However, the means by which they’re doing so is now only being accurately reported in the mainstream media. After years of accepting CCP disinformation, our media is finally waking up to the cold hard fact of data theft. The CCP pirates are seizing troves of information daily through TikTok.

    The nearly 150 million Americans that sign into the platform daily, nearly half our population, would do well to take a moment to give their thumb a rest and their eyes something to read. Unless, of course, they want the CCP to win.

    Unfortunately, through the Biden administration’s disastrous foreign policy, we aren’t set up to win the information war head-on, let alone take on any aspect of it. Download TikTok onto your phone, and the CCP has a four-lane highway into your everyday life for free. Not only are we letting them, but by intentionally giving the CCP a massive money bin of data for free, Xi is laughing all the way from mainland China. How can we let this be in 2023 America?

    What are they stealing? Your personal information, information on your family, your habits, hobbies, and your internet footprint for starters. They then collate this data and stack it for use against Americans based on their interests and vulnerabilities. How else do you think Chinese spies infiltrate American lives? It’s not Google.

    For those wondering, “but Tik Tok is an American company,” that’s a false narrative, and it was entirely defeated when the CEO of ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, testified before Congress recently. Immediately thereafter, you had Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanding public support for TikTok.

    President Donald Trump understood the CCP’s intention better than anyone: from their Belt and Road Initiative, the manipulation of their currency, and their desire to supplant America on the global stage. Trump responded resoundingly, taking steps to ban TikTok, implementing tariffs and trade sanctions, and expelling Chinese diplomats from the United States.

    Biden and his administration have not only reversed every single one of these measures, but have also retracted from taking any position against Xi and the CCP. By doing so, we have seen the rise of the petro-yuan to replace the petro-dollar. We have seen Xi broker deals between Saudi Arabia and Iran, inching the world’s largest state sponsor of terror closer to a weapon’s grade nuclear program.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 23:30

  • The Countries With The Most Satellites In Space
    The Countries With The Most Satellites In Space

    The race for space has started anew as a flurry of private and government projects are once again reaching for humanity’s last frontier. In April, Gen. Chance Saltzman of the U.S. Space Force said that the new level of activity seen in space exploration was also increasing the level of threat the United States faces in Earth’s orbit and beyond, as reported by CNBC.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, Saltzman’s remarks – and as some may argue, the existence of the U.S. Space Force itself – stands in contrast to the notion of space as a place beyond national interests that has thrived on collaboration rather than confrontation.

    When the branch of the U.S. military was founded under President Donald Trump in 2019, one of the first organizations to speak out against it was the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy nonprofit founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Infographic: The Countries with the Most Satellites in Space | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The organization urged the U.S. government to reconsider and to warm up to the idea of space as a place where different nations coexist peacefully instead of a place where war takes place. The group with an extensive satellite database pointed out that military activity was only a minor part of all things happening in space. The data backs up this claim. Out of the roughly 5,500 satellites listed as active, only 424 have military uses. While the U.S. is the country with most satellites in space (3,415), multinational cooperations come in fourth place.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 23:00

  • America's First Black President Left A Legacy Of Slavery
    America’s First Black President Left A Legacy Of Slavery

    Authored by Brian McGlinchey via starkrealities.substack.com 

    Barack Obama was elected president some 143 years after the abolition of slavery in the United States. As teary-eyed African-Americans watched Obama’s 2008 election night speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, none could have imagined that America’s first black president would leave his own legacy of slavery — in Africa.

    However, that’s exactly what he did, thanks to a combination of imperial hubris, disregard for constitutional restraints on executive war powers, and the use of false pretenses.

    In 2011, egged on by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a handful of other advisors, Obama ordered a months-long series of air strikes that facilitated a NATO-backed regime change campaign that toppled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

    In Feb. 2011, Obama announces he’s directed his administration to prepare a “full range of options” for a US response to Libyan unrest (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) 

    Rather than ushering in liberal democracy and prosperity, the ouster of Gaddafi left the country fractured, with two rival governments and various militias vying for power. Obama’s regime change marked the start of an ongoing era of chaos, with some of the greatest resulting evils inflicted on black Africans.

    Those evils began during the war, as racism and Gaddafi’s use of sub-Saharan black mercenaries combined to spark widespread atrocities perpetrated against blacks who were seen as fair game for various atrocities including beatings, rapes and lynchings.

    “We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company,” a Turkish construction worker told BBC. “They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Gaddafi.’ The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.”

    One rebel group was glorified in roadside graffiti as “the brigade for purging slaves, black skin” — that being a reference to Libya’s black descendants of slaves, such as those who populated the town of Tawergha. Once home to 30,000 people, Tawergha was ransacked and its occupants assaulted to the point of turning it into an ethnically-cleansed ghost town.

    In 2017 — six years after Gaddafi’s death — CNN captured a new and unthinkable dimension of misery being imposed on black people as a result of Obama’s regime change: The network aired video of two open-air slave auctions hosted in Libya. “Big strong boys for farm work,” said an auctioneer. One trio of blacks was purchased for $400 each.

    Nigerian Sunday Iabarot shows the scar he says he received when he was branded by his captors (Lynsey Addario for TIME)

     It hasn’t stopped. Last month, the United Nations reported that a three-year investigation found “arbitrary detention, murder, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance” have become a “widespread practice” in Libya.

    Obama’s War Power Hypocrisy

    As a candidate in 2007, Obama was clear-throated about the limits of presidential military authority, telling the Boston Globe, “The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

    However, as president, Obama betrayed those assurances — and violated his oath of office — by ordering the Pentagon to carry out bombing attacks on Libya without congressional authorization.

    In a frontal assault on common sense, Obama’s administration disingenuously asserted that, since the engagement was limited to bombing and Libya’s military was in no position to retaliate, the United States was not engaged in “hostilities” and thus the War Powers Act didn’t apply.

    Not “hostilities,” according to Obama lawyers: A coalition bomb explodes in Libya in March 2011 (Reuters)

    While the intervention was championed by the likes of Hillary Clinton and National Security Council “humanitarian hawk” Samantha Power, many others in Obama’s administration opposed it, including then-Vice President Biden, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, national security advisor and deputy national security advisor.

    According to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Obama’s decision to plunge into war in Libya was essentially a toss-up. “The president told me that it was one of the closest decisions he’d ever made, sort of 51-49,” he told Yahoo News.

    Or course, as Candidate Obama had unequivocally explained, it wasn’t his decision to make.

    That Obama’s decision lacked conviction — and ended up being disastrous for so many innocent people — underscores why he should have adhered to the Constitution, which requires that the deliberative, representative bodies of the House and Senate make war decisions after public debate.

    As James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1798, “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”

    In support of Obama’s unconstitutional regime change war in Libya, a US F-15 Strike Eagle prepares to taxi for takeoff from RAF Lakenheath on March 19, 2011 (Tech Sgt Lee A. Osberry Jr/ USAF) 

    It’s doubtful that Congress would have given a green light. A Pew Research poll published a week before Obama ordered airstrikes found that 63% of Americans felt the US did not have “a responsibility to do something about fighting in Libya,” and 77% opposed “bombing Libyan air defenses.”

    Obama’s “51-49” characterization of his Libya decision is damning in another way. “This is nothing less than a confession of a war crime,” argued Scott Horton in Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism. “The president was admitting that he launched an unnecessary, aggressive war, a crime under American law as well as…international law.”

    Another Intervention On False Pretenses

    In addition to violating the Constitution, Obama’s Libya disaster was, like seemingly every U.S. intervention, advanced on false pretenses — in this case, the claim that Gaddafi was about to commit genocide in Benghazi, a rebel stronghold and Libya’s second-largest city.

    “We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi—a city nearly the size of Charlotte—could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world,” said Obama after US bombing began.

    Administration officials’ claims that tens or hundreds of thousands of residents of Benghazi were about to be slaughtered rested on a purposefully distorted interpretation of a Gaddafi speech, in which he’d said “we will have no mercy on them.”

    Gaddafi was clearly referring to armed rebels in the city. Indeed, he also said “whoever hands over his weapons, stays at home without any weapons, whatever he did previously, he will be pardoned, protected.”

    Then-UN ambassador Susan Rice told the Security Council that Gaddafi was supplying soldiers with Viagra to enable mass rape (AP)

    Via an intelligence asset, the Department of Defense had learned that Gaddafi had explicitly ordered civilians to be left unharmed. What’s more, at the time the Obama White House was spouting ghastly predictions about Benghazi, Gaddafi had already recaptured other towns from rebels without accompanying massacres of civilians.

    Apparently unconvinced that visions of civilian massacres would sufficiently inflame public opinion, the Obama administration even trotted out the sensational claim that Gaddafi was supplying his soldiers with Viagra so they could carry out a campaign of mass rape.

    Like Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapon program, Gaddafi’s rape-enabling pharmaceutical supply chain was also nonexistent.

    Five years later, put on the defensive about Libya on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, Clinton reiterated the patently false claim that “Gaddafi was threatening to massacre his population.” Days after she said that, the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee published the report of an inquiry into the Libya intervention, which concluded Gaddafi had no intention of harming civilians.

    Africans Pay A Steep Price For American Ambitions

    Obama had decried George Bush’s invasion of Iraq as “based not on reason, but on passion; not on principle but on politics.” The same can be said of his administration’s own regime-change campaign in Libya, which set out to:

    • Generate positive publicity for the US government. The 2011 Arab Spring revolutions brought the embarrassing overthrow of US-backed regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. Clinton State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter told Clinton that backing rebels in Libya would “change the image of the United States overnight” and “impress the young people across the Middle East.”

    • Bring a book’s thesis to life. Samantha Power, who’s currently Biden’s head of the US Agency for International Development and started 2011 on the National Security Council, had written A Problem from Hell, a book that urged the adoption of a humanitarian intervention doctrine called “Responsibility to Protect.” With Libya, Power saw the opportunity to showcase the concept — and advance her career. She was promoted to UN ambassador after US bombs started falling.

    • Aid Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions. State Department emails show Clinton’s advisors in and out of government enthusing over the utility of a successful Libyan intervention in a future Clinton presidential campaign. Sidney Blumenthal told Clinton that, when Gaddafi’s ouster came, “You must go on camera. You must establish yourself in the historical record at this moment.”

    • Protect Western economic dominance. Though Gaddafi had worked his way back into the good graces of the United States and its allies, he may have sealed his fate when he began pushing African countries to wean themselves from Western currencies by establishing a new pan-African currency, the gold dinar. In an April 2011 email, Blumenthal told Clinton that Gaddafi had already accumulated 143 tons of gold to back such a currency.

    Referring to Libya, Hillary Clinton once boasted, “We did not lose a single American…in that action.” That’s no consolation for the families of civilians killed by US bombs, or the modern-day slaves and others in Libya who continue paying a steep price for Obama’s short-sighted, dishonestly-promoted and illegal regime change campaign.

    Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 22:30

  • Berkeley Prof Admits Claimed Indian Heritage Was Heap Big Falsehood
    Berkeley Prof Admits Claimed Indian Heritage Was Heap Big Falsehood

    A Berkeley professor who’d long claimed she was a Native American admitted this week that she’s just a boring, plain ol’ white woman.  

    “I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as Native my whole life, based on incomplete information,” Elizabeth Hoover confessed on her personal website. Resisting calls for her resignation, Hoover says she has “been working with restorative justice facilitators to better understand how members of the…community have felt harmed and betrayed, and ways I can work to meaningfully make amends.” 

    This news would be amusing enough coming from any professor on the leftist campus. What gives it extra luster is that Hoover is a professor of anthropology — the study of human societies and cultures.  

    Hoover (right) with an award she was given at the 2015 Indigenous Farming Conference (via her now-deleted Twitter account)

    Hoover, who has a doctorate from Brown, claims her family led her to believe she was of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq descent, “but as an adult, as an academic, I should have done my due diligence to confirm that my ancestors were who I was told they were.”

    Hoover’s status helped her land prestigious jobs, grants and fellowships and become a high-profile member of the “food sovereignty” movement, according to Indianz.com. 

    In 2021, Hoover appeared on the “Alleged Pretendian List” compiled by Native American writer and activist Jacqueline Keeler. Her list, which has included Elizabeth Warren and Johnny Depp, targets people whom Keeler considers to be “monetizing their claims” of Indian heritage. 

    “Ethnic fraud, particularly against native people is huge,” Keeler told the New York Post in January. “There is an element of narcissism. There is a lack of empathy because they will retaliate against native people who try to expose their fraud.”

    Hoover says she’d been challenged on her claim of Indian ancestry since her first job as an assistant professor, and interpreted the questions as “petty jealousy or people just looking to interfere in my life.” By deflecting their inquiries rather than checking on her background, Hoover says she was “subverting the sovereignty of the Nations I was identifying with.” 

    This is the second shoe moccasin that Hoover has dropped. In October, she disclosed that her genealogical research uncovered “no records of tribal citizenship for any of my family members in the tribal databases that were accessed.” 

    With students and academics calling for her scalp, this gatherer may become hunter of new job

    In the ensuing uproar, former students organized a letter demanding her resignation, and obtained hundreds of signatures from Berkeley and other university professors and students, and Native Americans too. The letter said “her claims of having lived experience as an Indigenous person by dancing at powwows [are] absolutely appalling.” 

    Columbia Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson told The Mercury News that Hoover’s record demonstrates that she “lacks the requisite ethical and academic integrity to be a professor or a social scientist.”

    Befitting her place on a hypersensitive outpost of leftist victimhood ideology, Hoover’s new confession is thoroughly peppered with the right jargon, such as eight uses of “hurt” and a whopping 14 uses of “harm” — including a perplexing reference to “activating historical harms.” A sampling: 

    “I have brought hurt, harm, and broken trust to the Native community at large…

    I caused harm. I hurt Native people who have been my friends, colleagues, students, and family, both directly through fractured trust and through activating historical harms. This hurt has also interrupted student and faculty life and careers. I acknowledge that I could have prevented all of this hurt by investigating and confirming my family stories sooner.

    I betrayed and hurt my students, collaborators, and friends. I have negatively impacted people emotionally and culturally. For this hurt I have caused, I am deeply sorry.”

    Responding to the new development, a Berkeley spokeswoman threw around some lefty blather too. “We…support ongoing efforts to achieve restorative justice in a way that acknowledges and addresses the extent to which this matter has caused harm and upset among members of our community,” said spokeswoman Janet Gilmore. 

    Berkeley’s humiliation is just the latest in a long string of bogus claims of minority status, which seems to be dominated by white women, from black-wannabe Rachel Dolezal and Harvard Law’s “first woman of color” Elizabeth Warren to demoted former Dartmouth Native American Program Director Susan Taffe Reed, who’d faked membership in the Eastern Delaware Nations.   

    Dartmouth’s Susan Taffe Reed was demoted from leading the school’s Native American Program but is still an assistant dean (Eli Burakian/Dartmouth) 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 22:00

  • Alaskan Trucking Fleets Promise $150K Driver Salaries Amid Drilling Boom
    Alaskan Trucking Fleets Promise $150K Driver Salaries Amid Drilling Boom

    By Rachel Premack of FreightWaves

    As more drilling and mining projects are approved in Alaska, local trucking fleets are planning to hire drivers around the United States to haul equipment, chemicals and other loads — particularly on its fearsome Dalton Highway, a remote, 414-mile road that connects Fairbanks to oil fields near the Arctic Ocean.

    The developments, particularly ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project, have been controversial as they may mar some of Earth’s most remote land. However, for the residents of the United States’ third-least-populated state, the new investments could bring an economic boom that many locals say the state needs. 

    The construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the 1970s and oil boom of the 1980s transformed Alaska. The pipeline brought in some 70,000 workers and often their families. Many of them stayed; Alaska’s population grew three times as fast as the rest of the country in the 1970s and 1980s. As of 2013, more than half of Alaska’s housing stock was built in those decades. 

    Josh Norum, the president of Fairbanks-based Sourdough Express, said the impending explosion in mining and drilling could rival those frothy years. 

    “We’re calling it our second pipeline,” Norum said. “(The Trans-Alaska Pipeline) was a huge boom. … We’re comparing that opportunity with this next phase.”

    6-figure salaries for Alaskan truck drivers — but the job isn’t for everyone

    In response, Alaskan trucking companies are searching for truck drivers to haul equipment — and they’re paying them massive salaries.

    Drivers who can tackle the so-called haul road, which is packed with ice in the winter and prone to dust and mud the other three seasons, are in particular demand. 

    Norum said Sourdough Express drivers on the haul road earn $95,000 to $120,000, in addition to health care, retirement and paid time off benefits. Compensation has increased by 15% over the past two years. 

    Sourdough Express currently employs 85 company drivers in addition to contractors, Norum said, adding that over the next few years the company will add 50 to 100 new drivers. 

    Gage Schutte, vice president of freight operations for Alaska West Express, also said the company is looking to add 50 to 100 new drivers to its fleet. According to a federal database, the company currently has 121 drivers.

    Alaska West Express increased driver compensation by 11% this year. Each round trip between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay on the haul road pays around $1,500, Schutte said. Drivers can expect to make 100 to 115 trips to Prudhoe a year. That means Alaska West Express drivers can earn around $150,000 to $170,000 a year, in addition to benefits.

    That might be enticing for truck drivers who are struggling with slumping freight volumes and looking for a well-paid gig. Thousands of trucking authorities have already shut down this year as gigs available for drivers dry up. According to federal data, tractor-trailer drivers earn a median annual wage of around $48,000. 

    However, these aren’t easy jobs. The best conditions on the haul road are in the winter, when temperatures in the negative 20s give the ice-packed highway its best traction. Fall and spring make the road slushy, while summertime means the haul road is dusty or slick with calcium that’s used to make it less dusty. 

    Robb Christenson, the director of sales and pricing at Sourdough Express, was a truck driver around his native Alaska for nearly three decades, including some 50 runs on the haul road. He said those loads weren’t easy, but hauling chemicals and heavy equipment near the Arctic Circle was certainly memorable.

    “The equipment that you haul you’ve never seen before in your life,” Christenson said. “Being a part of that and doing that, it means something special as well.”

    Large sections of the Dalton Highway are gravel. (Photo: Shutterstock)

    Safety is the most important feature for these trucking executives. Those at Alaska West and Sourdough said they prefer to hire Alaskan residents. However, there’s such a demand for truck drivers now that they’ll likely have to recruit from the lower 48. 

    Schutte said few truck drivers who apply to these haul road driving positions already have haul road experience. Some are able to catch on quicker — for example, those with log trucking experience in the Pacific Northwest.

    Jeff Russell, who is the superintendent of maintenance of operations in the Alaska Department of Transportation’s Dalton district, which includes the haul road, can concur that running on this road isn’t for everyone. Drivers stuck in a snowdrift might not be able to get rescued for a day or more. And they’ll need to know how to fix their own trucks — tow trucks aren’t exactly heading up to Prudhoe on a whim. 

    “Trying to find personnel that’s willing to take on that challenge is unique,” Russell said, “not just for those who need to maintain the road but for the trucking community who needs to have people that are willing to drive in those conditions. They’re not a dime a dozen. I can tell you that.”

    Alaska’s longtime dependence on energy production

    Alaska has a complex history with energy exploration and production. The state has long been highly dependent on diesel fuel for heating, transportation and power generation. Fuel is expensive to import.

    Oil production drove Alaska’s economic growth in the 20th century. The 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which has a carrying capacity of 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd), unlocked more oil production but also depleted Alaska’s oil reserves. Production on Alaska’s North Slope peaked in 1988 at just over 2 million bpd and has fallen more than 75% since then.

    Alaska’s oil production has been slowly declining for the past 10 years. Before that, there were two more punctuated periods of sharper decline, from 1988 to 1998 when crude oil production was cut in half from 2 million bpd to 1 million bpd, and another decline from 2004 to about 2011.

    It’s easiest to drive on the Dalton Highway in the winter, when the road is packed with ice and has good traction. (Photo: Shutterstock)

    Today, the question is whether Alaskan oil production is poised for a rebound that would see it retake the 500,000 bpd mark — approximately 25% of the state’s 1988 peak.

    Alaska’s oil production, when multiplied by the price of oil, helps determine the payout amounts for the Alaska Permanent Fund, the annual oil and gas dividend that every person who’s lived in Alaska for longer than 12 months is eligible to receive. That payout has bounced between $1,000 and $2,000 annually, but could see a resurgence if Alaska pumps more barrels in a rich price environment. 

    According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Alaska North Slope crude fetched $76.62 per barrel in January, a price that was down from recent peaks but still very high compared to the 1980s to 2000s.

    A local boon — with international controversy

    The $8 billion ConocoPhillips Willow project, approved by the Biden administration in mid-March, represents the largest investment in Alaska energy infrastructure in decades and is projected to produce as much as 200,000 bpd over the next 30 years. ConocoPhillips did not respond to a FreightWaves request for comment.

    Oil production on the North Slope could grow by 40%, and ConocoPhillips officials have said that the Willow project’s wells could be used to develop newly discovered fields farther west.

    Another project on the North Slope, a joint venture by Australian firm Oil Search and Spain’s Repsol, will invest $2.6 billion to develop the Pikka project, forecast to produce 120,000 bpd by 2026.

    While that kind of production growth would have a significant positive impact on the Alaska Permanent Fund payouts to everyday Alaskans, a  renaissance of Alaska’s oil and gas industry would immediately spike demand for construction, oilfield services and transportation jobs in the remote, frigid North Slope, likely raising wages significantly.

    Other projects may contribute to that boom as well. A proposed gold mine in southwest Alaska would take three to four years to construct and operate for about 27 years. It would employ hundreds of workers each year.

    Alaskan lawmakers, the oil industry, labor unions, trades, Alaska Native groups and some North Slope residents have all rallied behind the Willow project, as The New York Times reported. 

    Climate activists, however, have slammed it as a “carbon bomb.” Burning all of the oil the Willow project would produce would equal 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution annually, or 2 million additional cars. Meanwhile, some Alaska Natives say the proposed gold mine could endanger their access to fish and game resources.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 21:30

  • New Mexico And Florida Most Dangerous States For Pedestrians
    New Mexico And Florida Most Dangerous States For Pedestrians

    New Mexico and Florida are the most dangerous states for pedestrians in the U.S., according to a report by NGO Smart Growth America. The two U.S. metro areas with the highest average rates of pedestrian deaths are also located in these states. South Carolina, with the top 5 most dangerous metro to pedestrians, is the only other state that counted an annual average of more than 3 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 of population between 2016 and 2020.

    As Statista’s Kathraina Buchholz reports, the data shows that states where pedestrians are most often killed in traffic are typically located in the American South and Southwest. Delaware is the only state not following this pattern and is the fifth most dangerous for pedestrians in the nation at almost 2.9 people per 100,000 inhabitants killed on average in recent years. Smart Growth America believes this is because Southern and Southwestern metros are more likely to be designed for cars rather than for a variety of road users. For example, these cities experience more sprawl, which is again linked to more pedestrian deaths.

    Infographic: New Mexico and Florida Most Dangerous States for Pedestrians | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to the source, pedestrian deaths have been climbing steadily in the United States to more than 6,500 people in 2020 – up from around 5,500 in 2015. For 2021, the organization’s preliminary estimate assumes that a record 7,300 people have been killed while walking in the country. This is in line with the Governors Highway Safety Associations’ estimate of a 40-year high of pedestrian deaths that year. The trend did not let off in the first half of 2022, the latest point in time for which data exists.

    The study also highlights that older people, poor people and people of color are killed while walking in higher numbers. In the time frame of the study, an average of 4.2 in every 100,000 Native Americans and 3.0 in every 100,000 Black Americans died in such a way every year. In comparison, the average annual death rate in the country was just 1.9 in 100,000 during these years. This is because poorer and marginalized communities most often live close to high-speed roadways and in places with inadequate pedestrian infrastructure.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 21:00

  • High Levels Of Toxic Metals Found In Widely Consumed Drinks: Study
    High Levels Of Toxic Metals Found In Widely Consumed Drinks: Study

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

    A new study has found that some commonly consumed beverages such as fruit juice and artificial soda contain levels of toxic metals including arsenic, cadmium, and lead that exceed federal drinking water standards.

    A woman shops for frozen foods on an aisle across from sodas and other sugary drinks for sale at a superrmarket in Monterey Park, California, on June 18, 2014. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

    Researchers from Tulane University, Louisiana, measured 25 different toxic metals and trace elements in 60 soft beverages, including single fruit juice, mixed fruit juice, plant-based milk, artificial soda, and tea.

    The drinks were purchased in New Orleans and are commercially available in supermarkets across the United States.

    Researchers found that five of the 60 beverages tested contained levels of a toxic metal above federal drinking water standards.

    Two mixed juices had levels of arsenic above the 10 microgram/liter standard. Meanwhile, a cranberry juice, a mixed carrot and fruit juice, and an oat milk each had levels of cadmium exceeding the three parts per billion standard.

    What Are Arsenic and Cadmium?

    Arsenic is a naturally occurring tasteless, colorless, and odorless, chemical element that can be found in the environment, including in food and water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The element persists in the environment and does not deteriorate.

    The  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted a 10 parts per billion (ppb), or 10 microgram/liter standard for arsenic in public drinking water in 2001, replacing the old standard of 50 microgram/liter.

    However, long-term exposure to high levels of arsenic can result in skin disorders, an increased risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, and several types of cancer, according to the CDC.

    Cadmium, meanwhile, is another naturally occurring element used in products such as batteries, pigments, metal coatings, and plastics but also found in plant and animal foods, according to the CDC.

    When consumed in large amounts, cadmium can cause stomach issues and when inhaled at high levels, it can lead to lung damage or death. Cadmium is considered a cancer-causing agent.

    “Exposure to low levels of cadmium in air, food, water, and particularly in tobacco smoke over time may build up cadmium in the kidneys and cause kidney disease and fragile bones,” the CDC notes.

    Fruit Juices, Plant-Based Milks Contain Higher Levels

    In total, 7 of the 25 elements measured by researchers in their study exceeded drinking water standards in some of the drinks, including nickel, manganese, boron, cadmium, strontium, arsenic, and selenium, while lead was detected in more than 93 percent of the 60 samples, although the majority contained levels below one part per billion.

    The highest level (6.3 micrograms/kg) was found in a lime sports drink, though that is still below standards for drinking water set by the EPA and the World Health Organization.

    Overall, mixed fruit juices and plant-based milks, including oat and almond milk, contained higher levels of toxic metals than other drinks analyzed in the study, researchers said.

    Researchers did not identify the specific brands they studied but noted that they can be purchased at local supermarkets and retail stores.

    The findings of the study, titled, “Toxic metals and essential elements contents in commercially available fruit juices and other non-alcoholic beverages from the United States,” were published in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 20:30

  • Prominent Russian Novelist Wounded In Car Bomb Assassination Attempt
    Prominent Russian Novelist Wounded In Car Bomb Assassination Attempt

    One of Russia’s best-known novelists has been targeted in an apparent attempted assassination near the city of Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday. RIA Novosti is reporting that a native of Ukraine is in custody related to the attack.

    Zakhar Prilepin was wounded by a car bomb, which killed his driver. Immediately after the blast he was seriously injured but reportedly conscious, after which a suspect was quickly detained, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry.

    Russian writer Zakhar Prilepin in Moscow in 2017, presenting his book “Platoon. Officers and rebels of Russian Literature”. via AFP

    “The search for possible accomplices continues,” the government statement said.  “Law enforcement officers are now investigating the circumstances and causes of the incident. Zakhar is OK,” the regional governor said.

    Prilepin is not only a contemporary literary giant in Russia, but he’s considered to be very active in support of the Ukraine war, with the BBC and other Western sources describing him as a prominent commentator of ultranationalist politics. He’s a former member of the State Duma and has been very active in conservative political movements within the country.

    Further according to BBC, a pro-Ukraine opposition group has claimed responsibility for the attack:

    The explosion reportedly took place on a remote road some 80km (50 miles) from the town of Bor. State media said the blogger suffered a concussion and fractured bones.

    The partisan group Atesh, which is made up of Ukrainians and Crimean Tartars, claimed it was behind the attack.

    “We had a feeling that sooner or later he would be blown up,” they wrote on Telegram. “He was not driving alone, but with a surprise on the underside of the car.”

    The group said further it “had been hunting Prilepin since the start of this year.”

    A Crimean opposition group “Atesh” –  reportedly associated with the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, has claimed responsibility in a social media post.

    Below is a brief biographical snapshot of Prilepin and some of his novels via Russia’s RT:

    After the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, Prilepin emerged as a staunch supporter of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which broke free from Ukraine’s rule and later joined Russia. In 2017, he formed his own volunteer battalion, taking the position of political officer. In late January, the writer’s press service said that Prilepin had signed a contract with Russia’s National Guard and set off for the conflict zone.

    Prilepin has also authored several books, most notably ‘The Pathologies’, a novel about the Chechen War, as well as ‘Some Will Not Go To Hell’, describing the hostilities in Donbass.

    State media sources have described the explosion as occurring on a highway, with the device having been previously planted underneath the car, and which could have been detonated by remote signal.

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

    It marks the third in a string of assassination operations on Russian soil since the invasion of Ukraine began. In April pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed when a bomb detonated inside a St. Petersburg event when he was leading a talk. Moscow has blamed Ukrainian intelligence, as well as pointed the finger to Kiev’s Western backers for providing support for an emerging cross-border ‘dirty war’.

    In August the daughter of well-known Russian philosopher and political commentator Aleksandr Dugin was killed in a car bombing. Darya Dugina’s death shocked Russia and grabbed global headlines, setting off speculation that Aleksandr Dugin himself was the likely target. Father and daughter reportedly may have switched cars at the last moment while traveling back from a Russian national festival event outside Moscow.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 20:00

  • America Needs Permitting Reform To Reduce U.S. Reliance On Foreign Energy
    America Needs Permitting Reform To Reduce U.S. Reliance On Foreign Energy

    Authored by Lynn Good & Brendan Bechtel via RealClear Wire,

    With passage of H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act, the House of Representatives launched the opening salvo for permitting reform this Congress. Business Roundtable applauds this action and encourages the Biden Administration and the Senate to engage in discussions to get meaningful, bipartisan permitting reform done. Successful permitting reform will unlock America’s full potential, make the U.S. an energy powerhouse and help address climate change. All while ensuring that we continue protecting the environment.

    Recent congressional action on infrastructure and energy demands planning, permitting and building an unprecedented amount of new infrastructure within the next decade. Congress made historic investments in our nation’s competitiveness, allocating $973 billion to upgrade our aging transportation and water systems, expanding broadband access to communities across the country, investing in critical energy infrastructure and clean energy technologies and making our systems more resilient against evolving threats like cyberattacks and climate change. And, if we’re serious about combatting climate change, we must engage in permitting reform discussions and reach a bipartisan consensus to clear the way for innovative American clean energy technology. 

    We’re beginning to see the benefits from these laws but reforming the country’s onerous permitting process is essential to delivering them. As of February, nearly $200 billion has been announced for over 20,000 projects nationwide, including funding for significant bridge repair projects and clean energy projects in all 50 states. Research by Business Roundtable shows that every dollar spent on infrastructure yields nearly $4 in economic growth over 20 years, making infrastructure an investment that pays serious long-term dividends.

    Many of these projects will kick off a multi-year, complex permitting process at the time we need them most. Unfortunately, the permitting process remains a labyrinth of red tape, costly delays and litigation. Studies have shown regulatory reviews took an average of 4.5 years before construction could begin on new projects and those delays were often followed by lengthy court challenges. For our nation’s most complex projects, the permitting phase will often far exceed the amount of time spent actually in construction. These delays undermine U.S. economic growth and competitiveness by increasing the appeal of investing abroad where projects can be built quickly and risk is lower. Now is the time for policymakers to take bold, bipartisan action.

    Permitting reform would also reduce our reliance on foreign energy and allow the U.S. to export more energy to our friends and allies. Russia’s war in Ukraine, production cuts from OPEC and ongoing price fluctuations have underscored the critical importance of energy security. If we’re going to advance the energy transition, the permitting process needs to be nimbler and better resourced. Timeliness is an enabler to our collective energy supply leadership, and it can be improved significantly – and it can be done while ensuring we’re protecting the environment.

    We urge policymakers to improve the permitting process to incentivize capital investment here in the United States, boost innovation, help address energy costs and create jobs without undermining environmental laws. Specifically, Congress should designate one federal agency to lead each project’s permitting review process, require that lead agency to make permitting decisions within 90 days of the public comment period, and improve best practices for agency review and coordination. Policymakers should also apply existing reforms to a larger universe of projects, expedite the approval process for projects that do not have a significant environmental impact, bring states along in the process through coordinated decision making and require legal challenges be filed within 150 days of a project’s approval.

    Business Roundtable, the voice of America’s CEOs, welcomes House passage of H.R. 1 and urges Congress to work together on a bipartisan path forward. Permitting reform will result in a more modern, efficient process and ensure a cleaner, more secure energy future while supporting economic growth and American jobs.

    Lynn Good is Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Duke Energy Corporation and Business Roundtable Smart Regulation Chair.

    Brendan Bechtel is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bechtel and Business Roundtable Infrastructure Chair.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 19:30

  • Hunter Laptop Letter Pitched To Ex-Spooks As 'Debate Talking Point' To Help Biden
    Hunter Laptop Letter Pitched To Ex-Spooks As ‘Debate Talking Point’ To Help Biden

    The infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter signed by 51 ex-intel officials was pitched to them by its co-author, Mike Morell, as a way to help Joe Biden with a “talking point” during a crucial debate with Trump, the Washington Examiner‘s Jerry Dunleavy reports.

    Hunter Biden smokes crack, source: his laptop

    Morell admitted that now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken “triggered” him to write the October 2020 letter, co-authored by he and former senior CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos, suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop reported by the NY Post was likely Russian disinformation.

    The recruitment email from Morell was sent to former intelligence officials and included the laptop letter co-authored by him and former senior CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos as an attachment.

    The quoted language from the Morell email, sent on Oct. 18, 2020, was read to the Washington Examiner verbatim and identically by two independent sources who had access to the email.

    Morell’s email explained that both he and Polymeropoulos believed Russia was involved in the Hunter Biden laptop stories and that Trump likely planned to attack Biden over the laptop revelations in the upcoming debate. -Washington Examiner

    “We want to give the VP a talking point to use in response,” Morell wrote in the email.

