Aug 27

Today’s News 27th August 2024

  • How Qatar Spreads Chaos In The Middle East And Fuels Radical Islam In Europe
    How Qatar Spreads Chaos In The Middle East And Fuels Radical Islam In Europe

    Authored by Adam Starzynski via ReMix,

    People who have been following international news closely in recent years might have noticed that Qatar keeps appearing in the headlines and clearly punches well above its weight in world affairs for a country with only 300,000 citizens. 

    In this file photo, a Qatari employee of the Al Jazeera Arabic language TV news channel walks past the logo of Al Jazeera in Doha. Al-Jazeera. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)

    Lately, Qatar has been in the spotlight for housing the Hamas leadership while at the same time playing the role of the main negotiator, together with Egypt, for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Qatar also served as a safe haven for the Taliban for many years, and in 2020, facilitated a peace agreement between the United States and the Islamist group.

    In between, Doha has also managed to organize the World Cup in football and was behind the largest corruption scandal in the history of the European Parliament, known as “Qatargate.”

    However, Qatar’s main influence operation is its decades-long campaign to sponsor the spread of radical Islamist movements and mosques in the Middle East and Europe. Apart from sponsoring the construction of huge mosques and associations, Qatar is running an advanced media and PR campaign, creating fertile ground for these foreign Islamist movements to take root in their new countries.

    We all know about the violent Jihadist organizations such as al-Qaida, ISIS and Hamas. However, most people know very little about the most influential Islamist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. 

    Even fewer know that it has a patron state, and one that is broadcasting Muslim Brotherhood propaganda to hundreds of millions of homes across the world.

    Qatar has been using the immense wealth it has accumulated through its oil and gas to turn Al Jazeera into an international media conglomerate, spreading Muslim Brotherhood propaganda on a global scale.

    In order to fully comprehend the role played by this prominent Islamist organization, it is necessary to take a closer look at its roots. 

    The Muslim Brotherhood is strongly linked to three players: Egypt, Palestine and Qatar. It was founded in Egypt in 1928 by the cleric Hassan al-Banna as a reaction to how weak the Muslim world had become in relation to the West since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Al-Banna and other Muslim Islamists and modernists argued that the Muslim community was weak due to having become corrupted over the centuries and had to go back to practicing the pure Islam of Mohammed and the first Caliphs. 

    The movement spread like wildfire in Egypt and one of its most notable early accomplishments was its involvement in the Arab revolt in Palestine, which lasted from 1936 to 1939. The revolt failed, but the Brotherhood succeeded in making the issue of Palestine a widespread Muslim concern. After the Second World War, they lobbied for granting asylum in Egypt to Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who had collaborated with Nazi Germany during the war.

    After the 1952 military coup against the Egyptian monarchy, the military started treating the Brotherhood as a rival and a threat to their rule. Due to increasing pressure, many of their most important ideological leaders were forced to move to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Yusuf al-Qaradawi was the most important of these leaders. He was sent from the Al-Azhar University in Cairo in 1962 to head the Qatari Secondary Institute of Religious Studies. In 1977, he laid the foundation for the faculty dedicated to Shariah and Islamic Studies at the University of Qatar. Later, he became the host of a show on Al-Jazeera called “Sharia and Life” which had a viewership of around 80 million per episode, making him one of the most influential Muslim voices in the world.

    The royal family of Qatar, the House of Al-Thani, has since been using the Muslim Brotherhood as a tool to minimize political opposition against them. In exchange for allowing the Brotherhood to use the country as a base for its international operations, the Brotherhood makes sure that there is no political threat based on organized religion against the Qatari monarchy.

    Unfortunately, other countries are on the losing side of this deal. Qatar, Al-Jazeera and the Brotherhood cooperated in bringing the Muslim Brotherhood briefly into power in Egypt in 2011 and have sowed Islamist chaos throughout the Middle East since the Arab Spring, which started in 2011. It went so far that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Jordan cut ties with Qatar in 2017 and started a blockade against the country.

    Countries in Europe have also suffered, with Qatar being the main sponsor of mosques in which Brotherhood propaganda is taught and spread. In these same mosques, many Muslims have become radicalized and some are even convinced to join violent Jihadist organizations. Much of the money comes from the Qatar Charity, which has provided funding for at least 140 mosques, cultural centers, and Islamic schools in Europe. One of the most famous examples is the mega-mosque in Poitiers, which sits in the vicinity of the site of the Battle of Tours and Battle of Poitiers where Charles Martel, ruler of the Franks, stopped the advancing Muslim army of Abdul al-Rahman in the year of 732. 

    Today, the largest Muslim umbrella group in Europe is the Council of European Muslims, formerly known as the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), and is widely seen as a front organization of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. In 1997, it created the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), a private foundation composed of Islamic clerics and scholars that issues fatwas for Muslims living in Europe, with the intention of dictating to them how they must live their lives.

    It is worth asking who presided over this influential organization for the past decades. The answer? Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who operated from his headquarters in Qatar until his death in 2022. 

    The growth of radical Islam in Europe has been accelerating for the past 50 years. When will Qatar, Al Jazeera, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Council of European Muslims and the ECFR meet their “Poitiers” on the European continent?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/27/2024 – 02:00

  • The Quiet Before The Storms In Ukraine, Gaza, And Taiwan?
    The Quiet Before The Storms In Ukraine, Gaza, And Taiwan?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    There are three current hot or cold wars: on the Ukrainian border, in the regions surrounding Israel, and in the strategic space between Taiwan and mainland China.

    All three conflicts could not only expand within their respective theaters but also escalate to draw in the United States.

    And all three involve nuclear powers.

    • Various Russian megaphones routinely threaten to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Some boast about sending strategic nuclear bombs or missiles against its Western suppliers, especially as the costs of Russian aggression mount and the humiliation of Putin escalates.

    • Nuclear Israel and near-nuclear Iran have both exchanged attacks on their respective homelands—and promise to do so again.

    • China likewise on occasion existentially threatens Taiwan. Its freelancing generals and spokesmen periodically warn Japan and the U.S. of dire nuclear consequences should they intervene on Taiwan’s behalf.

    In all these theaters, there superficially appears to be stasis and deadlock:

    • Israel is said to be bogged down in Gaza as it seeks to neutralize 400 miles of subterranean command-and-control installations and munitions, find and rescue surviving Israeli hostages, and take out the Hamas leaders. And no one believes that the degradation of Hamas will mark the end of the war, given the agendas of Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran, to attack periodically and chronically the Jewish state.

    • Combined Russian and Ukrainian dead, wounded, and missing may be nearing one million. Experts argue about whether the current apparently successful Ukrainian counteroffensive towards Kursk inside Russia was merely a demonstration to gain diplomatic concessions. Or was it designed to take and hold ground inside the Russian homeland? Or intended to draw off Russian offensives to the southeast? Some call it brilliantly conceived but dangerous—given the risk of its ending like the ill-fated Battle of the Bulge German offensive of 1945 that achieved startling initial success but was soon ground down by superior numbers and ultimately weakened the overall German defense.

    • China has stepped up its harassment of Philippine forces and its rhetoric. It has upped its intrusions into Taiwanese airspace and waters while cementing strategic partnerships with Russia and Iran, even as it courts India and Turkey. Yet for now, China is not especially eager to attack Taiwan, given that it feels it is steadily gaining momentum in psychologically, strategically, and politically strangling the Taiwanese.

    Confusion and strategic pauses for the brief moment mark all these conflicts. In part, the hiatuses arose because of uncertainty surrounding the murky intentions and role of the United States. The latter is bogged down in an unpredictable if not bizarre election year, compounded by ambiguity about who is actually in control of the country and for how long, and who will be president after January 2025.

    The 2024 race saw the first-ever presidential debate held well before the formal nomination of candidates, the sudden forced removal of President Biden from his reelection candidacy, the abrupt coronation of a once-deemed-unimpressive Kamala Harris as his replacement, the inability or unwillingness of Harris to meet the media or give interviews, the continued apparent debility of Biden as he enters the last six months of his presidential tenure, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and the near-even presidential polls.

    While Russian and Ukrainian forces advance and retreat along their shared border, most experts privately feel that there is quiet consensus about an eventual armistice to end the Somme-like bloodbath. This will involve recognition of Russia’s control over the Donbas and Crimea that Putin attacked and de facto absorbed in 2014; a demilitarized border; and an autonomous and heavily armed but non-NATO Ukraine.

    Currently, Ukraine is running out of manpower, given its losses, draft problems, and a quarter of the population having fled the country. Russia has suffered twice as many casualties as Ukraine and faced blows to its military prestige. It has so far found no tactical or strategic pathway to absorb Ukraine as it intended with its February 2022 surprise attack on Kyiv.

    Yet the apparent ossification on the border may be illusory. If either side cracks and its enemy suddenly makes dramatic advances, a dangerous escalation could ensue, and rapidly so. Russia will likely not allow Ukraine to occupy for any extended period any Russian territory and will up its threats toward what it sees as an exhausted Ukraine and a tired NATO partnership.

    And NATO and the United States will likely never allow Russia to annex Ukraine in toto beyond the Donbas and Crimea. The longer the ensuing stagnation, the more likely one side will seek a dramatic breakthrough, and so the more likely becomes a greater war with third-party intervention and deadlier weapons.

    Turning to the second conflict, we find that Iran is now in a dangerous position of its own making. It has loudly promised Israel and boasted to the Muslim world that it will attack the Jewish homeland for a second time within a year. Hezbollah threatens to join in, perhaps along with anemic contributions from Hamas and the Houthis.

    Yet does Iran really believe that even a missile and drone launch twice the size of its last huge but failed barrage—say 640 projectiles—will seriously injure Israel? Even with the confusion and chaos in the U.S., is Tehran really convinced that the U.S. and some of its European and Arab allies will not again intervene to protect their own assets or their own or international airspace, by knocking down Iranian aerial attacks?

    In short, Iran’s rhetoric and the provocations of its satellites have put it in a lose/lose situation: to save face the theocracy feels it must honor its threats and attack Israel, but it also knows it may not be able to do much damage, while earning a second retaliatory response potentially far more grievous and far more warranted in international eyes than Israel’s prior successful but largely demonstrative missile launch.

    Ditto Hezbollah. It hopes that its some 150,000 rockets and drones will do real damage in concert with an Iranian attack but accepts that it will certainly earn in response a devastation of Shiite Beirut and its environs far in excess of what it suffered in 2006. The damage from that conflict took a generation to repair, with hundreds of miles of roads, thousands of homes, and billions of dollars in infrastructure destroyed.

    So, like the Ukrainian conflict, the Middle East war is only temporarily on pause. And it will continue until Iran or Israel seeks to break the stalemate in a second phase that would make the Gaza campaign seem minor in comparison and be far more likely to draw in outside powers—especially if the United States appears feeble and unable to protect its traditional ally Israel.

    As for the third, still-bloodless conflict: China envisions strategy globally rather than regionally. It helps to fuel the stalemate in Ukraine, on the grounds that its traditional rival turned temporary friend Russia is hurting the West by consuming its money, weapons, and attention—while conveniently hurting itself in the process.

    China is openly aiding Iran, not because it is especially friendly to radical Islam (cf. its treatment of the Uyghurs) or innately hostile to the Jewish state. Instead, it simply welcomes these tensions that cause radical domestic upheaval and political dissension inside America, while drawing U.S. naval and air assets far away from the South China Sea.

    China’s operating principle seems to be to watch and wait for the outcome of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, given that both tax Western powers. It is eager and patient to see how the conflicts end, especially whether Russia achieves by force its apparent goals, and whether Iran and its proxies permanently redefine the future of the Middle East. These outcomes will serve to indicate the level of potential Western resistance to or intentional condemnation of its own planned annexation of Taiwan.

    In conclusion, we are entering a very dangerous five-month period.

    Joe Biden has been judged by the American people in the polls as too enfeebled to be reelected and declared by his own party to be too cognitively challenged to remain its nominee. That may suggest to foreign risk-takers that the U.S. president is deemed unfit by Americans themselves and thus conclude there might be a vacuum of rapid-response leadership at the White House.

    The unspoken corollary is that the American people and both their political parties are certain that, while Biden is incapable of continuing as a normally engaged president through the last half-year of his tenure, he will nevertheless inevitably do so. And that conclusion is likely shared by enemies abroad, who may surmise that if there ever was a time to alter the current geostrategic map or the relative balance of power, that rare occasion is now on the horizon.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 23:25

  • In Stunning Letter To Congress, Zuckerberg Admits Biden-Harris Pressured Facebook To Censor Content
    In Stunning Letter To Congress, Zuckerberg Admits Biden-Harris Pressured Facebook To Censor Content

    Two years ago Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted to Joe Rogan that the FBI pressured Facebook into censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story.

    Now he’s participating in a Congressional investigation.

    In a stunning Monday evening letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Zuckerberg admitted that senior Biden administration officials “repeatedly pressured” Facebook teams to suppress information related to COVID-19 that the platform would not have otherwise censored – and the administration ‘expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.’

    Zuck now says that Facebook should not have compromised its standards “due to pressure from any Administration in either direction.”

    “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” reads the letter. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”

    He’s also committed and “ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsZuckerberg also said that Facebook shouldn’t have censored the NY Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop story – and said that the FBI had warned the platform “about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election.”

    “That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply,” reads the letter. “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.“

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    He also points out in the letter that “some people believe this work benefited one party over the other.”

    According to Zuck, Facebook “no longer temporarily demotes things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers.”

    Speaking of demoting stories, Facebook began censoring ZeroHedge in 2019 – with links to our articles met with a popup that said “the link you tried to visit goes against our community standards.”

    In June, the Supreme Court ruled that states and individual plaintiffs who challenged the Biden administration’s censorship complex don’t have standing to sue because they cannot establish a clear link between the government’s pressure and the platform’s actions.

    What will Jim Jordan do with this information?

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 23:00

  • "It's A Nightmare In Every Direction": In Communist Cuba, Elderly Left To Struggle On $10 Pensions
    “It’s A Nightmare In Every Direction”: In Communist Cuba, Elderly Left To Struggle On $10 Pensions

    Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Cubans continue to flee a worsening economy in record numbers while the elderly have been left behind, fighting to survive on the communist regime’s $10 monthly pension and a critical lack of basic supplies.

    An elderly woman sits on her bed in Holguin, Cuba, on April 27, 2012. STR/AFP/GettyImages

    Food, power, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical shortages have ignited persistent protests this year and driven Cuba’s ongoing exodus of working-age adults.

    The result has been nothing short of devastating for the country’s retirees.

    “It’s a nightmare in every direction. This is an SOS. Cuba is about to collapse in a fatal way,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, a long-time anti-Cuban regime activist and president of the Democracy Movement in Miami.

    “People can’t really imagine, especially from outside, making elderly people live in such inhumane conditions,” Sanchez told The Epoch Times.

    “Because of the deterioration of the economy and the lack of interest of the Cuban regime, they aren’t helping those who need it,” he said. “Retirement pension maybe allows you to buy a dozen eggs a month. That’s it.”

    With one of the oldest populations in Latin America, Cuba ranks high in its number of citizens older than 65 years, according to the Cuban Research Institute and Florida International University report.

    The report noted the number of elderly dependents for every 100 working-age adults could soon reach 28 with the soaring volume of migrant outflows that began in 2022 expedited the problem.

    U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 425,000 illegal immigrant Cubans during fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

    An additional nearly 200,000 have been arrested in fiscal year 2024 through July.

    These numbers have eclipsed previous large-scale migrations from Cuba to the United States, including the 1965–1973 Freedom Flights (approximately 300,000 Cubans) and the 1980 Mariel Boatlift (about 125,000 Cubans).

    Plummeting birth rates have also fueled the acceleration of Cuba’s aging population for decades.

    The trend became noticeable in the 1980s, but Cuba has been below replacement birth rates since 1978, according to an analysis published in the journal JSTOR.

    The study authors stated that fertility rates climbed past 30 births per thousand citizens for several years following Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

    However, once the initial optimism of the communist regime faded, that rate declined by the late 1960s.

    As of 1980, Cuba’s birth rate plummeted to a historic low of 14 per thousand.

    An elderly woman shows a “libreta,” a ration card, which since 1963 has allowed Cubans to buy basic food supplies at subsidized prices, in Santiago de Cuba on July 10, 2013. The deterioration of the economy is leaving many struggling for survival. –/AFP via Getty Images

    As of 2024, the site Macrotrends observed Cuba’s birth rate now stands at just over nine per thousand.

    In 2023, the deputy head of Cuba’s state-run National Office of Statistics and Information, Juan Carlos Alfonso Frag, appeared on the television program “Mesa Redonda” to address concerns over Cuba’s aging population.

    Frag said the country has endured low fertility and high mortality rates for four years straight.

    Meanwhile, relatives of Cubans living on the island say the lack of food and medical supplies is creating daily survival challenges for their loved ones.

    Living on as little as $10 a month from their government pension, Sanchez explained that people who are too old to work often lack proper medication and nutrition.

    Sanchez said the country’s communist party isn’t interested in helping its most vulnerable citizens, many of whom are former supporters of Castro’s revolution or even worked for the communist party.

    Sanchez said Cuba’s entrenched regime now complains it doesn’t have enough money to pay out the pensions, claiming the country’s finances are too tight.

    “People are dying. Elderly people are fainting in the streets from a lack of nutrition,” he said.

    The daily survival fight for Cuba’s older residents is personal for Sanchez.

    Sending Help

    Of retirement age himself, Sanchez has a close friend to whom he has sent medical equipment and other supplies on many occasions.

    Most recently he shipped health care items after his friend broke a leg.

    Even the most basic medical supplies are scarce in Cuba.

    Sanchez described the situation his friend dealt with upon arriving at a hospital with his leg broken in three places.

    Exiled activist Ramon Saul Sanchez (3rd R), leader of the Democracy Movement, speaks during a press conference at a local restaurant in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami on Aug. 3, 2006. Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

    “They took a used cast they had propped up in the corner and put it around the knee. Then they put a piece of clothing to hold it in place and sent him home.”

    When the leg didn’t heal, Sanchez’s friend was told by a doctor he’d need surgery.

    “I had to send him everything for them [doctors] to do the surgery,“ Sanchez said with a heavy sigh. ”I’m literally talking about everything you need to do surgery.”

    Without an urgent care package of antibiotics, bandages, stitches, and even anesthetics, Sanchez said his friend’s surgery wouldn’t have been possible.

    Like so many, most of his friend’s family have either left the island or passed away.

    Sanchez said his organization helps hundreds of Cubans in the same situation. Some have families in the United States that can ship supplies, but others are trapped and have no lifeline at all.

    “We get calls like this every single day,” he said.

    Author, co-founder, and spokesperson for the Cuban Democratic Directorate, Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, confirmed this.

    “There is a severe shortage of medication because the regime is bankrupted and has no credit anywhere in the world,” he told The Epoch Times via text.

    Boronat said the elderly are now paying a disproportionate price for years of economic mismanagement at the hands of Cuba’s regime.

    This is especially concerning in healthcare, given the higher number of medical conditions that afflict the elderly.

    In response to the mounting crisis, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel fired economic minister Alejandro Gil Fernández in March.

    This is underscored by multiple reports of health care worker and water shortages at Cuban hospitals.

    Read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 22:35

  • New Study Explores How Food Choices Shape Mental Health
    New Study Explores How Food Choices Shape Mental Health

    Authored by Jennifer Sweenie via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A study out of the University of Reading has found that a poor-quality diet may be associated with changes in the brain structure that are linked to depression and anxiety. This research provides new insights into the connection between what we eat and our mental well-being.

    While the authors did not find a direct association between brain changes and anxiety or depression, they did see an increase in rumination, a common risk factor of the two.

    Billion Photos/Shutterstock

    What the Study Found

    The study is the first to examine the relationship between diet quality and brain neurochemistry in humans. Thirty adults were divided into two groups based on whether they followed a high- or low-quality diet. Participants in both groups were similar in age, gender, education, income, and caloric and macronutrient intake.

    The quality of the diet was defined by adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Participants reported how frequently they ate 130 different food items, their consumption frequency, and food intake habits. Screening questionnaires were administered to assess current depression, anxiety, and rumination levels. Whole brain MRI scans measured prefrontal cortex metabolite concentrations and gray matter volume.

    The study found that participants in the low-quality diet group had lower levels of GABA, higher levels of glutamate, and reduced gray matter volume in the brain—markers commonly seen in depression and anxiety. Those in the high-quality diet group had balanced levels of GABA and glutamate and a larger volume of gray matter in the brain.

    GABA and glutamate are neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that transmit signals between nerve cells and regulate various processes in the brain and body, such as mood, sleep, and cognition. Gray matter in the brain is involved in memory and emotions.

    The researchers noted a trending relationship between increased rumination and decreased frontal gray matter volume. The researchers also observed a correlation between increased glutamate concentrations and increased rumination. Rumination is a major risk factor for anxiety and depression.

    A 2019 animal study published in Food & Function showed that a diet high in sugar and saturated fat can decrease the number of parvalbumin interneurons (which contain and release GABA).

    Poor-quality diets can also influence glucose and raise blood sugar and insulin levels. Studies show that high blood sugar may raise glutamate levels and subsequently lower the production and release of GABA.

    Additionally, high-fat and high-cholesterol diets can also alter cell membranes, which can affect the release of neurotransmitters. A mouse study published in Nutritional Neuroscience in 2019 found that changes to the gut microbiome due to a poor diet are associated with depression-like behaviors. The mice were less social and exhibited a preference for sucrose, or table sugar.

    Specifically, a reduction in good bacteria resulting from a diet rich in saturated fats is believed to influence the processes responsible for producing GABA and glutamate.

    GABA and glutamate also play a significant role in regulating appetite and food intake. Decreased GABA or elevated glutamate levels may affect inhibitory control and could contribute to unhealthy food choices and overeating.

    The Diet and Mental Health Connection

    Andreas Michaelides, chief of psychology at Noom, told The Epoch Times in an email, “GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid) is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, meaning it reduces neuronal excitability and helps calm the brain. When GABA levels are stable and adequate, they help reduce anxious thoughts by calming the brain.”

    Michaelides explained that glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter that heightens neuronal activity and is involved in learning and memory. Excessive glutamate activity can injure or kill neurons and damage the brain.

    “The balance between GABA and glutamate is crucial for healthy brain function,” said Michaelides. “When we have low levels of GABA, we have increased anxiety and depression.”

    Concerning glutamate levels, “certain symptoms and conditions, including anxiety, insomnia, and headaches, may indicate excessive glutamate activity,” he said.

    How to Optimize Mental Health With Diet

    Removing common culprits from your diet that disrupt neurotransmitter balance may support mental health and well-being.

    “Certain foods can lower GABA levels or interfere with its natural function. Those foods are processed foods, alcohol and caffeine,” said Michaelides.

    “Diets high in processed foods, refined sugars, and excessive protein can increase glutamate levels, these foods either directly contain glutamate or promote its production,” he added.

    Processed foods and sugary snacks and beverages are also high in trans fats and refined sugars.

    “These foods can cause inflammation and have been linked to higher rates of depression and anxiety. They can disrupt brain function and mood stability,” said Michaelides.

    Rapid blood sugar fluctuations may also lead to mood swings and anxiety, with consistent consumption contributing to long-term mood instability.

    It’s also best to limit alcohol consumption. Michaelides said, “Alcohol is a depressant that can disrupt neurotransmitter balance, leading to increased anxiety and depression over time.”

    Excessive amounts of caffeine are also best avoided, as they can interfere with sleep and exacerbate anxiety.

    When it comes to what to include in your diet to support mental health, appropriate protein intake is key.

    “To have healthy neurotransmitter production, you must have proper protein intake,” said Michaelides.

    When our bodies digest proteins, they are broken down into smaller molecules called amino acids. Amino acids make up neurotransmitters.

    “In short, ensuring a varied protein intake supports optimal neurotransmitter function and mental health,” he said.

    Sources of high-quality protein from fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel come with an added mental health boost. These high-quality proteins are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce inflammation and support neurotransmitter production, which is linked to lower risks of depression and improved cognitive function.

    Other foods to add to your diet for a mental health boost include leafy green vegetables for their folate content. Michaelides noted that a folate deficiency is associated with a higher risk of depression.

    Berries offer a boost in antioxidants and “protect the brain from oxidative stress, a factor linked to mental health disorders,” he added.

    Nuts and seeds are excellent sources of magnesium, and sufficient magnesium intake is linked to reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression, he said.

    Michaelides also recommends fermented foods such as kimchi and yogurt. “They promote a healthy gut microbiome, which can influence brain chemistry and improve mood,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 21:45

  • Canada Hits China With 100% Tariff On Electric Cars
    Canada Hits China With 100% Tariff On Electric Cars

    Who needs Trump for an all-out trade war between the West and China.

    Taking a page out of Europe’s playbook, Canada will impose staggering new tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, aluminum and steel, lining up behind western allies and taking steps to protect domestic manufacturers.

    Speaking in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was gathered with the rest of his cabinet for a series of meetings about the economy and foreign relations Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled the new policy which consists of a 100% levy on electric cars and 25% on steel and aluminum. The EV tariff will take effect Oct. 1 and will also include certain hybrid passenger automobiles, trucks, buses and delivery vans. It will be added to an existing 6.1% tariff that applies to Chinese EVs, the government said in a news release.

    The levies on aluminum and steel will come into place Oct. 15. The government released an initial list of goods on Monday and the public will have a chance to comment before it is finalized on Oct. 1.

    Turdeau’s (sic) government is also launching a new 30-day consultation on other sectors, including batteries and battery parts, semiconductors, solar products and critical minerals.

    Turd-O

    “We are transforming Canada’s automotive sector to be a global leader in building the vehicles of tomorrow,” the prime minister told reporters in Halifax. “But actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace, compromising the security of our critical industries and displacing dedicated Canadian autos and metal workers.”

    Honda and other automakers have said that they plan to spend billions of dollars building electric vehicle and battery factories in Canada

    Canada, an export-driven economy that relies heavily on trade with the US, has been closely watching moves by the Biden administration to erect a much higher tariff wall against Chinese EVs, batteries, solar cells, steel and other products. Canada’s auto sector is heavily integrated with that of its closest neighbor: The vast majority of its light vehicle production, amounting to just 1.5 million units last year, is exported to the US.

    Turdeau’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has been one of the most prominent voices in favor of a harder approach to Chinese vehicle exports, and becoming a closer trade ally with the US. In June, she announced a public consultation on possible measures to make it more difficult for Chinese companies to sell electric vehicles in the Canadian market. During an interview with Bloomberg News in July, she said the tariffs consultation might go beyond electric cars.

    The government also announced Monday that it will limit eligibility for electric vehicle incentives to products made in countries that have negotiated free-trade agreements with Canada. It will review the new levies within a year of them coming into effect.

    We previously reported that the European Union also announced proposed new tariffs on electric vehicles important from China, though at lower levels than the US and now Canada are proposing. Products made by SAIC Motor Corp. face additional duties of 36.3%, while Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. and BYD Co. each face tariffs of 19.3% and 17%, respectively, according to a draft decision released last week. Tesla Inc. will see an extra 9% charge on Chinese-made vehicles.

    Chinese leaders plan to raise the issue of tariffs when US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan visits this week, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Sullivan is due to meet with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and may also meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

    And now we wait to see what China’s tat will be to Canada’s tit: Beijing previously retaliated against Canada when it restricted imports of Canadian canola seed for three years, a move seen as retribution for a decision by Canada authorities to arrest Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on a US extradition warrant. Meng returned to China in 2021.  

    The value of Chinese electric vehicles imported by Canada surged to C$2.2 billion ($1.6 billion) last year, from less than C$100 million in 2022, according to data from Statistics Canada. The number of cars arriving from China at the port of Vancouver jumped after Tesla started shipping Model Y vehicles there from its Shanghai factory.

    However, the Canadian government’s main concern isn’t Tesla, but the prospect of cheap cars made by Chinese automakers eventually becoming available. As Bloomberg reports, BYD informed the Canadian government in July that it intends to lobby lawmakers and officials about its plans to enter the country.