    Morell previously admitted under oath that his involvement in the letter was designed to help Joe Biden “because I wanted him to win the election.”

    Mark Zaid, an attorney representing Polymeropoulos and several other laptop letter signers (and ex-ABC Senior News producer James Gordon Meek who was indicted on child porn charges, and who bragged about “getting clearances for guys who had child porn issues,” and who loves hanging out at Disney World alone), told the media last month that “when the draft was sent out to people to sign, the cover email made clear that it was an effort to help the Biden campaign.”

    The letter was ultimately signed by 51 ex-intelligence officials, and published October 19, 2020, days before the Trump-Biden debate, and furthered the disinformation that the laptop was the product of Russian disinformation – a narrative which the Biden campaign picked up on and amplified.

    “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage,” said Joe Biden during the debate.

    To which Trump replied: “You mean the laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax?” Joe Biden replied: “That’s exactly what we’re told.”

    “Here we go again with Russia,” Trump replied.

    Last month it was revealed Morell told House investigators he had no intention to write the laptop letter, but admitted his phone call with Blinken, then a top advisor for Biden’s 2020 campaign, “triggered” him to do so. Morell said it was his “guess” Blinken called him because the future secretary of state wanted it “out” in public that “the Russians were somehow involved.”

    House Republicans wrote that the same day of the Blinken-Morell call, Blinken “also emailed Morell an article” published in USA Today which alleged the FBI was examining whether the laptop was part of a Russian “disinformation campaign.” The article was then cited in the laptop letter.

    Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mike Turner (R-OH) also said Morell received a call from then-Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti after the presidential debate to thank him for “putting the statement out.” -Washington Examiner

    The October 2020 letter made numerous suggestions as to Russian involvement in the laptop reporting, arguing “if we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election” and expressing “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.”

    Emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop implying Joe Biden was receiving 10% of Hunter’s ill-gotten gains.

    According to the letter’s authors, the laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” and “our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

    As Dunleavy notes, “Konstantinos “Gus” Dimitrelos, a cyber forensics expert and former Secret Service agent, conducted an examination of the laptop for the Washington Examiner last year, concluding “there is a 100% certainty that Robert Hunter Biden was the only person responsible for the activity on this hard drive and all of its stored data” and that “the hard drive is authentic.””

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 19:00

  • Doug Casey On The Debt Ceiling Farce And Why The US Should Declare Bankruptcy
    Doug Casey On The Debt Ceiling Farce And Why The US Should Declare Bankruptcy

    Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

    International Man: The US federal government has raised the so-called debt ceiling 104 times since 1944.

    Shouldn’t they call it a debt target instead of a debt ceiling?

    Is this whole thing a farce?

    Doug Casey: The situation is completely and irredeemably out of control. It’s a farce. Quite laughable, except for the fact it’s so deadly serious.

    Can they reduce the debt ceiling or the amount of debt? Or even slow down its growth at this point? No.

    The situation is beyond redemption because most US government expenditures go to pay entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and numerous other types of welfare.

    Those things will be very hard to cut at this point; breaking the doggy dishes of millions of corrupted Americans would cause unrest. Plus, the so-called “defense” budget, which mostly supports the military/industrial complex while fomenting conflict. It’s actually much larger than disclosed because it should include $50 billion of foreign aid, the cost of running outrageously large embassies over the world, the CIA, and black budgets of all types.

    Meanwhile, all US government agencies are bent on expanding themselves. The bureaucrats who run them realize that if they don’t grow the budget every year, they reduce their chances of going from one GS level to the next. Their success is based upon managing more people and spending more money. Naturally, all these agencies grow like cancers.

    As a result, the “debt ceiling” is a fiction. It will stay out of control unless there is a total reorganization of the government—which itself would be risky. And that’s not going to happen until we have a financial catastrophe that leaves absolutely no alternative.

    International Man: You have previously stated the US government should default on the national debt.

    What are the reasons for that?

    Doug Casey: I know it sounds outrageous to propose the US government default on its national debt. Of course, they don’t think it will ever be necessary because, as several high-level government officials have pointed out, they can just print money to pay off the debt.

    However, I disagree. What are the reasons for doing something as seemingly catastrophic as defaulting on the debt? I’ll give you at least five. Stick with me. Let’s conduct an outrageous but not unreasonable thought experiment.

    First, barring default, future generations of Americans will be turned into serfs to pay off the debt. Profligate people have run up the debt, but everybody’s children and grandchildren are stuck with having to pay it off. That’s simply immoral. If you have any care for the future at all, future generations should be saved from becoming serfs to pay it off.

    Second, it would punish the enablers who lend the US government money. People who lend the US government money facilitate it by doing all the stupid and destructive things it does. They shouldn’t be rewarded; they should be punished.

    Third, official default is better than the alternative. It’s like a hundred-story building that’s about to collapse. If that’s the case, should you wait until it collapses randomly and unpredictably, or should you have a controlled demolition? It’s not a pleasant alternative, but it’s the better alternative.

    Fourth, default would make further borrowing on the part of the US government impossible, at least for a while. It would be exposed as an untrustworthy entity, like the Argentine government, which defaults all the time. People would still idiotically lend it more money, but a default might slow down the rate of increase in the US government’s size.

    Fifth, it’s almost necessary that the debt goes away to help de-financialize the US economy. The US is tremendously over-financialized. It’s all about buying, selling, creating, and packaging financial instruments. Government debt, with the help of the Fed, is the actual engine of inflation. Defaulting on the national debt would pave the way for the reinstitution of a sound, redeemable, commodity-based money. People would have to concentrate more on real wealth than phony financial wealth, actual engineering, as opposed to financial and social engineering.

    Of course, an objection reasonable people would make is: “If you default on the debt, it’s going to be a catastrophe.”

    My answer is that just because all the paper debt of the US government goes away doesn’t mean the real wealth in the world will disappear. The farms, factories, technologies, and the skills of the workers, will still exist. But on a sound foundation. And with some new owners.

    Furthermore, I’d point out that the US Government isn’t “we the people.” It’s become a discreet entity with its own interests, like a giant corporation. If it declares bankruptcy, it’s a problem for its employees and clients much more than for you, the taxpayer.

    Those are some of the arguments I’d make for defaulting on the national debt. But it’s just a rather academic thought experiment. The powers-that-be will prefer to build the current house of cards higher, probably propping it up with FX controls, Central Bank Digital Currencies, a Social Credit System, much higher taxes, more inflation, price controls, and god knows what else in the years to come.

    The default will happen, but more gradually, through the subtle fraud of inflation, which is actually the very worst and most dishonest way to default.

    International Man: Paul Krugman and other mainstream economists have proposed the US government issue a trillion-dollar coin to buy up the federal debt.

    That “serious” people can put forward such a clownish solution illustrates that it’s all a ridiculous charade.

    What is your take?

    Doug Casey: When you’re using funny money as a substitute for real money, it’s inevitable that soothsayers will come up with ridiculous solutions. Krugman isn’t an economist; he’s a political apologist. And a fool. He doesn’t describe the way the world works, but the way he’d like to make it work—using coercion and fraud, not voluntarism and the market. Every idea he has is so stupid that it’s criminal.

    The solution to this problem is to go back to a commodity money. Money should be, once again, just a medium of exchange and a store of value. It could no longer be used as a political football.

    And the US government should be cut in size by 50, 75%, or 95%. Who knows how deeply you can cut the size of the US government until you try doing it? But it’s necessary, at least if what’s left of the idea of America is going to survive.

    Using commodity money will, itself, greatly downsize the US government. The US State has become a behemoth and a parasite. It’s a far bigger danger to the average American than the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, or all of them together. Returning to sound money and a tiny government would make for a more pleasant, prosperous, and safer world—although the process of doing it would be unpleasant for some people.

    On the bright side, the only people who will be seriously hurt are the parasites living off the government. I say to hell with the parasites. They should be inconvenienced.

    International Man: It’s hard to believe the US government was ever debt-free.

    But it happened once—in 1835—thanks to President Andrew Jackson. He was the first and only president to completely pay off the national debt.

    Jackson also shut down the Second Bank of the United States, the precursor to the Federal Reserve, the US’s current iteration of a central bank.

    It’s unthinkable a modern US president could or would do such things.

    Given the practical reality of the world today, where do you see the federal debt going, and what are the implications?

    Doug Casey: It was wonderful that Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt, something that Alexander Hamilton, with his warped ideas of economics, sold to the country. But it’s now absolutely impossible to pay off $32 trillion of acknowledged debt, scores of trillions of contingent liabilities, and scores of trillions more of unacknowledged debt.

    I’d like to point out that there actually have been previous defaults by the US government. For example, Abraham Lincoln, during the War between the States, defaulted by printing up so-called Greenback currency.

    Roosevelt defaulted on the debt by fraudulently devaluing the dollar, raising the price of gold from $20.50 to $35, but only after confiscating it from citizens. That was a default. Then there was Nixon, in 1971, defaulting on the promise to pay foreign governments at $35 gold. Now the dollar is only worth 1/2000th of an ounce of gold.

    International Man: Is there any way to turn lemons into lemonade and profit from this situation?

    Doug Casey: Let’s not sugarcoat the situation. The real question is how to profit from the collapse of an overextended and corrupt empire.

    It makes sense to look at the historical precedent, like the Roman Empire. Was there any way to profit from the collapse of the Roman Empire? Well, some people did, I suppose. But the standard of living collapsed for almost all its residents during the ensuing Dark Ages.

    Is there any way to profit from the collapse of Western civilization? That’s so serious that it’s almost like asking whether it’s possible to profit from an asteroid hitting the Earth. The best you can hope to do is insulate yourself as much as possible.

    At this point, the best way to be hurt least, or possibly even profit within a very bad scenario, is to own gold, silver, and other commodities. And to improve your skills as a speculator. Remember, most of the real wealth in the world is still going to exist; it’s just going to change ownership.

    *  *  *

    We’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. Most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming… That’s precisely why bestselling author and legendary speculator Doug Casey and his team just released this urgent PDF report on how to survive and thrive in this chaotic environment. Click here to download it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 18:30

  • Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova: "Women's Sports Is Not The Place For Trans Athletes"
    Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova: “Women’s Sports Is Not The Place For Trans Athletes”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Multi-time grand slam winning tennis champion Martina Navratilova has taken a stand for women’s sports, voicing her objections to trans identified male athletes competing against biological women.

    Navratilova pointed to the fact that a trans athlete identifying as a woman, Austin Killips, won the women’s category of the Tour of the Gila bicycle race in New Mexico this week.

    Cycling’s governing body, the UCI, defended its transgender policy after Killips won, stating “The UCI acknowledges that transgender athletes may wish to compete in accordance with their gender identity,” and adding “The UCI rules are based on the latest scientific knowledge and have been applied in a consistent manner.”

    Last week, Navratilova also called out trans swimmer Lia Thomas for accusing critics of attempting to “hide transphobia” by saying they are feminists.

    “NEWSFLASH Lia- it’s not fair,” Navratilova tweeted, adding “We shouldn’t have to explain it to you over and over. Also- stop explaining feminism to feminists….”

    Navratilova previously praised the decision by the World Athletics international governing body that it will not allow trans identifying biological males to compete against biological women, calling it a “step in the right direction.”

    World Athletics Bans Trans

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    Despite most of Navratilova’s Twitter feed being leftist fodder, it is peppered with posts that make her stance on trans athletes clear:

    OK, cue the mob:

    As we have highlighted, cycling is one of the major sports where trans identifying males are cleaning up in the women’s category.

    Olympic medalist swimmer Sharron Davies, a staunch campaigner to protect women’s sports, also weighed in on the subject:

    Related:

    Former Olympian Swimmer Says Trans Hate Mob Has ‘Made My Life Hell’

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    Swimming’s World Governing Body Slaps Total Ban on Transgender Athletes

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    Another Sport Bans Trans

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    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.

    Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 18:00

  • California's Cannabis Market Crashes, Northern Counties Brace For Impact
    California’s Cannabis Market Crashes, Northern Counties Brace For Impact

    Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    California’s cannabis industry is in a free-fall, with some municipalities in the northern part of the state making plans for significantly reduced tax revenues as a result of a collapse in wholesale prices.

    A cannabis growing operation in the Santa Ynez Valley northwest of Santa Barbara, Calif., on Aug. 6, 2019. (David McNew/AFP via Getty Images)

    Once selling for more than $4,000 per pound, bulk buyers are now shopping in the $300 to $500 range for fresh harvests, according to experts, and some growers reported clearing out their crops for less than $200 per pound for fear of being stuck with product.

    The price represents a sharp drop from recent years, according to industry insiders.

    “It’s been a steady decline since we got here in 2010, but with the passage of Proposition 64 in 2016, prices accelerated downward quickly,” Rachel Greene, a longtime grower with experience in Mendocino and Humboldt Counties’ cannabis programs, told The Epoch Times. “It was a combination of a lot of people getting in the game and the old corporate warfare model of operating at a loss to drown out the competition.”

    Prop. 64—known as the Adult Use of Marijuana Act—was passed by voters and made recreational sales legal, creating the beginning of a regulatory framework to manage the industry.

    Legitimate and illegitimate family businesses were severely impacted by the plunge in profits and salability of a once easy-to-move commodity, according to farmers.

    Marijuana greenhouses in Carpinteria near Santa Barbara, Calif., on August 6, 2019. (David McNew/AFP via Getty Images)

    “I used to pay trimmers $300 to manicure each pound, and now I can’t even sell them for that,” a Mendocino County local who asked to be called Jack, for fear of retaliation, told The Epoch Times. “This was a business that benefited families all over the mountains here, and now there are growers and their helpers looking for work. Nobody knows what to do.”

    Farmers are reporting a “perfect storm” of conditions, with inflation causing the cost of doing business to escalate significantly over the last two years, while the saturated market in California has left many growers with few options.

    A Purple Candy Cane strain grows in the Mendo Dope/Greenshock Farms garden.

    “There were a bunch of pounds composted out here last year, and a lot of hopes and dreams went up in smoke with the crash,” Jack said. “We’re all kind of stunned by how fast it happened, and it’s not just us hurting. Look at all the empty storefronts. We were the lifeblood of this economy.”

    Lost Tax Revenues

    Plummeting prices are affecting more than just the cannabis market, as rural regions of the state have become reliant on the industry supporting retailers and the taxes generated by increased cashflows in the area.

    The city of Ukiah, the county seat of Mendocino, is preparing for an estimated $1 million drop in tax revenues, in part due to the weakened cannabis industry.

    Revenues grew steadily year over year until experiencing a dip last year, with the busiest shopping season—the last three months of the year—resulting in a drop of nearly ten percent compared to 2021, according to city records. However, the records don’t specify how much tax revenue was related to cannabis.

    “This doesn’t make the impacts any less real, as we’re seeing the declines in numerous types of businesses, but they are difficult to measure,” Shannon Riley, deputy city manager for Ukiah, told The Epoch Times.

    Garden supply sales were down nearly 13 percent in Ukiah last year, and sales taxes collected overall were down nearly 6 percent in 2022 compared to the year prior, according to HdL Companies—a firm providing audit, operations, and revenue management services to public agencies.

    The state experienced 4 percent growth in overall sales tax revenues during the same period.

    Compared to other cities in northern California facing tax revenue declines, Ukiah is uniquely positioned in the area, acting as a hub for surrounding communities, with medical facilities and shopping available for thousands of residents not living in the city, according to the deputy city manager.

    “Ukiah is very well prepared for this type of adjustment and will continue to plow ahead with major infrastructure projects, street improvements, recreation programming and events, and more,” Riley said.

    Other areas have not fared as well, with small towns in Northern California that once experienced a boom-and-bust moment with the loss of the logging industry now going through similar circumstances.

    Marijuana plants grow at the Green Pearl Organics marijuana dispensary in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., on Jan. 1, 2018. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

    From Boom to Bust

    Known as the Emerald Triangle for the region’s renowned cannabis production, the counties of Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity grew in population and in economic activity following the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996, the first in the nation allowing for the plant’s medicinal use.

    While census data shows modest growth for each county—approximately 11 percent for Mendocino and Humboldt and more than 20 percent for Trinity—in the 27 years since legalization, residents say those numbers don’t account for the actual number of people that moved in.

    The discrepancy lies in the pattern of behavior for many who came to the region to set up their operations from other states, yet never registered to get California driver’s licenses, and returned to their home state once the harvest was complete, according to farmers and local authorities.

    In addition, from August to November, a sizable number of people traveled into the area in search of work as trimmers and laborers every year.

    “It felt like the population doubled, and we’re a small community so it’s easy to notice the newcomers,” Juan Aguilar of Ukiah told The Epoch Times. “For part of the year during grow season, and especially at harvest, we’d have huge crowds in the grocery stores, people all over town.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 17:30

  • "AAAAAAAAAHHHH": Trans Activist Unleashes Primal Scream At SF Board Meeting
    “AAAAAAAAAHHHH”: Trans Activist Unleashes Primal Scream At SF Board Meeting

    A transgender activist let out several primal screams at a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting last week, after SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins declined to prosecute a Walgreens security guard who shot Banko Brown, a black transgender individual.

    Jenkins declared that “the evidence clearly shows that the suspect believed he was in mortal danger and acted in self-defense.”

    Activist Lia McGeever voiced their (?) displeasure with an intra-scream diatribe;

    “I live in [District 6]. I hate a lot of people on this board… for the reasons that led up to Banko Brown’s death. So, often I prepare something — maybe it’s a little historical, may even be a little poetic, whatever. There’s a lot of performative people on this board who will say one thing and support Black people, homeless people, trans people, and then immediately stab you in the face — being racist, transphobic, anti-homeless.

    So I don’t have any words prepared today. I just want you to feel our pain. I don’t know if you can at this point, based off your policy choices, but I have to pretend you have some form of empathy left. So, I am going to spend the next minute screaming cause that is what is going on in here.”

    McGeever then gave several primal screams, saying “That is what the trans genocide in this country, in this city, has brought me to.”

    As Jonathan Turley writes;

    No, that is what an age of rage has brought all of us to.  This entire scream session was due to San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announcing that her office would not prosecute Michael-Earl Wayne Anthony, a Walgreens security guard responsible for the shooting death of Banko Brown, a Black member of the transgender community. Jenkins declared that “the evidence clearly shows that the suspect believed he was in mortal danger and acted in self-defense.”

    Our politics is now reduced to a collective scream session with zero content beyond pure unadulterated rage.

    As I noted earlier, this trend was previously captured by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) who is shown on videotape screaming about gun control in the Capitol as his colleagues left the floor following a vote. When Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) asked Bowman to stop yelling, Bowman shouted back: “I was screaming before you interrupted me” — which could go down as the epitaph for our age.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 17:00

  • Texas Committee Passes Bill To Create 100% Reserve Gold And Silver-Backed Transactional Currencies
    Texas Committee Passes Bill To Create 100% Reserve Gold And Silver-Backed Transactional Currencies

    Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold,

    On May 2, a Texas House committee passed a bill to create 100% reserve gold and silver-backed transactional currencies. Enactment of this legislation would create an option for people to conduct business in sound money, set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money, and possibly create a viable alternative to a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

    Rep. Mark Dorazio (R) introduced HB4903 on March 10 and it has since garnered a bipartisan coalition of 42 cosponsors. The legislation would require the state comptroller to establish and provide for the issuance of gold and silver specie and also establish digital currencies that are 100% backed by gold and silver, and 100% redeemable in cash, gold, or silver.

    Specie is defined as “a precious metal stamped into coins of uniform shape, size, design, content, and purity, suitable for or customarily used as currency, as a medium of exchange, or as the medium for purchase, sale, storage, transfer, or delivery of precious metals in retail or wholesale transactions.”

    In establishing gold and silver specie, the comptroller would be required to authorize the Texas Bullion Depository as issuer and ensure that the holder of the specie may use the specie as legal tender in payment of debt and readily transfer the specie to another person.

    The comptroller would also be required to create a mechanism to use 100% backed gold and silver digital currencies in everyday transactions.

    In establishing the digital currency under Subsection (a)(2), the comptroller shall provide a means to ensure that a person who holds the digital currency may:

    1. Use the digital currency as legal tender in payment of debt; and

    2. By electronic means readily transfer or assign the digital currency to another person.

    Physical gold and silver backing the digital currency would be stored in a pooled account at the Texas State Bullion Depository.

    “The trustee shall maintain enough gold and silver specie or bullion to provide for the redemption of all units of the digital currency issued but not redeemed.”

    In practice, individuals would be able to purchase transactional currency representing the smallest fractions of physical gold or silver. The money would be used to purchase gold or silver that would be held in the already-open Texas Bullion Depository. Individuals would be able to redeem their transactional currency for dollars, gold, or silver on demand.

    On May 2, the House State Affairs Committee passed HB4903 by a 7-6 vote.

    In an outpouring of strong support from the grassroots in Texas, a 78-page document – representing hundreds of messages of support for the bill – was presented to the committee members during a hearing last month.

    IMPACT

    This is one of several bills introduced in the Texas legislature this year to promote sound money, including legislation to establish state gold and silver reserves, and a bill to make gold and silver legal tender in the Lone Star State.

    The creation of state-issued gold-backed and silver-backed digital currencies would create currency competition with Federal Reserve notes and undermine the Fed’s monopoly on money. It would also provide a sound money-backed competitor if the Federal Reserve implements a central bank digital currency.

    Broadly speaking, by making gold and silver conveniently available for regular, daily transactions by the general public, gold and silver-backed digital currency would create the potential for a wide-reaching effect. Professor William Greene, an expert on constitutional tender, said in a paper for the Mises Institute that when people in multiple states actually start using gold instead of Federal Reserve notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.

    “Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a ‘reverse Gresham’s Law’ effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes).

    “As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”

    Gresham’s Law holds that “bad money drives out good.”  For example, when the U.S. government replaced silver quarters and dimes with coins made primarily of less valuable copper, the cheap coins drove the silver out of circulation. People hoarded the more valuable silver coins and spent the less valuable copper money. So, how do you reverse Gresham?

    The key is in making it easier to use gold in everyday transactions. The reason bad money drives out good is that governments put up barriers to using sound money in day-to-day life. That makes it more costly to spend gold and incentivizes hoarding. When you remove barriers, you level the playing field and allow gold and silver to compete head-to-head with Federal Reserve notes. On an even playing field, gold beats fiat money every time.

    CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCIES (CBDC)

    A gold-backed digital currency would create an alternative and allow individuals and businesses to avoid a CBDC.

    Digital currencies exist as virtual banknotes or coins held in a digital wallet on your computer or smartphone. The difference between a central bank (government) digital currency and peer-to-peer electronic cash such as bitcoin is that the value of the CBDC is backed and controlled by the government, just like traditional fiat currency.

    At the root of the move toward a CBDC is “the war on cash.” The elimination of cash creates the potential for the government to track and even control consumer spending.

    Imagine if there was no cash. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest transaction from the government’s eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to Starbucks wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As Bloomberg put it in an article published when China launched a digital yuan pilot program in 2020, digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.”

    The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases. Economist Thorsten Polleit outlined the potential for Big Brother-like government control with the advent of a digital euro in an article published by the Mises Wire. As he put it, “the path to becoming a surveillance state regime will accelerate considerably” if and when a digital currency is issued.

    BACKGROUND

    The United States Constitution states in Article I, Section 10, “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” Currently, all debts and taxes in Kansas are either paid with Federal Reserve Notes (dollars) which were authorized as legal tender by Congress, or with coins issued by the U.S. Treasury — very few of which have gold or silver in them.

    The Federal Reserve destroys this constitutional monetary system by creating a monopoly based on its fiat currency. Without the backing of gold or silver, the central bank can easily create money out of thin air. This not only devalues your purchasing power over time; it also allows the federal government to borrow and spend far beyond what would be possible in a sound money system. Without the Fed, the U.S. government wouldn’t be able to maintain all of its unconstitutional wars and programs. The Federal Reserve is the engine that drives the most powerful government in the history of the world.

    Creating gold and silver-backed digital currencies would take another step in the process of abolishing the Federal Reserve system by attacking it from the bottom up – pulling the rug out from under it by working to make its functions irrelevant at the state and local levels, and setting the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve monopoly by introducing competition into the monetary system.

    WHAT’S NEXT

    HB4903 will now move to the Calendars Committee. This committee determines which bills move to the House floor for a vote. Supporters of the bill in Texas have created an online tool to register support for the bill moving to the House for a debate and vote. Residents of Texas can submit their comments here.

    Information from the Tenth Amendment Center contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 16:30

  • Burger King To Close 400 Stores In "Reclaim The Flame" Turnaround Strategy
    Burger King To Close 400 Stores In “Reclaim The Flame” Turnaround Strategy

    During an earnings call earlier this week, the CEO of Restaurant Brands International Inc., the parent company of Burger King, stated that he plans to close between 300 and 400 underperforming stores this year to streamline the fast-food brand. 

    “Historically, we’ve closed a couple of hundred units at Burger King US,” CEO Joshua Kobza said in a Q1 earnings call on Tuesday. The expected closures this year appear to be well above average. 

    In the first three months, several Burger King franchisees have declared bankruptcy, including Illinois-based Toms King, Michigan-based EYM King, and Utah-based Meridian Restaurants Unlimited.

    Kboza said, “Traffic was modestly negative this quarter,” but noted an improvement in year-over-year traffic trends from Q4 into Q1. 

    Burger King has shuttered a net total of 124 US locations, a 1.7% reduction, leaving just 7,000 US restaurants at the end of the quarter. More closures are anticipated in the coming months.

    The brand’s $400 million “Reclaim the Flame” bet to regain market share and wind down underperforming restaurants might be working — as it delivered comparable sales of 8.7% year-over-year for the quarter.

    Additionally, the brand strives to simplify its overly complex menus and operations. Though raising costs on the iconic Whopper could be determinantal to future sales as rival McDonald’s recently found out that higher menu prices led to a pushback from consumers. 

    Not everyone can afford a $9 burger… 

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    And while Burger King trims stores and becomes leaner, it must realize consumers have been battered with 24 months of negative real wage growth. Any price increases might jeopardize its turnaround plan, as some consumers have now traded down fast food restaurants for “Dollar Tree Dinners.”

    Burger King did go ‘woke’… 

    So let’s see how this turnaround strategy pans out.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 16:00

  • Fauci's Never-Ending Victory Tour
    Fauci’s Never-Ending Victory Tour

    Authored by Pierre Kory via The Brownstone Institute,

    What a dystopian nightmare watching “America’s Doctor” try to continue his Covid victory tour…

    It is both shocking and unsurprising that he would do this despite leaving a generation of children with lower IQ scores, a US life expectancy which dropped three years in the span of two, hundreds of thousands of deaths from the vaccines amongst working-age Americans (threatening the life insurance industry), millions of vaccine injured, skyrocketing disability rates, an explosion of cancers, and suddenly plummeting birth rates.

    So I went after him.

    Again.

    Maybe he will get the memo this time, particularly in light of the frosty receptions he has received of late from normally kid-gloved, obsequious interviewers. Enjoy.

    Dr. Anthony Fauci left government in December, but his media tour is going strong, albeit with a different tone and tenor. The fawning adulation and questions about his exercise regimes and bobbleheads have been replaced by skepticism and outright doubt from outlets who never dared question the all-knowing man once dubbed “America’s doctor” by the New Yorker.

    Fauci recently appeared on CNN to complain about, “a personification of me as a person who essentially closed everything down.” He was responding to a lengthy sitdown with the New York Times where he declared, “Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did. I gave a public-health recommendation that echoed the C.D.C.’s recommendation, and people made a decision based on that.”

    For all his faults, Fauci is no fool. One does not spend 54 years ensconced in the federal government without learning how to play politics.

    Three years removed from the worst of the COVID pandemic, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases knows the policy decisions guided by his medical recommendations are looking worse by the day.

    Herein lies his problem. When his ideas were in vogue, Fauci had no problem claiming responsibility. Now that the ugly consequences are coming due, he is eager to wash his hands.

    In the face of plummeting math and reading scores between 2020 and 2022, Fauci is especially quick to deny his role in the school shutdowns. Last fall, Fauci raised eyebrows for denying that school lockdowns, “forever irreparably damaged anyone.” 

    Yet as late as September 2020, Fauci recommended that schools only open back up once the virus is “under control.” Earlier in the year, he had chastised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, warning that premature reopening “likely” led to widespread student infection. 

    Today, even left-leaning sources concede that, “kids are safe. They always have been.”

    Then came the vaccines. From the outset, Fauci’s entire COVID mitigation strategy was based on an experimental vaccine rushed to market under the branding “warp speed.” There had never been an mRNA-approved vaccine before, and now it was being pushed non-stop from the White House podium with the full support of the pharmaceutical industry. 

    It was always highly illogical to deploy a static vaccine toward a mutagenic and constantly changing coronavirus. Then came the checks the vaccines couldn’t write. Fauci told us they would stop transmission. He implored us to “follow the science.”

    Today, the science is clear: the COVID vaccine does not prevent transmission or contagion of the virus. Yet even now, Fauci continues to lament that “only 68 percent of the country is vaccinated” and says “we do really poorly” compared to the rest of the world.

    European countries like Switzerland, normally held up by American academics as worthy of emulation, are advising their citizens against the vaccine. There’s a reason that known vaccine expert Robert Kennedy, Jr. is already earning the support of nearly one in five Democrat voters.

    In my private practice, I have treated more than 500 patients suffering injuries from the vaccine, I have seen the unintended — but brutal — harm they’ve often caused up close and personal. Yet to raise any of these issues is to risk one’s livelihood. That is Fauci’s greatest stain on our country.

    Fauci fostered an environment where doctors who deviated from the preferred party line were persecuted and even criminalized for offering a different point of view. Silencing free expression and thought is the antithesis of America, and dangerous for science, innovation, and medicine.

    Fauci blamed “misinformation and disinformation” for “really hurting so many things, including people’s trust in science,” yet on his watch, laws were passed that empowered government agencies to strip doctors of their medical licenses for questioning the wisdom of vaccines. 

    These efforts left a profound lasting impact on medicine and the patient-doctor relationship. Suddenly physicians were forced to choose between offering their best advice or losing their ability to practice medicine.

    Anthony Fauci’s legacy is one of narcissism and power. The glorification of his massive ego trumped any scientific or medical data. His policies were giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry, which helped burnish his image and crush dissent. He saw his opportunity for the spotlight and seized it. Now, rather than admit mistakes, Fauci is intent on revising history.  Unfortunately for his legacy, we’re all living with the consequences of his hubris, and they are impossible to overlook.

    *  *  *

    Reposted from the author’s Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 15:30

  • Ukraine Claims Russian Hypersonic Missile Shot Down Using US Patriot System
    Ukraine Claims Russian Hypersonic Missile Shot Down Using US Patriot System

    In an alleged first which is no doubt making US Congressional hawks very proud, Ukraine says it has intercepted a Russian ballistic missile for the first time using a US-made anti-air defense system. What’s more, and perhaps the more dubious aspect, is that it was a hypersonic missile shot down over Kiev, according to top Ukrainian officials.

    Commander of Ukraine’s air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, announced in a Saturday Telegram post that a Russian Kinzhal, or Kh-47, was inbound until being successfully intercepted using American Patriot missiles. The intercept occurred Thursday night in what’s the first time known time Patriot defenses were put into successful use by Ukraine.

    Patriot air defense units in Warsaw in February, via Reuters

    Moscow has long touted its hypersonic ballistic missiles as essentially “impossible to intercept” given the projectile can travel at 10 times the speed of sound with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (or about 1,250 miles).

    According to the top Ukrainian commander’s words: 

    “Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk stated. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”

    Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from the Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.

    And a separate statement from Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat taunted the Russians while boasting of the US Patriot’s proven capabilities: 

    “They were saying that the Patriot is an outdated American weapon, and Russian weapons are the best in the world,” Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on Ukraine’s Channel 24 television. “Well, there is confirmation that it effectively works against even a super hypersonic missile.” Ihnat said.

    He said successfully intercepting the Kinzhal is “a slap in the face for Russia.”

    It was only late last month that Ukraine confirmed delivery of the first Patriot batteries from the United States, though an unknown quantity, alongside anti-air systems from Germany and the Netherlands.

    More self-congratulations from Ukraine’s top brass was issued Saturday follows: 

    “I congratulate the Ukrainian people on a historic event,” Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of the Ukrainian air force, said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app. “Yes, we have shot down the ‘unparalleled’ ‘Kinzhal.'”

    It should be noted that amid the atmosphere of heavy war propaganda and disinformation which is part and parcel of modern conflict, even The New York Times has expressed caution in its headline, “Ukraine Claims It Shot Down Russia’s Most Sophisticated Missile for First Time.”

    The Times describes, “The U.S. officials said they were relying on information from the Ukrainian military coming through classified channels, but added they had no reason to doubt its authenticity.”

    “Nevertheless, independent analysts were reluctant to confirm the interception until more information was available about the type of missile Russia fired and whether it was hit by a Patriot,” the report notes.

    One Moscow-based analyst was quick to dismiss the reports as “fake news”…

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    Meanwhile, Russia’s air war is likely only to heat up further, given also on Saturday the defense ministry said Ukraine sent two ballistic missiles into Crimea. “A ballistic missile launched by Ukraine’s Hrim-2 OTRK was shot down over the Republic of Crimea by the air defense,” a top Crimean official announced.

    Sputnik further quoted him as follows: “Russia’s air defense systems on Saturday shot down two ballistic missiles launched by Ukraine’s Grom-2 operational-tactical missile system (OTRK) over Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to Head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov, said on Saturday.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 15:00

  • 'Another Attempt To Manufacture A Scandal': Friend Of Clarence Thomas Hits Back At New Report Targeting The Justice
    ‘Another Attempt To Manufacture A Scandal’: Friend Of Clarence Thomas Hits Back At New Report Targeting The Justice

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

    A friend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is pushing back against a new report that claims a wealthy Republican donor paid for the private school tuition of the justice’s grandnephew.

    Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in the East Room of the White House on Oct. 8, 2018. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    During the presidency of Donald Trump, Mark Paoletta was general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget and before that, served as chief counsel to then-Vice President Mike Pence. He’s also a friend of Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, whom he has represented as a lawyer.

    Paoletta responded on May 4 to a ProPublica article published hours earlier that detailed how billionaire Harlan Crow’s company paid the private school tuition of Thomas’s grandnephew, Mark Martin, whom the justice took custody of when he was 6 years old and was raising like a son. The exact amount paid over four years at two schools was unclear but the article said it could be upwards of $150,000.

    Paoletta disputes that estimate, saying Crow only covered the first year of tuition at each school.

    In a nearly 600-word statement about Martin and the tuition payments, Paoletta wrote on his Twitter account that the Thomases had, beginning in 1997, “devoted twelve years of their lives to helping a beloved child in desperate need of love, support, and guidance.

    “They agreed to take in this young child much as Justice Thomas’s grandparents had done for him and his brother in 1955.

    “Justice Thomas and his wife made immeasurable personal and financial sacrifices and poured every ounce of their lives and hearts into giving their great nephew a chance to succeed.”

    When the Thomases were trying to find a school where they could send Martin, Crow recommended Randolph-Macon Academy in Front Royal, Virginia, which he had attended. Crow also had funded scholarship programs for disadvantaged students at the school for decades, Paoletta wrote.

    Crow paid only for Martin’s first year at Randolph-Macon and when Martin transferred to another school in Georgia, Crow paid for the first year at that school as well, Paoletta wrote.

    “The Thomases love their great nephew. It is despicable that the press has dragged him into their effort to smear Justice Thomas. This story is another attempt to manufacture a scandal about Justice Thomas. But let’s be clear about what is supposedly scandalous now: Justice Thomas and his wife devoted twelve years of their lives to taking in and caring for a beloved child—who was not their own—just as Justice Thomas’s grandparents had done for him.

    “They made many personal and financial sacrifices to do this. And along the way, their friends joined them in doing everything possible to give this child a future. Harlan Crow’s tuition payments made directly to these schools on behalf of Justice Thomas’s great nephew did not constitute a reportable gift.”

    The federal Ethics in Government Act didn’t require that the tuition payments be publicly disclosed “because the definition of a ‘dependent child’ under the Ethics in Government Act (5 U.S.C. 13101 (2)) does not include a ‘great nephew,’” Paoletta wrote.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/06/2023 – 14:30

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May 06

Today’s News 6th May 2023

  • Who Helped Overturn The "Pentagon Papers Principle"? The Washington Post And New York Times
    Who Helped Overturn The “Pentagon Papers Principle”? The Washington Post And New York Times

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

    Last December, Michael Shellenberger reported in a #TwitterFiles thread that the Aspen Institute hosted a “Hack-and-Dump Working Group” exercise in the summer of 2020 titled, “Burisma Leak,” which predicted with uncanny accuracy an upcoming derogatory story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden’s lost laptop.

    The cinema version of “The Pentagon Papers” story survives, but the original principle is being tossed

    The documents Shellenberger published showed how at least five media figures, including David Sanger and David McCraw of the New York Times, Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post, then-Daily Beast and future Rolling Stone editor Noah Schactman, and Rick Baker of CNN worked alongside Twitter and Facebook’s chief moderation officers, Yoel Roth and Nathaniel Gleicher, to plan a response to a hypothetical damaging exposé about Joe Biden’s son.

    The “Burisma Leak” exercise predicted many elements of the real response to the New York Post’s coming Hunter Biden story, including complaints from influential Democratic congressman Adam Schiff about its “source and veracity,” and public statements from “former senior intelligence officials” falsely raising the specter of a “Russian operation.”

    Newly uncovered documents show the war-gamed, choreographed response to the New York Post piece in October, 2020 — which included temporary suppression by those tech platforms Twitter and Facebook — may have been part of a broader plan to re-think basic journalistic standards in general, beyond just the one incident. This included junking what experts involved with the tabletop exercise referred to as the “Pentagon Papers Principle,” under which journalists since Daniel Ellsberg’s 1971 leak had “operated under a single rule: Once information is authenticated, if it is newsworthy, publish it.”

    The “break” from the age-old standard was endorsed by multiple current and former figures from the Washington Post and New York Times, the two papers most associated with the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Neither of the press offices of the two papers would comment, nor did individual figures named in the #TwitterFiles leaks.

    The genesis of this idea appeared to come from a paper co-authored by two Aspen tabletop attendees, both from Stanford: longtime journalist Janine Zacharia and former Obama and Trump Cybersecurity Policy Director Andrew James Grotto. Their “How to Report Responsibly on Hacks and Disinformation: 10 Guidelines and a Template for Every Newsroom” included the idea of ditching the “Pentagon Papers Principle,” insisting, “authentication alone is not enough to run with something.”

    The concept seemed to provide the intellectual foundation for shelving the Post story, which otherwise presented a real conundrum for would-be censors, being neither fake news nor a Russian plant. The elaborate carve-out for dealing with such material is laid out in another newly discovered document, called “Partnership for a Healthy Digital Public Sphere: Opportunities & Challenges in Content Moderation.”

    This summary was sent by Aspen Digital’s Executive Director and former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller to two other Aspen figures on September 15, 2020. Echoing the Stanford paper, it summarized the lessons Aspen Digital learned from examining the hack-and-dump problem, explaining the need to put “provenance front and center”:

    The concept theoretically represented a major shift, asking reporters to move from focusing on the what of news to why? and who from?

    Subscribers to Racket News can read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 23:40

  • Class-Action Suit Launched Against Australian Government Over COVID Vaccine Injuries
    Class-Action Suit Launched Against Australian Government Over COVID Vaccine Injuries

    Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As reports of vaccine injuries gain traction globally, an Australian doctor is leading a new class action against the federal government and key medical figures.

    Pfizer, left, and Moderna bivalent COVID-19 vaccines are readied for use at a clinic in Richmond, Va., in a Nov. 17, 2022, file image. (Steve Helber/AP Photo)

    Queensland GP Dr. Melissa McCann has filed the action in the Federal Court of Australia on behalf of 500 complainants.

    The action targets the federal government, Dr. Brendan Murphy, the Chief Medical Officer, and Prof. John Skerritt, the public face of the Therapeutic Goods Administration—the country’s drug regulatory body.

    “The action will argue that the Therapeutic Goods Administration [TGA] did not fulfil their duty to properly regulate the COVID-19 vaccines, resulting in considerable harm and damage to Australians,” said Natalie Strijland from NR Barbi Solicitor said in a statement.

    The main thrust of the claim is that the government’s actions in promoting the use of COVID-19 vaccines were “negligent or wrongful” and resulted in personal injury, medical expenses, and economic loss for the claimants.

    “The claim now proceeds upon the basis that the government, in fact, acted negligently in approving the vaccines and also by failing to withdraw them after approval based upon the known evidence,” Strijland said.

    “Australians who have experienced a serious adverse event following COVID-19 vaccination are invited to step forward and register for this class action.”

    Liberal Sen. Gerard Rennick—a vocal critic of vaccine mandates—welcomed the action.

    “Thank you to Dr. Melissa McCann and the solicitors that have taken up the fight to help those affected and still suffering,” he wrote in an online statement.

    “It is disappointing, to say the least, that people are not being compensated or receiving the healthcare they now need due to these experimental jabs which were, as we now know, never designed to be safe or effective.”

    Vaccine Injury Payouts Ongoing

    The Australian government operates a vaccine injury compensation scheme that has, thus far, paid out over $7.3 million (US$4.87 million) to 137 claimants. It has received 3,501 applications and is progressing with 2,263, according to figures obtained by news.com.au.

    The Department of Social Services has previously estimated the government could be liable for a payout of $77 million (US$49.35 million).

    Lawyers assisting patients have noted the challenges with navigating the scheme.

    “We’ve had just under 350 inquiries about adverse outcomes, and they have been extremely varied, but most of them have a condition that has some ongoing impact. Not many seem to fit within the criteria of the six categories,” personal injury lawyer Clare Eves told The Epoch Times previously.

    Meanwhile, in response to the class action, the Australian Department of Health said, “The department is aware of a proceeding commenced today in the Federal Court of Australia by applicants represented by NR Barbi Solicitor Pty Ltd. As the matter is before the court, it is inappropriate to comment further.”

    Vaccine Injuries No Longer A Taboo Topic

    Since late last year, vaccine injuries have gained increasing recognition.

    Previously, health authorities censured medical professionals who questioned the efficacy of the jab—part of a wider effort to encourage vaccine takeup.

    In December 2022, former MP Dr. Kerryn Phelps and her partner revealed they suffered serious injuries from a COVID-19 vaccine and suggested that the actual number of adverse events linked to the jab was far higher than what official data showed.

    “In my case, the injury resulted in dysautonomia with intermittent fevers and cardiovascular implications including breathlessness, inappropriate sinus tachycardia and blood pressure fluctuations,” she wrote in a submission to Parliament.

    Some medical practitioners continue to fight to be reinstated into their profession after being ousted for speaking out against the vaccine or mandates.

    In August 2022, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency suspended the registration of North Brisbane GP William Bay after he interrupted a national Australian Medical Association conference in late July and told attendees to stop forcing vaccines on people.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 23:20

  • The Ruination Of Great American Cities
    The Ruination Of Great American Cities

    Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    There was something deeply demoralizing about the recent Mayoral election in Chicago, once among America’s greatest cities. The good news is that the catastrophic reign of a deeply corrupt and crazed mayor, who piled egregiously racist policies on top of one of the worst COVID responses in the country, came to an end. The bad news is that a guy who is arguably worse took her place.

    Union organizer and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson speaks after being projected winner as mayor in Chicago, Ill., on April 4, 2023. (Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)

    As Allysia Finley put it in the Wall Street Journal, “Brandon Johnson’s victory in last week’s Chicago mayoral race is a reminder that no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse.”

    The city itself is facing bankruptcy but that economic reality is changing nothing about city policies. Crime is out of control. Poverty and despair are on the rise. And the residents who can leave are fleeing. Businesses are closing up shop and 175,000 people have left the city in the last two years, leaving the place at the mercy of people who only vote for more handouts and union controls.

    The people who leave feel a sense of guilt, but the decision is entirely rational. One person’s vote makes no difference and no one has the obligation to stick around and become a sacrificial victim of pillaging politicians and dangerous criminals.

    It’s all deeply tragic. The first time I went to Chicago many years ago, I was just thrilled to discover a city which seemed to combine the best of New York City but without the chaos, confusion, and muck. But sadly, those days have come to an end.

    At some point in the last three years, many people just decided the situation was hopeless and left for greener pastures. Sadly, this put the city into a deep spiral of political disaster to the point that hopes for change and renewal seem to have been permanently dashed. Maybe it will come back to life at some point but maybe not in any of our lifetimes.

    Incredibly, however, this same spiral of exodus plus the entrenchment of crime and corruption seems to be affecting other great cities too. People living in New York City today are grateful for an end to the utter madness and desolation of the lockdown years and the city is certainly revived today as compared to what it was in 2020 and 2021. However, by any standard, the experience of the city is massively deprecated compared with what it was only a few years ago.

    For my part, I avoid the city as much as possible, simply because I cannot bear the Gotham-like feel of the place, with the inescapable stench of trash, sewage, and weed, plus the ever-present threat of crime. To be sure, there are some beautiful neighborhoods but getting there requires that you interact with the rest of the city through its main transportation portals.

    And the bureaucracy of the state in general is absolutely overwhelming. If you own a business with an employee in New York State, you know this. Navigating the endless bureaucracies just to get a basic payroll in place is maddening beyond belief. One agency doesn’t talk to another and has no idea what they are doing. Compliance alone is too complicated even for online payroll platforms like Gusto. I know of companies that refuse even to hire anyone who lives there just to avoid this mess.

    There are two other cities on the deathwatch list: San Francisco and Seattle. You know of the deep tragedy of San Francisco if you have visited lately. The place is an appalling mess and deeply dangerous too. Murder has nearly become normalized as something that just happens. Robert Lee, founder of CashApp and one of the most brilliant young entrepreneurs in the country, was brutally stabbed in broad daylight last week. The appalling event came to be shrugged off by major media as something that just happens, when reported at all.

    I wasn’t entirely aware of the turn Seattle had taken until I visited last month, and found the same thing, with residents fleeing as fast as they could if they had the resources to do so. This trend leaves the cities in the hands of hoodlums public and private and dooms the place to go a long time without reform.

    This is a reversal of the past when big cities would go through cycles of bust and boom once city fathers saw the errors of their ways. That is no longer a dynamic that seems plausible now. In other words, this time could be permanent.

    The city as an institution is one of the great achievements in the history of modern civilization. They first began to emerge in the late Middle Ages with the end of feudal estates and the rise of the money-based exchange economy that allowed people to move and travel without grave danger. The city drew people out of their tribal hovels and created new centers of prosperity and the exchange of ideas. It was here and in spots all over the world that germinated the creative ideas that led to revolutions in art, literature, science, medicine, and industry.

    Cities also created the basis for growing amounts of tolerance, peace, and human rights, as diverse people from all lands and languages came together to their mutual advantage. The experience led to a greater appreciation for the universality of the human experience and incentivized the entrenchment of a new ethos of togetherness. Arguably, it was the city that ended the religious wars, for example, and eventually slavery too.

    The American cities were newer than those in the Old World but especially prosperous in ways that no one could even imagine. American freedoms in the second half of the 19th century led to the miracles of San Francisco, Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago, and Hartford. But once the technology of steel and its commercial viability arrived by the turn of the 20th century, New York City overtook them all and eventually gave us wonders of the world like the Empire State Building. Meanwhile, Los Angeles, Dallas, St. Louis, Miami, and others rose up to greatness too.

    The 21st century fall of so many American cities poses dangers not just to the city but also to the host state, simply because of the direct election of senators. The original Constitution assured that cities could not dominate state politics because the Senate representation was not subject to direct election. The 17th Amendment of 1913 changed that. Now the fate of the city has a profound effect on the whole state and then the whole nation. It was not supposed to be this way but the disastrous decision to change the Constitution assured that it would be so.

    There is another factor to consider. People like Anthony Fauci and the plutocrats at the World Economic Forum somehow turned against cities in the last decade, deciding that they really did nothing but promote material excess, disease, and waste. They were suddenly put on the chopping block in the name of “radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 23:00

  • Australia PM Says No Point In US Pursuing Assange: "Enough Is Enough"
    Australia PM Says No Point In US Pursuing Assange: “Enough Is Enough”

    Australia has done very little over past years in practical terms when it comes to protecting the rights of its imprisoned citizen Julian Assange, who is still locked up in London’s Belmarsh Prison as his extradition case is slowly processing through the courts. 

    This is why it’s somewhat surprising and refreshing to very belatedly hear Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese while visiting England complain about the WikiLeaks founder’s ongoing detention, though not for the first time of his administration. He also expressed concerns over his health and well-being during all these years of harsh confinement, previously holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy as well.

    On Friday Albanese said he is “frustrated” for not having found a diplomatic fix to Assange’s plight. “I know it’s frustrating, I share the frustration,” Albanese told ABC television from London.

    “I can’t do more than make very clear what my position is and the U.S. administration is certainly very aware of what the Australian government’s position is. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.”

    “Enough is enough, this needs to be brought to a conclusion, it needs to be worked through,” said Albanese, and also highlighted a glaring contradiction:

    Albanese said Australians were failing to understand the reasons for freeing the source who leaked the documents to Assange while he still remained in prison, referring to the release of former U.S. soldier and WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning.

    WikiLeaks and Assange’s legal team and family will certainly welcome the Australian leaders’ protestations, and there’s hope that Albanese will continue pressing the issue with President Joe Biden.

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    Assange supporters, however, are arguing that Albanese is in a position to do much more, but has so far stopped short:

    The prime minister apparently is not willing to use his leverage with the U.S. regarding Assange when it comes to Australia’s reckless assistance to Washington’s preparations for war with China. As many people have pointed out, the U.S. needs Australia a lot more than Australia needs the U.S. in this regard.  

    And the point Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong made about Australia not interfering in the ongoing legal processes of another country has been rubbished by the fact that Australia has done just that in two cases to free their citizens from foreign jails. 

    Assange is sitting in Belmarsh prison just miles from where Albanese is staying in London. The prime minister can go see his jailed citizen, as suggested by Consortium News reader Randal Marin.

    Assange’s plight has largely dropped out of mainstream media coverage, and so indeed any potential efforts of Albanese to visit him in prison would be hugely symbolic and a boost to WikiLeaks.

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    But it remains that Australia is a member of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing allies, and thus is always likely to default on the side of Washington’s security interests in cases like this, centered on a famous dissident journalist.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 22:40

  • The Perfect Democratic President?
    The Perfect Democratic President?

    Authored by Paul Gottfried via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Daniel Henninger, writing in the Wall Street Journal on April 26, properly describes Joe Biden as “the perfect Democratic president.”

    President Joe Biden speaks about “building on the small business boom” during National Small Business Week in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on May 1, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    According to Henninger, Biden’s “non-compos” condition should give the “left wing of his party free rein” during his second presidential term, which is exactly what his party wants. A cognitively impaired, not particularly principled figurehead fits the needs of his handlers; and Biden obviously has no interest in doing anything to upset them. He will dutifully get behind his party’s latest woke project and ritualistically attack its Republican opponents as white nationalists, sexists, and homophobes.

    Equally significant, Biden is the perfect front figure for an administrative state in which the chief executive provides little more than an ornament: “A beside-the-point president is the best thing that has ever happened to the progressive centralization project. That is why Washington’s Democrats would embrace a Kamala Harris succession.”

    What I discern in Henninger’s compelling description of a second Biden term is the outline of my thesis in “After Liberalism” (Princeton, 1999), which is subtitled “Mass Democracy in the Administrative State.” In this work I argue that modern Western regimes are not really about “democracy,” that is, meaningful self-rule, of the kind that existed historically in Swiss cantons or in Thomas Jefferson’s concept of popular government. The modern version of democracy is about public administration, in which citizens are called on periodically to give their rulers a stamp of approval through elections (which are now conducted in much of this country without voters having to identify themselves or even appearing in person at a voting precinct).

    “Liberal democracies” have also ceased to be “liberal” in any real sense since that term now refers to the actions and policies of governments run by public administrators and their media backers. It’s now considered “liberal” for the state to approve of the sexual mutilation of children, even without parental permission, or to close down opposition speech, if our administrators decide that’s the “liberal” course of action.

    There’s also a secular state religion that reigns in most Western countries, and that too dispenses “liberal” teachings. When I wrote “After Liberalism,” that state religion featured a more modest form of diversity than the one that’s now in place. In its more recent form, as taught by the media and academic priesthood, postliberal liberalism has turned woke and now urges discrimination against white people, particularly against heterosexual white males. It also discriminates against devout Christians of all races, in the name of transgendered identity, which represents the newest distillation of liberal orthodoxy.

    Political labels are therefore in freefall, and often mean no more than what those who control our lives and consciousness want those terms to signify. Values and rights are also part of the common moral vocabulary, which is shaped through an exercise of will on the part of our “liberal democratic” leaders. Henninger may be actually understating this situation when he observes about policy wonks and social engineers running the Deep State that “their control of the bureaucratic levers today is unprecedented.” Even more ominously, we may now be at a loss trying to figure out how we can reverse this situation. With “passive presidents” like Biden technically at the helm and fronting for woke administrative elites, there’s no real chance of this ever happening. The bureaucratic control that Henninger bewails, unless upended, will likely reach further unprecedented levels.    

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 22:20

  • New Israeli Protest Target: Ultra-Orthodox Subsidies, Draft Exemptions
    New Israeli Protest Target: Ultra-Orthodox Subsidies, Draft Exemptions

    The protest movement that’s rocked Israeli politics over the past months on Thursday shifted its fire to a new target: special treatments given to the country’s rapidly-growing ultra-Orthodox population. The growing discontent threatens to widen a critical fault line spanning Israeli economics and politics.  

    Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jewish men and boys in Netanya (Jack Guex/AFP via Getty Images and Jerusalem Post)

    Declaring a “Day of Disruption to Demand Equality,” tens of thousands of marchers in several cities asked for an end to a variety of special perks given to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are called “Haredim.” As they did in their successful quest to force a pause in Prime Minster Netanyahu’s supreme court reform scheme, protesters blocked roads and demonstrated outside cabinet officers’ houses — although their numbers lagged earlier demonstrations. 

    One of those special treatments is exemptions from Israel’s military draft. Haredim who are enrolled in religious study get to skip compulsory military service, a central aspect of Israeli society and an essential ingredient in the country’s militarism. 

    Protesters of Haredim draft exemptions outside the Israeli Defense Force induction center push mock coffins (Mothers at the Front)

    As long as they keep studying the Torah, the exemption keeps going too. Worse, Haredi men receive public subsidies all the way to the standard retirement age of 67. That’s an economic double-whammy: These men aren’t productive, and are taking money collected from others. (Thanks to America’s lavish foreign aid to Israel, and the fact that money is fungible, some of those on the wrong end of this redistribution scheme are US taxpayers.) 

    In another exception to policy, Haredi children are exempt from Israel’s educational standards. Haredim children don’t have to study core topics like math, science and English, which means they offer lesser skills to would-be employers. 

    Protestors display bloodied mannequins outside the home of Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Brothers in Arms)

    According to the Bank of Israel, 75% of Haredi women work, but just 50% of men. Two thirds of those working men only work part-time, and mostly in menial jobs commensurate with their lack of Earthly education. The average Haredi family pays only a third of the income tax paid by non-Haredim.

    Within Israel, the dynamic has sparked growing resentment among non-Haredi Jews. “This is taxpayer money, almost exclusively funded by families whose children serve in the IDF,” wrote Yaakov Katz in a Jerusalem Post opinion essay. “Having IDF-serving families fund non-serving families is an insult to these soldiers.

    Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews in a 2014 mass protest against a proposal to remove their draft exemption (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images via PBS)

    Similar sentiments were expressed on Thursday. “[The Haredim] are not carrying with us, they are not part of society,” 58-year-old Dafna Goldenberg told the Washington Post. “I’m deeply worried that it will all collapse.” 

    She said when she debated Haredim in front of a yeshiva school, they assured her, “God will protect us and we will protect you by studying Torah.” 

    The economics of the situation are growing grimmer each day, thanks to the fact that the Haredim are the fast-growing segment of Israel’s population, with a birth rate that’s triple that of non-Haredi Jews. 

    The politics are intense too. Netanyahu’s grip on power rests in part on Haredi political parties, whose demands for expedited passage of new laws cementing military exemptions for Yeshiva students are accompanied by threats of withdrawing from the ruling coalition. 

    “Coalition agreements signed between Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox parties also reportedly promise to funnel billions to ultra-Orthodox institutions, housing developments, and health-care and child-care services, proposals that have further infuriated the anti-governmental protests” — Washington Post 

    Since he values power above all else, look for Netanyahu to walk a tightrope, with a bias toward advancing the Haredim agenda at the price of undermining Israel’s long-term economic, cultural and political stability. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 22:00

  • NATO To Open Office In Japan, The Alliance’s First In Asia
    NATO To Open Office In Japan, The Alliance’s First In Asia

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    NATO is planning to open a liaison office in Japan next year, the alliance’s first in Asia, Nikkei Asia first reported Wednesday.

    In recent years, NATO has turned its gaze toward the Asia Pacific region and named China a “systemic challenge” in its 2022 Strategic Concept. As part of its strategy against China, the alliance is deepening cooperation with countries in the region.

    Image source: NATO/dpa

    According to Nikkei, the purpose of the liaison office in Japan is to “allow the military alliance to conduct periodic consultations with Japan and key partners in the region, such as South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as China emerges as a new challenge, alongside its traditional focus on Russia.”

    The report said NATO and Japan will take more steps to increase cooperation by signing an agreement known as an Individually Tailored Partnership Programme ahead of the NATO summit that will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in June.

    Japan also plans to open an independent mission to NATO, separate from the Embassy in Belgium.

    In response to the news, China warned of NATO’s plans to expand into Asia. “Asia is an anchor for peace and stability and a promising land for cooperation and development, not a wrestling ground for geopolitical competition,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.

    “NATO’s continued eastward foray into the Asia Pacific and interference in regional affairs will inevitably undermine regional peace and stability and stoke camp confrontation. This calls for high vigilance among regional countries,” she added.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 21:40

  • The World's Monarchies
    The World’s Monarchies

    The coronation of King Charles III this Saturday will be an exercise in pomp and extravagance. People around the world will be following the spectacle closely, but critics have also been using the occasion to point out the cost and anachronistic nature of the institution that is the British monarchy.

    While opinions on whether the British crown is gobbling up or generating money differ, ending the official status of the UK’s royal line would have far-reaching consequences globally.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, in addition to British Overseas Territories, King Charles III serves as the head of state of 14 sovereign countries other than his own – making the UK the most prolific among the world’s 17 constitutional monarchies which keep employing monarchs as representative heads of state.

    Infographic: The World's Monarchies | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    However, the fabric of the British Commonwealth has lately tattered somewhat. Barbados removed the British monarch as the head of state in 2021, while Jamaica last year announced that it was also starting the process. Barbados took the step after 55 years as an independent Commonwealth member, while Jamaica celebrated its 60th year of independence in August of 2022. Barbados was the first country in almost 30 years to drop the British monarch. Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago as well as Dominica had previously opted for a different head of state.

    In addition to constitutional monarchies, there are also still a dozen countries around the world which are absolute or semi-constitutional monarchies, meaning that monarchs yield considerable powers there. These types of systems are most common today on the Arabian Peninsula, even though Morocco, Brunei, Eswatini and Liechtenstein also count among them. Semi-constitutionalism – where monarchs and elected representatives share powers – ranges from countries which let monarchs retain some powers next to an elected parliament to so-called elective monarchies, which elect leaders from a group of royals – the governing system of the United Arab Emirates. The Pope is also elected from a group of cardinals, but he is the singular ruler over the Vatican, therefore considered an absolute monarchy.

    Ten countries in Europe and five in Asia as well as Tonga and Lesotho retain their own monarch in a representative function and as head of state. Traditional subnational monarchies are prolific in Indonesia and South Africa, where the king of the Zulu nation, Misuzulu Sinqobile kaZwelithini, holds considerable informal power in the Eastern region of KwaZulu-Natal.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 21:20

  • Will Ron DeSantis Actually Run For President In 2024?
    Will Ron DeSantis Actually Run For President In 2024?

    Authored by Roger L. Simon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    It’s likely that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will announce a 2024 presidential campaign. Les jeux sont fait, the bets are placed, as the French say at Monte Carlo and elsewhere—not to mention the ability the rest of us have to place them on the ever-escalating number of political betting sites.

    DeSantis is forming or is said to be forming an exploratory committee this month that allows substantial contributions to his campaign.

    But in truth, it’s looking at this moment like he may have made a mistake and that biding his time, remaining Florida’s governor and waiting for 2028, might be a smarter strategy. In fact, this early attempt might prove self-destructive in the long run, tarnishing his image and giving him the whiff of the loser.

    It’s not too late to say no.

    A new CBS–YouGov poll released May 1 shows the Florida governor trailing former President Donald Trump by a yawning gap of 36 percentage points: 58 to 22. This continues a blowout trend that has been going on for some time.

    This undoubtedly discourages financial backers, several of whom DeSantis already seems to be hemorrhaging.

    Making things yet more difficult for the governor is that many now believe he’s the chosen candidate of Fox News, a network that seemingly has lost its soul (and much of its audience) due to its cancellation of Tucker Carlson.

    Does this mean that Trump has the Republican nomination “in the bag”? As of now, I would have to say yes, even though 27 percent of GOP voters, according to this poll, have yet to be convinced, a percentage of those deeming him “too controversial.”

    What about the supposed also-rans in this poll?

    In order, they are former Vice President Mike Pence and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, tied at 5 percent, and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley at 4 percent.  The rest—talk show host Larry Elder, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson—weren’t even able to register a full 1 percent.

    The one who’s interesting here, obviously, is Ramaswamy. He has come literally from out of nowhere to tie for the lead in the second tier with Pence, who isn’t yet declared and—his appeal static—possibly is having second thoughts.

    On May 2, Byron York, in his Washington Examiner column that’s known for a middle-of-the-road conventional Republican approach, looks askance on Haley’s contention that she should deserve the nomination because she constitutes a “new generation.”

    York quotes from her February announcement speech in Charleston: “We’re ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past, and we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future. I come here today with a vision of that future.”

    She called for “mandatory mental competency for politicians over 75 years old.” (Trump has already taken such a test and passed. Biden, as far as we know, hasn’t done so.)

    The problem for the 51-year-old Haley is that her “vision of that future” isn’t especially unique, nor does it differ substantially in any serious way from her supposedly geriatric rival, the former president.

    What York overlooks, at least in this column, is that Ramaswamy, at 37, isn’t only considerably younger than Haley, but also has a more original vision and takes things further by advocating for such things as the complete destruction of the FBI and our intelligence agencies as we know them, and their replacement from the ground up.

    He also has far more Silicon Valley-type technical expertise as the founder and CEO of a biotech company than anybody running for president on either side. In a field dominated by the left, this makes him a tremendous, arguably crucial, asset to the right as artificial intelligence continues to take over our world.

    People are beginning to realize that, and given his high level of articulateness, it makes it less surprising that Ramaswamy has risen so rapidly to the top of that second tier.

    Where will he go from here? Defeating Trump is a big chew when he is still 17 points behind DeSantis, although it’s interesting he is substantially closer to the Florida governor in polling than the 36 points that DeSantis trails the 45th president.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 21:00

  • Watch: Fist-Fight Breaks Out Between Russian & Ukrainian Diplomats At Conference
    Watch: Fist-Fight Breaks Out Between Russian & Ukrainian Diplomats At Conference

    A Ukrainian diplomatic official has released video of himself punching a Russian official on Thursday. In the rare moment, rival delegations who were attending a meeting of Black Sea nations in Turkey literally came to blows while the war in Ukraine rages.

    Oleksandr Marikovski posted the video, which has since gone viral. It shows a scuffle over display of a Ukrainian flag in a hallway of the parliament building in Ankara. “A Ukrainian delegate has punched a Russian delegate in the face during a meeting of Black Sea nations after his Ukrainian flag was snatched away to stop him from photobombing a video interview,” Al Jazeera comments of the scene. Watch:

    Tensions had already been high at the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) assembly, given that earlier in the day Ukrainian delegates staged a protest in an attempt to disrupt a Russian delegate’s address to fellow representatives.

    Video of that prior incident showed mayhem breaking out on the assembly floor as security guards restrained the Ukrainian officials and attempted to impose order. 

    Watch the prior disruption on the assembly floor:

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    Host country Turkey condemned the scenes, with parliament’s head Mustafa Sentop issuing a firm rebuke. “I condemn this behavior that disrupts the peaceful environment that Turkey is trying to establish,” he said.

    Given that Russia in many international venues has been isolated and essentially ‘de-platformed’ – it’s somewhat rare for Ukrainian and Russian officials to come into direct contact these days. Turkey, however, has been more willing to attempt to get the two sides together, also as it tries to salvage the UN-backed grain deal. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 20:40

  • Scientists Found New Psychoactive Drugs In Wastewaters
    Scientists Found New Psychoactive Drugs In Wastewaters

    Authored by Irina Antonova via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A new study has identified over a dozen new psychoactive drugs in the wastewater of various sites worldwide.

    Illegal drugs and cash seized during drug raids on Sept. 26 is on display druing a press conference at Port Jervis City Hall in N.Y., on September 28, 2022. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

    The trend of increasing new psychoactive substances (NPS) and the difficulty for law enforcement to control their circulation prompted a study by the University of Queensland, Australia, which was part of an international wastewater surveillance program.

    The study covered a three-year period—from 2019 to 2022—and 47 cities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, China and Brazil.

    The lead scientist Dr Richard Bade told UQ News that they detected 18 NPS in the wastewater samples from around the world.

    “In Australia, we found seven new psychoactive substances, including mephedrone, ethylone and eutylone, which all have a similar effect to MDMA or cocaine,” Bade said.

    “We also found an increase in similar drugs in Europe, where there were high levels of 3-methylmethcathinone, particularly in Spain and Slovenia.

    What Are NPS Drugs

    New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) are synthetic or semi-synthetic substances that are designed to mimic the effects of traditional illicit drugs such as cocaine, cannabis, or amphetamines.

    They are sometimes called “designer drugs” or “legal highs” because they are often created to circumvent existing drug laws and regulations.

    NPS can be chemically similar to illegal drugs, or they may have entirely new chemical structures that have not been previously identified.

    Some examples of NPS include synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, and phenethylamines.

    These substances are often marketed as legal alternatives to traditional drugs, and are sold online, in head shops, or on the street.

    One of the main concerns with NPS is that their effects are often not well understood, and they can be much more potent than traditional drugs, which can lead to a range of health risks, including overdose, addiction, and long-term health consequences.

    As NPS are often marketed as “legal highs”, many people assume that they are safe to use, but this is not the case.

    It’s important to remember that just because a substance is legal or unregulated it does not mean that it is safe or without risk.

    Why Do People Use Illicit Drugs?

    People reach for the new psychoactive substances because they are able to mimic the effect of already known illicit drugs but lack any legal restrictions.

    “These substances are synthesised to replace banned substances, which means they have a slightly different molecular structure to stay ahead of the law,” explains  Bade.

    “They are generally manufactured in smaller quantities than traditional illicit drugs, making it difficult for law enforcement to control the circulation.”

    The authors state in their paper that they attribute the use of illicit drugs to the societal burden.

    Their study showed that the highest consumption of NPS was recorded around the New Year period, indicating that the consumption goes up during parties and festivals.

    In addition, the lockdowns around the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the use of those drugs, according to the researchers.

    “Harsh lockdowns and restrictions across the world meant people weren’t participating in traditional new year festivities, which was reflected in our results,” said  Bade.

    Types of NPS Specific to Global Location

    The researchers also pointed out that the NPS they identified seemed to have geographic ties.

    For example, mitragynine was primarily found in sites throughout the United States; eutylone and 3-methylmethcathinone were at high amounts in the wastewaters of New Zealand and several countries in Europe; 2F-deschloroketamine was found in Italy, Iceland and mainly in South-East Asia, especially in China; methoxetamine and methiopropamine predominantly in Australia.

    Another conclusive finding was that the most commonly found class of NPS were the synthetic cathinones, which is a type of amphetamine known to induce the production of the ‘feel-good” or “happy” hormone dopamine.

    Overall, the authors think that they have achieved the goal of their study which showed the importance of tackling this issue via regular annual and systematic wastewater analyses on a global scale.

    “It is imperative to monitor the use of these drugs given our limited knowledge of their specific effects, how they interact with other drugs, and the harm they cause when consumed,” said Bade.