    Trudeau also faced political and industry pressure. The Canadian auto sector had been pushing him to hike tariffs to protect domestic jobs and wages, arguing that China’s EVs are cheaper due to much weaker labor standards. The government has also bet big on automakers and manufacturers from democratic allies: the government has agreed to to multibillion-dollar subsidies for electric vehicle plants or battery factories for Stellantis NV, Volkswagen AG and Honda Motor Co., among others.  

    Steel and aluminum producers in Canada have also publicly and repeatedly urged the government to restrict China’s access, saying that Xi’s industrial policy allows the Asian powerhouse to unfairly flood foreign markets, putting local jobs at risk.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 21:20

  • When Smartphones Get Smarter, Do We Get Dumber?
    When Smartphones Get Smarter, Do We Get Dumber?

    Authored by Makai Allbert via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As Mohamed  Elmasry, emeritus professor of computer engineering at the University of Waterloo, watched his 11 and 10-year-old grandchildren tapping away on their smartphones, he posed a simple question: “What’s one-third of nine?”

    Instead of taking a moment to think, they immediately opened their calculator apps, he writes in his book “iMind Artificial and Real Intelligence.”

    Illustration by The Epoch Times, Freepik, Getty Images

    Later, fresh from a family vacation in Cuba, he asked them to name the island’s capital. Once again, their fingers flew to their devices, “Googling” the answer rather than recalling their recent experience.

    With 60 percent of the global population—and 97 percent of those under 30—using smartphones, technology has inadvertently become an extension of our thinking process.

    However, everything comes at a cost. Cognitive outsourcing, which involves relying on external systems to collect or process information, may increase one’s risk of cognitive decline.

    Habitual GPS (global positioning system) use, for example, has been linked to a significant decrease in spatial memory, reducing one’s ability to navigate independently. As AI applications such as ChatGPT become a household norm—with 55 percent of Americans reporting regular AI use—recent studies found it is resulting in impaired critical thinking skills, dependency, loss of decision-making, and laziness.

    Experts emphasize cultivating and prioritizing innate human skills that technology cannot replicate.

    Neglected Real Intelligence

    Referring to his grandkids and their overreliance on technology, Elmasry explains that they are far from “stupid.”

    The problem is they are not using their real intelligence.

    They, and the rest of their generation, have grown accustomed to using apps and digital devices—unconsciously defaulting to internet search engines such as Google rather than thinking it through.

    Just as physical muscles atrophy without use, so too do our cognitive abilities weaken when we let technology think for us.

    A telling case is now called the “Google effect,” or digital amnesia, as shown in a 2011 study from Columbia University.

    The current generation has grown accustomed to using apps and digital devices. hughhan/unsplash, Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

    Betsy Sparrow and colleagues at Columbia found that individuals tend to easily forget information that is readily available on the Internet.

    Their findings showed that people are more likely to remember things they think are not available online. They are also better at recalling where to find information on the Internet than recalling the information itself.

    A 2021 study further tested the effects of Googling and found that participants who relied on search engines such as Google performed worse on learning assessments and memory recall than those who did not search online.

    The study also showed that Googlers often had higher confidence that they had “mastered” the study material, indicating an overestimation in learning and ignorance of their learning deficit. Their overconfidence might be the result of having an “illusion of knowledge” bias—accessing information through search engines creates a false sense of personal expertise and diminishes people’s effort to learn.

    Overreliance on technology is part of the problem, but having it around may be just as harmful. A study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research discovered that “the mere presence” of a smartphone reduced “available cognitive capacity”—even if the phone was off or placed in a bag.

    The Epoch Times

    This “brain drain” effect likely occurs because the presence of a smartphone taps into our cognitive resources, subtly allocating our attention and making it harder to concentrate fully on the task at hand, researchers say. Excessive tech use does not only impair our cognition, clinicians and researchers have also noticed it being linked to impaired social intelligence—the innate aspects that make us human.

    Becoming Machine-Like

    In the United States, children aged 8 to 12 typically spend 4 to 6 hours a day on screens, while teenagers may spend up to 9 hours daily on screens. Further, 44 percent of teenagers feel anxious, and 39 percent feel lonely without their phones.

    Excessive screen time reduces social interactions and emotional intelligence and has been linked to autistic-like symptoms, with longer durations of screen use correlated with more severe symptoms.

    Dr. Jason Liu, a medical doctor who also has a doctorate in neuroscience, is a research scientist and founding president of the Mind-Body Science Institute International. Liu told The Epoch Times he is particularly concerned about children’s use of digital media.

    He said he has observed irregularities in his young patients who spend excessive time in the digital world—noticing their mechanical speech, lack of emotional expression, poor eye contact, and difficulty forming genuine human connections. Many exhibit ADHD symptoms, responding with detachment and struggling with emotional fragility.

    “We should not let technology replace our human nature,” said Liu.

    Corroborating Liu’s observations, a JAMA study followed about 3,000 adolescents with no prior ADHD symptoms over 24 months and found that a higher frequency of modern digital media use was associated with significantly higher odds of developing ADHD symptoms.

    The Epoch Times

    As early as 1988, scientists introduced the concept of the “Internet Paradox,” a phenomenon in which the Internet, despite being a “social tool,” leads to antisocial behavior.

    Observing 73 households during their first years online, researchers noted that increased Internet use was associated with reduced communication with family members, smaller social circles, and heightened depression and loneliness.

    However, a three-year follow-up found that most of the adverse effects dissipated. The researcher explained this through a “rich get richer” model, where introverts experienced more negative effects from the Internet, while extroverts, with stronger social networks, benefited more and became more engaged in online communities, mitigating negative impacts.

    Manuel Garcia-Garcia, global lead of neuroscience at Ipsos, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience, told The Epoch Times that human-to-human connections are vital for building deeper connections, while digital communication tools facilitate connectivity, they can lead to superficial interactions and impede social cues.

    Supporting Liu’s observation of patients becoming “machine-like,” a Facebook emotional contagion experiment, conducted on nearly 700,000 users, manipulated news feeds to show more positive or negative posts. Users exposed to more positive content posted more positive updates, while those seeing more negative content posted more negative updates.

    This demonstrated that technology can nudge human behavior in subtle yet systematic ways. This nudging, according to experts, can make our actions and emotions predictable, similar to programmed responses.

    The Eureka Moment

    “Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe,” stated theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.

    While the most advanced technologies, including AI, may appear sophisticated, they are incommensurate with the human mind.

    “AI is very smart, but not really,” Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, professor of psychology at Temple University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Epoch Times. “It’s a machine algorithm that’s really good at predicting the next word. Full stop.”

    The human brain is constructed developmentally, and it’s “not just given to us like a computer is in a box,” Hirsh-Pasek said. Our environment and experiences shape the intricate web of neural connections, 100 billion neurons interconnected by 100 trillion synapses.

    Human learning thrives on meaning, emotion, and social interaction. Hirsh-Pasek notes that computer systems like AI are indifferent to these elements. Machines only “learn” with the data they are fed, optimizing for the best possible output.

    A cornerstone of human intelligence is the ability to learn through our senses, said Jessica Russo, a clinical psychologist, in an interview with The Epoch Times. When we interact with our environment, we process a large amount of data from what we see, hear, taste, and touch.

    AI systems cannot go beyond the information they have been given, and they, therefore, cannot truly produce anything new, Hirsh-Pasek said.

    “[AI] is an exquisitely good synthesizer. It’s not an exquisitely good thinker,” she said.

    Humans, however, can.

    Read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 20:55

  • Pakistan: Over 70 Dead As Gunmen Storm Highways, Execute Civilians In 24 Hours Of Terror
    Pakistan: Over 70 Dead As Gunmen Storm Highways, Execute Civilians In 24 Hours Of Terror

    A massive coordinated terror attack on several locations in southwestern Pakistan has left at least 70 dead over a 24-hour period of terror which started Sunday night.

    The attacks were the work of a separatist group called the Baluch Liberation Army (BLA), which claimed responsibility. It started with bombings and gunfire targeting a national military camp in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province, which left at least one soldier dead.

    In the same area, gunmen stormed four police stations, setting vehicles on fire. By morning, a key bridge in the area was also attacked and destroyed. But the situation escalated when militants attacked a major highway in a town called Bela. They intercepted traffic and then proceeded to execute people, reports say.

    National highway in Musakhail district, Balochistan province, via AFP

    Several groups of BLA gunmen went on a rampage, and other motorways were targeted as well, seemingly at random, though authorities say in some instances the attackers were seeking to kill individuals of specific ethnic groups.

    “Vehicles travelling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot,” a regional report indicates.

    Many of the reported dead are the militants themselves, amid a heavy police and military response. A list of some of the major attacks are as follows:

    The country’s military said 14 soldiers and police, as well as 21 militants, were killed in fighting after the largest of the attacks, which targeted vehicles on a major highway in Bela, a town in Lasbela district.

    In a separate attack in Musakhel district, local officials said at least 23 civilians were killed after attackers determined they were from Punjab, with 35 vehicles set ablaze.

    And in Kalat, 10 people were reported to have been killed – five police and five civilians – after a police post and a highway were attacked.

    In some places, the dead and wounded are still being accounted for, with recovered bodies being examined for identification.

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    The New York Times describes of the horrific moment where summary executions of civilians were carried out on a random highway:

    The deadliest single attack in the campaign so far unfolded in Musakhel, a district in Baluchistan, officials said, when armed men stopped traffic on a highway and demanded that passengers on buses and trucks show them their identity cards, officials said.

    The gunmen forced some of the passengers out of the vehicles, and then shot and killed them, officials said. Nearly all of the victims were from Punjab Province, officials said, and the gunmen set at least 10 buses and trucks ablaze before fleeing the area.

    While the region has witnessed long-running, internecine violence, Monday marks one of the worst and most gruesome attacks in the modern history of Pakistan given the random nature of the attacks on civilians. As a result, there is growing anger among the populace at the major intelligence and security failure.

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    “No form of terrorism is acceptable in the country,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said in addressing the nation. “Our fight against terrorism will continue until the complete elimination of the scourge.”

    The southwest region has witnessed separatist and radical Islamic terrorist organizations for years waging a long-running insurgency against the government and its foreign partners, accusing Islamabad of exploiting the population of the region.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 20:30

  • Should The Dollar Be Backed By Gold?
    Should The Dollar Be Backed By Gold?

    Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    Amidst all the talk about the Federal Reserve’s high interest-rate policy to combat its many years of monetary expansion and debasement, some people advocate the restoration of the monetary system on which the United States was founded — one in which, they say, the dollar was “backed by gold.”

    But there is one great big flaw in that idea: Under America’s founding monetary system, the dollar never was “backed by gold.” Instead, the official money of the nation for more than 125 years was gold coins and silver coins. Those coins didn’t back anything because they constituted the nation’s official money itself.

    The Framers wanted nothing to do with paper money. They knew that historically paper money had been the way that governments had plundered and looted people through monetary expansion — that is, inflation of the paper-money supply. By printing up ever-increasing amounts of paper money to fund its operations, the government’s inflation of the money supply would cause the value of everyone’s money to fall. That decrease in value would be reflected in rising prices of the things that money would buy.

    At the time the Constitution was being proposed, Americans themselves had just recently experienced the ravages of inflation with the paper money that the Revolutionary Congress had issued during the Revolution. The basic unit of money during that time was called the Continental. The Revolutionary Congress printed so many Continentals that the value of everyone’s money dropped to near zero. A popular refrain became “Not worth a Continental.”

    Thus, the Framers wanted to come up with a monetary system that prevented government officials from debasing the value of people’s money. They knew that a paper-money system would not be likely to accomplish that goal. So, they came up with a system in which the official money of the country would be gold coins and silver coins. They knew that government officials could not print up vast quantities of gold coins and silver coins, like they could do with paper money.

    The Constitution called into existence a government of limited powers. Its powers were limited to those powers that were enumerated in the Constitution. If a power wasn’t enumerated, it could not be exercised.

    Thus, the Constitution granted the federal government the power to coin money. Obviously, paper cannot be coined. On the other hand, gold and silver can be coined.

    During that time, paper money was known as “bills of credit.” The Constitution did not grant the federal government the power to issue “bills of credit” or paper money. Therefore, the federal government could not issue paper money. Since it was empowered only to coin money, the government issued gold coins and silver coins as the official money of the United States. That went on for more than 125 years.

    Under the Constitution, the states were in a different position. They had the inherent powers of government that had characterized governments throughout history — the traditional “police powers” to provide for the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people. However, there was an exception to such powers — if the Constitution prohibited the states from exercising a particular power, they were precluded from doing so.

    That’s what the Constitution did with respect to the states’ monetary powers. States were expressly prohibited from issuing “bills of credit” or paper money. They were also expressly prohibited from making anything but gold and silver legal tender.

    1907 $20 gold coin.

    The Constitution also empowered the federal government to borrow money. That meant the government could issue bills, notes, and bonds. But even though the bills would oftentimes circulate in payment of goods and services, everyone understood that they were promises to pay money, not money itself. The money these instruments of indebtedness promised to pay was gold coins and silver coins, the official money that had been established by the Constitution.

    The principle was the same with respect to bills, notes, and bonds issued by state governments. They were all promises to pay gold coins and silver coins, not paper money “backed by gold.”

    This gold-coin/silver-coin monetary system turned out to be the finest monetary system in history, one in which the federal government did not plunder and loot people through inflation for more than 125 years.

    The stability of this monetary system was one of the major contributing factors in the tremendous increase in the standard of living of the American people, especially by the time of the end of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century.

    It all came to an end in the 1930s, when the Franklin Roosevelt administration decreed an end to America’s gold-coin/silver-coin system and replaced it with an irredeemable paper-money system.

    What was amazing is that FDR did this without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment and, just as bad, that the Supreme Court let him get away with it.

    The result has been the same as it has been throughout history — the plundering and looting of people through monetary debasement.

    Is the solution to implement a monetary system in which the dollar is “backed by gold”? No! As the Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist Friedrich Hayek proposed, the solution is to separate money and the state. That means the repeal of legal-tender laws, the abolition of the Federal Reserve, and the end of all governmental involvement in money.

    Let the free market decide the concept of money. The free market produces the best of everything. It would produce a monetary system that would be even better than the gold-coin/silver-coin system on which our nation was founded and which lasted for more than a century.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 20:05

  • IBM Nukes R&D Division In China, Affecting 1,000 Jobs, Report Says
    IBM Nukes R&D Division In China, Affecting 1,000 Jobs, Report Says

    Shanghai-based business and financial media outlet Yicai reported on Monday that International Business Machines (IBM) plans to shut down its research and development division in China, impacting over 1,000 employees. This comes as China’s economic slowdown gathers pace and US companies are increasingly exiting the world’s second-largest economy, opting for ‘friend-shoring’ or ‘reshoring’ to secure supply chains amid vast uncertainty with deteriorating Sino-US relations. 

    Yicai explained that the IBM China Development Lab and IBM China System Lab would be wound down, and over 1,000 employees would be cut. 

    Here’s more from the Shanghai-based media outlet:

    China was once IBM’s most well-established regional market outside of the United States, and the R&D division’s shuttering marks a significant turning point in the firm’s 40 years in China. IBM shut its China Research Lab in January 2021, whose main product was Watson, a computer system launched in 2011 that can answer questions raised in natural language.

    “I’ve served IBM for several decades, and the shutdown of its Chinese R&D division is a pity,” one IBM employee commented.

    “The R&D division’s closure will only impact testers, who are not responsible for R&D in the strict sense,” a person who worked in many US software companies told Yicai. “IBM actually moved its entire R&D division to the US years ago.”

    “IBM will adjust its operation based on needs,” IBM China said. “These changes will not impact our ability to support customers in China.”

    IBM’s move to shutter its R&D facilities in China should be seen as part of a broader trend of ‘friend-shoring’ or ‘reshoring,’ in which US companies move toward friendlier, more stable environments amid deteriorating US-Sino relations.

    In recent years, Apple’s move to diversify its production from China to India and elsewhere only suggests that this trend will continue through the end of the decade. Companies exiting China are turning to the Americas, such as the US and Mexico, India, Japan, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and Japan. 

    The major shift out of China by Western companies, plus the nation’s property crisis and demographic winter, only suggests that the growth rates of 8, 9, 10, and 11% might never be achieved in this decade, and 2, 3, and 4% growth rates are the new normal. These growth rates might be even lower in the next decade. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 19:40

  • Macgregor: America's Reckoning With Reality
    Macgregor: America’s Reckoning With Reality

    Authored by Colonel Douglas Macgregor (ret.) via TheAmericanConservative.com,

    The Republican and Democratic National Conventions, always heavy on glamor and light on substance, are over. It’s time to move beyond sloganeering and address reality.

    In the United States, the price of food is up 21 percent in three years. Thirty-year mortgage rates were 3.7 percent; they are now 7 percent. Rents are skyrocketing, car loan delinquencies are rising and, last year, there were at least 150,000 reports of American children going missing in what is becoming a child-trafficking emergency.

    Millions of Americans think that our society is experiencing a moral collapse. Divorce is widespread, single parents struggle to raise children, drug abuse is rampant, suicide rates are high, and the rule of law is collapsing across the country.

    Is it really a surprise that Americans doubt their institutions, their courts, even the leadership of their own armed forces? Americans feel disconnected from their collective, national identity. Shamed into isolation and self-hatred under the oppressive weight of mass-media, pop-culture, and official deceit, Americans feel helpless to stop their freefall into nihilism—the belief in nothing, not justice or beauty, no divine influence, just nothing.  

    Americans feel like their homeland is being transformed into a wasteland. More and more Americans think that taxation without representation is the norm in all 50 states, not just in DC. Voting for one or another of the major parties, Democrats or Republicans, does little to arrest the nation’s descent into chaos.

    What does Washington’s ruling political class of so-called Democrats and Republicans, hereafter referred to as the Uniparty, think?

    Frankly, the Uniparty does not care.

    While American wages declined, and jobs dried up Washington’s ruling political class grew rich from insider deals and cronyism. Since January 2021, America’s 750 billionaires have increased their wealth by $1.5 trillion. Like the political figures the billionaires pick to run the government, including 5,000 political appointees, they have no “skin in the game.”

    The Uniparty celebrates trashy, degenerate events like the opening ceremony for the Olympics in Paris. Americans who object to the degradation of Christianity and Western values and beliefs are dismissed as bigots, extremists, or White Christian Nationalists.

    Americans want to know what is happening to their country. Americans want to know why they are living in a world where the ugly pretend to be beautiful and the beautiful are being brainwashed to think that they are ugly.

    Part of the answer is that the politics of identity are no longer just a campaign strategy. They are now a reality, a permanent feature of America’s political landscape.

    Why else would General C.Q. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, complain that the U.S. Armed Forces have too many white pilots? Anyone who thinks that the federal programs for diversity, inclusion, and equity are sincere and mean anything other than hatred for our country and the generations of Americans that fought and died for it is extremely naive. It’s like suggesting the Ku Klux Klan was pro-civil rights in the 1960s.

    Thanks to open borders, a system of “one ballot, one vote” is replacing “one citizen, one vote.” Thanks to this system of institutionalized fraud, Americans can expect the Uniparty’s new crop of illegal foreign “voters,” a mix of future dependents, lawbreakers, low-skilled workers, to show up on November 5 and vote to decide America’s future. These are also the masses of foreigners, with no ties to our society, that the ruling class wants to staff our armed forces.

    Why would the Uniparty inflict this damage on the American People?

    The Uniparty knows that, without common identity or kinship, democracy is replaced with tribal anarchy, a societal condition that leads to nihilism, drug abuse, criminality, and worse.  

    The goal is painfully obvious. It is the denationalization of the United States, the fundamental destruction of national identity and the social cohesion that supports it. The process involves the conversion of Americans into an amorphous mass of sedated consumers. The transformation of the U. S. Armed Forces into mercenary military formations staffed by illegal migrants is an enormously important step in the direction of denationalization.

    After all, before Americans won their independence, their national identity rested on the shoulders of the Continental Army. If General Washington could hold the Continental Army together despite fearful odds, our country and its governing body—congress—existed.  The Continental Army was, and today’s Armed Forces still are, the repository of American national Identity.

    The Uniparty rejects these charges. Instead, the Uniparty tells us how fortunate we are to welcome tens of millions of foreigners into our country where they will enhance our culture, society and way of life. Really, how many “Rs” are there in “fat chance?”

    Meanwhile, the Uniparty promotes the sexualization of children in our public school systems. Naturally, the Uniparty pretends to care for the workingman or woman, and it promises everything to everyone for nothing in perpetuity—tuition-free college, free health care, free housing, free everything. The Uniparty is giving non-paying, illegal immigrants access to our healthcare system.

    How the Uniparty will pay for these things is a question no one answers. Servicing the national debt on an annual basis already involves a sum larger than the defense budget. Are the presidential candidates aware? Do they care? For the Uniparty, none of these concerns matters. The daily life of the Uniparty is about self-enrichment, sensual pleasure, and social prestige. The Uniparty motto is “When in doubt, print more money.” 

    Equally troubling is the Uniparty’s enthusiasm for war. In fact, the Uniparty sees enormous benefit to war, even to the point of turning over control of the U.S. Armed Forces to the direction of a foreign power for use in a major war that will escalate to involve other nuclear-armed powers.

    But Americans are not stupid.

    Americans know that open borders are not a net benefit, and they know that modern war is not a game or an event that occurs only on foreign soil. The new, emerging constellation of potential adversaries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East is no longer a loose collection of hapless opponents without armies, air forces, navies, air defenses, or persistent surveillance from seabed to space.  

    President Abraham Lincoln was right: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

    The time for Americans to halt the destruction is upon us.

    The question is whether Americans will remain bystanders or intervene to save the Republic.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 19:15

  • Big US Corn Crop Pressures Chicago Prices To Four-Year-Low Amid Severe Farm Income Downturn
    Big US Corn Crop Pressures Chicago Prices To Four-Year-Low Amid Severe Farm Income Downturn

    Corn prices in Chicago slid to a four-year low on Monday following a bearish crop yield outlook that forecasted record highs for the US by the end of the harvest season. While this is favorable news for consumers, it spells continued disaster for farmers, whose incomes are expected to plummet this year due to declining agricultural prices and rising expenses. 

    The Pro Farmer Crop Tour projected a record corn yield of 181 bushels on average per acre nationwide. If this forecast comes to fruition, then this would be a record high. The forecast also sees production of around 15 million bushels, similar to the USDA’s estimates. 

    Adam Davis, chief investment officer at Farrer Capital, told Bloomberg that corn prices could be nearing a bottom, with most negative factors already priced in. He noted, “It’s likely that US farmers might hold onto supplies to push up prices, adding, “Pro Farmer just confirmed what we already knew.”

    Late last week, Brian Grete, leader of the eastern leg of the Pro Farmer Crop Tour, which completed the four-day crop survey, told Bloomberg, “There are big yields out there, both corn and beans.” 

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    “Ironically, many American farmers aren’t celebrating the bumper crops. Mega-harvests are creating a host of challenges, as the ample inventories pushed soybean and corn futures to the lowest since 2020 last week,” Bloomberg added. 

    Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade slid under $4 a bushel in recent weeks, nearing early 2020 lows. Prices have been halved since peaking around $8 in April 2022. Money managers have increased bearish bets on the grain to the most in three weeks.  

    Other grains, such as soybeans and wheat, have been pressured lower with corn over bumper harvest outlooks. 

    Meanwhile, USDA warned earlier this year that projected farm incomes were expected to crash 26% this year, the largest drop since 2006. 

    With small farms in total collapse, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week that his support for former President Trump would include making America’s small farms great again. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 18:50

  • 50 Things That Everyone Should Be Stockpiling To Prepare For Election Chaos
    50 Things That Everyone Should Be Stockpiling To Prepare For Election Chaos

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    Are you getting prepared?  Right now, millions of Americans are stockpiling food and supplies in anticipation of what they believe is coming.  People are on edge due to the approaching election, the rapidly escalating war in the Middle East, the alarming natural disasters that we have been witnessing all around the world, and the potential for another great global pandemic. 

    In all my years, I have never seen more concern about the next 12 months as I am seeing at this moment. 

    There is a growing consensus that major history changing events are about to happen, and there are lots and lots of people that want to be well prepared. 

    In fact, Newsweek has reported that “doomsday prepping” has become a 2.46 billion dollar industry…

    The once-fringe act of doomsday prepping is evolving into a booming $2.46 billion industry, tapping into a societal pulse of self-reliance amidst a world of uncertainties.

    Whether driven by the aftershocks of a post-COVID-19 environment, supply-chain disruptions, natural calamities, or geopolitical tensions, the narrative of disaster preparedness is shifting from the outskirts of society to mainstream households.

    When I was growing up, I never once heard the words “prepper” or “prepping”.

    But now a very large portion of the population is actively preparing for the collapse of society.

    According to numbers that come from FEMA, approximately 20 million Americans have prepared well enough to be able to be on their own for at least a month…

    According to an analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency data, some 20 million Americans can withstand a full month of self-reliance. Within that number, there are those who identify as part of “preppers” communities online, which include enthusiasts stocking up on years’ worth of supplies or building bunkers.

    Of course being prepared to survive for one month is not going to be nearly good enough to survive what is eventually coming.

    But at least it is something.

    These days, even Costco is marketing to preppers…

    Amid Costo’s already stocked shelves of oversized jars of peanut butter and 12-pack macaroni and cheeses, there’s a hardcore new addition that is lighting up social media: The Readywise 150 Serving Emergency Food Bucket. For $100, the bucket includes 80 dinners, 30 breakfasts, and 40 energy drinks with a shelf life of—prepare yourself for this—25 long years.

    “In a world where unpredictability has become a constant,” reads the description, “our assortment takes on a vital role in emergency preparedness. Imagine the sudden onset of severe weather, the challenges of unexpected job transitions, or the unsettling thought of food shortages.”

    In addition to selling emergency food buckets, Costco has also become “a huge seller of gold and silver bars and coins”…

    The wholesale club is also a huge seller of gold and silver bars and coins, which are extremely popular among those who are concerned about a breakdown of the financial system. (A one-ounce silver coin is currently worth about $30.)

    Needless to say, it isn’t just Costco that has embraced this trend.

    These days, many local supermarkets carry emergency food right on their store shelves.

    And I think that is a great thing.

    But for what we are eventually going to be going through, you are going to need a whole lot more than just food.

    If you really want to be well prepared, you should consider everything that you will need if there is no power and you can no longer get anything from the stores because supply chains have completely broken down.

    I have shared a list of 50 basic things that I believe that everyone should be stockpiling in a couple of my books, and today I would like to share that list with all of you…

    #1 A Conventional Generator And A Solar Generator

    #2 A Berkey Water Filter

    #3 A Rainwater Collection System If You Do Not Have A Natural Supply Of Water Near Your Home

    #4 A Large Emergency Medical Kit

    #5 Rice

    #6 Pasta

    #7 Canned Soup

    #8 Canned Vegetables

    #9 Canned Fruit

    #10 Canned Chicken

    #11 Jars Of Peanut Butter

    #12 Salt

    #13 Sugar

    #14 Powdered Milk

    #15 Bags Of Flour

    #16 Yeast

    #17 Lots Of Extra Coffee (If You Drink It)

    #18 Buckets Of Long-Term Storable Food

    #19 Lots Of Extra Vitamins

    #20 Lighters Or Matches

    #21 Candles

    #22 Flashlights Or Lanterns

    #23 Plenty Of Wood To Burn

    #24 Extra Blankets

    #25 Extra Sleeping Bags

    #26 Ammunition

    #27 Extra Fans If You Live In A Hot Climate

    #28 Hand Sanitizer

    #29 Toilet Paper

    #30 Extra Soap And Shampoo

    #31 Extra Toothpaste

    #32 Extra Razors

    #33 Bottles Of Bleach

    #34 A Battery-Powered Radio

    #35 Extra Batteries

    #36 Solar Chargers

    #37 Trash Bags

    #38 Tarps

    #39 A Pocket Knife

    #40 A Hammer

    #41 An Axe

    #42 A Shovel

    #43 Work Gloves

    #44 Lots Of Warm Socks

    #45 Seeds For A Garden

    #46 Canning Jars

    #47 Extra Supplies For Your Pets

    #48 A Substantial Emergency Supply Of Cash

    #49 Bibles For Every Member Of Your Family

    #50 A “Bug Out Bag” For Every Member Of Your Family

    There are some important points that I want to make about this list.