    “International wastewater surveillance can allow us to identify what new psychoactive substances are being used globally and how these trends spread across continents.

    “Adopting an annual wastewater analysis approach for the surveillance of these compounds is a cost-effective and ethical way for organisations to see what is trending and where educational messaging would make an impact.”

    What Are Psychoactive Drugs?

    Psychoactive drugs affect the central nervous system and alter brain function, causing changes in perception, mood, consciousness, and behaviour.

    These drugs can be legal, such as prescription medications used to treat various mental and physical health conditions, or illegal, such as recreational drugs that are abused for their mind-altering effects.

    Psychoactive drugs can be categorized into different classes based on their chemical structure, mechanism of action, and the effects they produce. Some of the most commonly used classes of psychoactive drugs include:

    • Stimulants: These drugs increase activity in the brain and body, leading to increased alertness, energy, and euphoria. Examples include caffeine, cocaine, and amphetamines.
    • Depressants: These drugs slow down activity in the brain and body, leading to feelings of relaxation, drowsiness, and reduced anxiety. Examples include alcohol, benzodiazepines, and opioids.
    • Hallucinogens: These drugs alter perception and mood, causing visual and auditory hallucinations and profound changes in consciousness. Examples include LSD, psilocybin, and DMT.
    • Cannabinoids: These drugs are derived from the cannabis plant and produce a range of effects, including relaxation, euphoria, altered perception, and pain relief. Examples include THC and CBD.

    It’s important to note that while some psychoactive drugs may have beneficial effects when used appropriately under medical supervision, many of them can be highly addictive, lead to physical and psychological dependence, and have a range of adverse health consequences.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 20:20

  • Want To See What An Out-Of-Control City Looks Like?
    Want To See What An Out-Of-Control City Looks Like?

    Want to see what an out-of-control city looks like?

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    A cellphone video (above) captured the moment when a stolen Kia slammed into the rear of a school bus parked outside a middle school in Milwaukee earlier this week.

    Local media outlet WISN said two teenage girls had been arrested in connection with Monday’s stolen Kia. Both girls were passengers and injured while police said the driver was still on the loose. 

    Before the Kia plowed into the school bus, a 15-year-old passenger was hanging out of the car window. Police said that person was knocked unconscious. It is not yet clear what charges the two teenagers will be facing. 

    A reporter from WTMJ asked an eyewitness, “What’s going through your mind as you’re seeing this?”

    “Scary. Scary,” said Therese Nelson, a parent dropping her kid off at Morse Middle School around 0900 local time. She first noticed the Kia swerving in the distance and then described the crash:

    “I see them turn around in my mirror, and next thing I know they hit the bus, and the passenger was on the ground, and the rest of them took off.” 

    Local media outlets did not specify whether the stolen Kia was connected to a TikTok challenge. A surge in thefts of Kias and Hyundais has been observed in cities across the country. A number of cities, like Milwaukee, Seattle, Cleveland, San Diego, and St. Louis, are suing Kia and Hyundai for unspecified damages over the manufacturers’ production of cars lacking common anti-theft technology.

    However, these thefts are coming at a time when progressive-run cities are going light on criminals. And there’s no one else to blame for the demise of liberal cities spiraling into a hellhole of crime but bad policies. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 20:00

  • Randi Weingarten Goes Mega-Karen After Twitter Community Notes Expose Lockdown Lies
    Randi Weingarten Goes Mega-Karen After Twitter Community Notes Expose Lockdown Lies

    Revisionist lockdown authoritarian Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has doubled down in her campaign to convince everyone she was for opening schools.

    To review – Weingarten testified to Congress late last month that she “spent every day from February on trying to get schools open,” adding “we knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.”

    This earned Weingarten a ‘community notes’ correction on Twitter, in which users noted that she previously called attempts to reopen schools in the fall of 2020 “reckless, callous and cruel.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsIt was so bad that even CNN called out Weingarten.

    Karen please…

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    Politifact to the rescue!

    Establishment ‘fact checker’ Politifact raced to the scene to perform triage for Weingarten by suggesting that she advocated for “advocated for tailored approaches that prioritized safety needs of individual districts, educators and students but stopped short of endorsing a full return to in-person learning all across the country.”

    Community notes quickly sliced through that word salad of bullshit, amending Weingarten’s May 2 tweet touting the Politifact ‘correction’ to the record. Weingarten also turned off replies for anyone that doesn’t follow her. Both stunning and brave, we know.

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    Weingarten tripled down, tweeting: “What’s false is the community note, not @PolitiFact.”

    Of course, still no answer for why her union aggressively pushed for lockdowns at the local level.

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 19:20

  • Pennsylvania Amish Kept True To Their Traditions – Then The Government Came
    Pennsylvania Amish Kept True To Their Traditions – Then The Government Came

    Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Among the historic Amish settlements in southeastern Pennsylvania, faith, fidelity, and long days working in green fields are the root of traditional farming.

    An Amish farmer’s team of horses pulls a hay baler at Old Windmill Farm in Ronks, Pa, on April 26, 2023. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

    Together, they support and nourish a community and culture steeped in biblical teachings.

    In Lancaster County, west of Philadelphia, the Amish hold fast with many of the old ways. Their primary means of getting around is still horse and buggy, and they use herbal remedies for many common ailments.

    The Amish of Lancaster County are also a humble and private people (many Amish do not like having their photograph taken or name publicized). Shunning pride and vanity, they experience a particular joy and satisfaction in living close to the earth, free of the stress and pressures of outside worldly entanglements.

    A buggy pulls up at Old Windmill Farm in Ronks, Pa., on April 26, 2023. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

    Many Amish still speak a German dialect called “Pennsylvania Dutch,” living and conducting themselves in an uncomplicated manner.

    Traditional clothing—long dresses, aprons, and bonnets for women; trousers, shirts, jackets, and hats for men—distinguishes them from the world of “the English,” the term used to denote non-Amish.

    The peaceful simplicity of Amish life has its allure and also everyday challenges and economic realities interacting with the larger society around them.

    Some small multi-generational farm owners, like Jesse Lapp, try to adapt to these influences through “agri-tourism” and diversification into the trades, while still passing their wisdom and traditional farming methods down from generation to generation.

    Farm owner Jesse Lapp at the Old Windmill Farm in Ronks, Pa., on April 26, 2023. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

    “If you don’t pass on the techniques from one generation to the next, it gets lost,” said Lapp, 44, owner of Old Windmill Farm in Ronks, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated farming community 63 miles from Philadelphia.

    “Farming is not a textbook,” said the farmer, who learned how to work the land from his father, who learned it from his father and those before him.

    “You learn things from your parents, from experiences, what your parents struggled with. You learn from that.”

    However, strictly organic farmers in Lancaster County, like Amos Miller, are confronted with government regulations they see as hostile to Christian values and personal choices in producing food.

    Today, Miller, 45, is at the center of a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) lawsuit accusing him of violating federal food safety laws.

    Millers Organic Farm in Bird-in-Hand, Pa., is involved in a legal dispute over federal food safety laws. Photo taken on March 27, 2023. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

    There have been financial penalties and threats of jail time over selling non-federally inspected and “erroneously labeled” milk and meat at Miller’s Organic Farm of Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania.

    Miller views the case as government overreaches targeting small organic farms to regulate them out of existence.

    “There are many farmers that would like to continue to be farmers,” Miller told The Epoch Times.

    “It’s in our culture. We love farming. But the food system is so monopolized and regulated that we can’t be true farmers. You can’t make a living on the farm.”

    The Amish in the United States consists of four primary groups: Beachy Amish, Amish Mennonites, New Order, and Old Order Amish whose forebears fled religious persecution in Europe during the early 18th century. They have different views regarding the use of modern technology.

    “The Amish do not consider technology evil in itself, but they believe that technology if left untamed will undermine worthy traditions and accelerate assimilation into the surrounding society,” according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College on its Amish Studies website.

    “Mass media technology, in particular, they fear, would introduce foreign values into their culture. By bringing greater mobility, cars would pull the community apart, eroding local ties.

    “Horse-and-buggy transportation keeps the community anchored in its local geographical base.”

    Horse buggies are a transportation mainstay for Amish families in Pennsylvania. Photo taken on April 27, 2023. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

    As a population, the Amish are among the fastest-growing in America, with more than 300,000 located in 32 states. More than 60 percent of the Amish live in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana in local congregations called church districts.

    In Lancaster County, the Amish population is approximately 45,000 adults and children.

    Old Windmill is a fourth-generation family farm on 65 acres, raising about a dozen head of cattle, pigs, goats, chickens, and horses and mules. The owner said he decided to expand into agri-tourism to supplement cash flow.

    “Bigger farms is the way to make a living,” the owner told The Epoch Times. “Everything is mass produced. When my grandfather was farming, they had a chicken house. They had some eggs to sell. They had a tobacco barn right here.”

    He said Old Windmill Farm left dairy farming as it became more labor intense and costly. His crops include rye, corn, alfalfa, and soybeans, rotating with the seasons. He uses an old hay baler drawn by four mules, a hay rake, and other gasoline-driven engines.

    “We don’t have modern machines; we have machines manufactured maybe in the 50s. Some are antique machines as well,” he said.

    A local metal fabricator makes parts to repair the machines when they break down.

    “There are diversified farms” using more modern tools, the owner said. “We’re sort of die-hard” using older technology.

    A typical day at Old Windmill Farm begins at dawn when the lights go on, and the roosters start crowing.

    “If you’re a farmer in the Amish community, you get up around 4:30 or quarter of five,” he said.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 19:00

  • AOC And Matt Gaetz Team Up To Ban Lawmakers From Trading Stocks
    AOC And Matt Gaetz Team Up To Ban Lawmakers From Trading Stocks

    Days before PacWest Bancorp tanked from the mid-20s to the mid $2 range in 48 hours, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) – the Levi Strauss heir / Trump impeachment lead counsel-turned-lawmaker, sold his shares in the beleaguered bank.

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

    And while there’s no evidence that Goldman was trading on insider information, Goldman’s win is emblematic of so many others by lawmakers which seem to work out in their favor.

    To that end – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) have teamed up to co-sponsor a bill which bans members of Congress from trading stocks.

    The Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act would ban members of Congress and their spouses and dependents from making financial investments. Also co-sponsoring the bill are Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL).

    “The ability to individually trade stock erodes the public’s trust in government,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “When members have access to classified information, we should not be trading in the stock market on it. It’s really that simple.”

    Meanwhile, Gaetz told Fox News that “AOC is wrong a lot, she’d probably say the same thing about me, but she’s not corrupt and I will work with anyone and everyone to ensure that Congress is not so compromised.”

    A 63% majority of registered voters said they support a ban on stock trading for members of Congress, according to 2022 Morning Consult poll. That includes 69% of Democrats, 64% of independents and 58% of Republicans.

    At least 113 members of Congress or members of their families disclosed stock transactions in 2021 totaling $355 million, according to a report from Capitol Trades, which tracks trading on Capitol Hill, and some but not all could be potential conflicts of interest based on lawmakers’ committee assignments. The New York Times found 18% of Congress sat on committees that “potentially gave them insight into the companies whose shares they reported buying or selling.” –Deseret.com

    As Axios notes;

    • There was significant bipartisan support for the issue last year, but bills to ban or limit the issue were never brought to the floor for a vote in either chamber.
    • Back in January, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) reintroduced his bill – dubbed the Pelosi Act.
    • After having consistently opposed such a measure, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled she’d relent.

    Last July, former Dallas fed president Richard Fisher slammed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her husband Paul over allegations of insider trading.

    “Clearly people have taken advantage of inside information forever,” Fisher told CNBC, responding to a report from Punchbowl News. “I’m sorry to see that Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi and others appear to have taken advantage of inside information.”

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

    The Pelosis have repeatedly come under fire for the trades which appeared to be based on nonpublic information.

    Recall, the last we wrote about Pelosi’s suspiciously good timing with her stock trades, we noted she had punted on several names heading into 2023. Prior to her trades being carefully scrutinized, Pelosi had a knack for minting cash from her stock trades, which we detailed here. 

    In March of 2021, the Pelosis scored $1.95 million on Microsoft call options less than two weeks before the tech giant secured a $22 billion contract to supply US Army combat troops with augmented reality headsets, while in January of the same year, Paul Pelosi bought up to $1 million of Tesla calls before the Biden administration announced plans to push electric vehicles.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 18:40

  • US Bank-Run Escalates: Deposit Outflows Top $360 Billion In Last 3 Weeks
    US Bank-Run Escalates: Deposit Outflows Top $360 Billion In Last 3 Weeks

    Tl;dr: The bank run continues to accelerate…

    …especially if one looks at non-seasonally-adjusted data.

    Crucially that is over 360 billion of deposit outflows from US banks in the last 3 weeks.

    And here is the source data:

    SA:

    NSA:

    How much of this tax related, and how much is a bank run, and how does the Fed know which is which?

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

    Sure, some of this is tax outflows, but the Fed is just using a historical seasonal adjustment  factor AS IF there is no bank run which is traditionally the case…

    *  *  *

    After yesterday’s massive money market inflows, expectations are that tonight’s data from The Fed’s H.8 report will show major deposit outflows from US commercial banks (despite today’s exuberant bounce in some regional bank shares). Bear in mind, as we detailed yesterday, that The Fed’s emergency bank rescue facility usage remains extremely high and has shown now signs at all of easing…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On a seasonally-adjusted basis, total US Commercial Bank deposits fell $12.5 billion during the week ended 4/26…

    Source: Bloomberg

    However, on a seasonally adjusted basis, US commercial bank deposits (ex-large time deposits) increased last week (during the week-ending 4/26), rising $10.92 billion…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, US commercial bank deposits (ex-large time deposits) tumbled again, down $113 billion (also at its lowest since April 2021)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    That is over $360 billion in outflows in the last 3 weeks… but but but SVB fixed everything?

    And judging by yesterday’s money market inflows, the deposit outflows continued this week (remember, despoist data is lagged a week to money market and Fed balance sheet data)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Large and Small banks saw very modest inflows (on a seasonally adjusted basis) but foreign banks saw large outflows…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Foreign banks saw the biggest weekly outflows since 6/30/2021…

    • Large Banks +$10.3 billion

    • Small Banks +$584 million

    • Foreign Banks -$22.14 billion

    Source: Bloomberg

    However, what really matters is the non-seasonally-adjusted data which saw major outflows across small, large, and foreign banks…

    Source: Bloomberg

    In context, the bank run is escalating…

    On the other side of the ledger, Commercial bank lending rose $41.6 billion in the week ended April 26 after increasing $12.4 billion the prior week, according to seasonally adjusted data.

    Small bank lending exploded higher to $30.6 billion…

    Small Bank Weekly Change:

    • Small Bank C&I Loans: +$1.1BN

    • Small Bank Real Estate Loans: +$20.6BN

    • Small Bank Consumer Loans: +$5.3BN

    • Small Bank All other Loans and Leases: +$3.7BN

    Anyone else wonder how and to whom the small banks lent that much in CRE loans? Money good?

    Large Bank Weekly Change:

    • Large Bank C&I Loans: -$0.4BN

    • Large bank Real Estate Loans: -$1.7BN

    • Large Bank Consumer Loans: +$4.4BN

    • Large Bank All other Loans and Leases: +$7.4BN

    Despite today’s bounce, it was another ugly week for bank stocks(big and small)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    So you still believe the banking crisis over?

    Finally, we remind readers, this data does not include this week’s potential problems (as the deposit and loan data is lagged by a week).

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 18:33

  • The Suburbs Are Pulling Us Apart
    The Suburbs Are Pulling Us Apart

    Authored by Guy Ciarrocchi via RealClear Wire,

    My wife and I moved from Philadelphia to the western suburbs of Chester County for many reasons. The move offered us the best of all worlds. We would be living close enough to Philadelphia, but in even less time, we could be in rural Chester County, with its mushroom farms, farmer’s markets, and homemade foods and products. We could go back to South Philly to eat dinner on Passyunk Avenue, or choose to eat at a quiet country inn on a back road with no traffic lights – or even streetlights.

    Our neighbors were a mix: some had lived here for decades, some had moved here from more rural communities, and some had come here, like us, from Philadelphia. For us, the suburbs were a bridge to different parts of Pennsylvania and the nation. The suburbs were both the melting pot and the patchwork quilt that is America. Our neighbors had gun racks and Volvos. We all seemed to enjoy our community and appreciate that we were made up of differing backgrounds. In a sense, it was the suburbs that were connecting all of us – and holding America together.

    But something changed. I didn’t notice it until it had already happened – because it happened slowly.

    I should’ve noticed it in the signs that started popping up in coffee shops. The occasional “speeches” being made by actors at community theaters before or after a show. The new magnets on cars. The impromptu conversations after Mass. The community blogs that were supposed to be about garage sales and advice on finding a plumber but that started sounding like a Sunday morning talk show – the kind where nobody really talks, they just yell and interrupt. We were coming apart.

    Finally, I noticed it in our politics. Not just the changing election results but in what the campaigns were focused on, as reflected in candidate speeches, in palm cards, and on webpages.

    Somewhere, over the last generation, the suburbs had become ground zero for every societal, cultural – and, ultimately, every political – problem in Pennsylvania and in our nation.

    Think of the battles of just the last few years.

    The biggest fights over Covid mandates took place in the suburbs – not in rural Pennsylvania, where most people went about their business. Not in Philadelphia, where many could walk to stores or order takeout or delivery, as they did frequently even before the lockdowns. In other words, not where culture is more unified.

    The battles were among store-owners of pizza shops, diners, and barbershops and their neighbors, from Langhorne to West Chester. And in 2021 and 2022, the biggest battles came when worlds clashed. When people from more rural areas and those who had moved on from masking ventured into Wayne, Media, or Narberth to buy coffee and were greeted by baristas in masks, who gave them that look: “Why don’t you have a mask?”

    And this was nothing compared to the battles over children and schools – not only concerning masks, but also “critical race theory,” sex education, curriculum, books in school libraries, and student bathrooms.

    Not a week goes by without the media focusing on a suburban school district – Central Bucks, Perkiomen Valley, Tredyffrin/Easttown, West Chester, Southeast Delco, Great Valley, and Hatboro-Horsham. (And, in Virginia, most of America knows about the battles in Loudon County – the Chester County of the Washington, D.C. area.)

    School board races now cost thousands of dollars to run and generate more interest and higher voter turnout than full-time, paying elected offices. (School board members are not paid in Pennsylvania.) School board meetings have become must-see TV – or must-avoid TV, depending on one’s tastes.

    The suburbs, then, are no longer a cultural bridge. No longer a melting pot. No longer a patchwork of people and cultures, with mutual appreciation – or at least respect. They are now the flashpoint. It’s no wonder that politics has become so heated here. The political clashes are being driven by cultural clashes on deeply personal issues.

    When it comes to elections, this is a problem for Republicans since they are currently the opposition party. The trouble is that many people have picked their party – their team – and are unlikely to switch easily. And in this polarized environment, they follow the lead of their party on most issues. And those still undecided politically may not take a favorable view of Republicans, seeing them as merely adversarial to the status quo.

    For a long time, the suburbs helped keep America together. Now, it’s the suburbs that are pulling us apart – at rapid speed and high temperature.

    As Pennsylvania – and America – becomes more suburban, it’s imperative that we find a way to lower that temperature. This is bigger than politics or elections. It’s about staying together as a nation.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 18:20

  • Billionaire Buys Jeffery Epstein's Islands, Paving Way For "Five-Star Resort"
    Billionaire Buys Jeffery Epstein’s Islands, Paving Way For “Five-Star Resort”

    Billionaire investor Stephen Deckoff purchased two Caribbean islands previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier accused of sex trafficking. Deckoff has plans to transform one of the islands, known by some as “Pedophile Island,” into a world-class resort. 

    On Wednesday, Deckoff, under his firm SD Investments, announced the acquisition of the Great St. James and Little St. James islands for $60 million, or less than half of their initial asking price. 

    Court filings have revealed Epstein used one of the islands to sexually abuse young girls for years. The billionaire wants to purge the island of evil for a new “state-of-the-art, five-star, world-class luxury 25-room resort.”

    “Mr. Deckoff plans to develop a state-of-the-art, five-star, world-class luxury 25-room resort that will help bolster tourism, create jobs, and spur economic development in the region, while respecting and preserving the important environment of the islands,” a press release from the investment firm read. 

    AP News reported funds from the island sale would go towards the $105 million sex trafficking lawsuit against Epstein’s estate, which the US Virgin Islands government settled. SD Investments didn’t reveal how much it would invest in the new resort. 

    Whether or not high net-worth folks will visit the island is a big gamble for Deckoff…

    If the new resort ever gets built, some of Epstein’s guests who visited the island over the years, such as Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, probably won’t return. 

    There’s no word if Deckoff will keep Epstein’s mysterious temple structure. 

    The purchase was reported on the same day that CNBC revealed JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon would be deposed in late May over civil lawsuits accusing the megabank of benefiting from Epstein’s sex trafficking operations. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 18:00

  • Freedom Convoy's B.J.Dichter: We Live In A Belief-Based Society
    Freedom Convoy’s B.J.Dichter: We Live In A Belief-Based Society

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    The two convoys: #FreedomConvoy and Political Convoy

    “I have news for everybody on the left, you’re the right-wing authoritarians who wanted to censor my video games and music in the 90s. That’s what you’ve become, you’ve become the very people you profess to be fighting against. “

    I recently had a chance to sit down with B. J Dichter of Canada’s #FreedomConvoy to talk about what happened in Ottawa, what the #FreedomConvoy was all about, and his new book Honking For Freedom.

    The full transcript of the show is now available, highlights include:

    What the #FreedomConvoy was all about:

    Markjr:

    One thing that was always frustrating to me when talking about the Freedom Convoy, and we’ll get into the whole narrative and spin and media, but let’s state it for the record here. What was the goal of the Freedom Convoy?

    BJ Dichter:  Oh, it was pretty simple: to end the vaccine mandates and to end the ArriveCan app.

    (Dichter had outlined in an earlier podcast with Robert Breedlove how he was pulling up to the border to re-enter Canada and was holding his phone out the window to the Canada Border agent who told him not to bother, his phone had already broadcasted everything they needed to know about him when he was still approaching the border).

    The mass conditioning of the public by the mainstream media:

    There was nothing but deception from legacy media, there was deception from alternative media as well on all sides.

    And no one was being straight with what was going on. I was doing my best to try to manage that and to leverage one media over the other, to do my best to get the story out while also trying to bait the legacy media to cover it. Because in the beginning, the legacy media wasn’t covering it. They’re trying to ignore it, which is one of the reasons I banned them from our press conferences. And I knew that would set them off. What people don’t know is not only did I ban them from our press conferences, but I also sent invites to all my contacts in the legacy media. And then when they responded, I said, “oh, sorry, you can’t come.”

    Markjr: 

    I think marketers call that the takeaway sale.

    What infuriated me about that, when you look at headlines throughout the world, there was one guy with a confederate flag, who was hounded out of the crowd by the Convoy, and there was one guy with the swastika flag. I would pay money have that person revealed and outed because what I think, and I’m not the only one, was that he was a plant.

    It was just so convenient that there was a photographer there getting professional quality photos of this person walking through the crowd. And yet, those two images were on an infinite loop all over the world. They just looped the same image over and over.

    And then it’s so subtle: Suddenly the headlines, say, confederate flags and swastikas — plural. And it’s so subtle, right?

    So it gets into the mind of the masses. They think that this place was overrun with Hitler Youth and Klansmen, and it was one guy of each: one swastika, one confederate flag, and they were hounded out of the area by the participants.

    That was infuriating.

    The other thing I’ll say about this, is when I tried to engage with people who disagreed with me about what you were trying to do, what the goal of the Convoy was, the discourse would be civil, and it would be polite, until one thing happened:

    When I challenged their source of news. When I called into question the veracity of the mainstream media, the conversation turned nasty immediately. So what I found very odd about this is you can oppose people’s premises and you can attack even their beliefs. But if you attack their support structure for how they base their knowledge, they get defensive and they come out swinging.

    BJ Dichter:

    Yeah, it’s because you’ve triggered them into cognitive dissonance.

    One of the people that benefits of all this, is that I managed to connect with some people that have large platforms, people who I admire, one of them was I messaged him back and forth just a couple of times, is Scott Adams. 

    Scott Adams describes this as the seven signs of cognitive dissonance trying to do his best to get people to understand this.

    Once you challenge their belief system,  they jump into one of the seven categories which are:

    1. change to the topic
    2. ad hominem
    3. mind reading
    4. word salad
    5. analogy instead of reason
    6. it’s too complicated to explain, or the ‘
    7. so you’re saying’ straw man

    Which is what you saw.

    That’s what you’ve done, you’ve managed to force them, and into second guessing their belief system, because we’re no longer a science-based society, we are now a belief-based society.And we don’t challenge our own beliefs.

     

    The role of Bitcoin in the #FreedomConvoy

    Bitcoiners were trying to warn the convoy organizers that their fundraising proceeds would likely be seized, when they first approached Tamara Lich, she said reportedly said: “I don’t need video game money, I need real money.”

    Eventually, they found their way to Dichter, who still encountered resistance from the other organizers who viewed it with suspicion.

    Markjr: So how many people became instantly orange-pilled when bank accounts started getting frozen?

    BJ Dichter:

    It’s amazing. You know, it’s just like the narrative poisoning problem with messaging. Once you once you throw them the counter-narrative, either people slip into the seven signs of cognitive dissonance, or if it’s really serious, it really hits them emotionally where it’s important, like their freedom and their wealth, then they switch to “Okay, tell me more.”

    Right. So we got a little bit of that. There was so much. I mean, I spent a week on the phone with lawyers trying not to get arrested. There were so many other things going on that it’s not even covered in the book, stuff I haven’t talked about yet. But what it did is it allow me to do consecutive Twitter spaces towards the end and then after the convoy and leading up to Bitcoin 2022 in Miami, that I had people saying, “Okay, tell me about Bitcoin. How did it work during the convoy? How do I buy it? Should I keep it here?”

    It just really opened up the doors, where people previously they dismissed it, because in the Western world, we’re spoiled. We don’t deal with regular currency collapses. We’re not in Argentina and Brazil, right?

    So what is Bitcoin here? It’s an investment. Well, once the Freedom Convoy came around that hyperbolic scenario that we all thought would never happen here. It’s always going to happen somewhere else. Well, it happened here.

    And now it’s more than just an investment for a small group of people that’s growing daily. That’s why in my discord, we have a Bitcoin chat for people who are new, and still learning and don’t understand and I like the soft pill approach, the soft orange pill approach of letting people come to you and they are definitely coming because of the Chief Marketing Officer of Bitcoin: Justin Trudeau.

    I love the Bitcoin community and I hate the word community. But it’s so awesome and it’s so many people in politics don’t have this advantage, the die-hard politic political people, to go into a space, where there’s a whole bunch of people have a whole bunch of different views on the world, and how the world should operate, but they agree on one thing, which is freedom, sovereignty of money, decentral decentralization, and it’s become this, this undercurrent that allows us all to talk to each other. And I’ve only ever experienced that in Bitcoin. So that’s the societal benefits and political benefits, if you will, with Bitcoin on top of the monetary value that it has, and I’m trying my best to make more and more people realize that and see that and some of them have.

    Iterating for Freedom: The Dutch Farmers have a crack:

    We talked about how the #FreedomConvoy set off a chain reaction around the world, it was arguably the beginning of the end of the Lockdown Era and vaccine mandates.

    BJ Dichter:

    Look what happened in the Netherlands. Jordan Peterson explained to me on one of our calls, he said, the people in the Netherlands who eventually connected with, they looked at what happened in the convoy.

    They tried to look at the weaknesses that were exposed by the government. And they tried to hedge against that.

    They had regular protests, they would break it up, they’d start again,  always kept the government guessing.

    And what was the eventual result of that was the fact that they protected against all the things that we dealt with. They actually formed a party, and they got 20% of the vote. And now they have the political capital, and the votes in their parliament to block any of this nonsense, whether it’s WTF or Neo-progressive, whatever you want to call it, to block any of these restrictions on farmers, because they have 20% of the parliament.

    So they won. 

    Did it work in Canada?

    We saw them testing messaging. And I remember saying to some of the other road captains, people are organizing and saying this is good.

    They’re testing messaging, that means they have data showing that there’s overwhelming support for us. They don’t know what to do. Just wait, let’s wait it out a couple of days.

    And then lo and behold, we started to see provinces. Scott Moe, in Saskatchewan, started testing messaging and saying, ‘Oh, well, maybe we’re gonna roll back. Maybe it’s time to end the pandemic and restrictions.’

    And I was laughing, #nothingtodowithtruckers, right? Because they’ll never admit it.  And I found out from a number of people, there was 30+ convoys around the world, that people realized in various jurisdictions that this tactic was working.

    And this also had the same ripple effect and jurisdictions outside of Canada.

    So yeah, I think it did. The only one that held on were the Trudeau administration. Because extremists only know one worldview, and they’ll always double down on their strategy, they’ll never sit back and think, what’s the other guy thinking?

    There is zero respect. And they eventually, how many months later, was it eight months later, they eventually removed the restrictions within Canada and the mandates. And once again, #nothingtodowithtruckers; just because you think you can hang on for additional six months? You think we don’t know it? It was the convoy. We know it did.

    However B.J Dichter seems to think that the Canadian #FreedomConvoy protestors were robbed of the same victories that the later iterations, like the Dutch Farmers, were achieving. Facing the prospect of a class action suit for over $400 million, it’s hard to see the silver lining:

    BJ Dichter:

    We were robbed of building an equivalent grassroots movement, that wasn’t tied to any political party that we could have maneuvered and found candidates, politicians, groups of people, advocacy groups to align with, to have that sort of effect on Canadian politics, we were robbed of that, and that I will never forgive them for.

    Markjr:

    This brings us back to Martin Gurrie’s book [Revolt of the Public], who said that the fatal flaw in a lot of these populist movements was that they didn’t have a coherent strategy for what to do with the momentum and the inertia and the victories that they achieved, like they could overthrow a government, but then, you know, just someone worse would take its place.

    So there was no coherent methodology to sort of channel it all into and what you were describing the Dutch, the Netherlands. They transcended that. They figured it out.

    It’s early days here in Canada. Maybe that particular chapter went the way it did. But you guys did something immutable, something transformative, really, you set off the whole movement, and that set the entire thing in motion so that I wouldn’t sell yourself short there because it all started in Canada with you guys

    BJ Dichter

    I think we’re right now at the stage where people are, you know, independent journalists, YouTubers are now talking to myself and other people are understanding the nuance of what went on behind the scenes.

    They’re now understanding that there are two convoys there — that what I call political convoy and freedom convoy.  And freedom convoy was much larger.

    The political convoy was a small group of people trying to co-opt us for the political class, which is going to happen everywhere. We’re going to have some rough waters for a little while as we kind of purge out the political convoy and political conflict and go back to their parties.

    The rest of us can refocus on unifying and building something with people we don’t necessarily agree with everything, but we agree on respect and unity and tolerating each other.

    Off Camera: Liberal Faction planned to oust Trudeau

    After we stopped recording we continued speaking a while, including some developments around the class action lawsuit which Dichter will announce in due course (follow the links below to stay on top of this).

    However one of the bombshell revelations that came up (at least for me) was that Dichter had been contacted by a faction of MPs from within the Liberal Party of Canada who were more receptive to the grievances of the convoy and who were planning to oust Trudeau by supporting a non-confidence motion in Parliament. It never materialized as the Emergency Act was soon invoked, possibly because Trudeau was in full “seige mentality” by then. (my take, not Dichter’s).

    When the convoy was happening I said that the leader of every Canadian political party was going to end up losing their job over it. The CPC dumped the “liberal-lite” Erin O’Toole almost immediately. Looks like elements within the Liberal Party wanted to do the same with Trudeau. We all know Jagmeet Singh is loathed by his own base and will probably not survive his party’s next leadership ballot given that he’s single-handedly propping up Trudeau while trying to sound like he’s fighting the system.

    See also:

    The interview:

    *  *  *

    Subscribe to The Bombthrower email list and receive a free copy of the Crypto Capitalist Manifesto – or follow me on Nostr or Twitter. My Bitcoin Capitalist premium letter provides an actionable investment thesis for navigating the coming monetary apartheid between being a CBDC-serf and a Sovereign Individual with Bitcoin. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 17:40

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May 05

Today’s News 5th May 2023

  • Why Turkey's May 14 Election Really Matters
    Why Turkey’s May 14 Election Really Matters

    Authored by Austin Bay via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Turkey’s May 14, 2023, national elections are critical, foremost for Turkish citizens. Their democracy is at stake.

    In this aerial photo, thousands of supporters wave flags and chant slogans while waiting for the arrival of eader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, and the presidential candidate of the Main Opposition alliance during a campaign rally in Izmir, Turkey, on April 30, 2023.

    But that isn’t the only reason Turkish and European media call next week’s vote the most important in 100 years. The election, which pits the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan against the much more moderate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, also affects NATO solidarity, political stability in Eastern Europe, and the West’s ability to counter Iran, Russia, and China in the Middle East.

    Erdogan, who leads the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), advocates the “executive presidency” (authoritarian power and control vested in the president). Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is a moderate pro-parliamentary process candidate. He is backed by a six-party coalition committed to ending Erdogan’s reign of economic error, police intimidation, and, in the wake of the February earthquakes, destructive corruption.

    For Turks the 100-year mark has genuine significance. A century ago, in 1923, from the WWI ruins of the Ottoman Turk empire, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk established the secular Turkish Republic—a nonsectarian republic in an overwhelmingly Muslim nation.

    Ataturk was a true revolutionary. To state the grand historical case, he is the only man to successfully create a political system to modernize a culturally Islamic nation. Ataturk pursued economic modernization. He emancipated women and ended the Islamic Caliphate—both acts horrifying radical Islamists then and now. In 2001 Osama bin Laden was still condemning him.

    Turkey’s 21st-century democracy is Ataturk’s legacy.

    Erdogan, a man notoriously jealous of Ataturk, intentionally attacks and diminishes Turkey’s democratic institutions. Since 2003, when Erdogan became prime minister, year by year Turkey’s government has become less secular and more authoritarian as Erdogan forged his powerful executive.

    His record for jailing journalists and intimidating opponents is fact, not theory.

    He is also a threat to the integrity of NATO, which means he’s a threat to U.S. security. When he purchased the Russian-made S-400 air defense system, Erdogan put the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s technological edge at risk.

    When it serves him, Erdogan values NATO’s commitment to defend Turkey. In April 2012, after confrontations with Syrian troops, he suggested he might invoke NATO Article 5 if fire spilled across the border. However, his deliberately rogue behavior has damaged the alliance. He continues to oppose Swedish membership. As recently as January 2023, good rumor had it that active and retired NATO officials were so concerned about Erdogan’s unreliability that NATO ought to consider expelling Turkey.

    Kilicdaroglu says he will revive Turkey’s bid to join the European Union and support Sweden’s admission.

    Erdogan’s economic and political mismanagement may lead to his defeat.

    In 2002 Erdogan won his first national election on a platform to attack inflation, improve the economy, and fight corruption. In fall 2022 annual inflation hit 86 percent, a 24-year high.

    The February earthquakes were the worst natural disaster in the history of modern Turkey—the Feb. 6 quake might be the biggest in 2,000 years.

    In Turkey an estimated 280,000 buildings were either destroyed or suffered “structural compromise” so they must be abandoned. The number is a fact, not an opinion. In early April Turkey’s interior ministry raised the death toll to 50,399. Relief organizations reported around 1.5 million Turks who survived the earthquakes were still living in tents or other temporary facilities.

    Erdogan’s slow and poor response has made the earthquakes an election issue he cannot shake.

    Did cronyism hamper recovery? Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD, the agency tasked with handling the disaster) is run by a political appointee who has little emergency management experience.

    Government failure to enforce construction standards is definitely an issue. Some critics suspect corruption by national and local officials contributed to the disaster. Government “construction amnesties” allowed builders to ignore safety codes in areas where housing shortages existed. In 2018 Erdogan allowed one in the city of Kahramanmaras. In March 2019 he publicly touted new housing in Kahramanmaras as one of his administration’s major achievements.

    In February the quakes leveled the city.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 02:00

  • Was The Tucker "Take Down" A Deep-State Hit?
    Was The Tucker “Take Down” A Deep-State Hit?

    Authored by Mike Whitney,

    “When honest people say what’s true … they become powerful…. That’s the iron-law of the universe, the truth prevails.”

    – Tucker Carlson

    Can we stop pretending that Tucker Carlson was fired because of the Dominion lawsuit? That’s a bunch of baloney. Carlson was fired because he used his prime-time platform to expose the crimes and illicit goings-on of the most powerful men, corporations and agencies in the world. That’s why he was fired, because he revealed the truth about big pharma’s toxic injections, Fauci’s deranged lockdowns, Brandon’s police-state surveillance, the expansive deep-state censorship program, CRT, BLM, ESG, George Floyd, drag-queen children’s hour, the oddball cult of trangenderism, Ukraine’s crummy dictator-president Zelensky and all the other pernicious inanities that are being used like a wrecking-ball on the nation’s moral and historical foundation. Tucker exposed them all.

    That’s why he was fired. It had nothing to do lawsuits or disgruntled employees whining about a “toxic work environment”. Nor did it have anything to do with ratings or money. This was a carefully-calculated, narrowly-supported targeted assassination of the man—who more than any other—had become a problem for the reprobate Mafia that runs the country and who is determined to silence or annihilate anyone who speaks out against them.

    So don’t be duped by articles in the MSM. They are there to misdirect and confuse, not to inform. Have confidence in what you’ve seen with your own eyes and know to be true. Tucker Carlson was a victim of a system that no longer tolerates free speech, even-handed criticism or any divergence from the official narrative. Who doesn’t know this already?

    How many readers remember the night that Tucker ran a segment on the JFK assassination? Here’s a short recap from an excellent article by Lew Rockwell:

    In a remarkable television broadcast on December 15, 2022, Tucker Carlson made an explosive charge. He pointed out that, contrary to law, the White House was refusing to release thousands of pages of documents about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Carlson said that these documents proved CIA involvement in the assassination and that someone within the government who had looked at these documents made a direct statement to this effect.

    …. We spoke to someone who had access to these still hidden CIA documents, a person who was deeply familiar with what they contained. We asked this person directly, ‘Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy, an American President?’ And here’s the reply we received verbatim. Quote, ‘The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.’ “Why Tucker Carlson had to be Purged”, Lew Rockwell

    So, after 60 years, someone finally had the courage to tell the truth on national television. That’s shocking.

    But how many people who saw that segment reacted the same way that I did? How many people said to themselves, “They’re not going to allow this to continue, they’re not going to let Carlson expose their crimes to the world. No way. Whatever it takes, they’re going to shut this guy up.”

    And that’s what they’ve done, they’ve shut him up.

    There are things you can’t say in America, and that is one of them. You cannot say the CIA killed John Kennedy even though the majority of people know that it’s true. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s true. Just like it doesn’t matter that it took place 60 years ago. You still can’t say it, because the people who own the media—and who sit on the boards of all the other global corporations—don’t like it when you criticize the organization that does their dirty work. They won’t allow that.

    This is the lesson of Julian Assange, which is: Do not reveal the crimes of elites and—if you do—you’re going to be crushed. Assange violated that rule and now faces a lifetime in solitary confinement. They’ve not only ruined his life, they’ve also trotted him out in front of the world media to make an example of him. And the message they’re trying to send is this: “Mess with us and we will fu** you over.” That is the message.

    Now it’s on to Tucker who is even more widely reviled for his nightly attacks on the same group of powerbrokers. What do you think they have in store for him?

    It’s hard to say, but they’re not going to pull their punches, that much is certain.

    It’s worth noting that, by some accounts, Carlson was not explicitly fired. Did you know that?

    According to former Fox host Megyn Kelly, Carlson is not free to negotiate with other potential employers because he’s still technically under contract with Fox. Check out this blurb from Red State website:

    There’s a report from 19FortyFive from John Rossamondo that Tucker Carlson texted them, “I’m still employed by Fox,” that he had not been fired. Now, we’re not seeing anyone else reporting on that, so we relate that report with that proviso. That report does, however, fit with what Kelly said. 19FortyFive also said Carlson did not explain the reasoning for the parting of ways, just as Kelly said.

    If this is all true, then, as Kelly says, Fox needs to let Carlson out of the contract as soon as possible, so his voice is freed to get about doing his job. But for the moment, it’s concerning, if it means he’s stopped from pursuing other opportunities and is effectively silenced.” (“Megyn Kelly Drops Important Info About Tucker Departure, Blog Reports Text From Tucker”, Red State)

    What Kelly seems to ignore is that “silencing” Carlson was the primary objective from the get-go. The fact that he is still under contract simply makes it easier for his enemies to control and censor him. Many readers have noticed that Carlson has not posted another video on his Twitter account since last week’s 2-minute blockbuster that raked in over 70 million views. That probably means that he’s been advised by his attorney that anything he produces will be construed as a violation of his contract with Fox. In other words, keeping Tucker on the payroll may be the most effective way to shut him up which is precisely what they want.

    On an entirely different topic: There seems to be widespread agreement that Rupert Murdoch was directly involved in Carlson’s removal. But—in my opinion—that seems very unlikely. Murdoch probably knew that the fallout from Carlson’s termination would be devastating for both ratings and the Fox brand. That’s why he (probably) avoided the decision for as long as possible. But try to imagine the enormous pressure he must have been under from his fellow oligarchs as well as the numerous deep-state agencies that have coalesced into—what Matt Taibbi calls—the “Censorship-Industrial Complex”. The billionaire globalists and their government assets despise Carlson and see his rational, laser-sharp analysis as a grave threat to their broader societal project. That is why they descended on Murdoch like a barrage of heat-seeking missiles forcing the dithering mogul to eventually throw in the towel. Once again—this is just my opinion—but I think it is much more likely that Murdoch “caved in” rather than threw his threw his prime-time superstar under the bus.

    There’s also another development that preceded the Tucker incident that might have had some bearing on the final outcome, that is, the giant private equity corporation Blackrock bought a sizable chunk of Fox just two months before Carlson was given his pink-slip. Here’s the scoop from an article at Nasdaq:

    Fintel reports that BlackRock has filed a 13G/A form with the SEC disclosing ownership of 45.74MM shares of Fox Corporation, Class A (FOXA). This represents 15.1% of the company.

    In their previous filing dated January 27, 2022 they reported 39.87MM shares and 12.40% of the company, an increase in shares of 14.75% and an increase in total ownership of 2.70% (calculated as current – previous percent ownership). BlackRock Increases Position in Fox Corporation, Nasdaq

    Let me see if I got this straight: ‘Liberal-leaning’ PE goliath Blackrock buys a 15% share of uber-conservative Fox News in early February, and 3 months later the network’s brightest star is given his “walking papers”. Doesn’t that sound a bit suspicious?

    Indeed, it does. Check out this short clip from an article by analyst Tom Loungo who helps to clarify what’s going on:

    This is symptomatic of Blackrock’s use of proxy to get what they want. Larry Fink, BLK CEO, is notorious for his antics in forcing heads of state and CEO’s to do his bidding while hiding behind the smokescreen of ‘I’m just a guy investing your hard-earned capital on your behalf for the good of humanity.’

    Now, this is some prime Grade AA Bullshit.

    Blackrock is Davos’ main arm-twisting subsidiary in the C-Suites of the S&P 500 as well as the Euro STOXXX 50 (link will need translation from German). He may as well change his first name to Don but there are some ethnic issues with this outside of Queens.” “Tucker, Blackrock and the SIFI Two-Step”, Lew Rockwell)

    I think Luongo is on to something here. Blackrock’s stake in Fox might have nothing to do Fox’s prospects for future profits. Instead, it might be a straightforward power-play aimed at eliminating America’s most persuasive critic of big pharma, corporate malfeasance and the tyrannical globalist agenda. At the very least, the proximity of Blackrock’s purchase should prompt a thorough investigation of the possible link between the giant Wall Street monoliths and outspoken critics of the system. But while an independent probe is certainly warranted, I’m not holding my breath.

    It’s not possible to understand what happened to Tucker Carlson without having some knowledge of the way things actually work. Fortunately, journalist Matt Taibbi has explained much of what is going on now through his work on the Twitter Files which shows how the concentration of wealth and influence has spawned an expansive information matrix that threatens to quash free speech while strengthening the power of the billionaire elites. Here’s a short excerpt from a piece by Taibbi:

    ….the story of the #TwitterFiles…. is “really the story of the collapse of public trust in experts and institutions, and how those experts struck back, by trying to pool their remaining influence into a political monopoly.”….

    #TwitterFiles reporters like Michael Shellenberger, and myself didn’t have much of a hint of what we were looking at until later in the project. That larger story was about a new type of political control mechanism that didn’t really exist ten years ago. In preparation for testimony before the House in March, Shellenberger gave it a name: the Censorship-Industrial Complex…..

    We didn’t understand at the time, but the third, fourth, and fifth installments of the #TwitterFiles… served as an introduction for all of us to the major components of a vast new public-private speech bureaucracy, one that appeared to have been founded in the United States, but was clearly global in scope…. a censorship industrial complex that…

    Combines established methods of psychological manipulation… with highly sophisticated tools from computer science, including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing….

    The core concept is too much democracy and freedom leads to mischief, and since the desire for these things can’t be stamped out all at once but instead must be squashed in every person over and over and endlessly, the job requires a massive investment, and a gigantic bureaucracy to match.” “Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex, Matt Taibbi, Racket News

    Bottom line: The merging of public and private power has already taken place and is expressed in the removal of any and all critics of the newly-minted system. In short, Tucker was not fired by Fox News management but by the new speech-policing behemoth that descended on Murdoch like a swarm of hornets coercing him to make a choice that he probably would not have made otherwise.

    A similar point is made by Patrick Lawrence in his recent review of Jacob Seigel’s A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century Here’s an excerpt from the author’s piece:

    In his last days in office, President Barack Obama made the decision to set the country on a new course”…(In) 2016, he signed into law the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, which used the language of defending the homeland to launch an open-ended, offensive information war.”.….

    This was to be not merely a “whole-of-government” undertaking: It was “whole-of-society,” meaning all lines between the public and private sectors would be erased and control of the hearts and minds of every American was made the objective.

    Now we can understand how easily our public institutions enlisted in this good cause. These included Big Tech and the national security apparatus, of course, as well as law enforcement — the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation—the think tanks, the universities, the NGOs, and media. “The American press,” (Jacob) Siegel writes, “was hollowed out to the point that it could be worn like a hand puppet by the U.S. security agencies and party operatives.”

    There were also various self-proclaimed guardians of “internet freedom,” whose shared objective was to suppress all forms of dissent by making sure no such thing survived their efforts…..

    “Something monstrous is taking shape in America,” Siegel writes….

    “What is coming into being is a new form of government and social organization that is as different from mid-20th century liberal democracy as the early American republic was from the British monarchism that it grew out of and eventually supplanted. A state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals, is being replaced by a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms. It resembles the Chinese system of social credit and one-party state control, and yet that, too, misses the distinctively American and providential character of the control system.” The Most Powerful Demolition of Russiagate Yet”, Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News

    How do these excerpts help us to understand what happened to Tucker Carlson?

    If Carlson was fired by Murdoch for his alleged involvement in the Dominion settlement, that is entirely different then if he was the victim of an emerging speech-policing bureaucracy that is deeply entrenched in the government and which seeks to arbitrarily limit what opinions are permissible and not permissible. If the latter is true, then we can assume that Carlson’s termination has broader meaning for everyone living in the United States today. What it means is that a sprawling new system has been secretly assembled within the state that is explicitly designed to end free speech as we know it and extinguish the last glimmer of personal liberty in America.

    That’s why we need to know what people or organizations were behind the firing of Tucker Carlson.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/05/2023 – 00:00

  • What Happened To All The Stretched Limousines?
    What Happened To All The Stretched Limousines?

    Several decades ago, limousines could be found in every major city. The luxury stretched vehicle ushered occupants to boardroom meetings, penthouses, nightclubs, and sporting events. But somewhere along the way, the limousine slowly and then rapidly disappeared from city streets in a world now dominated by black SUVs. 

    The stretched limousine dominated the luxury chauffeur service industry in the 1970s and 1980s. After multiple stock crashes, the first in 1987, the second in the early 2000s, and the third in 2008, the luxury mode of travel lost its lust with high net-wealth individuals.

    Slowly but surely, the town car became the vehicle of choice in the 2000s. Then the rich demanded Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Suburban, as well as Mercedes S classes, while demand for stretch limos plummeted. 

    Now chauffeur services are dominated by “black SUVs, buses and vans,” NYTimes explained. 

    “The limo business isn’t your father’s limo business anymore,” said Robert Alexander, president of the National Limousine Association (NLA). 

    According to NLA data, stretch limos represent about 1% of services offered by chauffeur services nationwide, down from 10% a decade ago. 

    “The stretch limo is — what’s the expression? — gone like the dodo bird,” Alexander said.

    As Alexander pointed out, another factor contributing to the near “extinction” of limousines was the emergence of ride-hailing platforms like Uber and Lyft over a decade ago. These platforms spurred a surge in demand for luxury SUV chauffeur services, further diminishing the stretched limo market.

    It’s clear the limo industry has taken a drastic turn in recent decades. And the next move the limo industry is making is into luxury Sprinter vans.

    Matthew Daus, a lawyer and a former commissioner and chairman of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, explained the limo industry has “muscled into the motor coach and the charter industry” after the pandemic. 

    Stretched limos are gone for now, but luxury chauffeur services are still thriving. It’s just the mode of transport has changed. And in a country where progressive policies have sparked a nationwide crime wave in major metro areas, no one in their right mind would dare drive around in a moving target. 

    Looking ahead, the proliferation of self-driving cars could also make professional chauffeurs extinct in the coming decades. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 23:40

  • Is It A Good Thing For Ordinary Americans If The US Loses Reserve Currency Status?
    Is It A Good Thing For Ordinary Americans If The US Loses Reserve Currency Status?

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via the Mises Institute,

    Earlier this month, Larry Kudlow insisted that it is “it’s incumbent on the U.S. government, no matter who’s in power, to maintain the reserve currency status of the dollar.” Kudlow laments that a toppling of the dollar from that perch “seems to be the direction we’re going in.” 

    Kudlow’s remarks came a day after Donald Trump declared that China is trying to displace the U.S. Dollar [sic] as the NUMBER ONE CURRENCY” and that if this occurs, it would be the biggest defeat for our Country [sic] in its history.” 

    Neither Trump nor Kudlow actually explain why maintaining reserve currency status is so important. After all, it’s clear that it is not necessary for a country’s currency to be a reserve currency in order for that country to have a high standard of living and a high degree of economic freedom. We could simply look to Norway and Switzerland to see that. 

    What’s Good for the Government Isn’t Necessarily What’s Good for the People

    Trump and Kudlow seemingly can’t tell the difference between what is good for the US government, and what is good for the people.  The idea that global reserve currency status for the dollar is essential to “America” relies on the false notion that the interests of the US regime and the interests of ordinary taxpaying Americans are one and the same. These interests rarely coincide, however, and they certainly don’t when it comes to reserve currency status. This is especially the case when the dollar is unbacked by any commodity like gold, and is simply a floating fiat currency that can be inflated at the will of the regime at any time.

    That global reserve currency status benefits the regime itself is obvious. This status for the dollar does indeed allow the regime to more recklessly inflate the dollar and increase deficits. This enhances the US regime’s ability to bribe voters with enormous welfare programs and involve the US regime in a dazzling array of wars that have nothing to do with defending US territory. None of this, however, improves the standard of living of Americans who pay the bills. Even worse, when the dollar ceases to be the dominant reserve currency—an event that is inevitable—holders of dollars will see their purchasing power plummet. Yet, it not the end of reserve currency status that is to blame for the inflationist pain. Rather, the fault will lie with the decades of monetary and fiscal mismanagement made possible by the dollar’s status as global reserve currency. 

    To demand the regime continue to cling to global reserve currency status is to demand a continuation of the policies that have hollowed out the financial well-being of Americans for decades.

    Trump and Kudlow, however, are not troubled by this. For them, it appears that the supposed importance of reserve currency status is not about economic concerns, but is really a political project. This shouldn’t surprise us given many of the narratives surrounding the dollar’s status—which focus on China and Chinese geopolitical power as the main reason to fear a decline of the dollar. This isn’t about protecting your wealth or reining in government power. It’s about increasing US government power in the name of fighting the latest foreign “axis of evil.” 

    In fact, China’s currency, the yuan, doesn’t even pose a threat to the dollar. The yuan is a fifth-place also-ran in the currency race. So, for now, the dollar still reigns supreme, and being the regime whose currency enjoys global reserve status comes with many advantages.

    Why Reserve Currency Status Enhances State Power at the Expense of the Taxpayers

    The first advantage is reserve currency status brings a greater global demand for dollars. This means more of a global willingness to absorb dollars into foreign central banks and foreign bank accounts even as the dollar inflates and loses purchasing power. Ultimately, this means the US regime can hoodwink the voters into accepting more monetary inflation, more financial repression, and more debt for many years before domestic price inflation becomes a political problem for the regime. After all, even if the US central bank (the Federal Reserve) creates $8 trillion in new dollars in order to prop up US asset prices, much of the world will take those dollars out of US domestic markets, and this will reduce price inflation in the US—at least in the short term.

    A second advantage: the fact the dollar dominates in global trade transactions means more global demand for US debt. Or, as Reuters put it in 2019, the dollar is used “for at least half of international trade invoices—five times more than the United States’ share of world goods imports—fuelling demand for U.S. assets.” Those assets include US government debt. In fact, as Robert Murphy notes, this inflation-fueled demand for US assets will be “heavily tilted toward debt (rather than equity in growing companies).” This rush for US debt pushes down the interest rate at which the US government must pay on its enormous $30 trillion debt. 

    All in all, reserve status for the dollar means a lot more US government spending. This produces no net benefit since government spending in itself distorts the economy, drives up prices, and otherwise redistributes wealth according to political considerations, rather than according to the needs of consumers and entrepreneurs.

    None of this is good for the productive people in the US. For one, deficit spending—whether for elective wars or welfare programs—must always be paid for, either in the form of price inflation (i.e., the inflation tax), or in terms of future ordinary taxation. Moreover, reserve currency status creates political cover for the regime’s easy-money policies in the short term. That is, global demand for the dollar helps create the temporary impression that monetary inflation comes with few downsides. This, however, can only continue until the dollar’s reserve status ends or even significantly weakens. In the meantime, the world will have been flooded with dollars. 

    Reserve currency status, by politically fostering more deficit spending, also harms those parts of the private economy that depend on private investment. As deficit spending increases, the economy is flooded with ever larger amounts of government debt backed up by tax dollars. This attracts huge amounts of wealth to government Treasurys that otherwise would have gone into private-sector investments. 

    All this dollar profligacy has been neither necessary nor advisable, yet maintaining global reserve currency status can help regimes get away with this sort of thing for decades. 

    The Effects of Losing International Currency Power

    Often, discussion about the dollar’s reserve status creates a false dichotomy between total domination of the global monetary system on one hand and complete abandonment of the dollar on the other. A more likely scenario is that the dollar will weaken considerably but will remain among the most often used currencies. After all, even after the pound sterling lost its status as reserve currency in the 1930s, it did not disappear. 

    For example, let’s say the US dollar sinks to 40 percent of all foreign reserves and is only used in one-third of all international trade invoices—instead of one-half, as is now the case. This would not necessarily destroy the dollar or the US economy, but it would certainly constrain the US regime’s ability to pile on another trillion dollars worth of debt without the true costs of mounting debt becoming abundantly clear.  Perhaps more importantly, a world less awash in dollars will mean a world with less demand for US assets such as US government debt. That means higher interest rates for the US government and less of an ability to finance the welfare-warfare state by inflating the currency.

    Naturally, politicians and pundits such as Trump and Kudlow view any threat to this kind of state power as a bad thing. At this point, however, how we feel about it is irrelevant. It’s going to happen regardless of our feelings on the matter. The only way it doesn’t happen is if the US regime suddenly starts slashing deficits and government spending, embraces a strong dollar policy, and perhaps even anchors the dollar to a commodity like gold. None of those things is going to happen without first experiencing a wakeup call on the level of losing currency reserve status. The good news is such a wakeup call will weaken the US regime, potentially forcing policymakers to embrace a more sane fiscal and monetary policy.  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 23:20

  • After Bungling Sudan Crisis Response, Biden's Solution: More Sanctions
    After Bungling Sudan Crisis Response, Biden’s Solution: More Sanctions

    The Biden administration has come under intense criticism for its meager and flat-footed response to the Sudan crisis, now reaching three full weeks, and with over 550 people killed and thousands wounded. Each time a truce is declared, it is quickly broken with gunfire and shelling in and around Khartoum. Two Americans were reported killed near the start of the violence. Thousands of US citizens reportedly remain in the country.

    Biden’s solution? Sanction more stuff… “President Biden on Thursday called for an end to the violence among warring factions in Sudan and expanded his administration’s ability to sanction individuals who undermine peace and stability in the war-torn nation,” The Hill reports.

    Via AFP

    Biden said in a statement, “The violence taking place in Sudan is a tragedy—and it is a betrayal of the Sudanese people’s clear demand for civilian government and a transition to democracy.”

    “I join the peace-loving people of Sudan and leaders around the world in calling for a durable ceasefire between the belligerent parties,” he continued. “This violence, which has already stolen the lives of hundreds of civilians and began during the holy month of Ramadan, is unconscionable.”

    He emphasized, the conflict “must end.” Biden said further: “Our diplomatic efforts to urge all parties to end the military conflict and allow unhindered humanitarian access continue, as do our efforts to assist those remaining Americans, including by providing them information on exit options.”

    The newly announced measures allow the US to expand sanctions on any individual or entity which is threatening the peace and stability of Sudan. The executive order authorizes potential sanctions on any Sudanese officials involved in “destabilizing the country and undermining the democratic transition.” We highly doubt either of the two rival generals locked in conflict will care – certainly the threat of sanctions will have no force with them. It will be no ‘deterrent’ to anything.

    The two generals now fighting over the capital had previously united in a 2021 coup to take shared control of the country. The battles pit the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — who’s also known as Hemedti and has served as Burhan’s deputy head of state. 

    However, recent months have seen mounting tensions between the SAF and RSF, as the generals have clashing positions in negotiations for the establishment of civilian government, something the country’s been trying to achieve since a 2019 revolution overthrew the 30-year reign of President Omar al-Bashir. 

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

    There’s been a significant evacuation operation underway by many global countries since the outbreak of street to street fighting, including China which has even sent warships to take its nationals from Sudan’s Red Sea ports. The US State Department, however, has been accused of turning a blind eye.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 23:00

  • Maria Bartiromo Responds To Ex-Fox News Producer’s Allegations
    Maria Bartiromo Responds To Ex-Fox News Producer’s Allegations

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

    Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo’s team issued a response after a former producer claimed that she used her personal connections with then-President Donald Trump to protect her status within the network.

    Maria Bartiromo appears on her “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo” program, on the Fox Business Network in New York on June 23, 2015. (Richard Drew/AP Photo)

    A former producer, Abby Grossberg, filed a lawsuit against Fox News and several others, including former host Tucker Carlson, for what she alleges was harassment and mistreatment during her time at the network. Since Fox News announced Carlson’s departure last week, Grossberg has conducted several interviews with news outlets and most recently with Time magazine, where she produced her latest allegations against the network and now Bartiromo.

    Grossberg, who had worked with Bartiromo before she joined Carlson’s team, claimed Fox News had an environment that was unfavorable to women while discussing Bartiromo. She made similar claims in her lawsuits against the network, filed in the U.S. Southern District of New York.

    “If they were marginalizing her, she could always say, ‘I can get the President of the United States on the phone,’” Grossberg claimed to Time magazine. “She had that power over Fox, and it protected her.”

    But Bartiromo responded by saying that her allegations were false. The Epoch Times has contacted Fox News for comment.

    “I have interviewed four American presidents and several international heads of state during my distinguished career and have had rapports with leading figures across the world,” Bartiromo’s team told news outlets Wednesday in response to Grossberg’s claims to Time magazine. “These allegations are absurd and patently false.”

    Fox News also told outlets that Grossberg’s comments were false. The spokesperson said Bartiromo—who worked at CNBC, CNN, and Fox for decades—”does not need to rely on any one person or organization as her contacts reach far and wide.”

    In another statement about Grossberg’s assertions, the network also told outlets that it “will vigorously defend Fox against all of her unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.”

    “Maria Bartiromo has cultivated an extensive list of contacts over the course of 30 years that enable her to connect with numerous sources spanning business and politics … across Republican and Democrats, CEOs to analysts worldwide,” Fox News also said.

    More Details

    Meanwhile, Grossberg became the subject of controversy last week when a lawyer representing her told The Spectator that she never actually met in person with Carlson when she worked for him. The lawyer suggested that because Carlson worked at his personal offices in Maine and Florida, a number of staffers didn’t meet with him personally.

    Tucker Carlson in Esztergom, Hungary, on Aug. 7, 2021. (Janos Kummer/Getty Images)

    “Like many on the [‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’] staff, Abby never met Tucker Carlson in person because he taped the show from his personal studios in Maine and Florida, and he did not visit Fox’s NY HQ during her time there,” Kimberly A. Catala, a Grossberg attorney, told the news outlet.

    The Epoch Times reached her lawyers for comment and one responded by confirming that her comment to the news outlet was accurate, but accused The Spectator and other media outlets of taking them out of context. Her lawyers also said she frequently communicated with Carlson via text messages, phone, and email.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 22:40

  • Restrictions On Ivermectin Dropped In Australia
    Restrictions On Ivermectin Dropped In Australia

    Authored by Jessie Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Australian medical practitioners can now prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19 among other diseases under new rules confirmed by the nation’s therapeutic goods authority.

    Australia backsteps its stance on the effect of ivermectin on COVID-19. (Natasha Holt/The Epoch Times)

    The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced on May 3 that the prescribing of oral ivermectin will no longer be limited to specialists such as dermatologists, gastroenterologists, and infectious diseases specialists.

    The move—which takes effect from June 1, 2023—comes amid high rates of vaccination and hybrid immunity against COVID-19 in Australia and thus the use of ivermectin by individuals is unlikely to now compromise public health, the TGA said in a statement.

    Despite ivermectin being regularly administered in countries including India, Brazil, and Africa, TGA said that approved vaccines and treatments should still be the preferred choice due to most studies showing that ivermectin is not a useful medicine for COVID-19.

    A woman holds a box of ivermectin in Brasilia, Brazil. (Andressa Anholete/Getty Images)

    “A large number of clinical studies have demonstrated ivermectin does not improve outcomes in patients with COVID-19,” the TGA statement said.

    “The National Covid Evidence Taskforce (NCET) and many similar bodies around the world, including the World Health Organization, strongly advises against the use of ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.”

    The Pharmacy Guild of Australia even wrote to the panel and advised against removing the Appendix D entry relating to ivermectin because they think that if the treatment is available, people may choose not to get vaccinated.

    However, after weighing all risks, the TGA concluded that restrictions should still be removed.

    “The risk of medical professionals prescribing ivermectin at higher doses, or for use against COVID-19, is low given the overwhelming evidence against ivermectin use for this indication,” TGA stated.

    Drug Banned Because It Was a Threat to Vaccination Uptake

    Australia banned general practitioners from prescribing ivermectin in Sep. 2021.

    “The concern was the likelihood that persons prescribed the drug for COVID-19 would believe themselves protected and would not get vaccinated, and would not seek the appropriate medical care if symptoms developed,” the notice of the final decision by TGA said.

    “This would pose a significant risk to the community through the spread of the disease as well as the risks to individuals using ivermectin for this purpose.”

    A person receives a COVID-19 vaccine at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, Calif., on Dec. 22, 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    They said that ivermectin was being advocated for use in “unreliable social media posts,” increasing the risk of overdose and misuse.

    Additionally, they argued that there were national shortages, although little detail was provided about the supply issues in Australia or in other countries. India even reported an excess production capacity of 23 million units a month of ivermectin.

    Study Finds Ivermectin Kills COVID-19

    However, in a peer-reviewed study by Monash University in Australia, published in April 2020, it was demonstrated that ivermectin could eliminate SARS-Covid-19-2 in cells in 48 hours.

    The team, who have been researching ivermectin for over ten years with different viruses, discovered that a dose of ivermectin could stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from growing in cells.

    “We found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours, there was a really significant reduction in it,” senior research fellow and lead study author Kylie Wagstaff said.

    “Ivermectin is very widely used and seen as a safe drug,” Wagstaff said.

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned against taking ivermectin for COVID-19, because it is “horse medication.” However, ivermectin packaged for human use (as shown here) has been widely prescribed for decades for a range of maladies, including for treatment of lice, other parasites and viruses. (Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times)

     The scientists said that the FDA-approved anti-parasitic drug has also been shown to be effective in vitro against a broad range of viruses, including HIV, Dengue, Influenza, and Zika virus.

    They started investigating whether it worked on the COVID-19 virus as soon as the pandemic was known to have started.

    However, the researchers announced a year later that they had paused their work due to insufficient sample size despite securing funding for clinical trials.

    “The low numbers of COVID cases in Australia in 2020 meant the planned trial in Australia had to be paused,” the Monash University laboratory said in an ivermectin research progress update in Aug. 2021.

    “The establishment of a trial depends on Australian and overseas circumstances and will be communicated when we are in a position to do so.”

    Industry Incentives Under Scrutiny

    Meanwhile, pharmaceutical authorities around the world are under growing scrutiny over the funding many receive from the industry itself, with an investigation revealing that half of their funding comes from the pharmaceutical industry—the industry they are supposed to be regulating.

    In a report, published in the British Journal of Medicine, it was discovered that the U.S. FDA receives 65 percent of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry, the MHRA (UK) receives 86 percent, and the Australian TGA receives 96 percent of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

    Additionally, award-winning investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi found in the report that the TGA approved 94 percent of all applications between 2020 to 2021.

    She filed for FOIA report to get disclosures on the TGA committee members who had conflicts of interest in their approval of the mRNA vaccines, but the TGA allegedly redacted the identity of these members, highlighting that it was personal information.

    Comparing major drug regulators on conflicts of interest, according to data by Maryanne Demasi (The Epoch Times)

    The final decision to remove restrictions on ivermectin prescriptions followed an application to remove the rules, according to the process required under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989.

    It also took into account advice from an independent advisory committee on the scheduling of medicines and two rounds of public consultations.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 22:00

  • Visualizing The Assets & Liabilities Of US Banks
    Visualizing The Assets & Liabilities Of US Banks

    The U.S. banking sector has more than 4,000 FDIC-insured banks that play a crucial role in the country’s economy by securely storing deposits and providing credit in the form of loans.

    This infographic from Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte and Christina Kostandi visualizes all of the deposits, loans, and other assets and liabilities that make up the collective balance sheet of U.S banks using data from the Federal Reserve.

    With the spotlight on the banking sector after the collapses of Signature Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and First Republic bank, understanding the assets and liabilities that make up banks’ balance sheets can give insight in how they operate and why they sometimes fail.

    Assets: The Building Blocks of Banks’ Business

    Assets are the foundation of a bank’s operations, serving as a base to provide loans and credit while also generating income.

    A healthy asset portfolio with a mix of loans along with long-dated and short-dated securities is essential for a bank’s financial stability, especially since assets not marked to market may have a lower value than expected if liquidated early.

    ℹ️ Mark-to-market means current market prices are being used to value an asset or liability on a balance sheet. If securities are not marked to market, their value could be different once liquidated.

    As of Q4 2022, U.S. banks generated an average interest income of 4.54% on all assets.

    Loans and Leases

    Loans and leases are the primary income-generating assets for banks, making up 53% of the assets held by U.S. banks.

    These include:

    • Real estate loans for residential and commercial properties (45% of all loans and leases)

    • Commercial and industrial loans for business operations (23% of all loans and leases)

    • Consumer loans for personal needs like credit cards and auto loans (15% of all loans and leases)

    • Various other kinds of credit (17% of all loans and leases)

    Securities

    Securities make up the next largest portion of U.S. banks’ assets (23%) at $5.2 trillion. Banks primarily invest in Treasury and agency securities, which are debt instruments issued by the U.S. government and its agencies.