    First of all, this is not a comprehensive list.  It is simply a starting point.

    Secondly, preparation is going to look different for everyone.  Your unique circumstances will dictate what “getting prepared” looks like for you.

    Thirdly, you will not need your emergency food and supplies yet.

    You will not need them tomorrow.

    You will not need them next week.

    You will not need them next month.

    But the day is most certainly coming when you will need them.

    If you wait until then to get prepared, you will be out of luck.

    Getting sufficiently prepared for what is approaching takes an enormous amount of time, effort and energy.

    But it will be worth it.

    We are moving into times of immense societal chaos.  This election is going to tear our country apart, vast numbers of people will die during the wars and famines that are ahead of us, it is just a matter of time before the next global pandemic strikes, and if you live long enough you are going to get to witness cataclysmic natural disasters that are beyond anything that Hollywood has ever dreamed up.

    Right now, we are still only in the very early stages of this “perfect storm”, but I fully expect global events to start moving very, very rapidly in the coming months.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 18:25

  • Another Pete Buttigieg Failure? Merchant Marine Manpower Deficit Sidelines 17 Support Ships For Wartime  
    Another Pete Buttigieg Failure? Merchant Marine Manpower Deficit Sidelines 17 Support Ships For Wartime  

    Former President Trump warned on Sunday, “There will be no future under Comrade Kamala Harris, because she will take us into a Nuclear World War III!” 

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    Far-left activists within the Biden-Harris administration have spent what appears to be more time prioritizing their woke religion than effectively managing the nation as the war in Eastern Europe broadens, regional conflict fears elevated in the Middle East, and South China Sea threats rise. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is the prime example of a woke activist within the admin, pushing “racial equity in roads” and diversity hiring in the FAA’s hiring practices. 

    Buttigieg is an ineffective manager, and it’s no surprise why. He’s more focused on pushing far-left activism and spreading woke ideology through the federal government than on doing his job. His mishandling of the Ohio train derailment, the failed nationwide EV charger rollout, and a string of mid-air mishaps in commercial aviation are just a few examples of his incompetence.

    The list of failures is quickly growing with Buttigieg, and this time, it’s more serious than ever, as maritime news website USNI News reported:

    “Military Sealift Command has drafted a plan to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels across the Navy.” 

    The support ships are part of the Merchant Marines fleet, overseen by the Maritime Administration, an agency of the Department of Transportation, which makes this Buttigieg’s responsibility at the end of the day.

    Fox News Digital spoke with Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, stated that the Merchant Marines don’t have enough manpower to keep the 17 support ships operational. These include replenishment vessels, tankers, and other crucial ships needed to deliver military personnel and weapons worldwide. 

    Under Buttigieg’s watch, this has morphed into a crisis of war preparedness, as the Biden-Harris team seems to be mishandling conflicts around the world, which has stoked, as Trump said, nuclear war risks. 

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    USNI provided more color on the labor shortage affecting Merchant Marines: 

    The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday.

    Based on the crew requirements on the platforms, sideling all the ships could reduce the civilian mariner demand for MSC by as many as 700 billets.

    A defense official confirmed the basic outline of the plan to USNI News on Thursday. Two sources identified the forward-deployed sea bases as USS Lewis Puller (ESB-3), based in Bahrain in U.S. Central Command, and USS Hershel “Woody” Williams (ESB-4), based in Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, Greece, and operated in U.S. European and Africa Command.

    A Navy official, when contacted by USNI News, acknowledged the service was working on a plan to retask civilian mariners but did not provide details.

    The new effort, known informally as “the great reset” has yet to be adopted by the Navy and is awaiting approval from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, USNI News understands.

    The Military Sealift Command operates a fleet of logistics ships that refuel and resupply the Navy’s ships around the world and are crewed by 5,500 civilians who are employed by the Navy.

    Across the MSC there are about 4,500 billets for mariners on a wide variety of U.S. support ships ranging from resupply vessels, fleet oilers that refuel ships and aircraft, salvage ships, the Navy’s two command ships, submarine tenders and hospital ships.

    For every billet on an MSC ship there are about 1.27 mariners to fill the positions, a ratio that two former MSC master mariners told USNI News on Thursday was unsusstainable.

    “If you’re required to have 100 people on a vessel. There are only 27 more people on shore at any given time to rotate those crew members,” a former MSC mariner told USNI News.

    At that ratio, a mariner would be at sea for four months and off for about a month ­and then return.

    “That math just doesn’t work,” the former mariner told USNI News.

    “No one is able to have a healthy work-life balance and be able to get off the ship and get adequate time to go home, have time at home with their family, take leave, take care of medical requirements [in that timeframe]. There is so much training required of every billet at MSC to stay proficient with Navy requirements and training and merchant marine credentialing.”

    Montgomery also told Fox, “There’s a lack of experienced merchant mariners to crew the ships, and this is really a clear danger to national security.” 

    Yet, there will never be any accountability for Buttigieg’s mounting failures to the taxpayers. His latest failure threatens the logistical backbone of the entire Navy while nuclear war threats are quickly rising.

    Voters should demand accountability and ask why Buttigieg is more focused on “racial equity in roads” than winning the next world war. 

    Failure after failure by the Biden-Harris administration, with zero accountability for taxpayers, has many folks asking if the nation is being purposely undermined.  

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 18:00

  • China Gains Secret Access To Nvdia Microchips By Renting Computers
    China Gains Secret Access To Nvdia Microchips By Renting Computers

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    The US has blocked export of Nvdia chips to China. But where there’s profit, there’s a way.

    Sanctions Fail Again and Again

    The Wall Street Journal reports China’s AI Engineers Are Secretly Accessing Banned Nvidia Chips

    Chinese artificial-intelligence developers have found a way to use the most advanced American chips without bringing them to China.

    One entrepreneur helping Chinese companies overcome the hurdles is Derek Aw, a former bitcoin miner. He persuaded investors in Dubai and the U.S. to fund the purchase of AI servers housing Nvidia’s powerful H100 chips.

    In June, Aw’s company loaded more than 300 servers with the chips into a data center in Brisbane, Australia. Three weeks later, the servers began processing AI algorithms for a company in Beijing.

    “There is demand. There is profit. Naturally someone will provide the supply,” Aw said.

    Renting far away computing power is nothing new, and many global companies shuffle data around the world using U.S. companies’ services such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. However, those companies, like banks, have “Know Your Customer” policies that may make it difficult for some Chinese customers to obtain the most advanced computing power.

    The buyers and sellers of computing power and the middlemen connecting them aren’t breaking any laws, lawyers familiar with U.S. sanctions say. Washington has targeted exports of advanced chips, equipment and technology, but cloud companies say the export rules don’t restrict Chinese companies or their foreign affiliates from accessing U.S. cloud services using Nvidia chips.

    Buyers and sellers of computing power use a “smart contract” in which the terms are set in a publicly accessible digital record book. The parties to the contract are identified only by a series of letters and numbers and the buyer pays with cryptocurrency.

    The process extends the anonymity of cryptocurrency to the contract itself, with both using the digital record-keeping technology known as blockchain. Aw said even he might not know the real identity of the buyer. As a further mask, he and others said Chinese AI companies often make transactions through subsidiaries in Singapore or elsewhere.

    One decentralized GPU provider with more than 40,000 chips in its network, io.net, advertises in its user guide that it doesn’t impose know-your-customer restrictions. This “allows users to access GPU supply and deploy clusters in less than 90 seconds,” it says.

    Meanwhile, Aw is raising more money from a group of investors in Saudi Arabia and South Korea. They plan to build a cluster of Nvidia’s latest Blackwell chips for another Singapore company with a Chinese parent.

    “No one is breaking the export controls,” Aw said. “Legally speaking, they are Singapore companies.”

    Know Your Customer’s Customer’s Customer

    China sets up an AI company in Singapore.

    AI developers buy cloud time through a subsidiary that further masks the operation by paying in Bitcoin.

    In turn, the subsidiary buys time from a company Dubai or Singapore that hosts the servers.

    US politicians outraged. But some of us are amused knowing full well that sanctions don’t work.

    And instead of cloud profits going to US corporations, the profits go to Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Dubai, and South Korea.

    Only Amazon is forced to “know your customer”.

    Flashback Lesson

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    Massive Failure of Sanctions

    Sanctions don’t work but they do drive up prices and/or create competition for US companies.

    The beneficiary is either the sanctioned company, as in the case of China’s EV maker Xiaomi, or intermediaries as in today’s example.

    Biden Eases Sanctions on Venezuela, Blocks Rare Earth Mining in Alaska

    On April 21, 2024 I noted Biden Eases Sanctions on Venezuela, Blocks Rare Earth Mining in Alaska

    What a hoot. How’s that great tradeoff working out?

    Since we know the answer, here’s our real question of the day: Is robin Brooks finally ready to throw in the towel on the effectiveness of sanctions?

    If he responds, I will add an addendum.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 17:40

  • "It Was So Brazen": Squatters Seize Multi-Million Dollar Mansion Next To LeBron James
    “It Was So Brazen”: Squatters Seize Multi-Million Dollar Mansion Next To LeBron James

    Los Angeles Realtor to the stars John Woodward says squatters have taken over a multi-million dollar mansion across the street from LeBron James.

    Jack Dempsey/AP

    Soon after listing the property at 1316 Beverly Grove Place in Beverly Hills, Woodward got a call from the pool boy letting him know that someone had shown up with a U-Haul to move in. Given that he hadn’t sold the house yet, he drove down to see what was going on – and ended up calling the police to report an active crime; these people were breaking into the house.

    According to the Daily Caller, when the police showed up, the squatters produced a fake lease, which the cops of course accepted as proof, and told Woodword to pound sand – forcing him to pursue justice through the backlogged and ideologically biased LA court system.

    “These guys are professional squatters,” he told the Caller. “They know what they’re doing, they know they’re going to eventually be kicked out of there, but they get a free place in a nice neighborhood before the legal system kicks in.”

    And boy did the squatters enjoy their time. The quiet, affluent neighborhood turned into the biggest party street in Los Angeles. For months, the squatters hosted all-night raves filled with hundreds of people, illicit drug use and thumping dance music that lasted into the morning. They even allegedly sold entry to the parties, making thousands off the stolen property.

    It was so brazen, you would think the police would shut it down after one night — especially in a ritzy neighborhood like Beverly Hills. That’s all we hear from the media these days; the police only care about helping rich white people. -Daily Caller

    One neighbor, Fran Solomon, was forced to flee her dream home after police refused to do anything about the parties.

    “They were loud, they were disruptive. The fire trucks would come in, the police would come in. The neighbors would be calling the police and nothing was able to be done about this,” Solomon explained to the Caller.

    “We realized that they were squatters,” she continued, “and squatters, I guess, have rights.”

    After months of media attention, the squatters were finally evicted.

    One California handyman has found a way to get rid of squatters…

    As the Epoch Times reports, Squatting is a widespread problem, says Flash Shelton, a handyman and anti-squatting activist from Northern California. But he says he’s found a solution.

    Shelton said he successfully got his mother’s house back from a group of squatters in 2019. He has since turned his experience into a career, helping others facing similar situations.

    Shelton said on a recent episode of EpochTV’s “California Insider” that in 2019 after his father passed away, he moved his mother into his home. However, when they tried to sell her house, he discovered that a group of people had broken in and taken over.

    After contacting law enforcement, he quickly learned that since the squatters had moved in with furniture to make it appear they lived there, it was considered a civil matter rather than a criminal one, leaving the authorities unable to act.

    Although squatting or trespassing on a vacant property is illegal in California, the situation becomes complicated when law enforcement are unable to determine whether people are trespassers or have a legitimate claim to the space.

    The presence of furniture and personal belongings can create the appearance of a tenant-like situation, which may force the property owner to follow formal eviction procedures rather than having the squatters removed as trespassers.

    Instead of enduring the lengthy eviction process, Shelton found a “backdoor” solution: becoming a squatter in his mother’s house to oust the squatters.

    “I figured that if I could become their squatter and switch places with them, that I would assume those rights,” he told the show’s host, Siyamak Khorrami.

    He asked his mother to sign a lease granting him legal rights to the property. He then returned to the house and set himself up as the new “tenant.”

    “As soon as they left the driveway, I went into the house, secured the back door, put up cameras, set up an alarm system, and then when they arrived back, I told them I have possession of the house,” he said.

    The squatters eventually left.

    Vulnerable Seniors

    His story later went viral online, leading other homeowners facing similar situations to reach out to him for help.

    “I’m running into people that have been squatting for years, and elderly people that have been living with squatters for multiple years because they don’t have the resources or the family to help them,” Shelton said.

    Flash Shelton, a handyman and anti-squatting activist from Northern California, interviews with EpochTV’s “California Insider” show. Taras Dubenets/The Epoch Times

    He said many seniors are vulnerable to squatters, because individuals can exploit the seniors’ need for live-in caregivers and move into a home legally.

    Shelton highlighted the case of an 88-year-old woman in Culver City who initially thought a caregiver was moving into her home, but the woman did not provide any caregiving.

    The elderly woman contacted the caregiver’s employer to have her removed but was told they had fired the caregiver and could not help remove her from the house.

    Shelton said these cases often leave homeowners with no choice but to seek legal assistance, which can be both daunting and expensive.

    He cited another case where a family returned from a two-week vacation to find their home occupied by a squatter. They spent $138,000 and endured a year-long legal battle to reclaim their property, all while continuing to pay their mortgage.

    “There’s a misconception that if you own a home, you have money,” Shelton said. “But people that own a home will argue that just because you own a home, you own a mortgage, you don’t own a bank account.”

    Shelton also noted other types of squatters, including those who sign a lease and pay only the first month’s rent before stopping payments, and individuals who turn Airbnb units into party venues, charging admission or offering rentals on properties they do not own.

    Calling himself the “Squatter Hunter,” Shelton now owns a business that helps homeowners nationwide remove squatters in a legal and safe way.

    According to his website, Shelton first consults with the clients via Zoom. Then his team signs a month-to-month lease with the homeowner and moves in with the squatters, similar to his approach in his mother’s case. He also coordinates with law enforcement beforehand to ensure safety during the process.

    Don’t Turn Off the Lights

    He advises property owners not to turn off utilities, as this can lead to legal issues. In California, shutting off utilities as a “self-help” eviction tactic is illegal.

    “Not only is it against the law, but if you turn off the utilities on a squatter, it gives them the option to turn the utilities on in their name,” he said. “If they have the utilities, they will have more proof that they live there.”

    He also recommends homeowners install cameras and alarm system to document break-ins or trespassing, allowing them to report incidents to law enforcement promptly.

    Additionally, he advises using locking mailboxes to prevent squatters from accessing any mail sent to the property.

    “It could be as easy as them starting to send mail to the address and then finding one time that you’re not home and they get to the mail first,” he said. “They pull out things with their name on the mail and keep it with them.”

    “Now they break into your home when you’re on vacation. All they needed was a [piece of] mail to show law enforcement that they live there.”

    Solving the Root Problem

    Most importantly, Shelton said, laws must be changed to protect homeowners.

    “The lines between tenants and squatters are blurred. Right now, squatters are taking advantage of the fact that California is a very tenant-friendly state,” he said.

    The rise in squatting is due to a lack of consequences, according to Shelton. He said that introducing jail time or penalties would greatly deter people from squatting.

    “If we can change the laws so that squatting is actually a criminal offense instead of a civil one, it’s going to prevent squatting,” Shelton said. “[We can] make a clear distinction between squatters and tenants, giving tenants all the rights they deserve, but making that threshold higher.”

    He added that his goal is not to evict needy individuals but to hold accountable those who exploit legal loopholes.

    “Homeless people have more pride than squatters,” Shelton said. “I have a heart for the homeless. My family and I were homeless when I was a kid.

    “It’s the career squatter … that intentionally harms others. Those are the ones that are not safe. I’m going to do everything I can to get your home back and get those squatters out where they belong.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 17:20

  • Special Counsel Smith Asks Appeals Court To Revive Trump Documents Case
    Special Counsel Smith Asks Appeals Court To Revive Trump Documents Case

    Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times,

    Special counsel Jack Smith has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to reverse Judge Aileen Cannon’s order dismissing the Justice Department’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents.

    “The Attorney General validly appointed the Special Counsel, who is also properly funded,” the special counsel said in a brief to the appellate court on Aug. 26.

    “In ruling otherwise, the district court deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorized the Special Counsel’s appointment, and took inadequate account of the longstanding history of Attorney General appointments of special counsels.”

    Cannon ruled in July that Smith’s appointment as special counsel violated the U.S. Constitution, specifically the appointments and appropriations clauses.

    In a 93-page ruling, Cannon wrote that Smith’s prosecution of the former president “breaches two structural cornerstones of our constitutional scheme—the role of Congress in the appointment of constitutional officers, and the role of Congress in authorizing expenditures by law.”

    The ruling raised questions about the Justice Department’s use of special counsels.

    The judge ruled that Smith was an inferior officer, which requires Congress to authorize the attorney general to appoint him as special counsel, which didn’t happen.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 17:00

  • It's Not Right Versus Left; It's Sane Versus Insane…
    It’s Not Right Versus Left; It’s Sane Versus Insane…

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    “RFK, Jr. Murders Whale With Chainsaw!”

    “Our society is now a strange hybrid of the Middle Ages, the Third Reich, and Brave New World. We have two classes – lords and peasants; we are in the midst of a very profitable genocide; and it’s all infused with surveillance technology, mind-altering drugs, and wall-to-wall propaganda.”

    – Dr. Toby Rogers

    The alliance between Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Donald Trump is many things. But first it’s an all-clear signal to a large class of less-than-fully brain-damaged Americans that it’s okay to quit being insane.

    As you know, this election is no longer a battle between the political Left and Right. It’s an epic struggle-session between the sane and the insane.

    You just witnessed the Democratic Convention nominating an empty pantsuit whose only record as a high government official is failure to protect and defend the nation and to support its constitution. All arranged without any real votes cast. Pretty neat trick, pulled off under the banner of Saving Our Democracy. Please understand that it was the result of hypnotizing so many vulnerable personalities into a mass formation psychosis. They were vulnerable because they are scared stiff by propaganda specifically targeting their deepest archetypal fears — in this case, fear of Daddy, meaning fear of behavioral boundaries, in short, of being civilized.

    Thus, the advocacy for Hamas terrorists (Israel = Old Testament = moral boundaries), abortion (no more babies = die-off of cultural line), drag-queens (“mother” = demonic imposter), open border (border = nation’s boundary), the Ukraine War (“Let’s You and Him Fight”), censorship (hatred of fairness), mandates and lockdowns (destroy purposeful, meaningful, productive life), and so on. The propaganda engineered to produce this madness surely comes from our intel blob. They have devoted all the years since the founding of the CIA in 1947 to developing and refining their methods of mindfuckery. They have unleashed it lately at full force because they fear that Mr. Trump will deconstruct their intel blob and possibly prosecute some of its current and former officials for serious crimes such as treason, misprision of felonies, and murder.

    The final ingredient in all that is submission of the populace to these programmatic suggestions.

    Simply put, they yield to the fears induced in them. Try to enter the mind of a committed Democratic voter. You’ll discover that you are locked out. Sharing of thoughts is impossible because there is no thought in there, only disordered emotion.

    Ask a Democrat what they think Donald Trump actually did as president for four years. I guarantee you they will say only one thing: he cancelled abortion.

    Which is actually not true. He nominated several Supreme Court Justices who ruled that abortion properly belonged under the jurisdiction of the fifty states. (It was the act of ruling that drove them nuts because rules = boundaries.)  Of course, all the single batshit crazy cat-ladies of Boston, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Denver, and Los Angeles now raging over the issue are free to abort themselves to their hearts’ content.

    So, Kamala Harris emerges from this Cluster-B personality disorder exercise in hypnosis (the convention) as the avatar of . . . “joy” . . . in the absence of any ideas about actually running the government of a country which, for the moment, is run by nobody because the current president (“Joe Biden”) is both mentally unfit and on permanent vacation. None of this is very promising. The raptures of “joy” tend to obscure the idea that there is a future to be concerned about.

    Enter Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

    He explained his view of the situation and his role in it with unsurpassed clarity last Friday in a powerful and moving speech outlining a decision that must have been very painful for him. As I averred he would do last Friday morning, he denounced the party of his ancestors in unequivocal terms for coming to militate against its own traditional principles — opposing war, fighting for free speech, helping poor working people, and against weaponizing government agencies. He threw his support to Mr. Trump because it’s become obvious that Mr. Trump’s aims and ideas are more in-tune with those forsaken principles of Mr. Kennedy’s father and his uncle, JFK.

    And now he’ll campaign on behalf of Mr. Trump, with the expectation that he will play an important, well-defined role in the next Trump administration — in charge of a range of public health issues that he is deeply familiar with from decades of litigation and researching the books about pharmaceutical racketeering actually written by himself.

    It’s Monday after the convention. What’s on the candidates’ campaign schedule today. CNNs “Campaign Latest” page says that Mr. Trump will give a speech in Detroit today to the National Guard Association where he is expected to greet the endorsement of former Rep. (and Lt. Col. In the National Guard, Tulsi Gabbard). Kamala Harris has no public appearances scheduled, but CNN reports that she has raised a fabulous $540-million since her launch a few weeks ago. Isn’t that nice? Boolah boolah, lotsa moolah. On Wednesday, Ms. Harris and her veep sidekick, Tim Walz, embark on a bus tour around Georgia. Bus tours will be the signature of their campaign.

    Let me tell you what that means: instead of flying expeditiously between campaign stops where they might have to state some positions on public issues, Harris & Walz will eat up many hours on long bus rides from Point-A to Point-B, hiding from the public and the press.

    Bobby Kennedy, meanwhile, is cramming as many media appearances as possible into his schedule, submitting to questions about everything, including the latest barrage of accusations about his fully-disclosed personal history.

    Fox has had him on several programs, though the other cable news stations are ignoring him, as are The New York Times and the WashPo, except to publish scurrilous stories from his mindfucked siblings and cousins – the latest being that he cut the head off a dead whale on the beach at Cape Cod with a chainsaw.

    Readers are supposed to construe that to mean he murdered a whale with a chainsaw.

    *  *  *

    Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 16:20

  • Dow Hits Record High But Nasdaq Dumps As Oil & Gold Jump
    Dow Hits Record High But Nasdaq Dumps As Oil & Gold Jump

    Amid the doldrums of summer liquidity, today saw some give back from Friday’s euphoric response to Jay Powell’s latest flip-flop.

    Rate-cut expectations declined (most notably focused on a shift from 2024 to 2025)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Stocks – broadly-speaking – did not love it and gave some back with the Nasdaq the biggest loser (and S&P dragged down by Tech). The Dow managed to reach a new all-time high before purging most of it back.

    It’s been an interesting couple of days for Mag7 stocks…

    Source: Bloomberg

    …as the world readies for NVDA’s earnings…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The dollar rallied modestly, erasing some of the dovish decline…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Despite the dollar gains, gold rallied…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Treasury yields rose modestly (just 1-2bps), but remain down from pre-Friday panic. The short-end continues to outperform…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Oil prices also continued to rebound, with WTI back above $77…

    Source: Bloomberg

    After surging above $65,000 twice over the weekend, Bitcoin was sold (ubiquitously) during the US day session

    Source: Bloomberg

    …and ETH is now at its weakest relative to BTC since the start of the DeFi boom…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, while the seasonals are holding up for now, the worst period of the year looms (September H2)…

    BTFD to all-time high, then STFR and rest for post-election surge?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 16:00

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Aug 26

Today’s News 26th August 2024

  • 10 Reflections On Ukraine After Its Latest Independence Day Celebrations
    10 Reflections On Ukraine After Its Latest Independence Day Celebrations

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    Ukraine celebrated its 33rd Independence Day on Saturday, during which time Zelensky made a hyper-aggressive speech boasting about his forces’ ongoing invasion of Kursk. So much has happened in the over 900 days since the latest phase of this already decade-long conflict began that many have forgotten how everything got to this point.

    The one-third of a century since Ukraine declared its independence from the USSR is therefore a fitting time to share some reflections about this country:

    1. A Country That Grew Out Of A Concept

    “Ukraine” means “borderland”, but it used to be the heartland of Kievan Rus. It was only after that civilization’s destruction by the Mongols, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s subsequent control over its central-western remnants, and then that polity’s merger with Poland that the borderland concept began to take shape once what’s nowadays Ukraine became the frontier between their Commonwealth and Russia. This centuries-long process led to the creation of a distinct identity and eventually a country.

    2. National Identity Remains Contentious

    Two schools of thought arose with regards to national identity: the radical one obsesses over their differences with Russia and fiercely hates it while the moderate one is more focused on socio-economic development and won’t rule out cooperation with Russia. The struggle between these two has defined the Ukrainian national movement since its inception. The radicals are predominant right now, but they’re nervous that the moderates might make a comeback, ergo why they continue persecuting them.

    3. Socio-Economic Collapse Was Avoidable

    Ukraine had over 50 million people at the time of independence and a rich Soviet industrial inheritance that was then fueled by generously subsidized Russian resources, all of which could have turned it into one of the most prosperous countries in Europe, but the opportunity was squandered. Its population is now estimated to be 36 million people and its non-stop deindustrialization made it the poorest country in Europe. All credible forecasts suggest that Ukraine’s socio-economic collapse will further worsen.

    4. Incorrigible Corruption Killed The Country

    The abovementioned collapse was caused by Ukraine’s incorrigible corruption since competing oligarchic cliques cared more about their personal economic interests than the nation’s objective ones. Different ones came to control different Ukrainian leaders, and with time, these cliques and their politicians came to be influenced – and in some cases outright controlled – by foreign forces too. Widespread awareness of this systemic problem gave rise to well-intentioned protest movements that were also later co-opted.

    5. Color Revolutions Were Never The Solution

    Many Ukrainians sincerely thought that the Color Revolutions of 2004-2005 and 2013-2014 would liberate their country from corrupt oligarchs and finally give them the future they deserved since 1991, but that was never the solution since these were really weaponized protests orchestrated by the West. The whole point was to co-opt the public’s anger by capitalizing upon legitimate grievances in order to aid their allied oligarchic factions in a coup de grace against Russia’s as part of a geopolitical power play.

    6. Hegemonic Goals Predetermined The Proxy War

    “EuroMaidan” was a ploy to pivot Ukraine towards the US at Russia’s expense by turning it into NATO’s easternmost vanguard. This hegemonic goal aimed to coerce Russia into a series of incessant concessions that would ultimately neutralize its sovereignty and was influenced by Brzezinski’s precept that Russia ceases to be an “empire” without Ukraine in its sphere of influence. The largest conflict in Europe since World War II would never have broken out had it not been for the US’ pursuit of this.

    7. From Faux Democracy To Actual Dictatorship

    Ukraine was a faux democracy before “EuroMaidan”, but it wasn’t until that Western-backed Color Revolution that it finally became a dictatorship. Additionally, the US ensured that the radical school of thought on Ukrainian national identity became the country’s de facto ideology, which coupled with the newly imposed dictatorship to prevent their Russian-friendly moderate rivals from ever returning to power. Ukraine is now much less politically free today than it was a decade ago.

    8. Burning Europe’s Land Bridge To China

    Regional military and domestic political changes in post-“EuroMaidan” Ukraine were also accompanied by broader geo-economic ones with regard to ruining the possibility of Ukraine ever functioning as Europe’s bridge to China. Western-encouraged Russian-Ukrainian tensions precluded the possibility of them cooperating along the “Eurasian Land Bridge”, thus advancing the US’ grand strategic goal of “decoupling” the EU from Russia and China.  

    9. The Western Elite’s Neoliberal Playground

    Ukraine’s accelerated socio-economic collapse from “EuroMaidan” onward led to the logical culmination of its dictatorial oligarchic regime after the country sold itself out over the past two and a half years to become the Western elite’s neoliberal playground. The G7 countries, BlackRock, foreign agricultural investors, and others now control strategic sectors of the economy. Ukraine’s sovereignty has thus become nominal since it’ll likely never be able to regain national control over those industries.