    These securities can be categorized into three types:

    • Held-to-maturity (HTM) securities, which are held until they mature and provide a stable income stream

    • Available-for-sale (AFS) securities, which can be sold before maturity

    • Trading securities, held for short-term trading to profit from price fluctuations

    Along with Treasury and agency securities which make up the significant majority (80%) of U.S. banks’ securities, banks also invest in other securities which are non-government-issued debt instruments like corporate bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and asset-backed securities.

    Cash Assets

    Cash assets are a small but essential part of U.S. banks’ balance sheets, making up $3.1 trillion or 13% of all assets. Having enough cash assets ensures adequate liquidity needed to meet short-term obligations and regulatory requirements.

    Cash assets include physical currency held in bank vaults, pending collections, and cash balances in accounts with other banks.

    Liabilities: Banks’ Financial Obligations

    Liabilities represent the obligations banks must fulfill, including customer deposits and borrowings. Careful management of liabilities is essential to maintain liquidity, manage risk, and ensure a bank’s overall solvency.

    Deposits

    Deposits make up the largest portion of banks’ liabilities as they represent the money that customers entrust to these institutions. It’s important to note that the FDIC insures deposit accounts up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each type of account (like single accounts, joint accounts, and retirement accounts).

    There are two primary types of deposits, large time deposits and other deposits. Large time deposits are defined by the FDIC as time deposits exceeding $100,000, while other deposits include checking accounts, savings accounts, and smaller time deposits.

    U.S. banks had $17.18 trillion in overall deposits as of April 12th 2023, with other deposits accounting for 74% of the overall liabilities while large time deposits made up 9%.

    Borrowings

    After deposits, borrowings are the next largest liability on the balance sheet of U.S. banks, making up nearly 12% of all liabilities at $2.4 trillion.

    These include short-term borrowings from other banks or financial institutions such as Federal Funds and repurchase agreements, along with long-term borrowings like subordinated debt which ranks below other loans and securities in the event of a default.

    How Deposits, Rates, and Balance Sheets Affect Bank Failures

    Just like any other business, banks have to balance their finances to remain solvent; however, successful banking also relies heavily on the trust of depositors.

    While in other businesses an erosion of trust with customers might lead to breakdowns in future business deals and revenues, only in banking can a dissolution in customer trust swiftly turn into the immediate removal of deposits that backstop all revenue-generating opportunities.

    Although recent bank collapses aren’t solely due to depositors withdrawing funds, bank runs have played a significant role. Most recently, in First Republic’s case, depositors pulled out more than $101 billion in Q1 of 2023, which would’ve been more than 50% of their total deposits, had some of America’s largest banks not injected $30 billion in deposits on March 16th.

    It’s important to remember that the rapidly spreading fires of bank runs are initially sparked by poor asset management, which can sometimes be detected on banks’ balance sheets.

    A combination of excessive investment in long-dated held-to-maturity securities, one of the fastest rate hiking cycles in recent history, and many depositors fearing for and moving their uninsured deposits of over $250,000 has resulted in the worst year ever for bank failures in terms of total assets.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 21:40

  • The Crime Of 'Talking To Tucker Carlson'
    The Crime Of ‘Talking To Tucker Carlson’

    Authored by Naomi Wolf via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The whole world is commenting on and speculating about the abrupt departure of former Fox commentator Tucker Carlson from that network.

    Dr. Naomi Wolf, author of “The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 and the War Against the Human,” in New York on June 7, 2022. (The Epoch Times)

    Addressing the current moment is not my intent. I have no idea what the “inside story” is on the events related to Fox’s or Carlson’s decisions. Mr. Carlson is wisely being deliberative regarding his physical presence and his messaging, and by next week the news cycle will have no doubt shifted in relation to this sudden exile, or self-exile; so there is little point in adding my own theories to the events of the present. (Though I suspect that the stern, mafioso-like public warnings of Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and others to the Murdochs, that they were making a mistake in tolerating Carlson’s airing of the first set of previously unseen January 6 videos, and that those who passed on the footage were playing a “treacherous game,” was a factor in at least some upheaval on the part of Fox’s leadership. I recognize a political threat of retribution when I hear one):

    What I want to do now is note, for the record, almost elegiacally, how important Mr. Carlson’s voice has been, in the evaluation of at least this dyed-in-the-wool old-school capital “L” Liberal.

    Mr. Carlson and I spent most of our careers not in alignment on anything; for decades, our places were adversarial on the public chess board. He had assumed that I was the caricature of a shrieking, irrational left-wing feminist—a view for which he has had the good grace publicly to apologize—and I, for my part, was ready to accept that he must be the boorish, sexist, racist, homophobic frat boy that the progressive news outlets I read, relentlessly insisted that he was. I almost never watched his show, so my preconceptions could flourish uncorrected.

    That said, I did find it odd that everyone around me in the “liberal elite” media hated him so violently—the way they hated President Trump; but that when I pressed for concrete reasons why, they could not provide them. When my liberal friends and loved ones would roll their eyes and spit out “Tucker Carlson,” as if that name itself was epithet enough, I would often pester: “What? Why? What did he actually say?” I never got a good answer. So even in the depth of the Left’s vilification of him—even as I was still on the Left myself—I was keeping, faintly, an open mind.

    Maybe this is because, in a limited way, I recognize where he comes from. We both come from some similar places. We both were raised in California in the 1970s (though I am six years older), a California that was very diverse and yet largely peaceful and hopeful, compared to the present; with reasonable newspapers and decent public education. It was a state drenched with sunshine and optimism; bright with discussion and with sensible plans for the future. California was the most meritocratic state in the Union, at that time. In spite of specific upheavals—the LGBTQ movement gaining force in the Bay Area, the women’s movement was fighting for access to reproductive rights, immigrant workers agitating for better conditions—we had no reason to believe that people of different races or political viewpoints or genders could not get along, or at least discuss their differences; we certainly would have found it racist to assume that immigrants or people of color could not succeed entirely on their own merits.

    The University of California system, unbroken at that time, an excellent nearly-free education, was almost majority nonwhite—selective, prestigious public high schools like the one I attended were majority nonwhite—so it was ridiculous to presume that people of color or immigrants could not thrive in our existing, even if imperfect, meritocracies. They were succeeding all around us.

    We both were sent from this early relaxed, hopeful formative background to the hothouses of rigorous, rigid, East Coast privilege—he to a prep school and then to Trinity College, I to Yale (and then Oxford). Maybe we both brought our West Coast skepticism of East Coast (and European) global elites’ nonsense and pretentiousness along with us.

    I was also never completely persuaded of his being the purported embodiment of pure evil, because I still had an impressionistic memory of him being around in the D.C. of the 1990s, in a time before such extreme caricatures as today’s keep both “sides” at daggers drawn.

    In the late 1990s, we shared a social milieu; though we were not friends, we were out and about in parallel circles in Washington, at a time in which his stint at The Weekly Standard and other conservative publications mirrored, fairly peaceably, compared with the present, my then-husband’s and my alliances with The New Republic and other left-wing publications.

    Social life was a Venn diagram in D.C. at that time, for pundits of all ages on both the left and the right. We all, in certain circles, dropped in to the same cocktail parties in Georgetown, huddled in the same bars in Dupont Circle, and enjoyed late-night feasts at the same hole-in-the-wall Ethiopian restaurants in Adams Morgan. Transpartisanship added frisson to social encounters, and partisanship was not yet the deadly tribalism it would later become. Sally Quinn, wife of the former executive editor of the Washington Post, the hostess who in the 1990s reigned supreme, would titillate the Clinton administration guests, at her gatherings in an antiques-filled, low-lit front room in Georgetown, with selective helpings of saucy Republican luminaries also present. The tension between commentators or apparatchiks from different “teams” made the conversation sparkle, and, to the high-spirited interlocutors of the two different parties, it made that third glass of Pinot Grigio pleasurably dangerous. It was a time when left and right could fence over Ms. Quinn’s old-school appetizers (never fish, not even cheese, and always candles, for the perfect party, as she later explained. “[Quinn] was giving a short history of the decline of Washington Establishment socializing, which she has long blamed for much of the entrenched partisan hostility that now dominates American politics. … Back then, she said, there was an easy, bipartisan commingling of ‘permanent Washington’ and elected officeholders.”).

    These adversaries by day would also inform one another by evening, while sparring at her events; they would make surprising, off-the-record alliances, and engage in productive off-the-record horse-trading. This behind-the-scenes, informal back and forth, was good for the country, and that was one reason that patriotic hostesses such as Ms. Quinn, I believe, facilitated it.

    Even brash newer hostesses—and at that time, the buzzy Arianna Huffington, equally glamorous, but arriving, with a flourish, from elsewhere, was one—had studied this art. She thus also assembled around herself, in her own salons, glittering representatives of both parties, so that nothing would be, darling, as she would say, boring.

    The show “Crossfire,” with its two civilized antagonists, was the allegory of the time. James Carville and Mary Matalin, with their sexy oppositional-ness, were the iconic couple of the moment. Point and counterpoint were still avidly followed then; direct, civil, well-informed debate was still considered valuable, illuminating, and a fascinating sport.

    I remember of D.C. in the 1990s as being what Mr. Carlson probably also remembers: a time and place for a young, ambitious intellectual, or a young, brash, public figure (as we both then were), in which a sincerity of inquiry, a seriousness of interrogation, and a regard for the verifiable truth, were all taken for granted as being what journalists and commentators were supposed to pursue.

    Whatever “side” we were on, we journalists and commentators all took pride in that mission. Truth existed. We would hunt it down, by God, and make our case for it.

    Journalists were supposed to challenge the State, and not take press releases from Presidents or White House spokespeople—or corporations for that matter—as Diktats. Arguments had to marshal evidence and to play fair.

    We assumed that this need that our profession was supposed to fulfill—for serious public inquiry, intense public debate—was the great indispensable thing in a Republic; we assumed that this basic underpinning of our roles as journalists would be seen by our society, our nation, as being valuable, forever; that the ethics of journalists and commentators in America would last forever; that these ethics would outlive us, as they had outlived President Jefferson.

    So I was not hugely surprised that in about March and April of 2021, when I was a Fellow at AIER in Great Barrington (home of the Great Barrington Declaration), and as I had started to raise questions about side effects women were experiencing with the mRNA vaccine—as well as raising questions about why our First and Fourth Amendment rights were being upended, why we were all being held under emergency law, why kids were being masked with little scientific evidence to support this abusive practice, and why pregnant women were being told the injections were safe when there was no data to back that claim up that I could find—that Mr. Carlson’s booker reached out to me.

    I appeared a few times on his show, to air my concerns.

    Right away the left-wing “watchdog” Media Matters—run by someone who had been a former acquaintance, even a friend, of ours in D.C., the former conservative who had turned Democrat, David Brock—went after me aggressively, with a systematic character assassination on Twitter and on the Media Matters website, engineered by CNN reporter Matt Gertz—a “journalist” who was actually funded to track and attack guests on Fox News: “Fox Keeps Hosting Pandemic Conspiracy Theorist Naomi Wolf.”

    In his hit piece, Mr. Gertz singled out the fact that I was warning about women who had received the mRNA vaccine having menstrual problems, and the fact that even women near vaccinated women were having menstrual problems. (This “shedding” via inhalation is confirmed in the Pfizer documents.)

    Gertz described multiple independent reports of menstrual problems from women as “purported reports”—a misogynist thing to do, mocking women’s eyewitness descriptions of their own symptoms, and one with a long history in medicine’s and Pharma’s crimes against women—and he shamefully singled out the (accurate) tweet of mine, that we now know via a lawsuit, the White House, the CDC, DHS, Twitter, and Facebook had illegally colluded to target and smear.

    So given the specificity of this one (accurate, important) tweet among thousands of mine, Matt Gertz may well have been acting as a henchman for these unlawfully colluding interests, to the eternal damage of what should have been his ethics as a journalist:

    (Screenshot/Twitter)

    This hit piece, calling me a “conspiracy theorist,” did a great deal to set the stage and provide the talking points for my later deplatforming at the hands of the White House working with Twitter and the CDC, and the subsequent reputational attack that spanned the globe and led to my wholesale ouster from legacy media and my former community on the Left.

    (It also consigned millions of women to damaged menses and infertility, by helping to silence this emerging discussion. Maternal deaths are up 40 percent now, due to compromises of women’s fertility post-mRNA injection. A million babies are missing in Europe. Great work, Mr. Gertz, Mr. Brock. You will take those harms, that you inflicted upon women and babies, to your graves.)

    But having appeared on Mr. Carlson’s show, to raise these and other real concerns, I also was peppered ceaselessly with nasty comments from my own “side.” Why? Because I had talked to Tucker Carlson. That was literally how they phrased my “crime.”

    This was the first real confrontation I had with the unreason and the cultlike thinking that were engulfing my “team.” I kept receiving messages, emails, DMs, and direct confrontations by phone, with friends and loved ones and even family members.

    How can you talk to Tucker Carlson??

    I noted with concern that they did not say that I was wrong, or that my assertions were baseless, or even that his assertions were baseless.

    They did not address the crimes against women and babies I was uncovering, and sharing with the assistance of Mr. Carlson’s platform—crimes about which all the men and women on the Left, who were supposed to be such feminists and advocates for women’s rights, were silent.

    My soon-to-be-former friends and colleagues simply reiterated again and again, as if it were self-evident, that I had discredited myself in some nameless but completely understood and permanent and unforgivable way, by talking to Tucker Carlson.

    (The only other major platform that was open to hearing what I was finding, was, of course, Steve Bannon’s WarRoom. I started to appear also on WarRoom, leading to another wave of appalled DMs and emails from my friends and loved ones, who by now were actively and rapidly distancing themselves from me. “How can you talk to Steve Bannon?”)

    So I had to face the alarming evidence that the Left now saw anyone “talking to” the opposition, as being magically, publicly, permanently contaminated and contaminating, in some weird anthropological way, and as now being utterly invalidated, and that they believed all of this in some pre-rational, Stone Age sort of belief matrix.

    They were treating me as though by my talking to Mr. Carlson and Mr. Bannon, no matter about what—no matter that the issues and evidence that I brought to these platforms and to these interlocutors were both true and important—I was burning my I-am-a-good-person membership club card, in some kind of public ritual of immolation, and that thus I would have to be exiled far from the progressive community and shamed away entirely from the warming of progressive campfires. “Unclean! Unclean!”

    Here is Mr. Ben Dixon, from the left, asserting that I must be not a feminist because I am “talking to Tucker Carlson” who “100 per cent is an anti-feminist.” He assails “this BS from Naomi Wolf and Tucker Carlson”—“BS”—in which I warned that we were heading into an un-American two-tier discrimination society based on vaccination status.

    Did that actually happen, as I warned? It did:

    We were attacked—I was attacked—for discussing things that came true.

    Did this happen, below? Was this true? We predicted in 2021 that authoritarian leaders would not relinquish emergency powers. It is now 2023, so: Yes.

    Should the Left have supported instead of mocked such a discussion? Even most of them must realize by now that the answer is: Yes.

    The reaction, though, of horror, from everyone I knew, at my crime of “talking to Tucker Carlson,” horrified me (as I often say, I will talk to anyone about the Constitution). The dismay of the Left in reaction to my “talking to Tucker Carlson” horrified me because talking to people with whom I don’t agree, is one of the main ways I have ever learned anything, or, I believe, that anyone has ever learned anything. And it horrified me also because I would have gladly brought my urgently important, indeed lifesaving information, to CNN and MSNBC, as usual—to all these self-proclaimed “feminists”—but they were having none of it.

    Above all it horrified me because the Left thus had departed from the post-Enlightenment metric of “is it true?” to return to a pre-rational metric of “is this within our tribe and according to our rituals and our cult?”

    And that I knew from my study of history how disastrously that kind of thinking ends.

    Well, by this time my husband was watching Mr. Carlson’s show. I observed myself experiencing waves of prejudice and of squirming anxiety as I also began to watch his show. To my distress, I found that many of his monologues made sense to me.

    They were not unreasonable, by and large, and they were not hate-filled; to the contrary.

    I had been told that he was racist. And indeed I recoiled at his signature giggle as he mocked the epithet: “Racist!” But as I actually forced myself to listen, sitting in my discomfort and programmed aversion, observing the reactions in myself (as the Buddhists urge one to do), I realized—he was not in fact a racist.

    Mr. Carlson was usually calling attention to the way identity politics was destroying our former ideal—shared by most of us California kids and teenagers in the 1970s—that we all were Americans first of all, deserving of equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I realized as I listened that his stories about immigration were not anti-immigrant, as I had been told; but rather that he was calling attention to the security and social welfare threats to the nation posed by massive, unrestricted, unlawful immigration over an open Southern border, a view shared by many legal immigrants.

    I learned that he was not actually transphobic, as I had been told; but rather that he shone a light on the way that minors were being targeted by schools and the pharmaceutical industry, to undergo radical gender surgery before they were of age to make adult decisions.

    While I often still disagreed with him, I found that his reasoning was transparent—a rare thing these days—and that always he returned to that old-fashioned, common-sense basis for his conclusions: “this is simply true.” More often than not, he had a point.

    I was also noticing that as I scanned Twitter for what I saw as more and more evidence of flaws in the “narrative” about COVID and “lockdowns” that we were all being fed in the first half of 2021, and as I forwarded or posted these links showing primary-source evidence of fraud in the PCR tests, a lack of transparent datasets in the COVID dashboards, testimony from an OSHA expert about harms to children from masks, problems with The New York Times’ assertions about restaurant- and school-based infections and “asymptomatic spread,” and so on—evidence that I would later publish in my 2021 book “The Bodies of Others: COVID-19, The New Authoritarians and the War Against the Human”—that there was absolute silence now from my entire formerly robust and responsive network of legacy/progressive-media producers, editors, journalists, and bookers.

    Silence from the U.S. TV networks. Silence from The Washington Post. From The Guardian. Silence from NPR. Silence from the BBC, the Sunday Times of London, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, my reliable former outlets. Even silence from other overseas news outlets. All of these had, until 2020, been happy to respond to what I sent, to commission my writing, or to book me to appear to speak about the links I had forwarded or posted to their producers or editors.

    But Eldad Yaron, Mr. Carlson’s excellent producer, pretty much alone of the major outlets’ producers, did respond to the links I sent, even inviting more.

    So I was in the head-spinning position of realizing that these two men, Carlson and Bannon, both unwavering conservatives, both of whom I had been told represented Evil Incarnate, were the possessors of the only major platforms interested in the hard and fast evidence of the greatest crime in history and of the direct threat to our Republic, of which I was warning; and that every other news outlet, all on the liberal side, indeed around the world, was rushing headlong into the sea of lies, and gladly sailing upon it under a wind of falsehood and prevarication. So only they, along with a smattering of other smaller independent media, were able to bring their audiences a true picture of the appalling threats faced by their viewers and our Republic.

    Back to Mr. Carlson in the present, and why I appreciate him and hope his voice reappears on the national and global stage more assertively than before.

    I don’t know him personally—we have only met once, as far as I know—when my husband Brian O’Shea and I visited Carlson’s homey, Americana-crowded studio in a tiny town in rural Maine.

    But underneath all of what may be our policy differences, this is in my view why so many people have seen his reporting during the last three years as absolutely critical to our survival—and why so many Democrats and independents, including myself, whether secretly or not, watch and appreciate him as well:

    Carlson queries current madness from the same old-fashioned, deeply American premises that shaped me, and that shaped the last three remaining true Liberals, as well.

    He seems to be refusing to let go of an America that actually holds journalists to the practice of journalism. I share that outrage and that nostalgia. Many do. He seems to insist on not forgetting the America that saw everyone as equal based on “the content of their character.” I, many, share this pained memory of national unity around race even as we acknowledge that our nation’s racial history has had plenty of tragedy. He won’t let go of the memory of an America in which children were safe at school and parents decided what happened to their children. I, many, share this baseline value and are terrified that it is under attack. And he insists on patriotism, in a time of relentless propaganda and the bribery of elites that urges us all to drop national identities, cultures, borders, and even allegiances.

    This last quality especially makes him dangerous, as our nation is led entirely now by elite-captured traitors to our country.

    All of these resonances are deeply nostalgic—but they are also what must be saved and protected as memories and as part of our core belief system, if we are ever to regain our Republic—and our decency—in the future.

    So—Mr. Carlson—thank you for caring about women and babies, in your being among the first, along with Mr. Bannon, to give me a platform to raise a lifesaving alarm about threats to both. Thank you for your dogged nostalgia about a nation that is racially optimistic. Thanks for being willing to talk to those with whom you do not agree. Thanks for not giving up on religious liberty or the First Amendment. Thank you for insisting that truth matters.

    And thank you for not giving up on the best core ideals of this nation.

    We did not used to call the aggregate of all of those ideals, “conspiracy theories.”

    We used to call them, America.

    Originally published on the author’s Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 21:20

  • EV Deflation Arrives: Ford Slashes Prices On Its Mustang Mach-E, Following Tesla's Strategy
    EV Deflation Arrives: Ford Slashes Prices On Its Mustang Mach-E, Following Tesla’s Strategy

    It’s official: deflation in EVs looks to be upon us.

    Following in the footsteps of Tesla, which has aggressively slashed prices since the beginning of 2023, Ford is now lowering the starting prices of its Mustang Mach-E by thousands of dollars, according to a new report by CNBC. 

    Earlier this week the automaker said it would slash prices between $1,000 and $4,000 per vehicle, resulting in the starting price of new Mustang Mach-E’s to fall between $42,995 and $59,995. 

    Like Tesla, Ford had already announced some modest cuts, bringing down the price of the Mach-E by $600 to $5,900 in January. 

    We noted days ago that Tesla was starting to steady its pricing with its Model Y and Model X. Bloomberg reported Tuesday morning that Tesla’s main models were marked up $250 each, stating that the model prices are being raised both in the United States and China. The Model 3 is now priced at $40,240 in the US and 231,900 yuan in China, while the Model Y is now priced at $47,240 in the US and 263,900 yuan in China.

    The hikes are small compared to the cuts the company has put in place since the beginning of the year. We had just noted days ago that, due to aggressive price cuts, the Model Y was cheaper than the average new vehicle in the U.S. by $759. That’ll likely still be the case, despite the $250 hike. 

    As we noted last week, Morgan Stanley has also said it sees a ‘great productivity race’ that will benefit some sectors that have strong political support – like autos. 

    “Efforts in the US to re-, friend-, and near-shore critical industries have strong political support. But these initiatives narrow the geographical options for US multinationals, making cheap labor – particularly for skilled manufacturing – harder to find and exacerbating an underlying US economic challenge,” the bank wrote.

    “Similar historical conditions have pressed companies to focus on improving productivity through the development, diffusion, and integration of new technologies. We expect US companies to invest in infrastructure and new technologies, AI in particular, to boost productivity. Companies that rely on labor and lack substantial financial resources will likely be challenged by this dynamic.”

    Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas concluded last week: “Like other [automakers], Ford must decide what kind of EV strategy to pursue: Grow fast and burn cash or a more focused approach that prioritizes capital discipline.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 21:00

  • California Democrats Push Bill To Mandate 'Gender Diversity' Books In Schools
    California Democrats Push Bill To Mandate ‘Gender Diversity’ Books In Schools

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Democrats in California are pushing legislation that would force every school in the state to stock books in their libraries that are centred around LGBTQ themes and “people of all gender expressions.”

    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    Democrat California assemblyman Corey Jackson, who has pushed the bill through committee to the full legislature, said the legislation “intends to combat the national Christian white supremacist movement, which is aimed to ban books.” 

    Jackson charged that “the radicalization of the Christian faith,” is being used “to achieve a political objective,” adding “We must meet this moment of history and make sure we are on the right side of it.”

    The Free Beacon reports that Jackson’s legislation would place a state board in charge of classroom and school library books and texts, with any school needing to get state approval before removing any material that is challenged as potentially inappropriate, with regards to race and gender.

    However, the bill does make exceptions for removing religious texts deemed to be “sectarian” or “denominational”.

    The report further notes that under the legislation, the state education board would be required to set curriculum guides for school districts that emphasize diversity. The guides be required to focus on “people of all gender expressions in all types of roles, races, cultures, and religions,” as well as representations of labor unions and “the entrepreneur.”

    Speaking out against the legislation, Lance Christensen, vice president of policy for the California Policy Center said “It’s shocking to have an author of a bill to make such inflammatory commentary on those who would oppose this bill in good faith.”

    Christensen added that opposing “radical indoctrination does not mean we are all white Christian nationalists” further charging that Democrats are conflating school text curation with book-banning.

    As we highlighted earlier this week, Chelsea Clinton appears to have taken on a new activism project, defending attempts to force kids as young as Kindergarten age to be exposed to such sexually explicit “LGBTQ+” material at school.

    Clinton tweeted a claim that Republicans are trying to “ban” books and that it is harmful to children to remove material with LGBTQ+ “themes”.

    Chelsea Clinton Comes Out In Favour Of Porn For School Kids

    As we have exhaustively covered, the truth is that no one is calling for the books to be banned, but many are calling for the books that contain pornographic images and even pedophilia themes, as well as unscientific statements about biological gender, to be removed from school libraries.

    A Twitter fact check of the Clinton tweet pointed out that the book shown in the tweet contains graphic sexually explicit material. Clinton was then treated to a stream of responses providing examples of some of the shocking material contained within the books.

    Twitter Fact Check Confirms Book Chelsea Clinton Promoted For Children Contains Graphic Sex Acts

    Related:

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 20:40

  • Fentanyl Overdose Deaths Skyrocket 279% Since 2016 Amid Nationwide Drug Crisis
    Fentanyl Overdose Deaths Skyrocket 279% Since 2016 Amid Nationwide Drug Crisis

    Fentanyl is fueling the worst drug crisis in the history of the US. New federal data shows the rate of overdose deaths linked to the synthetic opioid has skyrocketed over the last five years. 

    According to a report released early Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System, the rate of fentanyl-related overdose deaths jumped 279% between 2016 and 2021, rising from 5.7 per 100,000 to 21.6 per 100,000.

    “We are always hoping we won’t see a rise in fentanyl deaths, but this really highlights that this is continuing to be the public health problem,” Merianne Spencer, a co-author of the report and a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told ABC News.

    So far in the Biden years, a significant crisis has emerged at the southern border, which White House officials have seemingly overlooked. However, just recently, before the next presidential election cycle, White House officials have been more motivated to address the issues, such as sending 1,500 troops to the southern border. Meanwhile, illegal border crossings have reached unprecedented levels, coinciding with a nationwide surge in drug overdose deaths.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 20:20

  • Nashville Police Backpedal On Releasing Shooter’s Manifesto, Citing Pending Litigation
    Nashville Police Backpedal On Releasing Shooter’s Manifesto, Citing Pending Litigation

    Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) has reversed course from a previous statement to The Epoch Times, when the agency said the so-called manifesto and writings of Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale would be released to the public soon.

    In this image from video, Audrey Hale points a gun inside The Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., on March 27, 2023. (Nashville Police Department via The Epoch Times)

    The department cited the advice of legal counsel amid litigation filed this week for those same documents to be released.

    The Epoch Times contacted MNPD on May 3, but officials would not comment, citing the pending litigation. The story regarding MNPD readying the documents for public release was published April 27.

    On May 1, the Tennessee Firearms Association (TFA) filed a lawsuit against MNPD over a previously denied public records request for the Hale documents to be released. The Epoch Times reached out to TFA regarding the new delay of the release of the documents.

    “Officially, no comment in my role as an attorney,” John Harris III, an attorney with Schulman Leroy & Bennett and the executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, said in an email to The Epoch Times.

    MNPD Statement

    An Epoch Times reporter based outside of Tennessee had their request for the same records denied because they were not a Tennessee resident. Another Epoch Times reporter located within Tennessee also received a denial letter from MNPD’s Central Records Division on April 19, citing the investigation still being open.

    The home of Audrey Hale—who opened fire at The Covenant School Christian school in Nashville, Tenn.—sits quietly in its south Nashville neighborhood on March 31, 2023, days after police agencies raided the home following the March 27 shooting. (Chase Smith/The Epoch Times)

    “Your request is denied based on the following grounds,” the denial letter from MNPD stated. “The following … law prohibits the release of the requested records: Open Cases—Rule 16 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure and Tennessean v. Metro. Gov’t of Nashville.”

    While MNPD declined to comment on the seeming change in direction from the previous interview with The Epoch Times, the department posted a brief statement on Twitter.

    “Covenant investigation update: Due to pending litigation filed this week, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has been advised by counsel to hold in abeyance the release of records related to the shooting at The Covenant School pending orders or direction of the court,” MNPD posted on Twitter.

    A further public records request for the autopsy of Audrey Hale by The Epoch Times was approved, pending the report being completed, with a timeline of “8–12 weeks from the date of death for case completion.”

    TFA’s Lawsuit

    TFA did not comment to The Epoch Times on the pending litigation, but Harris did release a comment to The Tennessean newspaper.

    “The (MNPD’s) denial failed to identify any underlying criminal proceeding, or even potential defendant, such that the requested materials would be a ‘case’ under Rule 16 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Proceeding,” Harris said, according to The Tennessean.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 20:00

  • Black Caucus Urges Senate Dems To Demolish Judiciary Nomination Tradition
    Black Caucus Urges Senate Dems To Demolish Judiciary Nomination Tradition

    The Congressional Black Caucus is turning up the heat on Senate Democrats, urging them to destroy a century-old upper-chamber tradition that allows individual senators to reject federal judiciary nominees who will preside in the senator’s state. 

    The Biden administration’s quest to fill federal benches with progressives has been stymied to a great extent by the Senate’s narrow majority, and by the ailing and failing Senator Dianne Feinstein’s lengthy time away from her critical seat on the judiciary committee. 

    On top of that, individual Republican senators have been making regular use of the nomination-blocking power granted to them under the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition. When a district or circuit court nominee is named, a blue piece of paper with the nominee’s name is given to the senators who represent the state in which that nominee would function as a federal judge. If the senator doesn’t send the slip to the Judiciary Committee, it’s understood the nominee doesn’t enjoy the senator’s approval and thus can’t advance to a committee nomination hearing. The slip can also be returned with negative comments. 

    The tradition has endured since at leaast 1917, according to a Congressional Research Service study. However, the Congressional Black Caucus thinks it’s time to kill blue slips: Politico reports that caucus members met with Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin last week and asked him to do away with blue slips.

    Rep. Steven Horsford chairs the Congressional Black Caucus (CQ Roll Call)

    “I don’t know why anyone, let alone Senate Democrats, would hold up a Jim Crow practice,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Steven Horsford (NV).  

    Crow implied that the blue slip tradition is killing black people. “It is literally about the fundamental survival of the people we represent,” Horsford claimed. “And we expressed that history, that context and that necessity to Chairman Durbin.”

    The caucus hasn’t always felt that way. In 2017, the Black Caucus urged then-Senate Judiciary chair Chuck Grassley to “uphold [the] longstanding ‘blue slip’ policy.” Doing away with blue slips, they argued, would “remove the last meaningful check on President Trump’s power to unilaterally pack the judiciary – would further politicize the courts, erode judicial diversity, and undermine public confidence in the judiciary’s ability to provide fair and impartial justice.”

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    In 2023, it’s not just congressional blacks who are looking to kill blue slips. On Wednesday, an alliance of progressive organizations urged Durbin to “reform or discontinue” the blue slip policy, decrying the fact that “39 of the 43 district court vacancies subject to Republican blue slips — 91% — still do not have nominees.”

    Their demands were sent in a letter. Its 33 signatory organizations included American Atheists, Climate Hawks Vote, Feminist Majority Foundation, Hip Hop Caucus, and National Center for Transgender Equality. 

    Durbin is hesitant to give in to pressure from the Black Caucus and progressive groups. Black Caucus senators Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock are likewise reluctant. Then again, according to Politico, Durbin doesn’t even have the unilateral power to stop the blue-slip tradition — doing so would require a revision of Senate rules. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 19:40

  • Fox's Gutfeld Defends Tucker Carlson After Video Leaks Draw Backlash
    Fox’s Gutfeld Defends Tucker Carlson After Video Leaks Draw Backlash

    Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Fox’s late-night show host Greg Gutfeld has come to the defense of his former colleague Tucker Carlson after a series of leaked videos featuring Carlson’s backstage comments drew backlash from commentators.

    “Apparently everyone understands nonsense banter between segments except for hall monitor failures bitterly chronicling the lives of the far more successful,” Gutfeld, host of late-night comedy “The Greg Gutfeld Show,” wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday.

    Tucker Carlson in Esztergom, Hungary, on Aug. 7, 2021. (Janos Kummer/Getty Images)

    The comedy show anchor was responding to another post by Matthew Gertz, an employee of Media Matters for America, a left-leaning nonprofit.

    “NEW FOXLEAKS: Media Matters obtained three more behind-the-scenes videos featuring former Fox host Tucker Carlson’s creepy on-set comments,” Gertz wrote on Tuesday, referring to his article published on Media Matters, which included behind-the-scenes videos that show Carlson talking about his “postmenopausal fans” and making sexual references. The article writes that Carlson also said “nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks,” referring to Fox’s online streaming service.

    Gutfeld became the only public figure at Fox News who defended Carlson after Fox announced last Monday that it had parted ways with Carlson, whereas neither the media company nor Carlson has spoken about the incident.

    That wasn’t the first time Gutfeld had mentioned Carlson’s name since the former host departed from Fox. While Carlson’s name has virtually disappeared from the script of most Fox anchors, Gutfeld joked about it in on a segment of “The Five,” Fox’s top-rated opinion show, hours after Fox’s announcement last Monday.

    “And then so in 2024, it’ll be Susan Rice versus Tucker Carlson,” Gutfeld said near the end of the segment that focused on Biden’s reelection prospects. The round table did not respond to his comment.

    Carlson In the Spotlight, Again

    Carlson’s name took over the news cycle last week and reemerged this week when mainstream outlets published scoops of videos and text messages redacted in legal filings from a defamation case against Fox News that they said showed Carlson making inappropriate comments.

    A New York Times article published a text message that the outlet said Carlson sent to one of his producers on Jan. 7, 2021. The outlet wrote that the message shows Carlson commenting on an incident where supporters of former President Donald Trump beat a member of left-wing movement Antifa.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 19:20

  • Cash-Strapped Millennials Turn To Thrift Stores For Wedding Attire
    Cash-Strapped Millennials Turn To Thrift Stores For Wedding Attire

    Millennials have experienced several decades of persistent economic instability. Many were children during the dot-com bubble’s collapse, entered college during the 2008 real estate meltdown, and have recently grappled with two years of negative real wage growth alongside the highest inflation rates in decades.