    10. Are Ukrainians Approaching Their Breaking Point?

    Ukrainians have experienced such devastation and disappointment since independence that one can’t help but wonder whether they’ll ever reach a breaking point. They hadn’t hitherto since they weren’t literally dying for their dictatorial oligarchic regime, but growing resistance to its forcible conscription policy suggests that some folks have finally decided to fight back. It’s unclear whether this could evolve into a full-fledged revolt, however, since the secret police brutally suppress all forms of opposition.

    Post-independence Ukraine failed to fulfill its initially promising socio-economic potential due to incorrigible corruption, and when people finally began to protest this systemic problem, their movements were co-opted by the West as part of a geopolitical power play against Russia.

    The country is now a shell of its former self after having surrendered its sovereignty, sold out its industries, and descended into an oligarchic dictatorship that’s obsessed with its role as the anti-Russia.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/26/2024 – 02:00

  • Fascism 2.0, Part 3: Feudalism 2.0
    Fascism 2.0, Part 3: Feudalism 2.0

    Authored by Paul Lancefield via Off-Guardian.org,

    Read parts 1 and 2 HERE and HERE

    Now in this third article in the series, I want to link this back to what we started out discussing. How our closed and controlled Social Media services are now processing every post with an LLM.

    My point today is not to prove linkages and corruption of the narrative being fed to the masses via Social Media. Such an investigation could be the subject of an entire book in itself.

    Rather today, I would like to plant a seed.

    Many reading this will already be in agreement with my belief we are entered into and age of Fascism 2.0. But if you are not yet aware, if you haven’t yet recognised the pervasive and consistent propaganda, my hope is you will start to notice.

    My hope is that you will start to see our newspapers only carry the stories which support narratives furthering the globalist desire to fix policy-driven markets. Never the stories that contradict them. And Social Media (less so X now) similarly down regulate posts when they are critical of the policies sought. But for good measure, let me give two examples of recent news suppression matching this pattern.

    Across Europe, farmers have been demonstrating. The demonstrations relate generally to costs and economic pressures on farming. And at the heart of the ill feeling we find another policy benefiting globalist within one of their subjects of interest.

    Fertiliser, criticised for its carbon-intensive production, is now heavily taxed by the EU, driving up costs for farmers. As a result, many are being forced out of business, and their land is being snapped up by globalist billionaires and investment funds.

    Anyone who has seen the Amazon series Clarkson’s farm will be aware just how much the farming business is currently under the cosh. But which group of people, is snapping up land from farmers all over Europe who can no longer afford to stay in business? Globalist Billionaires, and the globalist investment funds of course. The fertiliser tax alone threatens to put many farmers out of business. It forms a significant part of their outlay and is a major item on the list of reasons Farmers are demonstrating.

    According to presidential candidate RFK Jr, Blackrock (via their holdings DuPont, Cargill and Monsanto) now own 30% of all agriculture land in Ukraine. Read that again. But Blackrock also push an ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) scoring system used throughout the finance industry to “weight” companies for how “ethical” they are.

    To get a high score businesses need to have, for example, active Diversity Equity and Inclusion policies in place, have low impact on the environment etc. (Blackrock chair many of the main ESG scoring committees). Indeed this is another of the factors driving increased farming costs. Obtaining a “good” ESG score costs money and agriculture supplies in general are seeing cost increases because of it.

    But do you think Blackrock the very company pushing these ESG scores, are volunteering to pay the increased fertiliser taxes in relation to their agriculture holdings in Ukraine? You hardly need guess the answer. They aren’t. So really, as far as the globalists are concerned, this has nothing to do with environmentalism or ethics.

    I would suggest, instead, it is being used as a tool, to take everything the farmers have got. Whether this mechanism was mapped out ten years ago as part of a grand plan in a backroom in Blackrock’s boardroom can of course be debated. MacDonalds almost surely didn’t start out in business consciously aiming to make fast food addictive. But it is the system that has evolved nevertheless. And in this case it is on the back of a power imbalance, and the revenues that power welding side of the system wields is so great the outcome is only going one way.

    Indeed these people are extremely well versed in how to make it go one-way. And notice how news coverage of the farmer protests and the damage being done to farming by the agriculture taxes has been minimal. The farmers protests have been substantial. The issues are profound, historic even. Tractors converging on mass on cities Europe over. Yet they are getting scant television and press coverage. Why is that?

    Consider another glaring example of news suppression. This one relating to the Covid vaccines. It’s extremely significant news that the mRNA vaccines have shown a terrible safety profile. Yet those covering this had their Social Media accounts banned. Many were experienced scientists who were well regarded, well published, and who had no conflicts of interest. As the Twitter files have conclusively shown, they were rounded on, and subject to de-boosting, shadow banned or outright banned.

    I’ve encountered this firsthand. I’m a lifelong conservative, and Telegraph reader, yet I have been banned from commenting on the Telegraph because I continually, politely but firmly, pointed out their hypocrisy in relation to the mRNA vaccines, and the fact The Telegraph were receiving sponsorship from the Gates Foundation. They have consistently dragged their feet on publishing verified truths about vaccine harms, despite the fact such stories are the very hight of public interest.

    Attitude surveys of the public show trust in the mRNA vaccines has fallen to an extremely low level, so it’s not as though the Telegraph’s readership aren’t aware. Yet still, set against the fact their readership no longer believe the narrative, the press say next to nothing.

    Lastly from early 2021 there has been a widely circulated video of a Zoom call between Dr. Andrew Hill and Dr. Tess Lawrie, which exposes, from the inside the very corruption of the scientific process that confirms how the system suppressed positive results regarding the efficacy of Ivermectin. Under US law mRNA vaccines could not have obtained the Emergency Use Authorisation required for “Operation Warp Speed” (The Trump administrations project to speed up vaccine delivery) if it could be shown an effective alternative treatment for Covid was available. The Zoom video call shows the end-to-end story. But the source of that corruption is a Gates Foundation subsidiary, and no major news outlet has touched the story.

    The video in question is damning of Dr Hill by any objective measure. It’s authenticity is clear to anyone who watches it, and it provides primary, “from the horses mouth” evidence so can in no way be painted as a conspiracy theory or misinformation. By all objective measures it should have been seen by the press as a major scoop.

    After all, mRNA vaccines have now been injected into a majority of the population in Europe and the US and subterfuge has been used to get them authorised. Yet all mainstream news regarding Ivermectin’s efficacy has been suppressed despite the now overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

    I’ve given two or three examples news that in my opinion were clear candidates for page reporting. Countless other examples exist, and in each and every case the bias falls in one direction. If the story can undermine the narrative supporting globalisms preferred policy based revenues, it simply doesn’t get published.

    All-in-all the policy interventions relating to the globalist list of subjects of interest are akin to a firehose having been attached siphon-like to the pockets of the poor, the middle classes and small and medium sized businesses throughout the West.

    I hope people will become aware that we have for some time in fact been living in the age of global Fascism 2.0. And unlike Fascism as it was earlier in the 20th century, Fascism 2.0 is pushed by corporate interests co-opting national government rather than national government co-opting corporate interests.

    And the battle we are in right now is to stop Fascism 2.0 before we enter a new age of Feudalism 2.0. Because that is where we are headed, and rather quickly.

    Earlier in this article, I referred to how LLMs are used by Social Media Firms to police content and how the monitoring capacity of LLMs is ripe for integration with external agencies. There can be little doubt plans are afoot to do this. You can be sure these plans will be dressed up in nice language filled with “caring words”.

    The sentiment will be “we are worried for you because your thoughts are wrong and they’re harming you.”

    So I will finish by pointing out an article in the BMJ, published this January, on how LLMs can be used to combat vaccine hesitancy. The article is set in the context of the WHO having designated such vaccine hesitancy as one of the “top 10 global health threats” (global health security, remember, being on the Globalist subject list):

    “Vaccine hesitancy is a state of indecision before accepting or refusing a vaccination. It is a dynamic and context specific challenge that varies across time, place, and vaccine type. It is […] challenging to predict and harder to tackle. Additionally, the emergence of misinformation in public health, notably during crises such as the covid-19 pandemic, calls for rapid, data driven responses.”

    We should not be conspiratorial. Not everything about this initiative is necessarily be bad. Paul Lancefield of four years ago would have taken it at face value and would have found little sinister about it. And indeed I’m sure there is nothing sinister about the authors – though I fear they may be a little blind to the real threat.

    But for me today, it is illustrative of the role LLMs will increasingly shape our communication, influenced by the power structures that determine their messaging. The power structures that will be hooking into a Derren Brown like capacity to apply suggestion on mass scale. Some might find that comforting. In the world we live in today, I personally find the thought terrifying.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 23:20

  • University Of Nebraska-Lincoln Shuts Down DEI Office, Eliminates $320k Vice Chancellor Position
    University Of Nebraska-Lincoln Shuts Down DEI Office, Eliminates $320k Vice Chancellor Position

    By Adam Sabes of Campus Reform

    The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has closed its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office and eliminated its vice chancellor position.

    In an email, UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett said to the campus community on Tuesday that the Office of Diversity and Inclusion will be closing, according to the Lincoln Journal-Star.

    The change also means the university’s vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion position, held by Marco Barker, will be eliminated come December. Including benefits, Barker’s salary is almost $320,000.

    $750,000 will also go back into the university’s overall budget, which was previously allocated for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

    ”I fully grasp the weight of this decision and its implications,” Bennett wrote, adding that “a centralized approach to this work is no longer right for our institution.”

    Bennett told the Lincoln Journal-Star that a recent trend of establishing DEI offices at colleges and universities has “shifted.”

    ”I think during that period, perhaps, a goal was met and those offices have served the campuses well,” Bennett said.

    The Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s five employees can apply for other positions across the university.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 22:45

  • CBP's Migrant App Faces Tech Glitches, Security Flaws: Report
    CBP’s Migrant App Faces Tech Glitches, Security Flaws: Report

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

    The official app which allows illegal immigrants to schedule appointments with the agency at U.S. ports of entry is plagued with technical issues and security vulnerabilities, according to a new report by the Homeland Security watchdog.

    The report into the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) phone appointment app known as CBP One was published on Aug. 19 and sent to Congress.

    The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) report examined whether or not CBP adequately planned and implemented the phone app to process migrants who arrive at the southwest border seeking entry into the United States.

    The OIG found that while CBP initially addressed weaknesses in the app after its implementation, the agency failed to formally assess and mitigate the “technological risks involved with expanding the application” to allow immigrants to schedule appointments to present themselves for processing at the Southwest Border.”

    “We found that CBP did not initially consider critical factors such as the design of the CBP One Genuine Presence functionality, adequacy of supporting application infrastructure, sufficiency of language translations, and equity of appointment distribution,” the report states.

    “As a result, noncitizens initially using the new feature experienced application crashes, received frequent error messages, faced language barriers, and may not have always had an equal opportunity to secure an appointment,” it continues.

    CBP’s One phone app was created in 2020 to serve as a single portal for various CBP services.

    However, it was expanded in January 2023 under President Joe Biden’s administration to allow immigrants seeking to enter the United States to submit information and schedule appointments before arriving at one of eight points of entry along the southwest border.

    The expansion was part of the administration’s efforts to discourage illegal border crossings by providing legal pathways.

    According to a July press release from CBP, the app has “increased CBP’s capacity to process immigrants more efficiently and orderly while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants.”

    In July alone, the federal agency processed over 38,000 individuals with appointments at ports of entry through the app.

    Since the app’s appointment-scheduling function was introduced in January 2023 through the end of July 2024, more than 765,000 individuals have “successfully scheduled appointments to present at ports of entry instead of risking their lives in the hands of smugglers,” CBP said.

    Security Vulnerabilities, Identical Address Claims

    However, the OIG said it found CBP may also be failing to use information submitted to the app by immigrants before they arrive at the border to improve pre-arrival vetting procedures.

    While the agency uses biographic and biometric information submitted into the app in advance to determine whether arriving migrants have “derogatory records,” it “does not leverage the information to identify suspicious trends as part of its pre-arrival vetting procedures,” according to the report.

    Elsewhere, the OIG said it had identified potentially unrelated immigrants who repeatedly claimed identical intended U.S. residences.

    “CBP currently does not have a mechanism to routinely analyze CBP One data submitted across the eligible POEs [points of entry] for trends, which may be useful intelligence to help guide front-line CBP officers when interviewing noncitizens during appointment processing,” the report said.

    Meanwhile, the OIG report found security vulnerabilities within the application and its supporting infrastructure operating systems.

    “Without a process to ensure all corrective security patches are timely implemented and assets are properly configured, data on the app may be susceptible to exploitation or cyber-attacks,” the report found.

    “This process is especially important as CBP continues to update the application,” it added.

    In concluding its report, the OIG recommended that CBP develop and implement a formalized risk assessment process when developing, expanding, or modifying mobile applications.

    It also recommended that it introduce a mechanism to analyze the app’s advanced information for trends and patterns of fraudulent behaviors by users and communicate those results to the eight ports of entry that process appointments booked through the app.

    The OIG further recommended that CBP introduce a mechanism to routinely assess CBP applications and supporting infrastructure operating systems for vulnerabilities and ensure corrective actions are undertaken in a timely manner.

    CBP concurred with all three recommendations and promised to take corrective actions, according to the report.

    The Epoch Times has contacted CBP for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 22:10

  • Are We Headed For Another Great Depression?
    Are We Headed For Another Great Depression?

    Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World,

    Today’s economy is like that of the late 1920s…

    Today, there is great wage and wealth disparity, just as there was in the late 1920s. Recent energy consumption growth has been low, just as it was in the 1920s. A significant difference today is that the debt level of the US government is already at an extraordinarily high level. Adding more debt now is fraught with peril.

    Figure 1. US Gross Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP, based on data of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. Unsafe level above 90% of GDP is based on an analysis by Reinhart and Rogoff.

    Where could the economy go from here? In this post, I look at some historical relationships to understand better where the economy has been and where it could be headed. While debt levels and interest rates are important to the economy, a growing supply of suitable inexpensive energy products is just as important.

    At the end, I speculate a little regarding where the US, Canada, and Europe could be headed. Division of current economies into parts could be ahead. While the problems of the late 1920s eventually led to World War II, it may be possible for the parts that are better supplied with energy resources to avoid getting into another major war, at least for a while.

    [1] Government regulators have been using interest rates and debt availability for a very long time to try to regulate how the economy operates.

    I have chosen to analyze US data because the US is the world’s largest economy. The US is also the holder of the world’s “reserve currency,” allowing demand for the US dollar (really US debt) to stay high because of its demand for use in international trade.

    Figure 2. Secondary market interest rates on 3-month US Treasury Bills and 10-year US Treasury Securities, based on data accessed through the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. Amounts for 1940 through 2023 are annual averages. Amount for 2024 YTD is average of January to July 2024 amounts.

    Comparing Figure 1 and Figure 2, it is clear that there is a close relationship between the charts. In particular, the highest interest rate in 1981 on Figure 2 corresponds to the lowest ratio of US government debt to GDP on Figure 1.

    Up until 1981, the changes in interest rates were either imposed by market forces (“You can’t borrow that much without paying a higher rate”) or else as part of an attempt by the US Federal Reserve to slow an economy that was growing too fast for the available labor supply. After 1981, the same market dynamics no doubt took place, but the overall attempt at intervention by the US Federal Reserve seems to have been in the direction of speeding up an economy that wasn’t growing as fast as desired.

    In Figure 2, the 3-month interest rates correspond fairly closely to government target interest rates. The 10-year interest rates tend to move on their own, perhaps somewhat influenced by Quantitative Easing (QE), in which the US government buys back some of its own debt to try to hold down longer-term interest rates. These longer-term interest rates influence US long-term mortgage interest rates.

    Recent monthly data show that 10-year interest rates started rising very quickly after reaching a minimum following the Covid response in early 2020. The lowest 10-year average rates took place in July 2020, and rates started moving up in August 2020.

    Figure 3. Monthly average secondary market interest rates on 3-month US Treasury Bills and 10-year US Treasury Securities, based on data accessed through the Federal Reserve of St. Louis.

    This suggests to me that market forces play a significant role in 10-year interest rates. As soon as people started borrowing money to remodel or to move to a new suburban location, 10-year interest rates, and likely the related mortgage rates, started to drift upward again. If this observation is correct, the Federal Reserve has some control over interest rates, but it cannot adjust the 10-year interest rates underlying mortgages and other long-term debt by as much as it might like.

    The apparent inability of the Federal Reserve to adjust longer-term interest rates to as low a level as it would like is concerning because the US government debt level is very high now (Figure 1). Being forced to pay 4% (or more) on long-term debt that rolls over could create a huge cash flow issue for the US government. More debt could be required simply to pay interest on existing debt!

    [2] An analysis of actual growth in US GDP over time shows how successful the changing strategies in Figures 1 and 2 have been.

    Figure 4. Three-year average US inflation-adjusted GDP growth rates based on data of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.

    In the 1930s, the US and much of the rest of the world were in the Great Depression. Interest rates were close to 0% (not shown on Figure 2, but available from the same data). Various versions of the New Deal under President Roosevelt were started in 1933 to 1945. Social Security was added in 1935. Figure 4 shows that these programs temporarily increased GDP, but they did not entirely solve the problem that had been caused by defaulting debt and failing banks.

    Entering World War II was a huge success for increasing US GDP (Figure 4). Many more women were added to the workforce, making munitions and taking over jobs that men had held before they were drafted into the army.

    After the war was over, the total number of jobs available dropped greatly. Somehow, private sector growth needed to be ramped, using debt of some kind, to provide jobs for the returning soldiers and others left without work. An abundant supply of fossil fuels was available, if debt-based demand could be put into place to pull the economy along. Programs were put into place to get factories running again making goods for the civilian economy. Additional jobs and energy demand were created by upgrading the electrical grid, increasing pipeline infrastructure, and (in 1956) starting work on an interstate highway system.

    During the period between 1950 to 2023, the average growth rate of the US economy gradually stepped downward, despite all of the debt-based stimulus that was being added after 1981, as shown in Figure 5.

    Figure 5. Average annual US GDP growth rates based on data of the US Bureau of Economic Activity.

    [3] While growing debt is important for pulling an economy forward, a growing supply of energy is essential to actually produce physical goods and services.

    Economic growth involves producing physical goods and services. The laws of physics tell us that energy supplies of the right types, in the right quantities, are necessary to make the goods and services that the physical economy depends upon.

    The rate of growth of world energy supply has been stepping down over the years, as the easiest (and cheapest) to extract fossil fuels tend to get extracted first. The average rate of increase of all energy supply (not just fossil fuels) is shown in Figure 6:

    Figure 6. Annual rate of increase in energy consumption growth for the earliest grouping is based on data provided by Vaclav Smil in the Appendix to Energy Transitions. Average rates of increase for later periods are calculated from data of the 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy, by the Energy Institute.

    Comparing Figures 5 and 6, we can see that average annual US GDP growth approximately matched growth in world energy supplies in the first two periods: 1950-1970 and 1971-1980.

    In the period 1981-2007, average US GDP growth (of 3.2%) soared above world energy consumption growth (of 2.1%). I would attribute this primarily to outsourcing a significant share of the US’s industrial production as the economy shifted to becoming more of a service economy. There were multiple advantages to moving to a service economy. US oil supply had become restricted, and a service economy would use less oil. Also, the costs of imported goods would be much lower than those made in the US for several reasons, including more efficient newly built factories, lower-wage workers, and the use of inexpensive coal as a fuel instead of oil.

    The encouragement of increased use of “leverage” under Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK no doubt added to the effect of using more debt shown in Figure 1. The US government started borrowing more money, rather than increasing taxes. Businesses became larger and more complex. International trade started playing a larger role.

    Recent low growth in energy supplies has created an economic problem that added debt has only partially been able to hide. (In the latest period (2008-2023), both US average GDP growth (at 1.8%) and world energy consumption growth (at 1.5%) were very low.) Figure 1 shows that the US added huge amounts of debt, both after the 2008 financial crisis, and at the time of the Covid response in 2020. If it weren’t for these huge debt infusions, US GDP growth would no doubt have been much lower. GDP counts the quantity of goods and services produced, not whether added debt has been used to manufacture these goods, or whether customers have used debt to purchase these goods.

    [4] In some ways, the world economy today is like the economy of the 1920s.

    The 1920s were characterized by both the rising use of debt (especially consumer credit), and wide wage and wealth disparities. This was a time of innovation. Some farmers had modern new equipment that greatly enhanced efficiency, while most farmers could not afford this equipment.

    Figure 7 shows a pattern of wage disparity that operates in precisely the opposite direction from the interest rate pattern shown in Figure 2. The lower the interest rates, the more the concentration of wealth among a very small portion of the population. The higher the interest rates, the more evenly wage and wealth is divided.

    Figure 7. U. S. Income Shares of Top 1% and Top 0.1%, Wikipedia exhibit by Piketty and Saez.

    A comparison of Figure 7 with Figure 6 and Figure 5 shows that (at least for the years since 1950), faster energy consumption growth seems to lead to faster economic growth. With faster economic growth, the economy can support higher interest rates and higher wages for lower-paid workers. There is less push for “complexity” to try to replace workers with machines.

    When energy consumption growth is low, the economy tends to grow more slowly. The interest rates that corporations and individuals can afford to pay are relatively low. With low interest rates, asset prices of all kinds soar because monthly payments to buy these assets fall. The prices of stocks, bonds, homes, and farms tend to soar. The already rich become richer and richer, as the poor are increasingly squeezed out of the economy.

    Physicist Francois Roddier has said that physics dictates the outcome of widely diverging incomes when energy supply is low. It takes much less energy to supply an economy of a few rich people and many poor people than it takes to support an economy with relatively equal incomes. The vast majority of the supposed wealth of the rich exists as promises that can only be fulfilled in the future if there is enough energy of the right kinds to fulfill these promises. Their promised future wealth does not affect today’s energy use. While the energy use of rich people is somewhat higher than that of poor people, much of the difference disappears when a person considers the fact that much of their wealth is essentially “paper wealth” that may or may not actually be present as the future actually unfolds.

    Both the 1920s and the latest period (2008-2023) are very low energy-growth periods. The fact that (2008-2023) is a low energy growth period (at 1.5% per year) can be seen on Figure 6. Energy supply was growing even slightly more slowly in the 1920s (based on data from Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions). Population was growing by 1.1% per year in both the 1920s and in the latest period (2008-2023.) Net energy consumption per capita growth was slightly negative (-0.1%) in the 1920s and only a very small positive percentage (0.4%) in the 2008-2023 period. Per capita consumption had been growing much more quickly between 1950 and 1980.

    [5] The economy becomes very fragile when the growth of energy supply is low, compared to the growth of the world’s population.

    Hidden beneath the surface is the problem that there is not enough energy to go around. This problem doesn’t manifest itself in high prices; it manifests itself in unusually large wage disparities. Very rich individuals (such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk) gain excessive influence. Special interests and their drive for profits also become important. At times, this drive for profits can come ahead of the well-being of citizens.

    Citizens become more quarrelsome. Differences between and within political parties become greater. Political candidates no longer treat other candidates with the respect we would have expected in the past. The problem is, in some sense, the problem of a game of musical chairs.

    Figure 8. Chairs arranged for Musical Chairs Source: Fund Raising Auctioneer

    Initially, the game has as many players as chairs. The players walk around the outside of the group of chairs as the music plays. In each round, one chair is removed and the players must scramble for the remaining chairs. The person who does not get a chair is eliminated from the game.

    [6] It seems to me that major parts of the world economy are transitioning from a growth mode to a mode of shrinkage.

    Figure 9 gives a representation of how the world’s growing economy can be visualized, and how it may change in the future.

    Figure 9. Representation of an economy that is growing up until not long after 2020, and shrinking thereafter, by Gail Tverberg.

    The fact that growth in the consumption of fossil fuel energy supplies has been retreating to lower levels should be of concern (Figure 6). At some point, the world economy will be in a situation in which the amount of fossil fuels we can extract is falling. While we have some add-ons to the fossil fuel system (including hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar), they are all manufactured using the fossil fuel system and repaired using the fossil fuel system. These add-ons would stop producing not long after the fossil fuel system stops producing. They need fossil fuels to make replacement parts, among other problems.

    The amount of growth in energy supply determines the growth in physical goods and services that can be produced. In periods of rapid growth, borrowing from the future, even at a high interest rate, makes sense. In periods of low growth, only loans with a very low interest rate are feasible. When the economy is shrinking, very few investments can repay loans requiring interest.

    Needless to say, repaying debt with interest becomes much more difficult in a shrinking economy. In the US, our underlying problem is that since 1981, the US’s financial policy has been “throw every tool in the tool box” at stimulating the economy. We are now running out of tools to stimulate the economy to grow faster. Adding more debt isn’t likely to work very well, or for very long.

    At this point, the many government-funded investments aimed at providing green energy and offering transportation by electricity are not paying back well. Citizens are repeatedly being told that there is a need to move away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change. But world CO2 emissions continue to rise. They simply moved to a different part of the world.

    Figure 10. Carbon dioxide emissions for Advanced Economies (members of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) versus all others, based on data of the 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy published by the Energy Institute.

    [7] What does history since 1920 say may be ahead?

    It is hard to see that things will turn out well, but we do know that historical civilizations have collapsed over a period of many years. We can hope that if we are facing the collapse of at least part of the world’s economy, this collapse will also be slow. Some intermediate steps along the line likely include the following:

    (a) Stock market collapses. After excessive speculation in the stock market in the late 1920s, the stock market collapsed on October 29, 1929, starting the Great Depression. Another major crash occurred in 2008, during the Great Recession. Both of these speculative bubbles seem to have been fueled by low short-term interest rates.

    (b) Drops in the prices of homes, farms, and other assets. The Great Depression is noted for major drops in the prices of farms. The Great Recession is known for major drops in the prices of homes. We are now facing a situation with far too much Commercial Real Estate. Its price logically should fall. Farmers are also having difficulty because wholesale food prices are too low relative to the various costs involved, including interest payments relating to equipment purchases and mortgages. The problem is especially acute if farm property has been purchased at currently inflated prices. The prices of farms logically should fall, also.

    (c) Debt defaults, related to asset price drops. Banks, insurance companies, pension plans and many individuals owning bonds will be badly affected if defaults on loans or bonds start increasing. (In fact, even if the market interest rates simply rise, the carrying value on financial statements is likely to fall.) If commercial real estate or a farm is sold and the sales price is less than the outstanding debt, the bank issuing the loan will be left with a loss. This debt is often resold, with credit rating agencies falling short in indicating how risky the debt really is.

    (d) Failing banks, failing insurance companies, and failing pension plans. Even bankrupt governments defaulting on their loans.

    With failing banks, there is less money in circulation. The tendency is for commodity prices to fall very low, putting farmers in worse financial shape than before. They cut back on production. Food production and transport use considerable amounts of oil. Reduced food production leads to less need for oil consumption and thus, falling oil prices. With low oil prices, production tends to fall.

    (e) If a government survives, it may try to issue much more debt-based money to try to raise prices. This might work if the country is able to produce all goods locally. But the huge amount of new money (and debt) will not be honored by other countries. The result is likely to be hyperinflation, and still no goods to buy.

    (f) Persecution of the wealthier people blamed for society’s problems. If people are poor, and there aren’t enough goods to go around, there is a tendency to find someone to blame for the problem. In Europe, prior to World War II, the Nazis persecuted the Jews. The Jews were often rich and worked in finance or the jewelry business.

    (g) War. War gives the possibility of obtaining resources elsewhere. Figure 4 shows that going to war can greatly ramp up GDP. It is a way of putting laid-off workers back to work. It is an age-old solution to not-enough-resources-to-go-around.

    [8] Can any political approach put off the bad impacts suggested in Section [7] above?

    A country that can provide complete supply chains based on its own resources, completely within its own borders can be somewhat insulated from these problems, as long as its resources are adequate for its population. I don’t think that any of the Advanced Countries (members of the OECD, which is similar to the US and its allies) can do that today. The US is closer to this ideal than Europe, but it is still a long way away. The central and southern part of the US, which is where Donald Trump’s support is strong, is closer to this ideal than elsewhere.

    Trump is advocating adding tariffs on imported goods. Such tariffs would work in the direction of independence from China, India, and other industrialized nations. Trump also seems to advocate staying out of wars, wherever possible. If an area is doing well in terms of energy supply (including food supply), this would be a good strategy.

    Kamala Harris is advocating capping today’s food prices. This would please city-dwellers, but it would encourage farmers to quit farming. Capping today’s food prices would also discourage the importation of food from elsewhere, leaving many empty shelves in grocery stores. Indirectly, it would also have an adverse impact on the world’s oil production and the quantity of food grown elsewhere.

    Giving more money to poor people would almost certainly lead to more government debt. If countries in Europe were to do this, it would almost certainly devalue their currencies. They would find it harder to import goods from anywhere else in the world.

    In fact, the US would likely also encounter difficulty in importing as many goods from elsewhere, if it chooses to give more money to poor people (and fund this generosity through more debt). China and Russia would have even more motivation to abandon the US dollar for trading purposes than they do today. The US, Europe, and other Advanced Economies would increasingly find imported goods unavailable.

    Wind, solar, and electric vehicles are not fixing the economy now. Adding more debt to subsidize these efforts would likely have the same bad effects as adding more debt to subsidize poor people.

    [9] A guess as to what could be ahead for the US, Canada, and Europe.

    Donald Trump is suggesting tariffs and other policies that might be helpful for the parts of the US, Canada, and Mexico that think they might have enough resources to more or less get along on their own in the near future. This includes much of the central and southern part of the US. Central Canada would fit into this pattern, as well. Mexico is connected by pipeline to this area, too. At least in the US, Trump is favored in these areas.

    In the highly populated areas along both US coasts, the debt-based policies of Kamala Harris will seem more reasonable because these sections have limited resources to rely on, but lots of population. The only solution they can imagine is more debt. I expect that Europe and the coasts of Canada will follow Kamala Harris’s strategies, but with their own leaders.

    I can imagine a scenario in which after the US election, the US will break apart into two sections: a Trump section in the center of the US, and a Harris portion consisting mostly of the two coasts, and perhaps a few northern states. The Trump section will band together with Central Canada and Mexico and try to keep operating for some years longer. The Harris portion will join together with the coasts of Canada and most of Europe to get into war with Russia and China. The Harris portion will issue lots more debt. The Harris group will forget that their areas cannot really make many armaments without a huge amount of international trade. As a result, the Harris group will have great difficulty in being successful at war.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 21:35

  • Pennsylvania Judge Rules Cornel West Can't Appear On Ballot In Key Swing State
    Pennsylvania Judge Rules Cornel West Can’t Appear On Ballot In Key Swing State

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A court in Pennsylvania on Aug. 23 ruled that independent presidential candidate Cornel West cannot appear on the presidential ballot in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that determines the 2024 election.

    Cornel West speaks during a protest for a Gaza ceasefire in Chicago, Ill., on Aug. 22, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

    In a 15-page ruling, Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer sided with the Secretary of State’s office under Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in rejecting West’s candidacy paperwork.

    The Secretary of State’s office said West and his running mate, activist Melina Abdullah, lacked the required affidavits for 14 of West’s 19 presidential electors. The court agreed with the office’s arguments.

    Jubelirer, a Republican, agreed with the Secretary of State’s office that minor-party presidential electors are to be considered candidates for office who must file affidavits, even if major-party presidential electors are not.

    Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State office, the court ruled, “is required to certify the ballot in time for county boards to print and mail those ballots to military electors who are serving overseas or in isolated areas ‘not later than [70] days prior’ to a general election.’”

    If the court sided with West, it would make “it nearly impossible for [the Secretary of State’s office] and county boards to, respectively, timely certify, print, and mail the absentee ballots as contemplated by the Election Code, and removing almost two weeks from that timeframe almost guarantees the inability to act within those timeframes,” the judge wrote.

    For that reason and others, the court found that West “failed to exercise due diligence” and barred him from appearing on the ballot.

    Matthew Haverstick, West’s lawyer, had said that he saw “no good reason for Mr. West to be kept off the ballot or Pennsylvanians otherwise prevented from voting for him.” It’s not clear whether he will appeal the court’s decision.

    Also Friday, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the court in a filing that he will withdraw from Pennsylvania’s ballot. In a speech in Phoenix, Kennedy said he is suspending his presidential bid, backing former President Donald Trump and planning to remain on ballots in states where he is unlikely to sway the outcome.

    Kennedy later appeared at a rally with Trump, with the former president declaring he will “have a huge influence on this campaign.”

    The Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian Party’s Chase Oliver submitted petitions to get on Pennsylvania’s presidential ballot without being challenged, while the Party for Socialism and Liberation has said it will appeal a judge’s decision to order its presidential candidate, Claudia De la Cruz, off Pennsylvania’s ballot.

    The Nov. 5 election in Pennsylvania is forecast to be close, with the Cook Political Report rating it as a “toss up” between Trump and the Democrat Party’s candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. In the 2020 race, Pennsylvania state officials called the race in favor of then-candidate Joe Biden over Trump, who then filed several post-election legal challenges in the Keystone State.

    Some polls have shown that West and Stein, who have both campaigned on ending the conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group, could take votes away from the Democratic Party in the upcoming election.

    West, however, notched a legal victory in another potential battleground state last week after a Michigan judge ruled last week that he must appear on the ballot. Like Pennsylvania, Michigan, which has 15 electoral votes, is also expected to be close and was rated as a “toss up” by Cook.

    “Victory in Michigan! We brought thousands of voices to the table, and the court listened, rejecting the Democrats’ technical challenges,” wrote West, a former Harvard University and Yale University professor, on the social media platform X. “This is a win for democracy and for every person fighting for truth, justice, and love. Onward!”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 20:25

  • Five Ways That Ukraine's Invasion Of Kursk Actually Harms American Interests
    Five Ways That Ukraine’s Invasion Of Kursk Actually Harms American Interests

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    Nobody should get their hopes up about the US forcing Ukraine to withdraw though.

    The Washington Post cited unnamed administration sources to report that “U.S. debates support for Ukraine’s surprise offensive into Russia”, which suggests that some policymakers doubt that Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk advances American interests. To be sure, the US knew about this move ahead of time (if not actively participated in its planning) but didn’t thwart it, thus tacitly approving it. Nevertheless, five arguments exist for why this actually harms American interests, and they are as follows:

    1. Russia Might More Easily Gain Ground In Donbass

    One of the reasons why Ukraine invaded Kursk was to force Russia to divert some of its forces from Donbass to this new front, yet that hasn’t happened. Instead, Ukraine diverted some of its own highly trained forces from there to Kursk, which could make it easier for Russia to gain ground in Donbass. The optics of Russia continuing to advance are already bad enough for the US’ soft power interests, but they might also adversely affect the Democrats’ electoral plans if this trend accelerates before November.  

    2. A Diplomatic Solution Is Now Much More Difficult

    Whatever faint hopes might have previously existed of diplomatically resolving this conflict were shattered by Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk since it prompted Putin to rule out the resumption of peace talks. Some American policymakers want to “Pivot (back) to Asia” sooner rather than later in order to more muscularly contain China, ergo their interest in some sort of compromise with Russia, but that’s not possible as long as Ukraine continues occupying Russia’s universally recognized territory.

    3. Ukraine Might Feel Emboldened To Expand The Conflict

    Regardless of the degree to which the US might have helped plan Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, the very fact that nothing was done to stop this despite the US obviously knowing about it in advance could embolden Kiev to further expand the conflict into Belarus, Moldova, and/or other Russian regions. It now knows that the US will go along with whatever it does regardless of some policymakers’ fear of tensions with Russia spiraling out of control, and therein lies the supreme danger.

    4. Russian-US Tensions Risk Spiraling Out Of Control

    Putin won’t radically respond to Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk since it hasn’t yet crossed any of his non-negotiable red lines, but in the event that it does (such as if Kiev captures more territory or expands the conflict), then Russian-US tensions could spiral out of control depending upon what he does. That scenario will remain as long as the invasion lasts, plus it raises the chances that Putin might start listening to “hardliners” and consider a radical response without any of the aforesaid lines being crossed.

    5. Other US Client States Could Follow Ukraine’s Lead

    The last way in which Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk actually harms American interests is that other client states might follow Ukraine’s lead by striking or invading their neighbors with whom they’re feuding in order to create a fait accompli in the expectation that the US will then feel pressured to back them up. The US doesn’t want conflicts breaking out unless it’s able to control the dynamics to a large degree, which it would struggle to do if a client state like Somalia suddenly sparked one.

    Despite the five arguments above about why Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk doesn’t advance American interests, nobody should get their hopes up about the US forcing its proxy to withdraw. Ukraine could also refuse any such hypothetical demand, publicly expose it to embarrass the US, and possibly expand the conflict out of spite in an attempt to provoke World War III. For these reasons, the US is unlikely to do what’s needed to end to this operation, and even Trump might think twice about it if he wins.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 19:50

  • Pope Francis Condemns Ukraine's Ban On Country's Largest Orthodox Church
    Pope Francis Condemns Ukraine’s Ban On Country’s Largest Orthodox Church

    Pope Francis has condemned the Ukrainian government’s move to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) which maintains communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

    His Sunday remarks emphasized that “churches are not to be touched” and come the day after President Volodymyr Zelensky signed parliament’s newly passed bill into law identified as Bill 8371. 

    Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in 2016, via AP.

    “In thinking of the law recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the liberty of those who pray,” the pope said. He explained that the state must not be involved in religion.

    “One does not commit evil by praying. If someone commits harm against their people, they will be guilty of that, but they cannot have done harm because they prayed,” Pope Francis said following a Sunday service.

    “Let those who wish to pray in what they consider their Church be allowed to do so,” Francis added.

    Throughout the war Pope Francis has consistently called for the two sides to immediately enter peace negotiations, while saying that ultimately the winners are the arms manufacturers and those who don’t care about the suffering of innocent people.

    He has come under criticism, including from Kiev officials, for not just condemning one side (the Russians) like the West does.

    As for Christianity in Ukriane, Orthodox clergy members have seen jail time or have been placed under house arrest, or else harassment by mobs of far-right Ukrainian nationalists, for merely calling for peace between the two countries. 

    According to Ukrainian media:

    Over 100 UOC-MP clergy members have come under criminal investigation since the outbreak of the full-scale war, the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) press service told the Kyiv Independent.

    Almost 50 of them have been charged, and sentences have been issued in 26 cases, the SBU said.

    Likely these numbers are about to be a lot higher, as the new law targeting the UOC is expected to enter force 30 days after its publication. 

    The UOC is being pressured (and now forced) to join a state-sponsored church approved by Zelensky, despite the fact that the majority of the population is loyal to the UOC.

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

    Even a remote or potential ‘Russian connection’ – be it related to culture, music, language, or religion – has put ordinary Ukrainians under the suspicion of the state and the military of late. This despite that some one-third of the country has always spoken Russian as their first language, especially in the east and parts of the south. All of this has also gone hand in hand with the Zelensky government’s efforts to eliminate the Russian language altogether from public life.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 18:05

  • Judge Clears Former Police Officers Of Key Felony Charges In Breonna Taylor's Death
    Judge Clears Former Police Officers Of Key Felony Charges In Breonna Taylor’s Death

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    A federal judge has dismissed the most serious charges against two former Louisville police officers accused of falsifying the search warrant that played a key role in a sequence of events culminating in the fatal shooting of Louisville resident Breonna Taylor in her apartment in 2020.

    (Left) Louisville Police Det. Joshua Jaynes. (Right) Sgt. Kyle Meany of the Louisville Metro Police Department testifies in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 23, 2022. Louisville Police via AP; Timothy D. Easley/Pool via AP Photo

    U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson ruled on Aug. 22 to eliminate a key part of count one of the indictments against former Louisville Police Detective Joshua Jaynes and Louisville Sgt. Kyle Meany, which accused them of depriving Taylor of her constitutional protections against unreasonable search—Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law (18 U.S.C. § 242)—with an enhancement alleging the use of a dangerous weapon causing death.

    Jaynes and Meany were both accused of knowingly providing or endorsing false information in an application for a “no-knock” warrant to search Taylor’s home, a move that set in motion the events leading to her death.

    The deprivation-of-rights charge normally carries a fine of up to a year in prison, but the enhancement—a sentence in the indictment stating that “the offense involved the use of a dangerous weapon and resulted in Taylor’s death”—elevated the charge to a felony punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty.

    Simpson’s decision to strike down the enhancement was based on the finding that the most direct, and legal, cause of Taylor’s death was her boyfriend’s decision to fire at the officers conducting the raid, prompting them to return fire, killing Taylor.

    Taylor, a 26-year-old medical worker, was shot and killed by police in March 2020 during a raid at her apartment. Officers were investigating a man suspected of drug trafficking who had previously dated Taylor. Police believed the man was using Taylor’s apartment to receive illicit packages, although no drugs were found at her home.

    During the raid, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot that struck one of the officers in the leg. Walker said he fired his handgun because he believed intruders were breaking in. Two officers returned fire, with several bullets striking and killing Taylor.

    The judge wrote in his order that, “while the indictment alleges that Jaynes and Meany set off a series of events that ended in Taylor’s death, it also alleges that [Walker] disrupted those events when he decided to open fire.”

    Simpson concluded that Walker’s actions, rather than the falsification of the search warrant, became the “proximate, or legal, cause of Taylor’s death.”

    While he struck down the felony charge that could have led to life in prison for the two defendants, the judge kept the remainder of the deprivation-of-rights charge against both Jaynes and Meany, who now both face up to one year in prison on that count.

    However, Jaynes could still spend a total of up to 26 years in prison—if convicted and if the judge imposes consecutive sentencing. That’s because he faces a conspiracy to falsify records and witness tampering charge (up to five years) and a falsification of records in a federal investigation charge (up to 20 years), in addition to the reduced deprivation of rights charge (up to one year).

    Meany faces a false statement to federal investigators charge (up to five years) and the reduced deprivation of rights charge (one year), for a total of up to six years if convicted and if the judge orders consecutive sentencing.

    Two other detectives—Brett Hankison and Kelly Goodlett—were charged in the case.

    Goodlett pleaded guilty to two federal crimes—conspiring with another detective to falsify an affidavit to obtain the search warrant, and conspiring to cover up the false warrant by lying to criminal investigators after Taylor’s death.

    Goodlett is awaiting sentencing, Hankison’s trial is slated for October, while no trial date has been set for Jaynes and Meaney.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to the Department of Justice with a request for comment about its next steps in the case.

    Taylor’s family told The Associated Press in a written statement that they disagree with the ruling.

    “Obviously we are devastated at the moment by the judge’s ruling with which we disagree and are just trying to process everything,” reads the statement, per the outlet.

    “The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient … we will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor.”

    Roughly six months after Taylor was killed, officials in Louisville agreed to pay $12 million to her family to settle a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that police officers had no probable cause or legal basis to enter and search her home.

    The settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing.

    Walker was initially charged with attempted murder for firing at officers, who said they knocked and announced themselves before entering the apartment. Walker said he did not hear officers identify themselves and believed intruders were breaking into the home.

    Charges against Walker were eventually dropped and, after filing several lawsuits against the City of Louisville and individual officers involved in obtaining the search warrant, he reached a $2 million settlement.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 17:30

  • Netanyahu Vows More 'Surprising Blows' After Preemptive Hezbollah Attack: "Not The End"
    Netanyahu Vows More ‘Surprising Blows’ After Preemptive Hezbollah Attack: “Not The End”

    “What happened today is not the end of the story,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement posted on X. Early morning ‘preemptive’ strikes included over 100 Israeli fighter jets simultaneously attacking thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers and drone sites across southern Lebanon.

    “We are hitting Hezbollah with surprising blows. Three weeks ago we eliminated their chief of staff and today we thwarted their attack,” Netanyahu said further.

    IAF jet in action over southern Lebanon on Sunday, AFP/Getty Images

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later said Hezbollah had launched 210 rockets and some 20 drones on northern and central Israel.

    In follow-up IDF Spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari announced that at least six Hezbollah operatives were killed in Sunday’s major preemptive operation. This brings the tally to 30 Hezbollah operatives killed in just the last week.

    Hagari declared Sunday’s operation to be a success: “Contrary to Hezbollah’s claims, there were no impacts in IDF bases, not in the north and not in the center [of the country],” he said, rejecting claims made by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

    Interestingly, Israel has disclosed that it gave Washington a warning ahead of the major escalation. The Times of Israel details:

    Israel gave the Americans “considerable” advance notice of its pre-dawn preemptive strike on Hezbollah’s rocket and missile launchers, Channel 2 news reports.

    It says the US administration gave its backing to the attack, but warned both before and after it took place that Israel should be careful to avoid escalating the conflict toward all-out war.

    The TV report said the message from the US was conveyed in several interactions with Jerusalem and broadly stated: “We support the operation to avert the specific threat, but be careful in your actions; don’t do anything that is likely to lead to a regional war.”

    So far, there doesn’t appear to be runaway escalation as a result of Sunday’s exchange of fresh fire.

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

    The cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah was some of the most severe in months, resulting several fatalities in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry. However, within hours after the fight began, both sides appeared to de-escalate, with Hezbollah declaring its military operations “finished for the day.”

    In a further indication that the situation was stabilizing, Israel, which shuttered Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv earlier, reopened the airport later on Sunday.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 16:55

  • Rare Mosquito-Borne Disease Triggers Voluntary Curfew In Massachusetts Towns
    Rare Mosquito-Borne Disease Triggers Voluntary Curfew In Massachusetts Towns

    Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

    Four towns in central Massachusetts are advising residents to stay indoors at night to avoid contracting a rare but potentially deadly mosquito-borne virus.

    The voluntary curfew notice was issued after the Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Aug. 16 announced the first confirmed human case of Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) in the state since 2020, when five people contracted the virus and one died.

    State officials didn’t report how the current patient, a man in his 80s in Worcester County, was exposed to the virus or the details of his current condition.

    The disease, described by the public health department as “rare but serious,” is caused by a virus transmitted through mosquito bites. Symptoms typically appear 5 to 10 days after being bitten by an infected mosquito and include high fever, stiff neck, headache, and fatigue.

    There are no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat EEE. In 2019, twelve Massachusetts residents contracted EEE, resulting in six deaths.

    “EEE is a rare but serious disease and a public health concern,” said Massachusetts’ public health chief Dr. Robbie Goldstein.

    “We want to remind residents of the need to protect themselves from mosquito bites, especially in areas of the state where we are seeing EEE activity.”

    Four towns—Douglas, Sutton, Webster, and Oxford—are designated as being at “critical” risk level. Town officials are urging people to use precautions, including avoiding going outside from dusk to dawn, when many mosquito species are most active.

    Specifically, they advise finishing outdoor activities before 6 p.m. through September and 5 p.m. thereafter until the first hard frost. While outside, residents are recommended to use a repellent and wear clothing that reduces skin exposure, like long sleeves and socks.

    At home, residents are recommended to drain or discard items that collect water, such as buckets, tires, flowerpots, and birdbaths, to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in standing water. They are also reminded to install or repair window screens.

    There is no enforcement for those who do not comply with the recommendations, town officials said.

    Meanwhile, in Oxford, a 6 p.m. curfew is in place for outdoor activities on town property, and people must show proof of insurance and sign an indemnification form before they can use town fields during those hours.

    Nationwide, an average of 11 cases of EEE infections are reported each year, mostly in Eastern or Gulf Coast states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    “Persons over 50 years of age and under 15 years of age seem to be at greatest risk for developing severe disease when infected with EEE virus,” the agency said on its website.

    Humans and other animals that contract the virus are considered “dead-end hosts,” which means there is no subsequent human-to-human, animal-to-human, or human-to-animal transmission.

    Many people who recover from EEE are left with long-term physical or mental problems, the CDC said. These can range from mild to severe intellectual disability, personality disorders, seizures, paralysis, and cranial nerve dysfunction. Survivors with severe disease and ongoing disabilities often require long-term care and die within a few years.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 16:20

  • Does It Matter To The Market Who Wins The White House?
    Does It Matter To The Market Who Wins The White House?

    During election years, the focus is on the political horse race.

    However, after the final poll closes, how have the market and the economy performed under both Democrat and Republican presidents?

    In this graphic, Visual Capitalist partnered with New York Life Investments to explore stock market performance, consumer outcomes, and corporate sentiment across each presidential party.

    Democrats vs. Republicans: Stock Market Performance

    History shows that the S&P 500 does not favor a clear “winner” when it comes to the political party of sitting presidents. 

    The mean compounded average annual growth rate (CAGR) with Democratic presidents is slightly higher than with Republican presidents. Median performance, however, is higher under Republican presidents.

    To date, former President Clinton (D) (+15.2% CAGR) and former President Trump (R) (+14.1% CAGR) have seen the largest stock market gains among past presidents on record.

    Democrats vs. Republicans: Consumer Outcomes

    Like the S&P 500’s performance, presidential leadership has not been a key factor in determining the inflation rate and unemployment rate in the U.S. since the late-1940s. 

    The sum of the nation’s inflation rate and unemployment rate together provide a measure of consumer “pain” in the economy.

    The average sum with a Democratic president over the last 70+ years is +9.0% versus +9.5% for Republicans.

    Democrats vs. Republicans: Corporate Sentiment

    As with their consumer-related counterparts, corporate sentiment has also remained consistent regardless of the presidential party, on average.

    The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) provides a measure of business sentiment in the economy. A score of below 50 represents deteriorating sentiment and a score of above 50 means sentiment is improving.

    The average PMI under Republican presidents since 2000 is 54.3 versus 54.9 for Democrats—nearly identical and both in expansion terrain.

    Informed Investing

    Looking at past presidents, both Democrat and Republican, there have been roughly consistent market and economic track records. This highlights the importance of looking beyond the political noise and maintaining a diversified portfolio.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 15:45

  • The Social Recession Is Accelerating
    The Social Recession Is Accelerating

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    Did wages rise 10-fold to match the 10-fold rise in the cost of a modest house? No. That is social recession in a nutshell.

    A reader asked about the term social recession which he’d noted in my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy. Here is the paragraph:

    “Stagnation in opportunities to work and earn (i.e. a financial recession) leads to social recession, a loss of opportunities for adulthood: a rewarding career, family, and a home of one’s own. In a social recession, unemployed young people may be mired in adolescent narcissism, eschewing ambitions not just in work but in romance and marriage.”

    The reader asked if I could recommend any further reading on social recession and I replied that I could not, as the topic is not well-recognized or studied.

    In my analysis, social recession refers to the narrowing of opportunities to marry and raise a family, own a home and have a secure livelihood from the vast majority of the populace to an elite selected by fierce competition–a competition few have the means to win, as the winners tend to win by choosing their parents wisely.

    In the purely financial / economic terms of growth of GDP, household income, corporate profits and the value of assets, the US has only been in an economic recession for a few months in 2008-09 and at the start of the pandemic lockdown. But when measured by the ability of just about anyone willing to work hard and practice basic frugality to buy a house and start a family, the US has been in a social recession since 2009.

    Demographics / economics analyst Chris H., who tweets as CH @economica, recently posted charts which reflect this social recession, most strikingly in the collapse of the US birthrate that started in 2009. He asked: “The largest childbearing population in US history has gone on strike…maybe we should know why?”

    Some might argue that this decline in births is coincidental to the Global Financial Crisis , but since social recession has its roots firmly in the economic opportunities available to the average worker, that argument is specious.

    The social recession began as a direct result of policy responses to the Global Financial Meltdown in 2008-09, policies that favored capital and those who already owned assets, at the expense of everyone who did not inherit wealth/assets or was too young to buy assets such as houses when they were still affordable to average workers.

    As a result, those who bought assets a generation or two ago now own most of the nation’s wealth:

    As I have often discussed in blog posts, aggregate measures of financial expansion (GDP and household net worth) mask the perverse consequence of favoring capital and the already-wealthy: an unprecedented widening of the gap between the top 10% and the bottom 90%, and the concentration of assets in the top 10%.

    The spectrum of wealth and income asymmetry has become increasingly asymmetric: the top 01% have pulled away from the top 0.1%, the top 0.1% have pulled away from the top 1%, who have pulled away from the next 9%, and so on. By any measure, the top 20% have left the bottom 80% in the dust, and the bottom 60%’s share of the nation’s wealth is negligible.

    As many readers point out to me, education was the key for the post World War II generation on the GI Bill, and it continued to be a critical ladder to higher, more secure incomes from the 1960s to the 1990s. But the premium granted those with any 4-year college diploma has decayed in an inverse relationship with the skyrocketing cost of that diploma.

    The diploma by itself has little value outside STEM / medical / legal professions and bureaucracies that use the diploma as a screening mechanism to limit the pool of applicants. Many professions such as law are oversupplied with applicants holding law degrees, and so entry wages outside elite firms are lower than those offered to experienced welders. As the premium on a diploma has eroded, the demands on workers have risen sharply across the entire spectrum of paid work.

    As I often note, average wages have stagnated for the past 45 years. This stagnation was tolerable as long as the cost of a house, childcare and healthcare insurance remained somewhat affordable to average workers, but once the engines of financialization transformed the US economy into a Bubble Economy of soaring real estate / stock valuations that then inevitably crash, triggering an even larger bailout / stimulus response that inflates an even greater bubble, the costs of home ownership, childcare and healthcare soared out of reach of all but the top 20% unless family wealth and connections gave younger workers a boost.

    Another aspect of social recession is the decay of pensions and the resulting rise of insecurity. Government and government-funded sectors such as healthcare are the only employers that still offer a pension that isn’t the responsibility of the worker to partially or totally fund and manage.

    Japan is held up as an example of social and economic stability, but those who know a wide spectrum of Japanese people (i.e. not just academics and corporate leaders) know that Japan has been in a social recession since its bubble burst in 1989-90. The decay is visible but since it’s embarrassing, it’s not covered in the media: abandoned vehicles littering the countryside, Hikikomori (extreme voluntary social isolation), falling rates of marriage and births, the estrangement of family members, pensioners openly shoplifting to get arrested so they can get the full meals and healthcare offered the imprisoned, to name a few manifestations of social recession.

    The fact that none of this is visible in the bustling districts of Tokyo and Kyoto doesn’t mean the social recession isn’t real. Japan has managed its decline well, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in social recession.

    One aspect of social recession I have discussed is social defeat: when people give up on dreams and goals that are unreachable and so they give up trying.

    Many readers share their own experiences of pursuing extreme frugality and hard work back in the day, as evidence that similar efforts will result in the same stability and security they now enjoy. I have recounted my own story of working my way through university, building our own house with our own hands, etc., but when I do a statistical analysis of costs today, I see an unbridgeable chasm between what I could earn 25 years ago and what I could buy with my earnings / savings 25 years ago, and what I can earn and buy today.

    I say this as someone who never earned a lot of money; more often than not, I earned far less than the average annual pay of average workers. Having been self-employed most of my working life, I have financial records and clear memories of wages, prices and costs over the past 50 years.

    I can state as a fact that two part-time city librarians could still buy a modest home in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s, and afford to have two children. This is no longer the case–not even close. No amount of frugality can close the gap when the house they bought for $135,000 now costs $1.35 million, and childcare and healthcare have become equally unaffordable.

    Did wages rise 10-fold to match the 10-fold rise in the cost of a modest house? No. That is social recession in a nutshell. When this fact is raised in conversation, those in the top 10% protest, but their protest rings hollow, for what they’re really saying is: since I’m doing great and all my friends are doing great, everyone’s doing great. There’s a word for this: denial. Denial cannot solve problems, it can only make them worse.

    *  *  *

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

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 15:10

  • "Musk Should Be Nervous" – Deep State Lackey Admits Real Target Following Telegram Founder's Arrest
    “Musk Should Be Nervous” – Deep State Lackey Admits Real Target Following Telegram Founder’s Arrest

    Russia is demanding answers following the arrest Pavel Durov, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram. He was detained by French authorities at the Bourget airport outside of Paris Saturday evening after arriving in his private jet.