    Since the American dream has become too expensive for most millennials, such as marriage, starting a family, and purchasing a home — those who can achieve some form of the dream are purchasing thrift store wedding attire for the big day, The Wall Street Journal reported in an eye-opener piece titled “It’s OK to Spend $12.50 on a Wedding Dress Now.” 

    WSJ cites a new survey via wedding planning site Zola’s that reveals 27% of the brides in 2023 are willing to splurge on a wedding dress, down from 47% in 2022. 

    “As thrifted and fast-fashion dresses rise in popularity, they are shaking up an industry unaccustomed to much change,” the publication noted. 

    This emerging trend of thrift store wedding dresses might indicate millennials can’t afford traditional weddings and new attire. And this only makes sense. As we explained above, these youngsters have grown up in a turbulent era. Now the ones who can afford to get hitched must resort to cost-saving measures such as second-hand dresses. 

    It’s not just Zola’s survey finding out bride budgets have collapsed. David’s Bridal LLC, the largest wedding-attire chain in the country, filed for bankruptcy last month. The company wrote in its bankruptcy filing that an “increasing number of brides are opting for less traditional wedding attire, including thrift wedding dresses.”

    “This is the year of the ‘Bride on a Budget’ and we’re doing everything we can to meet her with her dream dress at every price point,” Chief Executive James Marcum wrote in an email to WSJ. 

    Meanwhile, sales of white cocktail and special-occasion dresses on ThredUp have jumped 23% in 2023 compared to the same period in 2019. Similarly, Poshmark Inc., another online second-hand retailer, reports a 35% year-over-year increase in sales for items labeled “wedding.”

    Some brides have even resorted to Goodwill wedding dresses. Renee Drake, a seamstress in Medina, Ohio, said her client found a $25 gown marked down to $12.50 at one thrift store. 

    This is just the latest evidence millennials are in a terrible financial state. Some might argue younger generations find weddings a giant waste of money, but we’ll assure you, if a youngster had the money to afford a lavish wedding, they certainly would. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 19:00

  • 'Disgraceful': GOP Senators Accuse Dems of Threatening To Cut SCOTUS Security Funding Amid Ongoing Threats
    ‘Disgraceful’: GOP Senators Accuse Dems of Threatening To Cut SCOTUS Security Funding Amid Ongoing Threats

    Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

    Two Republican Senators tore into their Democrat colleagues Tuesday, accusing them of threatening to cut $10 million in funding for Supreme Court security unless SCOTUS does what they want.

    Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) made the explosive accusations during yesterday’s Democrat-led “Supreme Court Ethics Reform” hearing.

    “The Left is willing to threaten the lives of the justices,” said Cruz. “This is disgraceful.”

    The fiery hearing was held amid a weeks-long media campaign accusing conservative justices of ethics violations and conflicts of interest.

    On March 31, fifteen Democrat Senators sent a letter to the to the top Republican and Democrat on a Senate subcommittee in charge of the Supreme Court budget. The Democrats proposed language to be attached to next year’s Supreme Court funding bill requiring the court to adopt a new ethical code with a monitor answerable to Congress to enforce it.

    “Congress has broad authority to compel the Supreme Court to institute these reforms, which would join other requirements already legislatively mandated,” the senators wrote. “And Congress’s appropriations power is one tool for achieving these changes.”

    The Democrats concluded their letter by threatening to withhold $10 million unless Chief Justice John Roberts notifies the Committee on Appropriations of both Houses of Congress that the Supreme Court has put into effect their “public code of ethics for justices of the Court.”

    Republicans argue that the Democrats’ plan to monitor SCOTUS is “unconstitutional” and would lead to political attacks on conservative Justices for intimidation purposes.

    The Supreme Court’s 2024 budget request included $4,028,000 in security funding from the Chips and Science Act and $5,897,000 in additional security funding. The protective activities request says: “This request would expand security activities conducted by Supreme Court Police to protect the Justices” and specifically cites the ongoing threats against the justices.

    “On-going threat assessments show evolving risks that require continuous protection,” the request continues. “Additional funding would provide for contract positions, eventually transitioning to full-time employees, that will augment capabilities of the Supreme Court police force and allow it to accomplish its protective mission.”

    Hawley rounded the above figures: “four plus six equals 10—$10 million of security funding that the court is specifically asking for this year in their budget request,” he said. “So in other words, the threat is: ‘We will deny you security unless you do what we want,’” the senator declared.

    “We had an assassin come to the home of Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh and try to murder him. We have had credible threats on the lives of other justices. And now members of this body say ‘We will deny you security for you, your families, your children, unless you do what we want,’” he added. “Extraordinary.”

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    “We had 15 Senate Democrats, including six members of this committee, send a letter to the appropriations committee threatening to cut off the funding for security at the Supreme Court,” said Cruz. “The left is willing to threaten the lives of the justices.”

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    Debra Heine is a conservative Catholic mom of six and longtime political pundit. She has written for several conservative news websites over the years, including Breitbart and PJ Media.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 18:40

  • NYC Airports Hit First-Quarter Passenger Record
    NYC Airports Hit First-Quarter Passenger Record

    Despite widespread fears that an economic downturn and high airfare prices could derail consumers’ appetite for travel, new security checkpoint data across New York City airports soared to a record high in the first quarter. 

    The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said 32 million passengers passed through John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Newark International Airport (EWR), and LaGuardia International Airport (LGA) last quarter — a record high, surpassing figures in the same period of 2019 by over one million. 

    Most of the travel surge was at EWR and LGA. Bloomberg explained the expansion at multiple airports in the region allowed for increased capacity:

    “Newark’s $2.7 billion Terminal A opened in January and LaGuardia’s $4 billion overhaul of its Delta Air Lines Inc., Terminal C, which was unveiled last year.” 

    Additionally, security checkpoint throughput data across all US airports has returned to pre-Covid levels. 

    Meanwhile, travelers searching for flights this spring and summer are paying some of the highest travel costs in years. 

    During Delta Air Lines’ first-quarter earnings call, President Glen Hauenstein remained optimistic about air travel this summer: 

    “[We] know there’s a lot of anxiety about domestic demand for the summer, but we don’t share that anxiety.” 

    Although Wall Street analysts have expressed concerns that mounting macroeconomic headwinds could negatively impact air travel demand, this has not yet materialized. A considerable amount of pent-up travel demand remains after people were confined to their homes by government lockdowns for a year during the pandemic. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 18:20

  • The New Ugly Americans: VDH
    The New Ugly Americans: VDH

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness (emphasis ours),

    The old cultural imperialism was supposedly greedy corporatism like Disneyland, McDonald’s, and Starbucks sprouting up worldwide to supplant local competitors. 

    But these businesses spread because they appealed to free-will consumer demand abroad. They were not imposed top down. 

    The U.S. presence in Afghanistan collapsed in August 2021 amid the greatest American military humiliation in modern history. A billion-dollar new embassy was abandoned. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of new infrastructure at the huge Bagram Airbase was dumped. 

    We still do not know how many billions of dollars of sophisticated new weapons were left to the Taliban and now are making their way through global terrorists’ marts. 

    Yet, in our skedaddle, the LGBTQ flag still flew high from our new Kabul embassy.

    A George Floyd mural was prominent on city streets.

    And gender studies programs—to the tune of $787 million in American subsidies—were showcased at Kabul University, in one of the most conservative Islamic countries in the world.

    Rainbow flags and Black Lives Matter banners have hung from our embassy in South Korea. 

    Such partisan cultural activism is a diplomatic first.

    The woke Left has now weaponized the country’s diplomatic missions abroad to advance highly partisan and controversial agendas that can offend their hosts, and do not represent the majority of American voters at home.

    American foreign policy toward other nations seems now to hinge on their positions on the transgendered, LGBTQ acceptance, abortion, climate change, and an array of woke issues from using multiple pronouns on passports to showcasing transgendered ambassadors. 

    The Biden Administration in January 2022 stopped the EastMed pipeline. That joint effort of our allies Cyprus, Greece, and Israel sought to bring much needed clean-burning Mediterranean natural gas to southern Europe.

    Apparently, our diplomats felt it violated our own New Green Deal orthodoxies. So we imperialists interfered to destroy a vital project of our closest allies.

    The White House manifesto called the “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality” offers a blueprint for how to massage nations abroad to accept our values that are increasingly at odds with much of the world’s.

    Do Americans really believe that embracing drag-queen shows at military bases, abortion to the moment of birth, transgendered men competing in women’s sports, and the promised effort to ban the internal combustion engine are effective ways to ensure good relations with the United States?

    No wonder the Biden Administration’s new cultural imperialism is proving disastrous for a variety of reasons.

    One, these imperialistic and chauvinistic agendas are pushed abroad at the very time the respect for the U.S. military is at an all-time low. It was humiliated in Afghanistan. It is now unable to recruit sufficient qualified soldiers. Its stocks of critical weapons are depleted.

    The Pentagon leadership of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, along with Joe Biden, do not radiate competence. 

    But they do exude woke pieties.

    While we offend Middle East oil exporters and Central Europeans, China allies with Russia and Iran. India and Turkey triangulate away from the United States. Sanctimonious hectoring while appearing weak is a bad combination.

    Two, these warped standards are incoherent. Is an abortion-on-demand, totalitarian China therefore an ally? How can we damn supposedly non-woke Saudi Arabia as we beg it pump more of its non-green oil before the 2022 midterms?

    Some of our most loyal allies are in Eastern Europe—Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania—have experienced traumatic histories on the front lines against Islamic Ottoman expansionism, czarist and Soviet aggression, and German Nazi bullying and invasion.

    They are democratic and pro-American. Yet they are now targeted by our woke imperialists because they remain steadfast as the most religious and traditional of our European allies.

    Yet these nations would be more likely to dispatch credible forces for NATO’s defense than many of our left-wing, woke, and militarily less capable Western European nations.

    Three, most of the 7.9 billion people in the world are not woke. They are aspiring to obtain a modicum of the luxury and affluence taken for granted in America.

    The rest of the planet worries whether it will have enough food, energy, security, and shelter to live one more day. For most, the incessant, woke virtue-signaling from affluent Americans comes across as the whiny bullying of pampered, self-righteous—and increasingly neurotic—imperialists.

    Four, traditionally the party that controls the State Department does not politically weaponize its embassies with wedge issues that have not won majority support among Americans. 

    Such abject politicalization rattles and alienates foreign nations. They do not want to be drawn into the American Left’s internal propaganda efforts that they know are bitterly controversial inside the United States.

    How odd that those on the Left who in the past decried “American imperialism” are now proving the greatest imperialists of all.

    About Victor Davis Hanson

    Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump and the recently released The Dying Citizen.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 18:00

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May 04

Today’s News 4th May 2023

  • US In Talks On Establishing Military Bases In Finland
    US In Talks On Establishing Military Bases In Finland

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The US and Finland are working out a deal that would allow the US to establish a military presence in the Nordic country, as Helsinki is now a member of NATO.

    According to Newsweek, Finnish Foreign Ministry official Mikael Antell confirmed the two nations are negotiating a Defense Cooperation Agreement that may allow for the construction of significant military infrastructure on Finnish soil.

    Getty Images

    The potential agreement would not include nuclear weapons, although Finnish officials have previously not ruled out hosting nukes. The US has nuclear weapons stationed in five NATO countries under the alliance’s nuclear sharing program but not in any nations that became members after the end of the Cold War.

    Antell said the potential DCA “enables troops to enter the country, stay on the ground, the pre-storage of material and possible infrastructure investments through the funds granted by the US Congress to the Pentagon.”

    The US and Finland have been in talks on the DCA since last fall, and discussions on the deal took place in Helsinki last week.

    “The agreement also defines the facilities and areas where the cooperation would be focused,” Antell said. “They are basically military areas and garrisons. In principle, there can be more than one, but the discussions are still open in this regard.”

    Finland shares an over 800-mile border with Russia, and its ascension into NATO means the region will become further militarized. Moscow has plans to beef up its military presence near the border in western Russia and has said it will take more steps to respond to the expansion of NATO infrastructure in Finland.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 02:00

  • The Obsession With Sweeping Away The Past Is Highly Destructive For Civilization
    The Obsession With Sweeping Away The Past Is Highly Destructive For Civilization

    Authored by Michael Bonner via The Epoch Times,

    The following is a commentary by Michael Bonner on his new book, “In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present.”

    Do we live in a civilization?

    When I was growing up in the 1990s, amidst all the exuberance of the American unipolar moment, I certainly thought I lived in a civilization, and an advanced one at that.

    The mood of the time was captured in the near-universal misunderstanding of Francis Fukuyama’s thesis about the “end of history,” as well as in the Disney cartoon “Aladdin.” Both “Aladdin” and Fukuyama invited us to imagine “a whole new world,” and both did so coincidentally in 1992. Nothing, it seemed, could halt the steady progress of a new age of peace, stability, wealth, and freedom.

    But, in the West, so much seems to have gone wrong since that moment.

    Disaster in Iraq, Rwanda, and the Balkans should have disturbed western complacency, but didn’t. Neither did the damage done by neoliberal economics, hyper-globalization, outsourcing, and the de-industrialization of the West.

    The 1990s also saw the rise of the Taliban, and the following century opened with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan and the attacks of 9/11 in America. Since then we seem to have lurched from one crisis to another: warfare and humiliation in the Middle East, the failure to export liberal democracy abroad, financial collapse, terrorism, and latterly the pandemic, supply chain problems, inflation, and renewed warfare in Europe.

    All this is to say that the “whole new world” we were promised in the ’90s is much like the old one, only worse. And the theory of irreversible progress seems increasingly implausible in the face of steady decline.

    But this doesn’t mean that there’s nothing we can do.

    Decline isn’t irreversible either. If that were true, then human civilization would never have recovered from its first collapse thousands of years ago. Renewal is possible even after a long interval, as is shown, for example, by the revival of Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the ebb and flow of civilization in Egypt, Mesopotamia, or China despite repeated foreign conquest. So no matter how bad things may seem, civilization can recover.

    But how would we bring about this renewal? The modern answer centres on innovation: doing something revolutionary and starting over again. Most of us now living in the West are used to thinking of practically all aspects of life in the same way that we think of technology. One technological change supersedes another, and each change rapidly ushers in another one. The same process supposedly governs social and moral development. This mode of thought passes without question now. But it would have seemed very disagreeable to a peasant who lived through the French Revolution, a Ukrainian farmer enduring Stalin’s five-year plans, or an indigenous inhabitant of the New World whose life was upended after the arrival of Europeans.

    The Western obsession with sweeping away the past is highly peculiar, of course, and it is also highly destructive.

    In contrast, all the great recoveries—whether successive Egyptian or Chinese dynasties, the European Renaissance, or the Islamic Golden Age—were inspired by imitating older cultural models. Even the so-called Scientific Revolution involved Copernicus and Galileo revisiting Byzantine and Perso-Arabic theories of physics and astronomy. Greek philosophy and mathematics owed a huge debt to far older Near-Eastern models salvaged from the Late Bronze Age Collapse around 1177 BC. And Confucius claimed to be a mere transmitter of the customs and values of the ancient Zhou state founded in 1046 BC.

    The Western obsession with revolutionary change and novelty grew out of the Age of Discovery, matured throughout the Reformation and Enlightenment, and ossified into an ideology in the early 20th century. The ideological part was the work of Italian poet and art critic Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, whose “Futurist Manifesto” appeared in 1909.

    (L-R) Italian futurists Luigi Russolo, Carlo Carrà, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, and Gino Severini in front of Le Figaro, Paris, on Feb. 9 1912. Marinetti, author of the “Futurist Manifesto,” urged the total repudiation and destruction of the past. (Public Domain)

    Marinetti urged the total repudiation of the past and the rapid acceleration of technological and social changes. He worshiped the alleged beauty of speed. He hated museums, praised war as a form of hygiene, and wanted to see ancient cities utterly destroyed.

    The “Futurist Manifesto” crystallized trends that are still with us. The informal motto of Silicon Valley is “move fast and break things.” Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos, for instance, could be considered Futurist prophets of fast cars, trains, rocket ships, high-speed downloads, and near-instantaneous deliveries. Tech companies and CEOs still speak of accelerating change, and the constant action and insomnia favoured by Marinetti are the virtues of the modern office worker.

    Futurism could be considered the Mother of All Ideologies.

    In Italy, the Futurists turned Fascist. They were Bolsheviks in Russia, and Nazis elsewhere. They all agreed with Marinetti’s vision: progress meant repudiating and destroying the past. In the fascist utopia, the state would serve only the strong. Communism would usher in the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nazism reimagined the Marxist class struggle as a conflict among races, and envisioned the end point of history as the thousand-year Reich. These Golden Ages all lay ahead, owing nothing to history. And, as Marinetti seemed to foresee, they would take shape amidst obscene destruction and murder.

    Thus the most horrific disasters in human history have a common origin not in the veneration of the past, as some believe, but in utopian visions of the future. So why, we might ask, is future-orientation still such a powerful idea? And if looking to the future is so bad, what should we do instead?

    This is what my book “In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present” is about. It attempts to explain what makes human civilization what it is. It shows what we are in danger of losing through decline or collapse, and points the way toward renewal. The book argues that civilized life itself arose because our ancient ancestors developed a connection with the past and felt that they had a place in history—a feeling that we are now very close to losing. And it asserts that every former renewal of civilization has been inspired by memory of the past and a deliberate effort to imitate it.

    Despite the uncertainties and tensions of contemporary life, and the perception of decline, we should remind ourselves that the future we think we want is never the future we actually get. But, if we want it to, civilization will outlast our failures.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/04/2023 – 00:10

  • 'Godfather Of AI' Quits Google And Warns World About Impending 'AI-Driven' Crisis 
    ‘Godfather Of AI’ Quits Google And Warns World About Impending ‘AI-Driven’ Crisis 

    The “Godfather of AI” resigned from his position at Google, where he has worked for over a decade. He joined a growing chorus of critics who warn of the existential risk artificial intelligence systems pose to humans. 

    On Monday, Google computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton tweeted:

    “In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.”

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    In an interview with The New York Times, Hinton said it was only after quitting Google that he could openly talk about the dangers of AI.  

    He still believed the systems were inferior to the human brain in some ways but he thought they were eclipsing human intelligence in others. “Maybe what is going on in these systems,” he said, “is actually a lot better than what is going on in the brain.”

    As companies improve their AI systems, he believes, they become increasingly dangerous. “Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now,” he said of AI technology. “Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.”

    Until last year, he said, Google acted as a “proper steward” for the technology, careful not to release something that might cause harm. But now that Microsoft has augmented its Bing search engine with a chatbot — challenging Google’s core business — Google is racing to deploy the same kind of technology. The tech giants are locked in a competition that might be impossible to stop, Dr. Hinton said. -NYT 

    One of his most immediate concerns is that the internet will be flooded with fake videos, photos, and news, and the average person will “not be able to know what is true anymore.”

    Hinton is concerned that automation will disrupt the job market. Chatbots, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, can already replace personal assistants, translators, and others who handle routine tasks. 

    “It takes away the drudge work,” he said, adding, “It might take away more than that.”

    A recent Goldman Sachs research note predicted that AI could lead to some 300 million layoffs among highly paid, non-menial workers in the US and Europe. As Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius put it:

    “Using data on occupational tasks in both the US and Europe, we find that roughly two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation, and that generative AI could substitute up to one-fourth of current work. Extrapolating our estimates globally suggests that generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation” as up to “two thirds of occupations could be partially automated by AI.”

    And on Monday, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said AI could replace 30% of its back-office jobs over the next five years. 

    Back to Hinton, where he continued to warn AI will eventually eclipse human intelligence:

    “The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that.

    “But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”

    He said he didn’t sign the letter in March when more than 1,000 technology leaders, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, called for a six-month moratorium on developing new AI tools more powerful than GPT-4. That’s because he didn’t want to openly criticize big tech while working for Google.

    In 2018, Hinton and two other colleagues received the Turing Award, or “the Nobel Prize of computing,” for their work on neural networks. Google acquired his company in 2018 for $44 million, which developed powerful technologies that led to the creation of chatbots. 

    In a separate interview, Hinton told BBC News, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the kind of intelligence we’re developing is very different from the intelligence we have.” 

    “The big difference is that with digital systems, you have many copies of the same set of weights, the same model of the world.

    “All these copies can learn separately but share their knowledge instantly. So it’s as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learned something, everybody automatically knew it. And that’s how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person.”

    One of the most significant risks he sees is authoritarian leaders can use AI technology to “manipulate” the masses. 

    Hinton’s concerns may be coming a bit late, as the technology is already in use. Similar concerns have been expressed by engineers and scientists in the past, in relation to nuclear power and biochemistry. It’s inevitable that the world will eventually face an AI-driven crisis. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 23:50

  • Blinken's Immaculate Conception Defense: Why Things Are Likely To Get Worse For The Secretary Of State
    Blinken’s Immaculate Conception Defense: Why Things Are Likely To Get Worse For The Secretary Of State

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Below is my column in the New York Post on the response of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to allegations that he was the original source for the Russian disinformation claim behind the Hunter Biden laptop. I wrote previously that Blinken is struggling to avoid the look of a “made man” who earned his bones in the Biden Administration.

    Things are now likely to get worse after a U.S. senator added an alleged false statements charge to Blinken’s controversies.

    Here is the column:

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken is claiming the political version of the immaculate conception.

    In a Fox interview, Blinken suggests that he is free of blame in the creation of the 2020 letter from former intelligence officials claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was likely Russian disinformation.

    Despite the primary organizer of the letter naming him as the Biden campaign adviser who first raised the claim, Blinken insists that he remains without sin.

    All of the letter signatories are taking the same position.

    No one is at fault in one of the most calculated false stories ever planted in the midst of an election cycle.

    That would be hard enough to believe, but it’s not even the only lie Blinken is accused of telling in relation to Hunter Biden.

    Blinken is also facing questions over allegedly false statements made to Congress related to Hunter Biden.

    He claims he never emailed Hunter, when messages on the president’s son’s laptop show he did.

    Let’s start with the letter.

    With an enabling media, Joe Biden was able to use it to dismiss the evidence of possible influence peddling and criminal conduct on the laptop.

    During the presidential debate, an irate Biden cited the letter as proving that the laptop story was “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan.” He added that “nobody believes” that the laptop was real.

    Media and social media companies then buried the story, including some like Twitter banning its discussion before the election.

    In the close election, the false story worked to negate a damaging scandal of corruption involving millions of dollars from foreign sources, including some involving figures associated with foreign intelligence.

    After the Republican takeover of the House, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell was called before Congress to give a statement.

    When pressed on how this letter came about, Morell reportedly did not hesitate: Blinken.

    He said Blinken was “the impetus” of the false claim.

    Morell then organized dozens of ex-national security officials to sign the letter claiming that the Hunter laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

    On Monday, Blinken told Fox News State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall that “with regard to that letter, I didn’t — it wasn’t my idea, didn’t ask for it, didn’t solicit it. And I think the testimony that the former deputy director of the CIA, Mike Morell, put forward confirms that.”

    Morell called him the “impetus” for the letter. So perhaps Blinken is trying to dance on the semantic pinhead of being the “impetus” as opposed to the “solicitor”  of the claim. Morell did not appear to have any doubts or hesitation after speaking with Blinken and quickly assembled an array of experts to make the false claim. Morell admitted to Congress that one of his goals was “to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate and to assist him in winning the election.”

    So it turns out no one is at fault. Not the “impetus,” not the organizer, not the signatories, not the media. Indeed, maybe it is the public for being chumps in buying this scam.

    Blinken is facing a more serious question raised by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who declared that Blinken told “boldface” lies when he testified under oath to Congress in 2020 on the controversy. Johnson said that Blinken said he never emailed Hunter Biden.

    Yet emails between the president’s son and Blinken were recently disclosed. They suggested that the two were in communication in 2015 while Blinken was working in the Obama administration and Hunter was on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma.

    Johnson stated on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that “we know that he lied boldface to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden. My guess is he told a bunch of other lies.”

    There are also emails that suggest that Hunter communicated through Blinken’s wife, Evan Ryan, who now serves as Biden’s cabinet secretary.

    We still need more details on the underlying facts, but, if true, the allegations could constitute both criminal and impeachable offenses. Blinken reportedly made these statements as part of the process leading to his confirmation. If he lied, it could constitute making a “materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” to Congress under 18 US 1001.

    If Blinken lied or committed perjury, it could also constitute an impeachable offense. One complicating issue is that this did not technically occur while in office but in pursuit of that office. Moreover, there may be other statements since becoming secretary of state.

    Of course, during the Clinton impeachment, the question of whether perjury constitutes an impeachable offense was raised. When I testified at the impeachment hearing, I maintained that it clearly does meet the standard of a “high crime and misdemeanor.” In my view, it did not matter the subject matter.

    Others, like Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, were equally certain that perjury did not meet that standard in the Clinton case.

    The fact is that cabinet and high-ranking officers have often been accused of false statements without facing impeachment or even prosecution.

    Ironically, the letter includes one notable example.

    Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper during the Obama administration was accused of perjury before the Senate but was not sanctioned by the Democrat-controlled Senate or the Obama Justice Department.

    He later signed the Hunter Biden letter.

    That history may be reassuring for Blinken.

    However, whatever the outcome, Blinken has some explaining to do and one thing is clear: There is nothing immaculate about the Hunter Biden scandal.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 23:30

  • China Clamps Down On Corporate Data, Ramps Up Exit Bans
    China Clamps Down On Corporate Data, Ramps Up Exit Bans

    As China beefs up its military to focus on “preparations for war” (per the US State Department-funded Radio Free Asia), Beijing is also ramping up restrictions on corporate information provided to overseas clients, as well as exit bans on corporate executives who simply want to leave the country.

    In recent months, Chinese financial data providers have stopped providing detailed information on the nation’s companies to outsiders, Bloomberg reports.

    Wind Information Co. in recent months ended allowing clients using its platform outside mainland China from accessing its corporate registry database, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The change is due to regulatory requirements, and other parts of their service are continuing as normal, they said, declining to be identified because the matter is sensitive.

    Investors operating in China are facing a more challenging environment despite Beijing’s push to improve ties globally. US consultancy firms are under the spotlight in particular, with authorities in recent weeks targeting the China offices of Bain & Company, Mintz Group and Capvision, according to media reports. The government last month passed a new counter-espionage law that expanded the list of activities that could be considered spying, intensifying the risks for foreign firms. -Bloomberg

    According to George Magnus, the move “underscores” the CCP’s construction of a new wall to the rest of the world.

    “In decades of private sector and academic research, I’ve stumbled into occasional publishing problems with sensitive governments, but never come across sensitive governments shutting down or restricting access to domestic data sources,” he said.

    Wind Information Co. collects data on over 200 million enterprises as well as 270 million legal representatives and executives, according to its website. The information includes shareholder and affiliate data, as well as fundraising and investing activities, legal disputes and operation risks.

    Meanwhile, Beijing is also implementing exit bans – barring people from leaving the country, including foreign executives, Reuters reports.

    Scores of Chinese and foreigners have been ensnared by exit bans, according to a new report by the rights group Safeguard Defenders, while a Reuters analysis has found an apparent surge of court cases involving such bans in recent years, and foreign business lobbies are voicing concern about the trend.

    “Since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China has expanded the legal landscape for exit bans and increasingly used them, sometimes outside legal justification,” according to a report from Safeguard Defenders.

    “Between 2018 and July of this year, no less than five new or amended (Chinese) laws provide for the use of exit bans, for a total today of 15 laws,” said the group’s campaign director, Laura Harth.

    According to the group, which cites a 2022 academic paper which found 128 cases between 1995 and 2019, “tens of thousands” of Chinese are being banned from exit at any given time – a huge escalation assuming this is accurate. Reuters, having analyzed records on exit bans, reports an eight-fold increase in cases between 2016 and 2022.

    One such person prevented from leaving China earlier this year is Singaporean executive at the US due-diligence firm Mintz Group, which said in late March that authorities had raided the firm’s China office and detained five local staff under suspicion of engaging in unlawful business operations. CCP police also visited Bain & Co’s Shanghai office and questioned the staff.

    “Because of rising tensions between the U.S. and China, the salience of this (exit ban) risk has risen,” said Lester Ross, a veteran lawyer in China who has handled exit ban cases.

    “I’ve seen a rise in companies and entities being concerned about this and asking for our advice on how to prepare and reduce risks” of exit bans, Ross said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 23:10

  • So Much For SkyNet – Warehouse Robot Collapses After Working 20 Hours Straight
    So Much For SkyNet – Warehouse Robot Collapses After Working 20 Hours Straight

    Authored by Katie Hutton via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    When you’re working on the production line at a factory and trying to fulfill ever-changing deadlines, being a busy robot might make life challenging.

    It is even more gruesome when you consider that the robot in question was designed to last for the longest amount of time possible.

    Meet Digit. The motorized moving mess of bolts and wires known as Digit was the subject of the evaluation. And to be honest, throughout the twenty hours that it was working hard, Digit put in quite the effort and exhibited all of its nifty tricks and circuitry sorcery to all who were there.

    Those unfortunate enough to have witnessed the tail end of Digit’s demos definitely had at least one or two eyebrows raised.

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    AFTER ALL, DIGIT DID EXPERIENCE SOME DEGREE OF FAILURE. AS IN, HE WAS OUT OF THE RUNNING FOR THE TIME BEING AFTER ITS COLLAPSE. THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMPANY, ON THE OTHER HAND, BRAGGED OF A PHENOMENAL SUCCESS RATE OF 99.99 PERCENT FOR JOBS COMPLETED BY WAREHOUSE BOTS.

    “We started with scientific breakthroughs and layered on top of that world-class engineering,” they said in a press release.

    “We approach everything with a focus on function. Our robots were designed from day one to do work and get the job done,” they add.

    In April, Agility Robotics posted the video, announcing that the hard-working bot has successfully completed over nearly 20 hours of live demonstrations despite suffering a few “scrapes and bruises” while doing its responsibilities.

    Liz Clinkenbeard, vice president of communications at Agility Robotics, disclosed to the Associated Press that the company wants to show how a cool robot like Digit can pick itself up and move on when things are going badly for it.

    “We wanted to show that Digit did fall a couple times, that it’s a normal part of any new technology, and it’s not a big deal,” she said. When Digit drops, it is often because of a fault in the program or with the sensor.

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    “SOMETIMES IT MAY NEED A REPAIR; RARELY SOMETHING THAT TAKES MORE THAN 15-20 MINUTES,” SHE ADDED. “WE DO WANT TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT NOT OVER-HUMANIZING A MACHINE OR ASCRIBING INTENT.
    WHILE DIGIT LOOKS SOMETHING LIKE A PERSON, IN REALITY IT IS A COMPUTER THAT CAN DO PHYSICAL WORK, AND IT’S FOLLOWING A PROGRAM.”

    Since then, the footage of Digit falling over has been posted across many social media platforms. The footage has resulted in some quite obscene jokes being made concerning the well-being of the robot.

    Some of the comments made on social media about Digit hinted that the hard-working AI may have offed itself because of the menial tasks it was forced to perform for little pay.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 22:50

  • Escape The Collapse? Billionaire Buys 5,000 Acre Farm Near Jackson Hole
    Escape The Collapse? Billionaire Buys 5,000 Acre Farm Near Jackson Hole

    In the event of a societal collapse or a banking crisis escalating into a financial meltdown akin to 2008, some billionaires own vast amounts of farmland around the world, which serves not only as a hedge but also provides spacious retreats for them to take refuge. 

    Despite a US housing market that has frozen for average folks after a record-breaking run in mortgage rates and home prices still at elevated levels, triggering the worst affordability in a generation, billionaires are still making moves. 

    The latest is billionaire industrialist Steven Rales, who recently purchased “Diamond G Ranch,” a property that spans 5,000 acres and is located 90 minutes east of Jackson Hole, for a whopping $71 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing property records. 

    The property has everything one needs to escape the apocalypse. And or, if that doesn’t happen, have valuable land that will only appreciate. 

    “It has an estimated 5 miles of the Dunoir River on private land with immediate access to 2.5 more miles on public land that is rarely accessed by the public. The Dunoir is a world-class trout fishery with trout in the 20 plus inch category. Wildlife – Bear, elk, moose, antelope, mountain lion, coyote, wolverine, multiple bird species, and both bighorn sheep and mountain goats are often seen in the adjacent national forest. It is one of the richest, wildest places for wildlife we have ever seen,” said real estate firm Hall and Hall, who brokered the deal late last year. 

    In recent years, the list of billionaires, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffet, purchasing farmland has been increasing. And we’ve shown readers that farmland is an excellent hedge in economic downcycles: “US Farmland Bucks Real Estate Downturn.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 22:30

  • World On Cusp Of Woke Totalitarianism As Governments Act To End Freedom Of Speech
    World On Cusp Of Woke Totalitarianism As Governments Act To End Freedom Of Speech

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag via ‘Public’ substack,

    Media blackout as politicians in EU, US, UK, Brazil, Ireland, Canada, and Australia seek to jail citizens for wrongthink under the cover of a Big Lie about “hate speech”…

    The Twitter Files gave us a window into how government agencies, civil society, and tech companies work together to censor social media users. Now, key nations are attempting to enshrine this coordination into law explicitly.

    Around the world, politicians have either just passed or are on the cusp of passing sweeping new laws, which would allow governments to censor ordinary citizens on social media and other Internet platforms.

    Under the guise of preventing “harm” and holding large tech companies accountable, several countries are establishing a vast and interlinked censorship apparatus, a new investigation by Public finds.

    Politicians, NGOs, and their enablers in the news media claim that their goal is merely to protect the public from “disinformation.” But vague definitions and loopholes in new laws will create avenues for broad application, overreach, and abuse.

    In Ireland, for example, the government may soon be able to imprison citizens simply for possessing material that officials decide is “hateful.” Under the RESTRICT Act in the US, the government may soon have the authority to monitor the Internet activity of any American deemed a security risk.

    Governments aim for total control. In Canada, a state agency can filter and manipulate what Canadians see online. In Australia, a single government official can compel social media companies to remove posts.

    Governments and allied NGOs intend to force tech companies to comply with their rules. UK lawmakers have threatened to imprison social media managers who don’t censor enough content. And Brazil has introduced severe penalties for platforms that fail to remove “fake news.”