    The Russian embassy in Paris has demanded that the French government explain itself, and has so far said that French authorities are being uncooperative. The latest reports say Durov is expected to appear before a judge Sunday evening.

    The embassy said of the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire that “as soon as the news of Durov’s arrest broke, we immediately addressed the French authorities for clarification on the reasons for it and demanded that they ensure the protection of his rights and provide consular access to him.”

    He not only has Russian citizenship by virtue of his birth there, but also holds dual citizenship in France and the UAE.

    Russian diplomats say there has been no reply from Paris: “The French side has so far been avoiding cooperation on this issue,” a statement said. Russian lawmakers have gone so far as to say he is now a “political prisoner”.

    Russian member of parliament Maria Butina said on Sunday, “Pavel Durov is a political prisoner – a victim of a witch-hunt by the West.

    “The arrest of Pavel Durov means there is no freedom of speech – it means that freedom of speech in Europe is dead,” she continued. “Now basically they have a hostage and they will try to blackmail Russia, they will try to blackmail all the users of Telegram and not only try to get control but also try to block the network here in Russia.”

    Additionally, deputy speaker of Russian parliament, Vladislav Davankov, described that the tech entrepreneur’s arrest “could be politically motivated and used to gain access to the personal information of Telegram users.”

    And Dmitry Medvedev, who is the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said Durov is being targeted because he’s Russian. “He miscalculated,” Medvedev said. “For all our common enemies now, he is Russian – and therefore unpredictable and dangerous.” Medvedev asserted, “Durov should finally realize that one cannot chose one’s the fatherland.”

    One interesting angle is that the app, well-known for being highly secure as it provides end-to-end encryption, is widely used among the Russian military, as well as the common population.

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    Durov was detained by the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF), over the alleged facilitation of various crimes including terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and fraud. “On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of offences and crimes to be committed, for which he did nothing to moderate or cooperate,” a source told TF1 TV.

    The arrest was characterized by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom as part of the “crackdown against free speech.”

    Other prominent figures have voiced alarm over what this means for free speech, or even the question of who is next to be targeted by Western governments…

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    And Elon Musk has been highlighting the implications of Durov’s arrest through Sunday…

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    “Liberté Liberté! Liberté?” Musk added in another post. “Dangerous times.”

    Musk added a “FreePavel” hashtag when he shared a video of Durov praising Musk and his pro-free-speech outlook during an interview with Tucker Carlson earlier this year.

    “It is vital to the support of free speech that you forward X posts to people you know, especially in censorship-heavy countries,” Musk wrote on X on Sunday.

    And in case you wondered, none other than deep state bagman Alexander Vindman makes it clear who the real target is…

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    There are some reports saying that given the potential charges stacked against him, Durov could possibly be facing up to 20 years in prison. But there still remains many unknowns, as well as confusion, surrounding his detention.

    Edward Snowden has also weighed in…

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    Ironically, back in 2014 Durov left Russia after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has since sold. He now lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 14:35

  • U Of Tampa RA Training Includes Scenario Of Student Feeling "Threatened" By Conservative Roommate With MAGA Flag
    U Of Tampa RA Training Includes Scenario Of Student Feeling “Threatened” By Conservative Roommate With MAGA Flag

    By Brendan McDonald of CampusReform

    The University of Tampa’s resident advisor (RA) training featured a hypothetical scenario in which a student complained about feeling “unsafe” because a roommate hung a “Make America Great Again” flag and was a member of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).

    Affiliated with the Young America’s Foundation, YAF chapters organize conservative speakers and trainings for students on campuses around the country. A picture of the University of Tampa slide was obtained and shared by the group on Friday, Aug. 16.

    “You just returned from class and one of your residents asks to speak with you,” the training slide reads. “He states that he feels unsafe in his room and needs an immediate room change. He goes on to state that he feels unsafe and threatened because his roommate put up a ‘Make America Great Again’ flag in the room and that he is a member of YAF.”

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    On the YAF website, University of Tampa YAF Chair Nicole Gillis criticized the slide as the most recent example of colleges and universities attempting to indoctrinate their students. 

    “This is the unfortunate state of higher education in America right now,” she said. “Universities are indoctrinating students by painting conservatives as evil. This seemingly small example in an RA training at UT implies they think that conservatives are dangerous and that students should be afraid of people with conservative ideas.” 

    The Young America’s Foundation Chief Office Spencer Brown pointed out what he sees as the contrast between how school administrators treat conservative students versus how they treat liberal ones. 

    “The demonizing of conservative students and infantilizing coddling of fragile leftists who outrageously claim to feel physically threatened by intellectual diversity does a disservice to students and ought to be roundly mocked,” he said. “A school such as the University of Tampa — or any with wildly biased trainings like this — has no business calling itself an institution of ‘higher’ learning. Clearly, University of Tampa administrators and student employees need some mandatory tolerance training.”

    Conservative students regularly feel isolated and discriminated against by their universities. Three self-identified conservative students from two different schools spoke in a Fox News interview last month about they feel silenced in and out of the classroom, with one saying she has been “yelled at” by professors.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 14:00

  • Dems Scramble To Walk Back Harris' Price Control Scheme
    Dems Scramble To Walk Back Harris’ Price Control Scheme

    Democrats are in damage control mode after Kamala Harris’ communist price control scheme received a harsh rebuke – including from the Washington Post, which characterized it as “populist gimmicks.“

    Facing pressure to defend the plan, Democratic lawmakers are downplaying it as a pipe dream that has no chance of passing Congress, Politico reports.

    The plan, unveiled as part of Harris’ first big economic policy speech, has become a focal talking point for Donald Trump and allies, who continue to frame it as “communist price controls.” Meanwhile, food industry officials and some left-of-center economists have warned that price controls could be detrimental, according to the report.

    Central to the plan is a call for congress to pass the first-ever federal price gouging ban on food and grocery stores – mirroring legislation reintroduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) earlier this year, for which Warren was taken to task by CNBC‘s Joe Kernen.

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    Now, six Congressional Democrats and five Democratic aides tell Politico that they’ve been privately telling critics that the plan isn’t viable – and is instead a messaging tactic to to divert blame over inflation from the Biden-Harris administration.

    Even many Democrats remain skeptical, or at least uncertain about how Harris would carry out her proposal, if elected. They’re still working on getting details, but many have left that for after the DNC. -Politico

    “It’s clear to me these are very general, very lofty goals,” said one of the Democratic lawmakers.

    “I honestly still don’t know how this would work,” said a second Democratic lawmaker.

    According to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, “I think people are reading too much into what has been put out there,” adding that the proposal was intended to address the issue in “broad strokes.”

    Harris has been under pressure to provide more detail on her policy priorities, after four years largely toeing the line set by President Joe Biden and his aides. The rollout of her plan to combat food inflation, however, has sparked concerns among business leaders over which economic advisers are driving her policy decisions. Pieces of her plan, like increasing competition in the meat sector, are straight from the Biden playbook under his former top economic adviser Brian Deese — who is now advising Harris’ campaign. But the broad price gouging language that’s triggered so much backlash signals a more progressive agenda.

    That backlash has tempered Harris allies’ initial push to paint the proposal as a bold, progressive idea. Since introducing the price gouging plan, her advisers have sought to soften criticism of the proposal by downplaying its overall impact on the market — and emphasizing that the goal is simply to target a small cohort of potential “bad actors,” rather than generate the kind of sweeping overhaul suggested by the plan’s initial rollout. -Politico

    Harris’ plan does have its defenders, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).

    Top Harris economic adviser Brian Nelson told reporters at the DNC in Chicago that the plan was ‘simply’ aimed at matching federal standards with so-called price gouging guardrails that already exist in 37 states – something Warren attempted to argue with Kernen.

    That said, the existing rules only apply during emergencies such as the COVID pandemic.

    “She’s going to work with Congress to ensure that it is directed at bad actors, bad activity,” said Nelson. “It’s not meant to set prices or price levels or anything like that. And that is not the way current state laws around price gouging are.”

    When pressed during a Bloomberg News roundtable to elaborate, Nelson failed to provide any specific examples of price gouging – and deflected by describing Harris as simply trying to outline her own principles on the issue.

    “One of the principles is really to make sure that the federal legislation aligns with those state laws,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the National Grocers Association – an industry group that represents the independent supermarket sector, called Harris’ plans “a solution in search of a problem.”

    “Rather than proposing new legislation far-off in the future,” the government should focus on enforcing antitrust laws already on the books, the group said.

    “I’m sure it polls well,” said one food industry official granted anonymity. “But it’s an obvious effort to deflect blame from her administration on inflation.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 13:25

  • Heads I'm Smart, Tails I'm Stupid
    Heads I’m Smart, Tails I’m Stupid

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    That is how this week felt on many levels. Maybe it was because I was travelling, so I wasn’t staring at my screens every minute of the day, but I think it was more than that.

    There was no shortage of opportunities to feel smart or stupid as the days went by (unless you are on Twitter selling your trading signals, in which case you apparently nailed every move).

    While we discussed Catalysts and Landings last weekend, this market had some peculiar takes on the headlines, and often flip-flopped on the assessment (or at least what market prices focused on).

    What Did We Really Learn?

    For me, there are two key takeaways:

    • Liquidity is abysmal. While the news flow was interesting, it didn’t seem to justify so many moves of 0.5% or greater! Especially some of the large reversals that happened within an hour. Every reasonably large flow (program trade) seemed to be able to move the market disproportionately more than one should expect. Add to that, the fact that “the rebalancing of leveraged ETFs” has become a common discussion as traders try to push markets creating larger “sell at the close” orders on down days, or “buy at the close” orders on up days. Since I wasn’t paying minute by minute attention to the screens, I cannot be certain, but I’d bet that 0 day to expiration options were a “weapon of choice” when trying to push markets into the close. For those not overly familiar with leveraged ETFs, those that say deliver 2X the daily return of some index (or increasingly, of some individual stock), they need to buy more shares on the close of up days and sell shares on the close of down days to deliver 2X the next day (assuming no inflows or outflows). This adds to volatility and creates a “path dependent” drag on these types of ETFs.

    • We can now talk about the terminal rate on Fed Funds and the path to getting there. While we argued that the Fed should have cut rates in July, it seems inevitable that the Fed will cut in September. The only “question” around September is whether it will be 25 or 50. The market is pricing in a 35% chance of 50 bps. Since my preferred path was 25 or even 50 in July with a pause in September, I should probably lean towards 50 bps. But I cannot. I did hear someone suggest 50, with a dissent (someone who would have only done 25), which seems like an interesting path. However, with inflation still well above 2% (the lowering of this number is an election issue), and lots of griping (largely legitimate) that for many items official inflation figures are well below experienced inflation for the past couple of years, 50 would require very weak jobs data across the board.

      • We now have cuts priced in for the next 8 meetings. The first time we have “doubt” about the potential for a cut is regarding the 50% chance of whether or not we get it next September. The market is pricing in 8 cuts, or 200 bps, over the next 8 meetings (it is almost doing it in 7 meetings). Will the data be so steady that the Fed can proceed without pauses, or even doing one or two of 50? That seems too “optimistic” for markets to be pricing in (or too pessimistic on the economy). Though, somewhat surprisingly, given Powell gave the go-ahead, the probabilities didn’t move that much from last Friday.

    What Else Did We Learn?

    The two things above (abysmal liquidity and that the conversation can now move to the time to reach terminal value) were the two most important things. But we’ve learned some other things as well:

    • The earnings season is longer than ever. Earnings season used to get boring once the vast majority of companies (and many of the bellwether companies) had posted earnings. I am not sure if NVDA is the last company, but it is certainly not the least. NVDA comes out after the close on Wednesday. Those earnings seem highly likely to be a major catalyst for this market. We are hearing more from companies attributing some of their success to their use of AI, which is really encouraging. However, that might be more important for lifting the valuations of users than providers, given the run-up of stocks for companies involved in the AI provider space – anything from chips, to cloud, to data centers, to utilities.

      • As a side note, I have to admit (once again) that I never would have thought you could generate a $50 million a year run-rate by just launching an ETF leveraged to a single stock, which NVDL has accomplished. Which likely explains the launch of MSTX (a MSTR leveraged ETF) that has already accumulated AUM of $127 million at a 1.29% expense ratio). I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to reference any songs today, but I cannot get the Dire Straits song “Money for Nothing” out of my head. I really fail to understand the need (or really, the appeal) of ETFs leveraged to a single stock, but clearly I’m just wrong on the demand!

    • Data Disbelief. After the much larger-than-normal annual revision to the NFP Establishment Data (beyond the already large monthly downward revisions), will anyone ever trust this job report? The discrepancies and lack of consistency in data have been long-running themes in the T-Report. The concept of Garbage In, Garbage Out is why we spend so much time examining the data. No matter how good your model is at taking data and correctly predicting outcomes, it requires good data. We will continue to examine data as we always have, but we think that we will have more people doing it alongside us, as many of us (including, apparently the Fed Chair – see Revisions & Jackson Hole) are now struggling to articulate the “labor is strong” narrative. Again, I feel sorry for the economists who missed the original numbers by 100,000 or more. After monthly revisions and the annual revision, they probably turned out to be pretty darn close! And it does seem that we should all pay more attention to ADP.

    • Rapid Oscillation. The AAII Investment Sentiment Survey is just below the July 17th reading (which I think was the highest this year). The bearish side is almost as low as it has been. Those are typically contrarian signals. While the size is not what it was in its heyday, the inverse ETPs like SVIX and SVXY saw massive inflows (close to tripling their shares outstanding). It is far from clear that the “pain trade” is lower equity prices.

    • No one cares about the big bad Japanese yen carry trade. The yen closed Friday at 144.37, just above the low of 144.18 on August 5th, when people still cared about that trade! While we thought it was overdone and would be shocked if anyone reloaded on that trade, it seems like we should pay some attention because the Bank of Japan cannot tie their monetary policy (which points to needing to be restricted) to the Fed’s (which is clearly heading in the other direction).

    • We can start buying the beneficiaries of lower rates. The Russell 2000 did very well this week (up 3.6%), but the KBW Regional Bank Index was up even more (5%). Commercial real estate should be stable and could once again be a big opportunity for investors. The last “bounce in small caps and value stocks” felt like a massive unwind of QQQ vs IWM (Nasdaq 100 versus Russell 2000) but this seemed more calm, orderly, and rational.

    • Markets agree with us that it is too early to price in election “results.” While we continue to hear some chatter about the “Trump” trade or the “Harris” trade, it seems like the markets are not consistently pricing in anything. I know this because:

      • We have another 10 weeks of this stuff, and a lot can change.

      • It is too early to even tell what campaign promises the candidates are serious about (we are still in the pandering and trial balloon stage) let alone what might have a remote chance of turning into legislation.

    Bottom Line

    Good luck and expect more volatility. If I’m an issuer of debt, I’m selling what I can, because despite my inbox starting to get flooded with warnings about the deficit, the 10-year yield is at 3.8% and spreads are still attractive.

    The Fed can do a lot, and likely will, but I still expect the Fed to Plod Along, meaning that they will be slow to react to changing economic conditions (when they point to more easing). Additionally, both stocks and bonds got ahead of themselves, because they are pricing in a Fed put to occur sooner (or more easily) than it is likely to occur (when and if needed).

    If this is what we are getting during the slow summer, I can hardly wait to see what September and October look like!

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 12:50

  • Visualizing How The G20 Generates Electricity
    Visualizing How The G20 Generates Electricity

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows how much electricity is generated from renewable sources among G20 countries.

    The data is based on Ember’s yearly and monthly electricity reports as of 2023. Data for Saudi Arabia is not available.

    Brazil Leading in Renewable Energy

    The global average for renewable electricity is 30%, but nearly half of the G20 countries fall below this average.

    Brazil leads the G20 in renewable electricity, with 89% of its power generated from renewables in 2023. The country’s high share of renewables is due to its robust hydroelectric base and rapid expansion of solar and wind energy.

    Canada, in second place, generates 66% of its electricity from renewables, primarily hydropower.

    Germany, in third place, has the highest proportion of wind and solar in its energy mix.

    G20 Economies Past the Peak of Fossil Power

    The majority of G20 economies are at least five years past their peak power sector emissions.

    At the top of our list, Brazil’s power sector emissions peaked in 2014 at 114 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2). By 2023, nine years after the peak, its power sector emissions were 38% below 2014 levels, at 70 MtCO2.

    To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic showing emission reduction targets by country in 2024.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 12:15

  • Why State Enforcement Of "Fairness" Is Wrong
    Why State Enforcement Of “Fairness” Is Wrong

    Authored by Wanjiru Njoya via The Mises Institute,

    There is a popular perception that the role of the state is to uphold and enforce “fairness” much like a playground monitor ensures that children are not bullying each other, and that everyone is getting a fair chance to be included in the game. The fear is that if teachers do not monitor the schoolyard it might descend into the Lord of the Flies. Likewise, the state is said to have a moral duty to ensure fairness and goodwill among all citizens in their interactions with each other.

    In Freedom in Chains James Bovard criticizes the trend towards seeing the state as the fountain of fairness, depicting it as “the nationalization of fairness.” In the US context, he traces the origins of nationalizing fairness back to the New Deal, when President Roosevelt’s administration sought to establish “fair” prices, “fair” wages, and “fair” competition, by mandating regulations which Roosevelt said would counter “the forces of selfishness.” Bovard highlights the example of promises made by the National Industrial Recovery Act to “provide for the machinery necessary for a great co-operative movement throughout all industry in order to obtain wide re-employment, to shorten the working week, to pay a decent wage for the shorter week and to prevent unfair competition and disastrous overproduction.”

    Unfair competition was criminalized under the National Recovery Administration, and Bovard cites the example of a New Jersey tailor “jailed for ‘charging thirty-five cents for pressing a suit,’ in violation of the NRA code that mandated a 40-cent charge.” The administration arbitrarily decided that while a 40-cent charge would be fair, a 35-cent charge would be unfair and proceeded to impose criminal penalties.

    Bovard criticizes the idea that the government has some sort of magical ability to produce morality and fairness in all human interactions: “modern morality is based on ‘push-button fairness: the government announces a new regulation, enforcers twist arms, and – voila! – fairness triumphs.” Yet over time people have come to want and expect precisely this from the state. Bovard highlights the shift from seeing the function of the state as that of building roads and bridges and providing police and fire services, to its current role where it purports to stand against selfishness, greed, racial discrimination, and other perceived moral vices.

    Bovard highlights the same arbitrary determination of fairness in civil rights policies. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attempts to ensure fairness by eradicating disparities or performance gaps and as Bovard argues, “for all practical purposes, “fairness” is whatever EEOC officials choose to impose.” Although quotas are officially prohibited, Bovard points out that “by the late 1960s, the EEOC had intentionally subverted the law by establishing a definition of discrimination that was the opposite of the one that Congress had specified.” The EEOC investigates discrimination by reference to numbers and proportions of different groups and measures its success by an improvement in the numbers. Bovard terms this “fairness by the numbers.”

    “Fairness by the numbers” is also the driving force of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion polices. These policies measure DEI by reference to the proportionate numbers of different races, sexes and genders. They set up a measure of fairness that is only achieved when the proportion of people in any institution reflects their demographic representation.

    There are many ethical problems with fairness by the numbers, not least that it erodes contractual freedom, freedom of association and free speech. Further, in schools and colleges it relies on indoctrination through the only ideology in which fairness by the numbers is deemed to be a worthy goal: critical race theories. This is why Alabama has enacted a new law, 2024 Ala. Act 34, which bans the divisive concepts promoted by critical race theories, namely:

    1. That any race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.

    2. That individuals should be discriminated against or adversely treated because of their race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

    3. That the moral character of an individual is determined by his or her race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

    4. That, by virtue of an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, the individual is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.

    5. That individuals, by virtue of race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

    6. That fault, blame, or bias should be assigned to members of a race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

    7. That any individual should accept, acknowledge, affirm, or assent to a sense of guilt, complicity, or a need to apologize on the basis of his or her race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

    8. That meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist.

    The reasoning behind this Alabama initiative, as stated by State Senator Will Barfoot, is that “education must return to its essential foundations of academic integrity and the pursuit of knowledge instead of being corrupted by destructive ideologies.” As State Representative Ed Oliver expressed it, DEI policies only “deepen divisions, set up race-exclusionary programs and indoctrinate students into a far-left political ideology.”

    The Alabama ban on DEI is an important step in the right direction. Ultimately, no state has a legitimate role in indoctrinating school or university students in how they ought to understand their racial identity, or how they ought to understand their religion or their sex. These are matters of individual liberty and personal conscience, not state edicts.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/25/2024 – 11:40

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Today’s News 25th August 2024

  • Fascism 2.0 – Globalism & The Subjects Of Interest
    Fascism 2.0 – Globalism & The Subjects Of Interest

    Authored by Paul Lancefield via Off-Guardian.org,

    This is Part 2 of Paul’s “Fascism 2.0” series, part one can be read HERE.

    In this second article in a series of three, I’m going to set the developments we have seen regarding Social Media censorship in the context of globalist power structures and suggest there is growing evidence the narrative manipulation we information consumers have been witnessing is in service to a globalist cause.

    It’s important, I think, when having this kind of a discussion, to avoid falling into the trap of talking about a conspiratorial nebulous “they” without adequately defining who “they” are because such thinking leads to imprecise and ill justified reasoning and can, quite rightly, lead to the accusation of conspiracy theory style thinking. So I will define exactly what I mean by globalism and globalists. Your own definition may differ, but this is what I mean.

    Globalists possess extreme wealth, typically in the billions, and can live anywhere in the world they choose. They have diversified international business interests, often shared with other globalists, and frequently receive invitations to events like Davos from the WEF.

    The people we are speaking of inhabit a rarified and incestuously small community. Additionally with the arrival of the Internet, Globalism has been transformed, with the opportunity for ad-hoc co-opting of the powerful greatly enhanced. As the world has shrunk, the most influential power brokers have drawn closer together, breaking down barriers of geography and physical location.

    Globalists are in the enviable position that they, unlike the common citizen, are able to leverage tax and legislative competition between countries. So for example Ireland’s GDP leapt after Ireland in 2003 quite deliberately introduced the EUs most competitive corporation tax rate (12.5%). The influx of tech businesses to Dublin brought an immense boost to the Irish economy and boosted Irish GDP to enviable levels. Globalists can pick and choose where they do business.

    Now we know who Globalists are, I’m going to provide a particular definition of Globalism distinct from the old-world brochure-wear version: The old version runs something like this: Globalism is the activity of engaging in Economic Integration, Cultural Exchange, Multilateral Cooperation, Migration and Mobility policy making and Technology and Information exchange. And it is true it does involve these things, but in my opinion, the more revealing way to view globalism is by looking at the subjects and policy areas in which Globalists show greatest interest. And those are:

    • Environment: Man-Made Global warming

    • Global Health Security (World Health)

    • Banking and International Finance

    • Central Banking Digital Currency and Digital Identity

    • Regional economic development

    • Defence (arms manufacture and supply)

    • Population and migration

    We know these interests because the WEF website and agenda over the years, has revealed them to us, over and over. Look carefully at this list. Do you notice a common thread?

    One consequence of the pandemic period was that people began to wake-up to the fact government policy can be implemented at the drop of a hat that will hand billions trillions of dollars to corporations owned by those who are already the wealthiest in the world. Through pandemic policy, the extent of the handover was so fast, so brazen, so deeply affecting of our lives, it could hardly be missed.

    According to a report by Oxfam, during the pandemic, the world’s wealthiest individuals saw their fortunes rise dramatically, with the ten richest men doubling their wealth from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion. This surge highlights a broader trend where the wealthiest 1% gained $1.4 trillion.

    Meanwhile, the world’s poor and middle classes, including small and medium-sized businesses, collectively lost around $1.3 trillion due to economic disruptions.

    Just consider the local shops people were no longer visiting during lockdown. Instead, of course, they were buying from Amazon.

    And pharmaceutical firm revenues were also a part of the redistribution. The revenues, all mandated by government, were mind boggling (even where there were no government mandates and private healthcare, the vaccines were purchased with tax money). Pfizer alone saw revenues of over $150 billion through government vaccine and other mandated pharmaceuticals purchase. And now people are increasingly aware this was off the back of the products that were always unsafe, ineffective and rushed to market.

    Text messages between EU Commission President, Ursula Von Der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, reveal in secret Von Der Leyen agreed to purchase 4.6 billion doses of the Pfizer, vaccine, or ten shots shots per man woman and child living in the EU. Ten!

    To some it has become clear, at best, it can be said that for Pfizer, safety took a second seat to a money grab of epic scale. To others, they are corporate psychopaths of the highest order. And Pfizer, we should not forget, have been subject to the second largest corporate fine – $2.3 billion – for criminal malfeasance ever paid in the pharmaceutical industry. Further during Covid, together with the CDC, Pfizer attempted to use the courts, to hide the vaccine trial data for 75 years. Re-analysis of their own trial data (only possible because they failed in their attempt to hide it) has since shown the vaccines were never safe.

    Through these recent events (and helpfully nudged along by podcasters like Joe Rogan and Russel Brand), many have begun to wake-up to how the globalist money-grab works and how it has been operating similarly, if less obviously, across a number of sectors for years.

    The common thread in these globalist topics is that each represents a vast, policy-driven market worth billions or trillions.

    In the brochure-ware version of the list, each of these subject areas involves moral imperatives. The moral imperatives dictate that the actions and policies implemented by governments around the world, are important to ease fulfilment of virtuous objectives (like preventing global warming).

    In practice, like with the vaccines during the pandemic, the value of these policy endowments to global business is so vast that the likelihood of avarice and self-interest cannot be ignored – indeed, I would argue, it becomes inevitable.

    The scale of these policy-driven markets is so vast, it’s difficult to fully grasp in a single article. The many ways in which they take money from you and me without the policies first having been produced through a clear democratic process are legion. When you start to break it down, the “scam” is so vast, it’s difficult to grasp it all. So I won’t try to do that in a single article.

    Instead I will point to one company which also ties-up an important point I want to make about the nature of globalist finance. Globalists cross-invest. When people become that wealthy, though they usually made the bulk of their money from one sector, they quickly start to diversify.

    Cash is for ad-hoc spending and is only ever a tiny fraction of asset value. Cash loses out on interest payments. Investment asset value in multi-billions is almost always represented by shares in business interests or funds, essentially less liquid financial instruments than cash.

    So almost by definition when you have billions, you have investments in many things. And what you have invested in will overlap with the investments of other globalist billionaires. Through hedging, you end up owning a little bit of pretty much everything out there that is significantly profitable, and there will be a special focus on business in those preferred policy driven sectors I listed above because, as I have indicated, the revenues there can be assured; the playing field tilted.

    The important point to understand is that as well as spreading the risk, the number of areas in which you have an interest is multiplied and, just as importantly, the number of globalist billionaires with whom you share an interest is also increased. The result is a highly diversified, ultra powerful financial unit (a cabal if you like) who hold in common to a massive degree, interest in lobbying for broadly the same policies and ensuring they are applied in the broadly the same policy-driven markets.

    And if you want a good example of kind just how diverse these investments get, you only need to look at the worlds largest fund management company, Blackrock.

    Fortunately for us, a Blackrock executive recently committed to video insight into how the system works. He didn’t mean to. It was a sting. But the video is fascinating. Additionally presidential candidate RFK Jr has also given some great video summary overviews of how the system works.

    So first, let’s examine the video of Blackrock executive Serge Varlay.

    In it we are informed, “Blackrock manages $20 trillion in asset value, it’s incomprehensible numbers. […] All of this is beyond an normal persons understanding.”

    Well I have news for Mr Varlay. No it isn’t. For many of us it stands out like a flashing red-light. But I accept it may be the case that most people are not aware of what Varlay has to say.

    “How do they run the world?” The undercover interviewer asks (who Serge seems to be under the impression is a date).

    “You acquire stuff. You diversify. You acquire, you keep acquiring. You spend whatever you make in acquiring more. And at a certain point your risk level is super low. Imagine you’ve invested in 10 different industries from food to drinks to technology. If one of them fails it doesn’t matter, you have nine others to back you up. The risk money is inherently in just about everything.

    You own a little bit of everything, and that little bit of everything gives you so much money on a yearly basis, that you can take this big f**k-ton of money, and then you can start to buy people.”

    “It’s not the president,” he says, presumably referring to who they own, though on this point weather he is talking literally or illustratively on this point is unfortunately not made clear, “it’s who is controlling the wallet of the President.”

    And on campaign financing we are told, “Yes you can buy your candidates. First there’s the Senators. These guys are f**king cheap. For $10 grand you can buy a Senator. I could give you [meaning a senator] like $500k right now, no questions asked. Are you gonna do what needs to be done?”

    The interviewer asks “Does everybody do that? Does Blackrock do that?”

    “Everybody does that. […] The hedge funds, Blackrock, the banks. These guys run the world.”

    “It doesn’t matter who wins. They are in my pocket at this point.”

    The (presumably hot) date then asks, “Do you have any thoughts on the Ukraine Russia War?”

    “Ukraine is good for business. You know that right. I’ll give an example. Russia blows up Ukraine’s grain silos. The price of wheat is going to go mad up. The Ukrainian economy is tied very largely to the global Wheat market; price of bread, you know, literally everything, goes up and down. This is fantastic if you’re trading. The volatility creates opportunity to make profit. War is real f**king good for business.”

    This last point, we should note, applies equally to all the wars waged by the West for the last 23 years (and more) and backs up the claims by presidential candidate RFK Jr that elements of the US establishment are incentivised to commit the West to a policy of assured “forever-wars” for financial gain. Remember the thread connecting the list of Globalist interests above. The revenues are policy driven. This is not a free market.

    In another online video presidential candidate RFK Jr sums up how effectively Blackrock “launder” money.

    “The entire budget for EPA is $12 billion. That’s all we have for the environment in this country. We are giving 12 times that to Ukraine in one year and that’s just the beginning because even if the Ukraine war ended today we’re still going to spend half a trillion there rebuilding the country. The contracts to rebuild the country are even bigger than the war contracts.

    So [Senator] Mitch McConnell was asked in March, because the Republicans are supposed to be concerned about budget deficit, ‘can we really afford 113 billion’ he was asked, he said ‘Don’t worry. It’s not really going to Ukraine. It’s going to US military contractors so it’s good for our country.’

    He just admitted exactly what we’ve all been saying. It’s all just a money laundering scheme by Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing and Lockheed. Who do you think owns every one of those companies?

    Blackrock.”

    These videos offer critical insights and are essential viewing for anyone seeking to understand the depth of globalist influence.

    There is so much to talk about in relation to policy driven markets and we haven’t even begun to look at climate change and the 2030 agenda which involves yet more astronomical sums (just a little on that later), but I have presented enough to establish the principle these markets afford very substantial special forms of protected revenue – and those revenues are most usually at the expense of the taxpayers and middle classes.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 23:20

  • Net Migration: Which Regions Are Gaining Or Losing People?
    Net Migration: Which Regions Are Gaining Or Losing People?

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, shows the flow of people globally by visualizing net migration by region, from 1950 to 2023 (in 10-year intervals).

    Net migration refers to the difference between the number of people entering and leaving a country or region.

    All data was sourced from the UN World Population Prospects 2024.

    Data and Highlights

    The data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below. Numbers represent net migration (# of people gained or lost) for that specific year.

    *Northern America includes the U.S., Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, and St. Pierre and Miquelon. Mexico is included in Latin America & Caribbean.

    From this data we can see that Northern America, Europe, and Oceania have regularly gained people from immigration. In other words, more people immigrated to these regions than emigrated.

    Note that Europe saw negative values in 1950, 1960, and 1970, likely due to post-war reconstruction and political instability.

    On the other hand, Latin America & Caribbean, Africa, and Asia have regularly lost people to other regions. People often leave developing regions to seek out better job opportunities and to escape political instability or war.

    For example, the number of refugees entering the U.S. has historically spiked during conflicts, with the most recent example being the Russo-Ukrainian War.

    To learn more about this topic from a U.S.-perspective, check out this map graphic that shows where America’s 46.2 million immigrants have come from.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 22:45

  • Biden Taps 'Literal Arms Dealer' For Top Israel Policy Post
    Biden Taps ‘Literal Arms Dealer’ For Top Israel Policy Post

    Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

    Peace advocates on Friday voiced alarm over the Biden administration’s selection of a senior official who has worked to speed the shipment of U.S. arms to Israel as the State Department’s point person on Israel-Palestine policy.

    HuffPost reported that Mira Resnick, the deputy assistant secretary of state for regional security in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, has been tapped to oversee Washington’s handling of issues related to Israel and Palestine. In her current role, Resnick’s office supervises around $40 billion in annual U.S. arms transfers.

    U.S. State Department official Mira Resnick speaks during an official visit to Medellín, Colombia in July 2023. State Dept.

    Using a critical nickname for U.S. President Joe Biden, journalist and podcast host Emma Vigeland said on social media Friday, “Genocide Joe’s swan song is to institutionally entrench our support for Israel and make it as difficult as possible to disentangle it, which the old fool views as romantic and righteous.”

    Over the past 10-plus months, the Biden administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel worth billions of dollars. Earlier this month, the administration greenlighted a new $20 billion arms package for Israel.

    The announcement of the package—which includes dozens of F-15 fighter jets, tens of thousands of 120mm mortar shells, over 32,700 tank shells, and 30 advanced missiles—came just days after Israeli forces used at least one U.S. bomb in an airstrike on a Gaza school where forcibly displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing more than 100 people including women and children.

    As criticism mounted over Israel’s assault and siege on Gaza—which has left a reported more than 144,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and has flattened most of the coastal enclave while stoking deadly famine and the spread of preventable diseases including polio—Resnick helped expedite the flow of U.S. arms to the key Middle Eastern ally.

    She also worked with the hardline government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan wants to arrest for alleged war crimes including “extermination,” to allow private citizens to donate equipment to the Israel Defense Forces.

    Annelle Sheline, a former State Department official who resigned earlier this year over Biden’s support for Israel amid a war for which the key ally is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice, told HuffPost that Resnick’s appointment “reflects a doubling down on the administration’s determination to continue to provide unconditional material support for Israel’s genocidal campaign against civilians in Gaza.”

    American University of Beirut history professor Zeead Yaghi decried the Biden administration’s appointment of “a literal arms dealer.”

    Last month, the Biden administration ended a two-month pause on the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel despite the frequent use of U.S.-supplied weapons by Israeli forces to commit alleged war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Biden has suspended transfers of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs manufactured by aerospace giant Boeing over fears the devastating munitions would be used in airstrikes on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

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    Israel has dropped at least hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs—which the U.S. military avoids using in civilian areas because they can destroy entire city blocks—on Gaza, including in an October 31 attack on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.

    The U.S. is by far Israel’s biggest arms supplier, providing around 70% of Israeli arms imports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 22:10

  • America Divided On The Legacy Of Slavery
    America Divided On The Legacy Of Slavery

    Divides persist between many Black and white Americans’ views on the ongoing impacts of slavery in the United States.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, according to a poll by YouGov conducted in 2023, 52 percent of U.S. respondents believe that the legacy of slavery still influences society today either a fair amount or a great deal. Along racial lines a starker contrast exists, with 78 percent of Black Americans saying the same, versus just 46 of white Americans.

    When asked more specifically about who the legacy of slavery currently affects, respondents again answered differently. 75 percent of Black respondents said all Black Americans are affected by the legacy of slavery today, while 13 percent of Black respondents said only Black Americans who are descendants of slaves. No Black respondents selected the option for no Black Americans. Of the white respondents, only 42 percent said all Black Americans are still affected, 16 percent said only Black Americans who are descendants of slaves and 20 percent selected the option for no Black Americans.

    Infographic: America Divided on the Legacy of Slavery | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    65 percent of Black Americans said that America’s wealth as a nation today is tied to slavery, while only 26 percent of white Americans held the same view. Democrats were more likely to agree that current national wealth is significantly tied to the work done in the past by slaves (50 percent) than Independents (32 percent) or Republicans (15 percent).

    YouGov then asked respondents about which systems or markets Black Americans face prejudice today. The criminal justice system (58 percent), political system (46 percent), health care system (44 percent) and housing market (44 percent) were among the options to receive the highest shares of all respondents agreeing that discrimination is currently a problem there.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 21:35

  • US Strike Eliminates Senior Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorist Leader In Syria
    US Strike Eliminates Senior Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorist Leader In Syria

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    A U.S. military drone strike has killed a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-aligned group in Syria, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in an Aug. 23 statement.

    The strike targeted Abu-‘Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, a prominent figure within the group’s Shura Council responsible for overseeing terrorist activities from Syria, per the announcement.

    Hurras al-Din is a Syria-based force aligned with al-Quaeda that shares the terror group’s objective of attacking American and Western interests, CENTCOM said.

    Al-Makki was riding a motorcycle when the precision strike hit, ending his long-standing role in the region’s jihadist networks, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

    The operation highlights the ongoing U.S. commitment to eliminating threats posed by terrorist organizations in the Middle East, particularly those aligned with al-Qaeda.

    “CENTCOM remains committed to the enduring defeat of terrorists in the CENTCOM area of responsibility who threaten the United States, its allies and partners, and regional stability,” Commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement.

    In recent weeks, U.S. forces have also engaged in multiple operations against Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. On Aug. 22 and 23, CENTCOM forces successfully destroyed several Houthi-controlled missile systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that posed a direct threat to U.S. and coalition forces, as well as commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

    These actions underscore the heightened state of alert in the region, particularly in light of growing concerns over potential Iranian attacks.

    The Pentagon recently bolstered its military presence in the Middle East, deploying additional forces in response to intelligence suggesting that Iran and its proxies might launch significant attacks on Israel and U.S. interests. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and the guided-missile submarine USS Georgia are among the reinforcements sent to the region.

    “We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks, which is why, again, we have increased our force posture and capabilities in the region, even in just the last few days,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said earlier this month.

    The deployment of additional U.S. military assets aims to deter aggression and boost defense capabilities for Israel amid escalating regional tensions. The potential for a broader conflict has increased following the assassinations of high-profile figures in the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas terrorist groups, fueling fears of a widening confrontation involving Iran.

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Aug. 22 to discuss the ongoing exchanges of fire on the Israel–Lebanon border and the escalating threat from Iran and its proxies.

    Austin emphasized that the United States is closely monitoring attack planning by Iran and its allied groups, ensuring that U.S. forces are well-positioned to defend Israel and protect American personnel and facilities across the region.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 21:00

  • Giga-Vaxxed Fauci Somehow Contracts Ultra-Rare West Nile Virus On Heels Of COVID-19 Infection
    Giga-Vaxxed Fauci Somehow Contracts Ultra-Rare West Nile Virus On Heels Of COVID-19 Infection

    Talk about bad luck!

    Former NAIAD Director Anthony Fauci – who outsourced risky COVID gain-of-function research to a shoddy Chinese lab, and was then put in charge of handling a COVID pandemic that broke out down the street from said lab – has somehow contracted the ultra-rare West Nile virus right on the heels of a nasty COVID infection.

    Fauci, 83, was hospitalized for six days and is now at home recuperating from the mosquito-borne disease, the Washington Post reports.

    “Tony Fauci has been hospitalized with a case of West Nile virus. He is now home and is recovering. A full recovery is expected,” said a spokesperson.

    According to the report, Fauci has no idea how he got West Nile – a mosquito-borne illness that can cause fever, body aches, diarrhea and rash – and for which there is no vaccine or treatment.

    Amazingly, there have been just 216 human cases of West Nile reported across 33 states so far this year, according to the CDC. Last year, 1,800 people were sent to the hospital with West Nile, which killed 182 people.

    Earlier this month, the 83-year-old revealed that he caught COVID for a third time despite having been “vaccinated and boosted six times.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsSo in late September / early August, Fauci catches COVID. Then he somehow catches the ultra-rare West Nile virus and is hospitalized. What are the odds?

    In 2021, Fauci famously said “If you get vaccinated, you are protected,” and “When people get vaccinated, they can feel safe that they are not gonna get infected.”

    What are the chances a guy who’s clearly comfortable lying… is lying again?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 20:25

  • Media Claims Elon Musk Is A Threat To Democracy… But Is “Democracy” Even Worth Saving?
    Media Claims Elon Musk Is A Threat To Democracy… But Is “Democracy” Even Worth Saving?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

    There is perhaps nothing more tiresome and embarrassing as the theatrical pearl clutching of leftist media propaganda. For three years the public had to deal with the incessant drone of media fear mongering over the covid pandemic, an event which turned out to be a nothing-burger that 99.8% of the population on average would easily survive. After the 2020 elections we have been inundated with narratives about how conservatives are a “threat to democracy” – A democracy which progressives don’t even believe in as the recent DNC coup against Joe Biden proves.

    The latest evolution of the democracy narrative is that free speech (and probably Russia) is the root evil behind civil unrest in western countries. The notion of thought crime is making its way to the forefront of the establishment tool box and this suggests we are entering the next stage of authoritarianism – Open criminalization of speech.

    The Guardian in the UK is fully onboard with this development. The media outlet is on the warpath against Elon Musk and X (formerly known as Twitter) after Musk defied European and UK officials and their demands for censorship. In an article titled ‘Inciting Rioters In Britain Was A Test Run For Elon Musk. Just See What He Plans For America’, the platform launches into a tirade of delusional progressive talking points, a word salad designed to distract from the reality that what they are actually calling for is the death of free speech.

    The Guardian argues:

    “…Back in the golden days of 2020, tech platforms, still reeling from a public backlash, had at least to look as if they gave a shit. Twitter employed 4,000-plus people in “trust and safety”, tasked with getting dangerous content off its platform and sniffing out foreign influence operations.”

    “In Britain, the canary has sung. This summer we have witnessed something new and unprecedented. The billionaire owner of a tech platform publicly confronting an elected leader and using his platform to undermine his authority and incite violence. Britain’s 2024 summer riots were Elon Musk’s trial balloon…”

    “The presidential election is three months away. What if the billionaire contests the result? What if he decides democracy is overrated…?”

    “…What Musk – the new self-appointed Lord of Misrule – has done is to rip off the mask. He’s shown that you don’t even have to pretend to care. In Musk’s world, trust is mistrust and safety is censorship. His goal is chaos. And it’s coming.”

    The most important question that The Guardian and their leftist ilk never address is this: If a democracy relies on mass censorship and thought crime policies in order to function, if it relies on “protecting” the public from unfortunate truths, then is it really worth saving?

    I and millions of other would argue no – It’s not worth saving. That “democracy” is broken and corrupt and should be wiped from the face of the Earth before it destroys the very culture it claims to protect.

    The political left continues to prove it is emotionally stunted and frantic, relying on lies and self-induced terror to drive its base of supporters forward on the path the gatekeepers (globalists) prefer. If you’ve ever tried to reason with a screaming toddler hellbent on getting what it wants, then you know what it’s like trying to reason with leftists.

    The hyper-emotion of the left is an easy lever for the elites to manipulate, and it’s not relegated to the US. We’ve seen the same trend in Europe and the UK. There’s an accelerating panic in Britain as the working class public (most of them patriots) protested in large numbers across the nation against open borders. Almost 70% of the UK populace is against current policies on mass immigration, specifically from the third-world. The Brexit vote was based primarily on the UK public’s opposition to the forced mass immigration agenda of the EU.

    Yet, the self-described “defenders” of democracy have no interest in the public voice. They only care about majority concerns if those concerns run parallel to their agenda.

    This refusal to take public concerns on third-world migrants seriously, combined with the ongoing two-tier policing system which seeks to hide migrant crime statistics, has led directly to the protests and riots we have seen this past month. Let’s be clear: It’s government officials in the UK that are to blame for the violence. They are the culprits.

    The same goes for the riots of January 6th, an event which started out peaceful and was then triggered to react violently after Capitol police began shooting the crowd with rubber bullets and throwing tear gas grenades into their midst. You can only poke the bear for so long before the bear wakes up and claws your face off.

    Of course, when the bear does attack, play the victim and be sure not to tell anyone how you provoked it. It’s the kind of gaslighting conservatives and patriots have been dealing with for the duration and the latest events in the UK suggest it’s not going to end anytime soon.

    The Guardian is, in a way, testing the waters of totalitarianism by moving away from the old-school rationale of the “greater good.” They touch on it briefly, but their core argument here is that the system is sacrosanct no matter how corrupt it might be. Those in power and their policies cannot be criticized or protested because, well, they are the elites and we just have to trust that they know what’s best for us.

    If we interfere with them in any way, collapse will befall us and chaos will reign supreme. And we don’t want that, now, do we?

    Maybe we do. Maybe it’s time for the system as it stands today to go down. Maybe we should stop allowing the beneficiaries of the two-tiers system to hide behind the thin veneer of democracy. After all, their version of democracy is simply incremental tyranny. They’ve proven this is the end game in the UK (in case anyone had previous doubts).

    At bottom, it’s not the job of Big Tech conglomerates or government officials to police public speech. Their positions are entirely predicated on their ability to serve the public interest and this includes ALL of the public, not just progressives. From what I have seen so far, Elon Musk’s defiance is a natural reaction to incompatible government. Musk is a symptom of a greater movement, not the cause.

    The gatekeepers want to make it all about one man, or a handful of men. They want you to focus on Musk, or Trump, because they don’t want to admit the truth: That the real threat they want to neutralize is YOU, along with millions of other conservatives and independents. You are the great danger to their agenda.

    If a specific political leadership is not able to offer a good argument as to why they should exist, then maybe they shouldn’t. If a system needs to be replaced, then it will be and there’s nothing that progressive hand-wringers and globalists from Davos can do about it. They are not necessary. They are not the future. They are only holding us back.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 19:50

  • Billionaire Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Arrested In France
    Billionaire Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Arrested In France

    Pavel Durov, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram was arrested at the Bourget airport outside of Paris Saturday evening, according to TF1 TV, citing an unnamed source.

    According to the report, Durov, 39, was traveling aboard his private jet after arriving from Azerbaijan, which triggered a French search warrant issued by the OFMIN of the French judicial police due to his inclusion in a wanted persons file (FPR).

    Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging – and allows users to set up “channels” to disseminate information quickly to followers.

    “He made a blunder this evening. We don’t know why … Was this flight just a stopover? In any case, he’s in custody!” a source close to the investigation told the news outlet (translated by Google).

    Durav was detained by the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF), over the alleged facilitation of various crimes including terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and fraud.

    “On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of offences and crimes to be committed, for which he did nothing to moderate or cooperate,” a source told TF1 TV.

    The arrest was characterized by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom as part of the “crackdown against free speech.”

    Dotcom recommends that people “Backup and clean your Telegram account while you still can.”

    The Russian-born Durov notably left Russia in 2014 after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has since sold. He now lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based, and holds dual citizenship in France and the UAE.

    Durov, whose net worth is estimated at $15.5 billion, has said that some governments had sought to pressure him, but that the Telegram app – which has 900 million active users, should remain a “neutral platform,” and not a “player in geopolitics.” Durov and his brother founded Telegram in 2013.

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    According to The Guardian, the Russian embassy in France is taking “immediate steps” to clarify the situation.

    He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 19:15

  • The Permanent Temptation Of All Governments
    The Permanent Temptation Of All Governments

    Authored by Alex Pollock via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    In We Need to Talk About Inflation, his thoughtful, accessible tour of the history, theories, politics and future of inflation, Stephen King warns us that:

    “Inflation is never dead.”  

    He is right about that, and that blunt reminder alone justifies the book. 

    The book begins, “In 2021, inflation emerged from a multi-decade hibernation.” Well, inflation had not really been in hibernation, but rather was continuing at a rate which had become considered acceptable. It was worry about inflation that had been hibernating. People found themselves caught up in the runaway inflation of 2021-2023, a wake-up call. As the book explores at length, that explosive inflation had been unexpected by the central banks, including the Federal Reserve, making their forecasts and assurances look particularly bad and proving once again that their knowledge of the future is as poor as everybody else’s. 

    Now, in the third quarter of 2024, after historically fast hikes in interest rates, the current rate of inflation is less. But average prices continue going up, so the dollar’s purchasing power, lost to that runaway inflation, is gone forever. Inflation continues and has continued to exceed the Fed’s 2-percent “target” rate. And the Fed’s target itself is odd: it promises to create inflation forever. The math of 2-percent compound shrinkage demonstrates that the Fed wants to depreciate the dollar’s purchasing power by 80 percent in each average lifetime. Somehow the Fed never mentions this. 

    King shows us that such long-term disappearance of purchasing power has happened historically. Chapter 2, “A History of Inflation, Money and Ideas,” has a good discussion, starting with the debate between John Locke and Isaac Newton, of the history, variations and continuing relevance of the quantity theory of money. It also contains an instructive table of the value of the British pound by century from 1300 to 2000. The champion century for depreciation of the pound was the twentieth. The pound began as the dominant global currency and ended it as an also-ran, while one pound of 1900 had shriveled in value to two pence by 2000. The century included the Great Inflation of the 1970s, during which British Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced, the book relates, that “he hoped to bring inflation down to 10 percent by the end of 1975 and under 10 percent by the end of 1976.” His hopes were disappointed, as King sardonically reports: “The actual numbers turned out to be, respectively, 24.9 percent and 15.1 percent.”

    These inflationary times need to be remembered, as should numerous hyperinflations. Best known is the German hyperinflation of 1921-23, the memory of which gave rise to the famous anti-inflationist regime of the old Bundesbank. (It was once wittily said that “Not all Germans believe in God, but they all believe in the Bundesbank” — however, this does not apply to its successor, the European Central Bank.) King also recounts that the effects of the First World War gave rise to three other big 1920s hyperinflations — in Austria, Hungary and Poland, and that “inflation in the fledging Soviet Union appears to have been stratospheric.” He discusses the 1940s hyperinflation in China, and how in the 1980s “Brazil and other Latin American economies…succumbed to hyperinflation, currency collapse and, eventually, default.” We must add the inflationary disasters of Argentina and Zimbabwe.  

    All these destructive events resulted from the actions of governments and their central banks. The book considers the theory of how to put a stop to this problem that Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Sargent made in 1982. First and foremost, as described by King, it is “the creation of an independent central bank ‘legally committed to refuse the government’s demand for additional unsecured credit’ — in other words, there was to be no deficit financing via the printing of money.” Good idea, but how likely is this suggested scene in real life? The central bank says to the government, “Sorry about your request, but we’re not buying a penny of your debt with money we create. Of course, we could do it, but we won’t, so cut your expenses. Good luck!” Probably not a winning career move for a politically appointed central banker, and not a very likely response, we’ll all agree. 

    Moreover, in time of war or other national emergency, the likelihood of this response is zero. War is the greatest source of money printing and inflation. War and central banking go way back together: the Bank of England was created in 1694 to finance King William’s wars, was a key prop of Great Britain’s subsequent imperial career, and in 1914, fraudulently supported the first bond issue of the war by His Majesty’s Treasury.i The Federal Reserve was the willing servant of the U.S. Treasury in both world wars and would be again, whenever needed. In the massive war-like government deficit financing of the 2020-2021 Covid crisis, the Fed cooperatively bought trillions in Treasury debt to finance the costs of governments’ closing down large segments of the economy. 

    Reflecting on the enduring temptation of governments to inflate and depreciate their currencies, King rightly observes: 

    • “Inflation is very much a political process.”  

    • “Left to their own devices, governments cannot help but be tempted by inflation.” 

    • “Governments can and will resort to inflation.” 

    • “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” (Here he is quoting J.M. Keynes.) 

    Just as economics is always political economics and finance is always political finance, central banking cannot avoid being political central banking. The book considers at length the inevitable interaction between government spending and debt, on one hand, and money creation and inflation, on the other—in economics lingo, between fiscal policy and monetary policy. In theory, there can be a firm barrier between them, the spending and taxing done in the legislative and executive branches; and the money printing, or not, in the control of the central bank. In practice, the two keep meeting and being intertwined. King calls this the “Burton-Taylor” problem. Here is his metaphor: 

    “History offers countless examples in which fiscal expediency trumps monetary stability. The two big macroeconomic levers are the economic equivalent of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the Hollywood stars who were married twice [and divorced twice] and who were, perhaps still in love when Burton died: occasionally separated but always destined to reconnect.”  

    Indeed, governments’ desire for deficit spending and the ready tool of money printing and inflation are always destined to reconnect.  

    This reflects the fundamental dilemma of all politicians: they naturally want to spend more money than they’ve got to carry out their schemes, including wars. As the book observes, “Wartime provides the ultimate proof of inflation’s useful role as a hidden tax.” Politicians want to keep their perhaps lavish promises to their constituencies, to reward their friends, to enhance their power, to get re-elected; they like much less making people unhappy by taxing them. The simple answer in every short term, is to borrow to finance the deficit and run up the government’s debt. When borrowing grows expensive or becomes unavailable, the idea of just printing up the money inevitably arises, the central bank is called upon, and yet another Burton-Taylor marriage occurs.  

    Just printing up the desired money is a very old idea. As the book discusses, this frequently practiced, often disastrous old idea has been promoted anew—now under the silly name of “Modern” Monetary Theory. 

    King writes: 

    “The printing press is a temptation [I would say an inevitable temptation] precisely because it is an alternative to tax increases or spending cuts, a stealthy way in the short run of robbing people of their savings…. Ultimately, there is no escaping ‘Burton-Taylor.’” 

    When governments and central banks yield to this temptation, can the central banks correctly anticipate the inflationary outcomes? Do they have the required superior knowledge? Clearly the answer is no. 

    Chapter 6 of the book, “Four Inflationary Tests,” provides an instructive example of failed Bank of England inflation forecasts, to which I have added the actual outcomes, with the following resultsii: 

    To apply an American metaphor to these British results, that is four strikeouts in a row. The inflation forecasting record of the Federal Reserve presents similar failures. 

    Central banks try hard, including their large political and public relations efforts, to build up their credibility. They want to preside over a monetary system in which everybody believes in them. 

    But suppose that everybody, including the members of Congress, instead of believing, developed a realistic understanding of central banks’ essential and unavoidable limitations. Suppose everybody simply assumed it is impossible for central banks to know the future or the future results of their own actions. Suppose, as King puts it, the whole society had “a new rule of thumb… ‘these central bankers don’t know what they’re doing.’” Rational expectations would then reflect this assumption. 

    In that case, central banks would certainly be less prestigious. Would our overall monetary system be improved? I believe it would be. We Need to Talk About Inflation, among many other interesting ideas, encourages us to imagine such a scenario. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 18:40

  • RFK Jr. & Trump Will End War On Small Farms To Save Nation's Food Supply Chain
    RFK Jr. & Trump Will End War On Small Farms To Save Nation’s Food Supply Chain

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades as an environmental lawyer fighting polluters and supported ‘green’ organizations for environmental justice. He is now setting his crosshairs on the pharmaceutical industry and cleaning up the nation’s food supply chain of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that poison consumers. He has determined that suspending his presidential campaign to team up with former President Trump will be necessary for the strongest success rate in making Americans healthier again, not through big pharma’s Ozempic shots but instead revitalizing small farms and shaking up corrupted federal agencies.

    Lifelong liberals like RFK Jr. backing Trump is one of the strongest indicators of just how extreme the ticket, unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats have become. Harris’ team recently announced their first proposed economic policy, which was rooted in communism and included disastrous price controls. It appears the far-left ticket is being advised and heavily influenced by Marxists. 

    Between RFK Jr’s special announcement earlier Friday and his speech at Trump’s packed campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, the liberal with millions of supporters nationwide appears to have made a deal with Trump to join the campaign with a shot at waging war against corrupt federal health and food agencies, resetting the nation’s poisonous food supply chain, and launch a crusade against big pharma if the Trump team wins in November. 