    The key area of action is the European Union. It is seeking sweeping new powers to regulate social media companies. And if it acts, it may change how social media companies operate worldwide, given the EU’s economic power and influence globally.

    Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, large tech companies must share their data with “vetted researchers” from non-profits and academia, which would cede content moderation to NGOs and their state sponsors.

    The US’s RESTRICT Act, sponsored by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), threatens 20 years in prison or a $250,000 fine for accessing blacklisted websites through “virtual private networks,” or VPNs, which are ways to create a private connection between a computer or phone and the Internet.

    There has been no moment similar to this one in the roughly 30 years of widespread public Internet usage in Western societies.

    Officials have introduced these policies mostly in the dead of night with little publicity or outcry. There has been a virtual blackout of what’s happening by mainstream news media corporations, with many appearing to support the new laws.

    As shown with the Twitter Files, the Censorship Industrial Complex is as much about discrediting accurate facts, true narratives, and content creators who threaten its power while boosting the ones that do.

    We are thus witnessing the emergence of a governmental apparatus with the power to control the information environment in ways that determine what people believe to be true and what is false.

    As such, it is no exaggeration to say that the West is on the cusp of a new and much more powerful form of totalitarianism than either Communism or Fascism, which were limited in their reach by geography.

    If we are to defeat it, we must understand it.

    Why are governments seeking to crack down on freedom of speech from New Zealand to the Netherlands and Brazil to Canada? Why now? And why are they getting away with it?

    Inside The Plot To Censor The Planet

    RESTRICT Act sponsor Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) (center) with United Kingdom MP Damian Collins (L) and Ukrainian MP Hanna Hopko (R) at a press conference by government-funded censorship advocacy NGO called “The Atlantic Council” on July 16, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).

    The timing of the global crackdown on free speech does not appear to be coincidental.

    What’s happening now appears to represent the re-grouping of censorship advocacy that occurred after that defeat. With some notable exceptions, the demand for censorship is being driven by center-Left parties, with NGOs playing a subservient role.

    …

    Politicians are invoking a Woke defense of “preventing harm” that is very different from the older pretext for censorship, national security. The push is race-based, immigration-based (e.g., Ireland), trans-based (e.g., Ireland and Australia), and safety- or health-based (e.g., the EU).

    …

    Meanwhile, there is no evidence of an increase in the killing of trans people or even that trans people are killed at a rate higher than the average person. In truth, no minority group in history has gone from stigmatized to celebrated faster than trans people.

    …

    Why now?

    The election of Biden, the failure of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance Board,” and the release of the Twitter Files all appear to have forced censorship advocacy to move from the U.S. to other nations, particularly Europe, in order to censor Americans and the rest of the world through the back door.

    …

    We believe elites have overreached. If they felt secure in their censorship agenda, they wouldn’t be hiding and rushing it through legislatures worldwide or trying to sneak censorship on the U.S. through the European Union.

    *  *  *

    Public is building an international movement to defend freedom of speech. We can’t do it without you… Subscribers can read the full story here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 22:10

  • China Updates Conscription Law, Eyeing 'High-Tech Regional Conflict' Over Taiwan
    China Updates Conscription Law, Eyeing ‘High-Tech Regional Conflict’ Over Taiwan

    China rolled out a new recruitment policy this week, including an update to its military conscription law, which came into force Monday after being approved by the State Council and Central Military Commission.

    The effort is aimed at creating a more high-tech and cyberwarfare capable army involving highly skilled personnel. The new guidelines explicitly say the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) should “focus on preparations for war” and needs more soldiers utilizing high-tech weaponry.

    Image: AP

    The guidelines expand the military’s ability for short-notice enlistments in instances of highly qualified recruits, as well as prior service personnel, and even college students who have knowledge of space and cyberwar domains. 

    According to some of the updated policy and rules: 

    The amended rules require the recruitment of “high-quality soldiers” in a “lawful, precise and efficient manner.”

    There is scope for wider mobilization of the population in the event of war, including the recruitment of women to active service if numbers require it, as well as previously demobilized soldiers, who may return to their old posts and rank “if they meet the requirements.”

    “During wartime, the State Council and the Central Military Commission may adjust the requirements and methods used to enlist citizens to active service,” according to one of rules published in state news agency Xinhua.

    This came the same week as an Axios report which reviews how each allied US country in the Pacific is nervously preparing for possible showdown over Taiwan.

    “A war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan would be a nightmare scenario for America’s allies in the Pacific, but it’s becoming increasingly clear what roles they might play if one breaks out,” wrote Axios.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 21:50

  • Attempt To Remove Soros-Backed Prosecutor Moves Forward; She Vows To Fight 'Witch Hunt'
    Attempt To Remove Soros-Backed Prosecutor Moves Forward; She Vows To Fight ‘Witch Hunt’

    Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Days after an embattled prosecutor vowed she would never resign from office, a judge ruled that removal proceedings against her would continue.

    On May 2, Visiting Judge John Torbitzky ordered seven out of 10 claims against St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to move forward. He denied her lawyers’ request to throw out all of the accusations.

    Torbitzky has been presiding over the case that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey brought against Gardner, a Democrat.

    St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner speaks in St. Louis, Mo., on Jan. 13, 2020. (Jim Salter/AP Photo)

    Gardner has accused Republican Bailey of playing politics.

    Bailey filed a petition alleging that Gardner shirked her responsibilities and should forfeit her elected office. Her lawyers say Gardner committed no intentional acts that would warrant her removal.

    Torbitzky said he made “reasonable inferences” that Gardner willfully failed to  “prosecute cases, make charging decisions, keep victims informed, and ensure defendants and victims receive a speedy trial,” as Bailey alleges.

    The judge dismissed three allegations that didn’t fit the type of conduct that could lead to an officeholder’s removal.

    Gardner also faces other accusations. Last week, a separate judge found that her office’s no-shows at court proceedings warranted an allegation of “indirect criminal contempt.” A hearing in the contempt case is set for May 30.

    The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that an assistant prosecutor involved in that case has resigned, as did a second assistant who avoided a contempt citation.

    The recent departures are adding to judges’ concerns about Gardner’s office being understaffed, a court spokesman said.

    ‘Witch Hunt’ Alleged

    During a public meeting at a local church on April 29, Gardner said her enemies “want to capture every word I’m saying, so they can use this as a soundbite for criminal contempt or a vehicle to try to take me out of office.”

    “What you’re seeing is a witch hunt,” she said in the meeting recorded by  KSDK News and posted on YouTube.

    Gardner declared emphatically: “I’m not leavin’. I’m not resigning. I’m not doing nothing. [sic] You will have to remove me.”

    And, at one point, she said, “You can’t take me out, because I’m not afraid of none of this [sic].”

    Gardner, seeking reelection in 2024, is among many progressive prosecutors who received backing from funds from billionaire George Soros. According to The Missouri Times, Gardner’s campaign benefited from Soros’s largesse. Several Soros-backed prosecutors have been accused of being soft on crime.

    ‘Change of Judge’

    In the removal case, Torbitzky’s ruling followed an April 18 hearing where he heard arguments from both sides.

    The state Supreme Court, which appointed Torbitzky, will need to select another judge to hear the case.  Torbitzky had no choice but to grant Gardner’s lawyers’ request that he be replaced.

    A Missouri procedural rule allows “a change of judge” once in every civil case, no questions asked. When they filed a motion under that rule, Gardner’s lawyers gave no reasons for seeking a replacement judge.

    Meanwhile, Bailey is accusing Gardner’s lawyers of stonewalling requests for records and stalling the proceedings.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 21:30

  • US Navy Enlists Drag Queen For 'Digital Ambassador' Role To Attract More Recruits
    US Navy Enlists Drag Queen For ‘Digital Ambassador’ Role To Attract More Recruits

    And the Department of Defense wonders why multiple military branches are projected to miss their recruitment goals this year?  The Navy expects to fall short by over 6000 sailors in 2023, while the military struggles with a growing lack of interest, not to mention a lack of physically viable candidates.  So, they have embarked on a new strategy, giving their marketing the Bud Light treatment. 

    That’s right, the Navy has recruited a squadron administrator and drag queen using the name “Harpy Daniels” to be their new “Digital Ambassador.”  The post is designed to inspire more civilians to join the Navy.

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

    The attempted “woke-ification” of the US armed forces is a growing trend, with military brass defending the teaching of CRT (Critical Race Theory) among officers and numerous recruitment ads depicting far-left concepts.  Here is a training video from the Navy featuring two engineers from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center explaining the use of pronouns, gender neutral language and how to be a “good ally” to the LGBT community.

    And who can forget this social justice advertising gem from the US Army:

    For good measure, let’s not forget the woke and narcissistic messaging of recent CIA recruitment ads:

    The Navy claims that DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) initiatives are not hurting recruitment, yet interest in military service continues to plummet in the face of the woke shift. 

    The repellent nature of leftist branding efforts in the military should be obvious.  In the past, the majority of those volunteering for military service have always been politically conservative or independent, with only 29% of current serving identifying as Democrats.  Leftists have long been widely opposed to military participation in general, even though, ironically, the Democrats are now becoming the preeminent party of war when it comes to Russia and the Ukraine situation. 

    They want America to go to war, they just don’t want to be forced to fight those wars themselves.  War is an ugly business replete with unfairness and inequity. Trying to appeal to progressives within Gen Z is not going to work out well for the DoD.

    Another factor is the mindset of the average leftist – It is a philosophy that lends itself to weakness, entitlement and often mental illness, making training goals difficult or impossible.  Over 42% of Gen Z has been diagnosed with at least one mental health condition.  This is why many businesses are now more likely to reject applications from job seekers that use preferred pronouns in their resumes.  These people are far more trouble than they’re worth.

    The only recourse for a woke military would be to dramatically lower standards and turn basic training into a day care, which is exactly what they have been doing incrementally over the past several years.  The question is if this is delusional or deliberate self sabotage.  Is the US military being deconstructed from within?  Or, are these people simply inept?    

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 21:10

  • 15 Days Finally Ends After 1,141 Days
    15 Days Finally Ends After 1,141 Days

    Via The Brownstone Institute,

    On Monday, the White House announced its Covid-19 vaccine requirements for federal employees, federal contractors, and international air travelers will expire on May 11, coinciding with the end of the Covid public health emergency. The 15 Days to Flatten the Curve that began on March 16, 2020, stretched to 1,141 days. 

    In some ways, the repeal is a victory against the irrational tyranny behind the vaccine mandates that have been part of the entire lockdown paradigm. Americans no longer have to choose between taking an experimental, ineffective medical product and keeping their job. We no longer have to endure the irrationality of enforcing vaccine mandates for air travelers but not for illegal immigrants at our southern border. We no longer have to listen to the tyrannical paternalism behind forcing people to receive a shot that they don’t want while insisting that it is saving their lives.

    At the same time, however, it is far from a victory; we have returned to what should be the normal state, and we already witnessed the suffering that the mandates incurred. Millions of people were forced to choose between the truth of their convictions and earning a living. Others lost years of visiting loved ones in foreign countries. The people who implemented this Hell remain in power, and they appear unremorseful. 

    The Biden Administration did not admit error in its policies; instead, it took great pride in its two years of forced jabs.

    “Our COVID-19 vaccine requirements bolstered vaccination across the nation, and our broader vaccination campaign has saved millions of lives,” the White House boasted.

    “While vaccination remains one of the most important tools in advancing the health and safety of employees and promoting the efficiency of workplaces, we are now in a different phase of our response when these measures are no longer necessary.”

    There is no solid evidence for any of those claims. And substantial policy questions remain. Since March 2020, Covid served as the basis for political initiatives far beyond the realm of public health. It was used as the justification for eviction moratoriums, travel restrictions, domestic-capacity restrictions, closures, mask mandates, and student debt relief. Considering the future requires an understanding of the Biden White House’s mandate regime. 

    The History of the Mandates

    Beginning in July 2021, President Biden issued a series of Covid vaccine mandates.

    In September 2021, he announced, “Next, I will sign an executive order that will now require all executive branch federal employees to be vaccinated — all. And I’ve signed another executive order that will require federal contractors to do the same. If you want to work with the federal government and do business with us, get vaccinated.” He then announced that the Department of Labor would require all employers with 100 or more workers to get vaccinated. 

    “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” he scolded unvaccinated Americans. “Your refusal has cost all of us.” 

    The following month, Biden banned international air travelers from entering the United States without proof of receiving the Covid shots. Visitors remained able to enter the country testing positive for the virus so long as they had agreed to the President’s mandatory injection program. 

    But President Biden’s disappointment in his citizens did not convince the American public of the righteousness of his crusade. In the ensuing months, the shots’ lack of efficacy became readily apparent, and Americans were reluctant to get their “boosters.” 

    Biden did not relent, however. He publicly scolded Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers for not getting the shots and insisted that there was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” going into 2022.

    In August 2022, the White House faced backlash when tennis superstar Novak Djokovic was unable to participate in the U.S. Open because of the ban on unvaccinated international air travelers. The strict enforcement did not apply to illegal immigrants crossing the southern border. A reporter asked the White House to explain this enforcement discrepancy later that month.

    “How come migrants are allowed to come into this country unvaccinated but world-class tennis players are not?” asked Fox’s Peter Doocy. 

    White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struggled to articulate an explanation. 

    “So as far — you know, just to — just since you asked about me — about him — you asked me about him. So, visa records are confidential under U.S. law. Therefore, the U.S. government cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases. Due to privacy reasons, the U.S. government also does not comment on medical information of individual travelers,” she stammered as she avoided the question.

    She then told Doocy that the issue comparison between illegals crossing the border and international air travelers was unfounded because “they’re two different things.” 

    Djokovic reentered headlines in March 2023 when he was unable to participate in a Florida tournament because of the ongoing travel ban. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called on Biden to lift the restriction. When asked about the ban stemming from the President’s ban, Ms. Jean-Pierre deflected blame to the CDC, telling the press, “They’re the ones who deal with that. [The ban’s] still in place, and we expect everyone to abide by our country’s rule, whether as a participant or a spectator.”

    Djokovic was unable to play in the tournament, but momentum against the Biden regime’s edicts gained steam. Later that month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction blocking President Biden’s mandate for federal employees to receive the Covid jabs. 

    In April, President Biden signed a law that ended the Covid national emergency in a bill introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar. The bill passed the House in a 229-197 vote and the Senate in a 68-23 vote. 

     What happens now

    A number of other pandemic-era policies will also end on May 11, including Title 42, which allows Border Patrol to immediately send illegal immigrants at the southern border back to Mexico. Texas Governor Greg Abbott expects up to 13,000 illegal immigrants to cross the US-Mexico border every day after the expiration. 

    This may exacerbate the ongoing crisis at the border. In the last 10 days alone, over 73,000 migrants have crossed the southern border as Title 42 comes closer to expiration. Border Patrol announced that in that time it stopped 19 sex offenders, six gang members, and a convicted murderer from entering the United States. Additionally, Border Patrol seized 19 pounds of heroin, 54 pounds of fentanyl, 1,052 pounds of meth, 676 pounds of cocaine, and 823 pounds of marijuana. 

    There are more issues at stake than immigration. The Supreme Court is considering whether the White House’s order to cancel student debt was constitutional. The Biden White House has defended its actions by claiming that the Heroes Act of 2003 allows the US Education Secretary to change federal student loan programs during national emergencies such as the Covid pandemic. Going forward, the White House will have to adopt new rationales for future executive actions related to student debt. 

    On the legal front, employment law firm Jackson Lewis reports that there are over 2,000 existing challenges to Covid 19 vaccine mandates in the courts right now, and over 35 percent involve public employers. Challenges to the federal mandates may now be moot, meaning courts will dismiss the cases because the mandates are no longer in effect. Plaintiffs will be able to return to work without adhering to the White House’s vaccine requirements, but there will also be no accountability for those in charge. 

    These days and for many months and years following, all the people involved in the pandemic response – not only government officials but media mouthpieces and Big Tech accomplices – will be rewriting history and hoping that everyone will forget the real history.

    They are trying to avoid accountability and save whatever vestiges of despotism that they can, while hoping to institutionalize the powers that made all of this possible.

    They cannot be allowed to win this struggle for essential rights, liberties, and truth. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 20:50

  • Debt Ceiling, No Worries? Biden Offers $500K Grant For 'Pakistani Transgender Youth' To Learn English
    Debt Ceiling, No Worries? Biden Offers $500K Grant For ‘Pakistani Transgender Youth’ To Learn English

    While President Biden demands that Republicans pass a no-strings-attached, ‘clean’ debt limit increase without requiring Democrats to make sacrifices, his administration is throwing around cash like a drunken sailor at a whorehouse..

    To wit, the Biden administration is now offering a grant to help teach English in Pakistan by providing, in part, “intensive professional development courses for Pakistani transgender youth.”

    According to the grant, the US State Department wants to teach English language skills to Pakistani youth so they can “better participate in the global community and prepare them for success in the workplace,” Fox News reports, adding that the grant aims to reach its goal by focusing on three components; (1) “Professional Development for English Language Teachers from Non-Mainstream Institutions; (2) Professional Development for novice Pakistani English language teachers; and (3) Professional Development for Transgender Youth and for Afghan Teachers, Students, and Young Professionals Residing in Pakistan.”

    The program component that includes a focus on transgender youth accepts proposals from applicants “for a minimum of $25,000 and a maximum of $75,000 to implement: (1) intensive professional development courses for Pakistani transgender youth from the ages of 13-25, and (2) and intensive professional development courses for Afghan teachers, students, and young professionals residing in Pakistan.”

    These components aim to improve English language communication skills among trainees and connect them to a professional alumni network. Participating teachers will “share what they learned in these trainings with English-language professional colleagues, thereby influencing pedagogy in their schools and communities.” -Fox News

    Those interested in some of the $500K are encouraged to address the question of “What is the most effective way to reach the greatest number of Pakistani transgender youth and Afghan teachers, students, and young professionals from diverse locations across Pakistan?”

    According to the State Department, the project focuses on transgender youth as it does with other “marginalized communities,” and noted that the funds won’t be used towards gender transitions.

    “In this specific grant, the Department provides funding for English-language learning, an integral skill that helps unlock educational and employability opportunities, for marginalized communities, in this case transgender youth,” said the spokesperson.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 20:30

  • No, Washington Post, The Experts Were The Whole Problem
    No, Washington Post, The Experts Were The Whole Problem

    Authored by John Tamny via The Brownstone Institute,

    “On the field of war what is at stake is the thing that matters most to any man – the saving of his own skin.” 

    – Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, p. 889

    The quote from Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a useful way to begin addressing the Washington Post editorial board’s confident assertion that “’A collective national incompetence in government’” was at the root of the U.S.’s alleged failure vis-à-vis the coronavirus in 2020.

    According to the Post quoting from a recently released report (“Lessons from the Covid War”), “The United States started out ‘with more capabilities than any other country in the world,’ but “it ended up with 1 million dead.”

    Were he still around, one guesses Tolstoy would mock the conceit of the Post’s editorialists.

    That’s the case because “the thing that matters most to any man” is “the saving of his own skin.”

    That this needs to even be said speaks to how wrongheaded the Post’s editorial board’s approach to the virus was, and still is.

    It implies we have dead because government didn’t act properly, as though free people eager to live were unequal to a virus that the right kind of collective governmental action was more than equal to.

    Ok, but what was government going to do? Better yet, what if the virus had struck in 2009 when Barack Obama was still in the White House. What would he have done? Would he have instructed a virus that was spreading faster than the flu to take a “time out?”

    The simple truth missed by the Post is that as humans we’re wired to preserve ourselves. On the matter of life and the presumption of death, government is excess. Whatever solution Obama might have come up with, or whatever Donald Trump did come up with, or (try not to laugh) whatever Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer would have done if the virus had revealed itself in 2021 would have been vastly unequal to the solutions crafted by free people.

    Deep down the Post’s editorialists must know the above is true. Indeed, it’s not that the Soviet Union lacked experts, or that Cuba lacks experts now. The problem was and is that the remarkable knowledge of very few very smart people will never measure up to the collective knowledge of the citizenry. That’s why communism failed so impressively in the Soviet Union, and it’s why it fails in Cuba. Translated for those who need it, the people are the market and markets work.

    As I make plain in my 2021 book When Politicians Panicked, the problem was experts and politicians substituting their limited knowledge for that of the people. That was the crisis. Not so, according to the Post and the report they cite.

    Supposedly the “leaders of the United States could not apply their country’s vast assets effectively enough” such that “1 million died.” Wrong. Over and over again. To see why, imagine if 10 million Americans had died in March of 2020. Can the Post editorial board think of what government might have done that would have somehow improved on a feverish individual desire to survive against long odds? The simple truth glossed over by the Post is that the more threatening a virus is (and the Post seems to view what most didn’t know they were infected with as wildly threatening), the more superfluous government action is.

    Really, who reading this needs to ever be forced to avoid behavior that might result in sickness, or even death? And if the reply to this question is that some people DO need to be forced, you’re making the best case of all for unfettered freedom. Think about it. Those who reject expert opinion are the most crucial “control group” as a virus spreads. By going against the grain, we learn from their freely arrived at actions if the virus is as lethal as presumed, or not, how it spreads, how to perhaps avoid its spread, and all manner of other important bits of information suppressed by one-size-fits-all national solutions.

    It cannot be stressed enough that free people crucially produce information. Instead of allowing them to produce it in abundance in 2020, the response arrived at by Democrats and Republicans was to lock people in their homes, thus blinding a nation “with more capabilities than any other country” to the best approaches to a spreading virus. Please keep all of this in mind with the report’s assertion that the “most important and fundamental misjudgment” about the virus was how it spread. You think? Of course, the muscular assertion ignores yet again that if knowing how a virus spreads is of utmost importance, the only credible answer is freedom.

    On the matter of the Trump administration, the Post supports the report’s conclusion that “The administration abdicated its wartime responsibilities to lead” only to leave the coronavirus battle to “states and localities.” If only. Back to reality, President Trump signed into law a $2.9 trillion bill that subsidized shutdowns across the country, thus locking people in their homes far longer than would have otherwise happened, and at the expense of untold amounts of economic output.

    Consider the latter in light of the statement of the obvious that all advances in medicine have always been born of matching doctors and scientists with the abundant fruits of wealth creation. In 2020, rather than encourage the very wealth creation that has long been the biggest foe of death and disease (by far), panicky politicians quite literally chose economic contraction as a virus mitigation strategy. Historians will marvel at the abject stupidity of the US political class, but not the Post’s editorialists or the authors of a report that the editorialists remarkably find insightful.

    Rather than acknowledge the obvious about government and experts as the crisis, the Post editorialists and the experts they kneel before bemoaned a national abdication of “wartime responsibilities.” One gets the feeling Tolstoy would chuckle yet again. In his words, “The course of a battle is affected by an infinite number of freely operating forces (there being no greater freedom of operation than on a battlefield, where life and death are at stake), and this course can never be known in advance; nor does it ever correspond with the direction of any one particular force.”

    In short, on matters of life and death, control is wretched, crisis-inducing excess.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 20:10

  • Bolsonaro Raided, Aide Arrested Amid Fake Covid-19 Vaccination Records Scandal
    Bolsonaro Raided, Aide Arrested Amid Fake Covid-19 Vaccination Records Scandal

    The mansion of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and other locations in Brasília, and Rio de Janeiro were raided by police on Wednesday as part of an investigation into fake Covid-19 vaccine cards.

    As part of the arrest, Bolsonaro’s “right-hand man” Lt Col Mauro Cid Barbosa was one of six people arrested Wednesday morning, The Guardian reports.

    Two of Bolsonaro’s security guards were also taken into custody. The ex-president was expected to be questioned later on Wednesday. Bolsonaro’s mobile phone was seized at his residence in Brasília and he was obliged to hand over the password after initially resisting.

    Federal police reportedly believe a series of official Covid vaccination records were falsified on Brazil’s health ministry database in order to produce bogus vaccination certificates that would permit international travel, including to the US. -The Guardian

    The allegedly falsified records include those for Bolsonaro, his 12-year-old daughter Laura, and Mauro Cid Barbosa and his family. The records were reportedly entered into the health ministry’s database between November 2001 and December of last year – Bolsonaro’s last month in power after losing the last presidential election to far-left rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

    Bolsonaro, who repeatedly claimed that he had refused vaccination, had also refused to make his vaccination records public.

    According to Lula, Bolsonaro should be brought to justice for his actions during the “slaughter” of Covid-19.

    “Good morning and [have] a nice Wednesday,” Lula tweeted as police rummaged through Bolsonaro’s villa.

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

    Other Bolsonaro foes chimed in.

    “Brazil was governed by a group of Hollywood-style gangsters,” said leftwing congressman Guilherme Boulos in a tweet.

    This isn’t the only investigation into Bolsonaro, who’s being probed over several suspected crimes and transgressions while no longer enjoying prosecutorial immunity.

    Bolsonaro, meanwhile, told reporters he was “surprised” at the raid, and denied any involvement in “adulteration.”

    “I wasn’t vaccinated. Full stop,” he said, adding “I have nothing else to say.“

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 19:50

  • A Record Low 13% Of Eighth Grade Students Are Proficient In History
    A Record Low 13% Of Eighth Grade Students Are Proficient In History

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    The Nation’s Report Card for history for 2022 is shockingly low. I have the solution…

    Nation’s Report Card

    Please consider the NAEP History Report Card at Grade 8 for the US. 

    NAEP reports scores at five selected percentiles to show changes over time in the scores for lower- (10th and 25th percentiles), middle- (50th percentile), and higher- (75th and 90th percentiles) performing students.

    In 2022, the scores for students at the 10th, 25th, 50th, and 75th levels declined compared to 2018. Scores for lower-performing students declined more than the score decrease for those at the 75th percentile compared to 2018.

    This is a continuation of a decline seen at all select percentiles except for the 90th percentile when comparing the 2018 scores to those in 2014.

    In 2022, there were no significant changes in scores at any of the selected percentile levels compared to 1994. 

    299 out of 500, just under a 60% score, is in the top 10 percent of the class. 

    Proficiency Levels

    • NAEP Basic Achievement Level: 252 (50.4 Percent Score)

    • NAEP Proficient Level: 294 (58.8 Percent Score)

    • NAEP Advanced Level: 327 (65.4 Percent Score)

    2022 History Proficiency

    Proficiency Synopsis

    • Only 1 percent of “advanced” students could manage better than a 65.4 percent score. 

    • Only 13 percent of students were deemed “proficient” at 58.8 percent or better.

    • Only 46 percent of students could manage to get just over half the questions correct.

    When I Went to Grade School

    • Below 70%: F

    • 70-77%: D

    • 78-84%: C

    • 85-92: B

    • 93+: A

    My, how times have changed. 

    Proposed Solution (Sarcasm)

    • Below 26%: F

    • 26-34%: D

    • 35-42%: C

    • 43-50%: B

    • 51+%: A

    Of course, we need to take external factors into consideration. Anyone from a disadvantaged home gets to add 26 percentage points to their score.

    Second we need to stop publishing results. Instead, we just post final grades. 

    Proficiency scores will skyrocket and we can then pat our education system on the back for a job well done.

    *  *  *

    Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 19:30

  • Nordstrom Closing San Francisco Stores, Citing "Deteriorating Situation" Amid Crime Crisis
    Nordstrom Closing San Francisco Stores, Citing “Deteriorating Situation” Amid Crime Crisis

    Stick a fork in San Francisco: the city seems to be beyond repair.

    After 35 years, Nordstrom is closing its downtown San Francisco stores, citing “the deteriorating situation” in the city plagued by crime and governed by mindless progressives. 

    According to ABC7 News, the Nordstrom Rack on Market Street will close on July 1, and Nordstrom inside Westfield Mall will close in August. 

    Jamie Nordstrom, Chief Stores Officer, sent a letter to impacted workers of both stores and explained that “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”

    The impending exodus of Nordstrom comes as several other retailers, such as Office Depot, The Container Store, Anthropologie, Whole Foods, and Saks Off 5th, have all recently announced store closures. The reason for the closures is that cost of operation for retailers is soaring as progressive city officials won’t address out-of-control thefts and street crime. 

    Since 2020, twenty retailers have closed their stores in San Francisco’s Union Square, as the San Francisco Standard reported. All have pointed to theft. In other areas, CVS and Walgreens have shuttered stores. 

    As for the retailers who remain in the city, such as Target, they’ve had to lock entire aisles behind safety glass to prevent shoplifting. 

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    The retail departures are yet another blow for the city as the tech downturn worsens, coupled with the regional banking crisis, which has spread into commercial real estate, mainly the office space segment. 

    The gold-standard measure of office occupancy trends is the card-swipe data provided by Kastle Systems. The average office occupancy in San Fran is around 45%, still well off the highs from pre-pandemic levels.

    This means that workers have been slow to return to the office, which is evident as Salesforce, Meta Platforms, and other tech companies are hemorrhaging office space, hurting the local economy. 

    Other stores in the crime-ridden city may also be leaving soon due to approaching lease end dates. 

    *   *   * 

    Jamie Nordstrom, Chief Stores Officer, sent the following message to employees:

    “Today we announced that we’ve made the difficult decision not to renew our leases at the San Francisco Centre Nordstrom store and our Market Street Rack store across the street. Market Street Rack’s last day of business will be July 1 and we intend to close San Francisco Centre at the end of August.

    Decisions like this are never easy, and this one has been especially difficult. We’ve spent more than 35 years serving customers in downtown San Francisco, building relationships with them and investing in the local community. But as many of you know, the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully. With both leases set to expire, and after looking closely at our opportunities in the region, we believe we can better serve our customers there by focusing on our 16 nearby Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack locations, as well as online.

    I want to be really clear that this decision had nothing to do with our team’s hard work. They should be proud of everything they’ve achieved together and the way they’ve shown up and served the community. We’re working with each impacted employee to support them through this transition and find new roles within the company wherever possible.

    Stores continue to play a critical part in delivering our Closer to You strategy, and we continue to be opportunistic about new store locations, relocations and concepts. In fact, we have 20 new Rack store openings planned this year, with more to come in 2024. We also remain committed to the Bay Area market and have made significant investments in our stores there over the past several years. We recently announced a new Nordstrom Rack store will open in Pinole, CA, and completed a remodel at our Valley Fair Nordstrom store.”

    Read the full statement from Westfield Mall below:

    “The planned closure of Nordstrom underscores the deteriorating situation in downtown San Francisco. A growing number of retailers and businesses are leaving the area due to the unsafe conditions for customers, retailers, and employees, coupled with the fact that these significant issues are preventing an economic recovery of the area.

    URW has actively engaged with City leaders for many years to express our serious concerns, which are shared by our customers and retailers. We have urged the City to find solutions to the key issues and lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity.

    The current environment is not sustainable for the community, or businesses, and we are hopeful the City will implement the changes that are so urgently needed.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 19:10

  • Watchdog: IRS Has Spent $10M On Weapons, Ammo, & Combat Gear Since 2020
    Watchdog: IRS Has Spent $10M On Weapons, Ammo, & Combat Gear Since 2020

    Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

    Anew watchdog report reveals that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been stockpiling $10 million worth of weapons, ammunition, and combat gear since 2020.

    The New York Post reports that the findings, released by the group OpenTheBooks, show the IRS spending $5 million in 2021 alone as the agency ramped up the militarization of its agents. In the last three years, the IRS has spent a total of $2.3 million on ammunition, $1.2 million on ballistic shields, $474,000 on Smith & Wesson rifles, $463,000 on Beretta tactical shotguns, and $243,000 on body armor.

    In addition to these purchases, the IRS’ expenditures include an additional $1.3 million that was spent on “various other gear for criminal investigation agents,” without any specifics as to what this “other gear” may entail.

    The slew of new purchases build off of an arsenal that was already well-stocked prior to 2020, with the IRS already having in its possession roughly 5 million rounds of ammunition designated for its 2,159 special agents. Before 2020, the IRS owned 4,500 firearms, which included 621 shotguns, 539 semi-automatic rifles, and 15 submachine guns.

    In conjunction with the spike in weapons purchases, the IRS has been hiring significantly more agents in all 50 states. In the job listing for new applicants, the agency notes that any potential applicants must be willing to “carry a firearm; must be prepared to protect him/herself or others from physical attacks at any time and without warning and use firearms in life-threatening situations; must be willing to use force up to and including the use of deadly force.”

    The weapon stockpiling and additional hiring comes after the IRS was given over $80 billion in new funding as a result of the highly-partisan Inflation Reduction Act, which was worth $739 billion overall.

    The agency has since claimed that the $80 billion was necessary in order to hire nearly 87,000 new agents across the country over the next 10 years, which has raised concerns among Republicans about the weaponization of an agency that has already been used to target conservatives in the past.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 18:50

  • NYC's Novel Idea To Solve Rampant Car Theft Is Hand Out Free Apple AirTags
    NYC’s Novel Idea To Solve Rampant Car Theft Is Hand Out Free Apple AirTags

    Mayor Eric Adams announced that New York City would distribute hundreds of Apple AirTags to residents as part of a cunning plan to combat a spike in car thefts across the five boroughs.

    “The aggravated number of grand larceny autos continues to drive up crime in our city,” said Adams. These GPS-tracking devices are a “really amazing piece of ingenuity” and will allow police to track stolen vehicles. 

    He said the 500 AirTags will be distributed to residents in the coming days. The Association for a Better New York donated the devices amid a spike in crime. The latest data shows car thefts jumped 19.4% in the Bronx from this time last year. Citywide, the number of stolen vehicles has risen from 3,756 to 4,184, up 11.4%, over that same period. 

    NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell had this to say about the AirTags: 

    “It allows our officers to be more strategic while mitigating pursuits, keeping us safe and keeping the community safe.

    “Hopefully we recover your car undamaged, we take a bad guy off the streets, and you get a car back to conduct your business and it doesn’t impose on your life.”

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    While the mayor urged New Yorkers to use the AirTags, the internet laughed at the new plan… 

    “Democrats will do anything but enforce the laws,” a Twitter user said while replying to the story published by ABC News. 

    Someone questioned: “How is this going to help? The judges let the thieves go through their no bail program.” 

    People seem fed up with progressive city leadership… 

    “And then what? You track down the car with the thief still behind the wheel, what do you do? Arrest him for the 10th time and then let him out in 48 hours? I hope you’re buying a lot of air tags.” 

    This is all just for optics, as Adams fails to confront a wave of car thefts. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/03/2023 – 18:30

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