    RFK Jr. informed journalists at his special press conference in the early afternoon of Friday that America’s health crisis stems from ultra-processed foods pushed by giant food/pharma companies that have corrupted various federal agencies: 

    Autism rates were about one in 10,000 in my generation – in my kids Generation 1 in 34. I’ll repeat in California 1 and 22. Why are we letting this happen? Why are we allowing this to happen to our children? These are the most precious assets that we have in this country how can we let this happen to them.

    About 18% of American teens now have fatty liver disease, that’s like one out of every five – that disease when I was a kid only affected late stage alcoholics who were elderly.

    Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the Young and the old young. Adult cancers are up 70 79%. One in four American women is on anti-depressant medication. About 40% of teens have a mental health diagnosis and 15% of high schoolers are on Aderall, and half a million children on SSRIs.

    So what’s causing this suffering? I’ll name two culprits first and the worst is ultra-processed food. About 70% of American children’s diet is ultra-processed that means industrial manufacturing – these Foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains, and seed oils.

    Scientists who, for many of them, formerly worked for the cigarette industry, which purchased all the big food companies in the 1970s and 80s, deployed thousands of scientists to figure out chemicals new chemicals to make the food more addictive, and these ingredients didn’t exist a 100 years ago. Humans aren’t biologically adapted to eat them. Hundreds of these chemicals are now banned in Europe but ubiquitous in American processed foods.

    The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food and our medicine and our environment pesticides food additives pharmaceutical drugs and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The Assault on our children’s cells and hormones is unrelenting – name just one problem many of these chemicals increase estrogen – because young children are ingesting so many of these hormone disruptors, America’s puberty rate is now occurring at age 10 to 13, which is six years earlier than girls were reaching puberty in 1900 our country has the earliest puberty rates of any continent on the Earth and no this isn’t because of better nutrition – this is not normal – breast cancer is also estrogen-driven and it now strikes one in eight women. We are mass poisoning all of our children. 

    RFK Jr. then touched on the processed food industry lobbyists who have corrupted Washington, resulting in a food supply chain filled with poison that is killing Americans. He said several federal agencies that are supposed to protect consumers have also been corrupted. 

    He pointed out that the processed food industry has been “destroying small farms, and they’re destroying our soils.” 

    And RFK Jr. at Trump’s campaign rally… 

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    RFK Jr. is entirely correct about the war on small farms. More than ever, the corrupt government and the processed food industry have contributed to the more recent small farm collapse. 

    Taking a step back, in the 1800s, about 90% of the US population lived on farms. It was unheard of to see morbidly obese folks back then. Small farm owners began to decline as folks moved to towns and cities. Small farms have now collapsed to less than one percent of the US population. And the billionaire class like Bill Gates, who wants to ban cow farts, has been buying up small farms nationwide in a massive consolidation move. 

    In the US, small farms accounted for less than 25% of food production in 2020, down from nearly half in the 1990s. We have detailed the government’s war on small farms in numerous reports, including the war on Amish farmers in Pennsylvania.

    The change of guard in farming across America and who controls the food supply chain has morphed from the people to the processed food industry. As mega-factory farms rise in power, inversely, small farms have been burdened by high operation costs and climate regulation – a stealthily way of bankrupting the small competition. 

    Unlike factory farms, small farms are deeply rooted in communities. They are more likely to feed their neighbors and provide real, nutritious food rather than have their produce end up in a Walmart store halfway across the country. The latest data from the USDA shows the massive farm collapse across America over the last century.

    Mega corporations, some of which are part of the ‘green’ cult, want greater and greater control over the nation’s food supply chain. Some are even pushing insect-based diets.

    The big takeaway from RFK Jr.’s support of Trump is that he believes the correct path to restoring America’s health is not Ozempic shots but revitalizing the nation’s local food supply chains by making small farms great again. He wants to reset the food supply chain system and purge it of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that are killing consumers. He also proposed shaking up federal agencies in health and food that have close ties with ultra-processed food companies. 

    For years, we have told readers that it’s critical to support local farmers and put the food supply chain back into the hands of the people—not corrupt mega-corps that flood store shelves with cancer-causing junk food.

    Henry Kissinger famously said, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

    It’s time for Americans to regain control of the nation’s food supply chains by making small farms great again. Also, boycotting the processed food industry and buying local food is critical.

    If Trump wins, RFK Jr. will likely provide tailwinds for small farmers. And Europe will take note as corp/gov’ts have also waged war on small farms. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 18:05

  • Beheaded During BLM Riots, Washington Monument At GWU Vandalized By Pro-Palestinian Protesters
    Beheaded During BLM Riots, Washington Monument At GWU Vandalized By Pro-Palestinian Protesters

    Authored by Jennifer Kabbany via The College Fix,

    One bust of President George Washington inside the nation’s capitol just can’t catch a break.

    The monument at George Washington University was beheaded during the height of the Black Lives Matter riots in June 2020.

    The university finally had it fixed by the summer of 2022.

    Now the private institution is going to have to send its custodial crew back out there.

    On Wednesday the monument was hit with graffiti stating “disclose divest now” in red spray paint. It was one of several places peppered with such vandalism, according to images posted by pro-Palestinian social media accounts.

    The vandalism came as the pro-Palestinian protesters kicked off the first day of school with aggressive protests — this despite the fact that GWU suspended both Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace for the fall semester in an attempt to rein in the chaos.

    “Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside University President Ellen Granberg’s on-campus house and the barricades surrounding University Yard on the first day of the fall semester to underscore ongoing demands that GW discloses its finances and divests from Israel,” the GW Hatchet student newspaper reported.

    The demonstrators also tried to get back into the fenced-off GW University Yard: “Police are on the scene, but students seem adamant. This was the location of their encampment, ‘Shohada Square,’” reported citizen journalist Stu Studio.

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    The Student Coalition for Palestine at GWU posted on Instagram on Thursday about the vandalism:

    Last night, autonomous protestors sent a message to Provost Christopher Alan Bracey at his home, spray painting the message amplified and repeated by students, faculty, and the people of this city onto Bracey’s very own driveway: “DISCLOSE DIVEST NOW!” During the encampment earlier this spring, Provost Bracey himself violently assaulted two students. A statue of George Washington on campus was also branded with the same demand.

    Let this be a message to Bracey and every administrator at this University. We will never falter from our demands. This administration has the blood of 186,000 Palestinians on their hands. The burn of pepper spray, the bruises of police brutality, and the mark of handcuffs and zipties on our comrades are forever seared into our memory and consciousness. Your crimes will follow you wherever you go. You will be confronted in your events, in your offices, at your homes. Every step you take we will be there to hold you accountable.

    This week’s uproar at GWU comes a few months after a pro-Palestinian GWU student tribunal called for campus leaders to be beheaded on guillotines. Protests got so bad in the spring semester GWU administrators called on help from the metro police.

    A memo from University President Ellen Granberg stated at the time that all of the university’s efforts to end the encampment and deter protesters from escalation failed.

    Granberg’s memo stated in part that “when protesters overrun barriers established to protect the community, vandalize a university statue and flag, surround and intimidate GW students with antisemitic images and hateful rhetoric, chase people out of a public yard based on their perceived beliefs, and ignore, degrade, and push GW Police Officers and university maintenance staff, the protest ceases to be peaceful or productive. All of these things have happened at GW in the last five days.”

    As GWU Professors Jonthan  Turley writes, the continued vandalism on our campus is often defended as free speech. It is not.

    As he discussed in his book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” there is a difference between conduct and speech. I have defended the right of pro-Palestinian groups to protest on campus. However, occupying buildings or trashing property is criminal conduct that should be sanctioned or prosecuted. The problem is that the few charges brought against such actors were largely dropped.

    As students return, protests are again ramping up around our campus and other schools.

    As for George, the monument will have to be, again, restored. It is all being heralded as “a message to Bracey and every administrator at this University.”

    The question is whether officials will be equally clear and consistent in their own message that threats, property damage, and other offenses will not be tolerated on our campuses.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 17:30

  • Visualizing $5 Trillion In Global Commodity Exports, By Sector
    Visualizing $5 Trillion In Global Commodity Exports, By Sector

    This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, categorizes over $5 trillion in global commodity exports by sector and the value of material exported.

    Data was averaged between 2019–2021 to represent an annual estimate. Source figures can be found at The State of Commodity Dependence 2023 published by UN Trade & Development.

    Commodity Exports with the Highest Value

    Oil and its products account for 30% of global commodity exports on average, valued at $1.5 trillion annually.

    Figures rounded.

    When including natural gas, electricity, and coal exports, the energy sector contributes 40% to the value of global commodity export per year ($2 trillion). Agricultural exports ($1.9 trillion) rank second and are higher in value than mineral exports ($1.4 trillion).

    Within agriculture, crops and forestry has the lion’s share of value at $1.2 trillion. This category includes everything from wheat to wood exports.

    Meanwhile, the minerals sector is more equally divided between base metal exports (like copper, iron, and aluminum) and precious metals and stones (gold, silver, diamonds).

    Not pictured in this graphic is how international the commodity trade tends to concentrate in just a few countries on the exports side. For example, one-fourth of all copper produced in 2023 came from Chile.

    The flip side of this means some of these major resource exporters have a significant amount of commodity dependence. And relatedly, many of them are low or middle income countries. When international prices for the commodity exported decline, the likelihood of financial crises and reduced public spending increases, further entrenching economic challenges in these regions.

    Oil’s export value closely mirrors its consumption as a primary energy source. Check out “What Powered the World in 2023?” to see the world’s energy mix.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 16:55

  • Illegal Immigration Lull At Southwest Border Likely Temporary; Experts Say
    Illegal Immigration Lull At Southwest Border Likely Temporary; Experts Say

    Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

    The number of immigrants illegally entering the United States is down at least temporarily because of deals cut with the United States’ southern neighbors and other measures, according to experts, but the crisis is far from over.

    U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) numbers showed 205,000 illegal immigrant encounters in June, slightly lower than the 208,000 in June of 2021 after President Joe Biden took office.

    The Biden administration has taken credit for the recent drop, attributing it to new asylum rules limiting the number of people allowed to cross illegally into the country and through the CBP One app, which enables migrants to make appointments with Border Patrol to enter the United States.

    Other factors limiting the number of illegal migrants crossing the border include deals with Mexico and Panama.

    In December 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, seeking help with decreasing illegal immigration.

    This summer, the Biden administration promised to help pay for Panama’s efforts to repatriate hundreds of thousands of migrants headed to the United States via the Darien Gap, one of the most treacherous migration routes.

    Biden’s efforts came after millions of people from more than 150 countries crossed the U.S. southern border illegally last year, drawing intense media attention with the 2024 election on the horizon.

    Even with help from southern neighbors and a new executive order in place, illegal immigrant encounters stand at 2.4 million through June so far this fiscal year—likely to outpace the 2022 total of 2.8 million.

    Last year, a record 3.2 million illegal immigrants entered the United States. More than 10 million migrants have crossed into the country unlawfully since Biden reversed Trump administration policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” under which asylum seekers waited until their asylum claim could be heard.

    The arrangement between the Biden administration and Mexico triggered a crackdown on migrants headed to the U.S. southern border. Mexican officials have rounded up tens of thousands of migrants, busing them to the southern cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula.

    Honduran girl Dareli Matamoros holds a sign asking President Joe Biden to let her in during a migrant demonstration at San Ysidro crossing port in Tijuana, Mexico, on March 2, 2021. Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

    Some U.S.-bound migrants in Mexico reported being sent back to southern Mexico as many as six times, causing them to run out of money and become stuck at least temporarily.

    That’s significant, because the CPB One app currently doesn’t work south of Mexico City, meaning migrants must start their journey all over again or remain stranded in southern Mexico.

    The Biden administration announced that the app will begin to work throughout Mexico, including in the southern region, on Aug. 23, which is likely to increase traffic again.

    The app allows migrants on their way to illegally cross the U.S. southern border to set up an appointment with border patrol at ports of entry. The immigrants are processed at ports of entry in Arizona, Texas, and California and released into the country to await asylum hearings.

    The House Committee on Homeland Security, after reviewing documents provided by DHS, contend that the CBP One app is being abused, because almost 96 percent of noncitizens using it are unlawfully released into the country.

    Panamanian President-elect José Raúl Mulino visits the Reception Center for Migrant Care in Lajas Blancas, in the jungle province of Darién, Panama, on June 28, 2024. Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

    Many illegal immigrants’ asylum claims are ultimately rejected because they came for economic reasons, instead of fearing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

    In 2021, one study by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse showed that less than 30 percent of illegal immigrants who applied for asylum qualified for it.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration in 2023 over the CBP One app, claiming that the administration used rulemaking to circumvent immigration laws made by Congress.

    “Federal law makes clear that those entering the country illegally should be expelled from the United States, except in very rare circumstances,“ Paxton said in a statement.

    ”However, the Biden border app does not and cannot verify that an illegal immigrant would qualify for an exception, which would prevent them from being deported.”

    Todd Bensman is the senior national security fellow at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies think tank, and he spoke to The Epoch Times on Aug. 13 from Panama, where he assessed the number of migrants coming through the Darien Gap.

    Traffic was down substantially, he said, but some migrants he spoke with on the Colombia side of the jungle passage seemed to be in a holding pattern, waiting to see whether others were making it through.

    “There’s a lull right now for sure, a decisive lull in Darien,” he said.

    Fabiola Suarez from Venezuela rests at Bajo Chiquito in the Darien Gap after a 3-day trek from Colombia on Feb. 18, 2024. She said her destination is Denver, where her husband is waiting. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

    Venezuelans, who make up the most significant number of migrants trekking through the dangerous route into Panama, may be waiting to see what happens in the wake of their country’s contested presidential election, he said.

    President Nicolás Maduro has refused to step down after the opposition party running against the de facto dictator claimed victory in the July 28 election. The United States has refused to recognize Maduro’s claim that he won.

    Maduro’s forces have rounded up more than 2,000 dissidents who demonstrated or cast doubt on his having won a third term despite evidence showing that he lost by more than two to one.

    Bensman predicted that traffic would stay low for the next couple of months as migrants weigh the situation.

    “The migrants are definitely nervous about what the Panamanians said out loud that they were going to do and the fact that some barbed wire went up on some of the trails,” he said.

    “But I think that’s temporary because the Panamanians are really kind of still letting everybody in.”

    Bensman said Panama is deporting about 50 to 100 migrants with criminal records out of the country each week by plane.

    A Venezuelan family treks from Bajo Chiquito to Lajas Blancas on Feb. 18, 2024. The woman, who was limping as she walked, said her knee gave out. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

    Panamanian officials who spoke with him said American personnel aren’t helping with the operation, he added. And the Biden administration has yet to provide funds to pay for repatriation flights for immigrants as promised.

    Mayorkas, who attended Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino’s July 1 inauguration, signed a memorandum of understanding to provide financial assistance to Panama for illegal immigrant repatriation flights out of the country.

    Bensman said he believes Mexico’s actions of rounding up migrants near the U.S. border and busing them back south has made the most difference in the number of migrants attempting to illegally cross the United States’ southwest border.

    Meanwhile, immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) have been quietly flown into the United States under a Biden administration mass parole program that was recently suspended over fraud concerns.

    Up to 30,000 CHNV nationals per month were allowed into the United States under the administration’s use of parole, enabling most to stay up to two years and receive work permits.

    The illegal immigrants needed a sponsor and to purchase their own airplane tickets to qualify for the program.

    Miami received the bulk of flights of those entering under mass parole, according to CBP statistics.

    Border Patrol numbers filtered for those CHNV nationalities arriving at the Miami airport for fiscal year 2023 through June 2024 total almost 335,000, with all interior ports totaling more than half a million, according to CBP statistics.

    Mexican federal military troops check the identification of people on the bank of the Rio Grande across from the United States, in Piedras Negras Mexico, on April 21, 2022. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

    The pause in the CHNV program came after an internal report by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services found fraudulent information in thousands of application forms filed by sponsors. The Federation for American Immigration Reform obtained the report.

    Internal government documents showed that the same Social Security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers were used hundreds of times in some cases. Also, 100,948 forms were filled out by 3,218 serial sponsors, meaning sponsors whose numbers appeared on 20 or more forms.

    Documents showed that 24 of the 1,000 most used sponsor Social Security numbers belonged to people who were deceased. Also, 100 physical addresses were used between 124 and 739 times on more than 19,000 forms.

    Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) called mass parole an “unlawful” program that obscured the problem of an overrun border.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 16:20

  • New York To Pay $155 Per Megawatt Hour For Wind-Power, Current Rate Is $36 Per MWH
    New York To Pay $155 Per Megawatt Hour For Wind-Power, Current Rate Is $36 Per MWH

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    It currently costs NY about $36 per MWH for energy. But the state demanded wind. Let’s discuss the amazing bottom line results.

    So Much for So Little

    The Wall Street Journal asks Why Is New York Paying So Much for Wind Power?

    New York state signed a contract in June to buy electricity generated by two large wind farms, Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind, off the coast of Long Island. The projects are expected to begin in 2026 and 2027, with power delivered to Brooklyn (Empire) and Long Island (Sunrise). The state will pay $155 and $146 per megawatt-hour, respectively. These prices are steep, at least four times the average grid cost paid over the past year.

    States agree to pay wind-power operators—known as the “offtake price”—based on a project’s “break-even cost,” the estimated bill for building and operating the wind farm over its useful life. That is undoubtedly part of the problem. The offshore wind business off the East Coast is in turmoil. Operators have canceled projects from Massachusetts to Maryland that were due to be constructed in the next four years. Some have been delayed, while others have renegotiated their contracts at prices 30% to 50% higher than originally promised.

    Two widely quoted sources of break-even costs are the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Lazard, an investment bank. In its most recent estimates, the EIA suggests the average break-even cost of offshore wind farms, adjusted to 2024 prices, is $131 per megawatt-hour, not counting government subsidies, and $101 per megawatt-hour after allowing for basic tax credits. The latter figure is what matters, because every offshore wind farm expects to take advantage of investment or production tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.

    EIA Says Wind is Not Economical

    Let’s pause right there because wind is absurd by any measure.

    The cost of wind is $131 per MWH without credits and $101 with $30 in tax credits according to the EIA.

    A handout of $30 is an 83 percent subsidy (30/36) and the deal still is still nearly 100% per MWH in the red, losing $35 per MWH over the cost of buying energy at market rates.

    A Sweetheart Deal

    The deal (thank you team Biden and New York), will pay $155 and $146 per megawatt-hour, respectively to Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind.

    The owner-operators of the two farms—Equinor for Empire and Orsted for Sunrise—are two of the top five global wind-farm investors and operators. Equinor is Norway’s state oil company, while Orsted previously was Denmark’s.

    With a break even cost of $101 (thanks to subsidies), Equinor will make $54 per MWH and Orsted will make a mere $45 per MWH on something whose total cost should be $36 per MWH.

    The Journal calculates Equinor and Orsted (foreign corporations) will each receive a total subsidy of more than $3 billion courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

    The Journal asks “Did New York sign an agreement that allows large wind-farm operators to earn unreasonably high after-tax profits at the expense of its residents?”

    I believe the math speaks for itself.

    Not only will New Yorkers pay over four times the going rate for energy, the US will send $3 billion to foreign companies to do so.

    Congrats team Biden and New York State.

    Another Green Energy Company Declares Bankruptcy

    Meanwhile, Another Green Energy Company Declares Bankruptcy, Thank Biden’s Tariffs

    And in case you missed it Ford Loses $132,000 on Each EV Produced, Good News, EV Sales Down 20 Percent

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 15:10

  • Gat Summer: 22 Shot, 6 Dead In Chicago During First 3 Days Of DNC
    Gat Summer: 22 Shot, 6 Dead In Chicago During First 3 Days Of DNC

    While Democrats prance around the DNC in Chicago with manufactured enthusiasm for Kamala Harris, a deadly week unfolded outside in the Democrat-run city.

    According to the Washington Times, 6 people were murdered amid 22 shootings in the first three days of the Democratic National Convention, while a member of the Texas delegation was robbed at gunpoint while walking in downtown Chicago Wednesday morning.

    The weekend before, there were 26 shootings and five deaths, according to police.

    In the first three days of the DNC, according to the Chicago Police Department:

    • On Monday, there were eight shootings, four of which were fatal, and an armed robbery.

    • On Tuesday, there were five shootings involving 12 victims and an aggravated battery shooting.

    • On Wednesday, there were nine shootings involving 12 victims, one of whom died, and a stabbing.

    Of course, the violence hasn’t been allowed anywhere near the convention site at the United Center, located a few miles from downtown.

    “Our officers are out there. They’re out there. They’re highly visible,” said Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling in a Monday presser. “And we have officers not only along the corridors downtown, in and around the venues of the Democratic National Convention, but also in our neighborhoods to continue to protect our people who are living in areas that are the most vulnerable.”

    According to HeyJackass, there have been a total of 244 people shot and 38 killed in the windy city.

    Hilariously, President Joe Biden on Monday bragged about violent crime coming down under his administration – though as the Times points out, that claim is based on data compiled from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which relies heavily on oft-incomplete reporting from city officials.

    As part of Thursday’s DNC program, several speakers were addressing gun violence.

    Even if crime is down nationally, it has soared in Chicago over the past year. Violent crime in Chicago grew to its highest level in a decade in 2023, but the arrest rate dropped, according to data from the Illinois Policy Institute. In 2023, violent crime in Chicago was 11.5% higher than it was in 2022.

    There were at least 617 homicides in Chicago in 2023, making it the nation’s murder capital for the 12th consecutive year. Murders are down slightly in the city this year, with 344 through Aug. 4, compared with 379 at the same date last year, or a drop of 9%.

    On Tuesday, morning a 25-year-old man was robbed around 2 a.m. near the Allegro Royal Sonesta Hotel — in the heart of downtown — when two men in a black Range Rover pulled up to him as he walked along the sidewalk, according to local media reports. The assailant then crossed the street to rob the Texas delegate and his friend. -Washington Examiner

    For those who might find themselves strolling around Chicago, here’s where not to go…

    via HeyJackass

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 14:35

  • It Hasn't Worked Once, So Why Would A Politician Go All-In On Price Controls Now?
    It Hasn’t Worked Once, So Why Would A Politician Go All-In On Price Controls Now?

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via TheNationalTelegraph.com,

    August 15th was the anniversary of the infamous “Nixon Shock”, when excessive spending and trade deficits had governments on the ropes, as prices climbed relentlessly, inflation soared into the double digits, while economic growth stalled.

    In 1971 of that year, Nixon “temporarily” suspended convertibility of the US dollar for gold (still in effect), while simultaneously proclaiming a 90-day freeze on all wages and prices across the United States.

    The stagflationary 70’s also saw Trudeau the 1st enact “The Anti-Inflation Act of 1975”, with his infamous “6 and 5” measures (a 6% cap on wage increases with a 5% cap on prices was supposed to put 1% back into the pocket of the peasants).

    None of this worked, and as the lumpenpublic were mulched by higher prices and growing government, gold served as a barometer to it all – soaring from $35/oz at the time of the Nixon Shock to $850/oz in 1980 (that all-time high still won’t be exceeded in inflation adjusted terms until gold cracks about $2,580).

    It took Paul Volcker  to get inflation under control with double-digit interest rates – (when the news came that he had been elevated from President of the New York Fed under Gerald Ford to Chairman by Jimmy Carter, Volcker’s wife burst into tears).

    Today, 50 years later with a monetary regime that makes the 70’s look austere, double-digit interest rates are simply not an option – we’ve just seen a 5-sigma event nearly blow up the global monetary system from the BoJ nudging interest rates from the zero bound to 25bps.

    With an unprecedented levels of monetary expansion and debt levels somewhere beyond nosebleed elevations, policy-makers and central bankers are trapped.

    This is why we’re seeing a resurgence in popular rhetoric around the idea of price controls – everywhere from Jagmeet Singh here in Canada, who blames grocery store CEOs for inflation, to Dem nominee and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris, channeling him with promises of food price controls as part of her election campaign.

    Price Controls Invariably Presage Decline (& Tyranny)

    The definitive chronicle of price controls throughout recorded history comes to us by way of Robert L. Schuettinger and Eammon F. Butler’s “Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls” – or “How Not to Fight Inflation“.

    I could not for the life of me find my hard copy, but during the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, The Mises Institute saw the value in republishing it…

    “By special arrangement with the authors, the Mises Institute is thrilled to bring back this popular guide to ridiculous economic policy from the ancient world to modern times. This outstanding history illustrates the utter futility of fighting the market process through legislation. It always uses despotic measures to yield socially catastrophic results.”

    It starts as far back as Urakagina of Lagash, a King of Sumeria in around 2350BC who came to power and overturned wage and price controls held in place by an unnamed line of despotic predecessors:

    “[he]began his rule by ending the burdens of excessive government regulations over the economy, including controls on wages and prices…
    An historian of this period tells us that from Urakagina,

    ‘we have one of the most precious and revealing documents in the history of man and his perennial and unrelenting struggle for freedom from tyranny and oppression.’

    This document records a sweeping reform of a whole series of prevalent abuses, most of which could be traced to a ubiquitous and obnoxious bureaucracy …it is in this document that we find the word ‘freedom’ used for the first time in man’s recorded history; the word is ‘amargi’.“

    It is somewhat telling to find that the word “freedom” was seemingly coined to describe the end of price controls.

    The Code of Hammurabi of ancient Babylon is often cited as one of the earliest legal codes, thought to be the first to enshrine the presumption of innocence, but it also contained detailed tables of price controls on everything from goods to services – like the hiring of a wagon (“forty qa of corn per diem”) to the wages of a field laborer (“eight gur of corn per annum”).

    According to Schuettinger and Butler, historical records show that Hammurabi’s price controls dampened trade and economic activity for both Hammurabi and his successors, citing W. F Leemans, who found that:

    Prominent and wealthy tamkaru (merchants) were no longer found in Hammurabi’s reign. Moreover, only a few tamkaru are known from Hammurabi’s time and afterwards . . . all . . . evidently minor tradesmen and money-lenders.

    Concluding:

    “it appears that the very people who were supposed to benefit from the Hammurabi wage and price restrictions were driven out of the market by those and other statutes.”

    Finding that:

    “There was a remarkable change in the fortunes of the people of Nippur and Isin and the other ancient towns which he ruled, which came in the middle of Rim-Sin’s reign [Hammurbi’s predecessor – whose policies he extended] . The beginning of the economic decline corresponds exactly with a series of “reforms” inaugurated by him.

    For the first of many times throughout this piece, I will ask the reader to “hold that thought”.

    We can fast forward to ancient Greece where Athens, a city state “perpetually short on grain” sought to control the prices at which it was sold in order to keep them “just”. At one point, under a measure that was supposed to be temporary (sound familiar?), state appointed corn buyers called “Sitonai” were mobilized to set the pricing.

    Predictably, the problem got worse, and there were calls to make the measures permanent.  One politician, Lysian of Athens wanted to put grain dealers who broke the code to death.

    The book is exhaustive in its examinations, covering China, India, the Medieval age, even modern times (Canada and the US in the seventies) – but ancient Rome warrants a deeper look – particularly the road to Emperor Diocletian’s Edict of 301AD.

    “Under the tribune Caius Gracchus the Lex Sempronia Frumentaria was adopted which allowed every Roman citizen the right to buy a certain amount of wheat at an official price much lower than the market price.

    In 58 B.C. this law was “improved” to allow every citizen free wheat. The result, of course, came as a surprise to the government.

    Most of the farmers remaining in the countryside simply left to live in Rome without working.

    If that wasn’t enough:

    Slaves were freed by their masters so that they, as Roman citizens, could be supported by the state.

    (There is a modern day analog here with open borders and the illegal immigration crisis – where we could be looking at mass migrations as being, at least partially, incentivized by governments of weakening economies trying to jettison dependents and potential rebels – offloading them to countries dumb enough to think they’re acting enlightened by taking them on and supporting them).

    By 45BC, Julius Caesar found that roughly a third of the citizenry was living on “free food” from the government.

    He managed to reduce this number by about half, but it soon rose again; throughout the centuries of the empire Rome was to be perpetually plagued with this problem of artificially low prices for grain, which caused economic dislocations of all sorts.

    Succeeding emperors resorted to the ancient version of “Quantitative Easing” – currency debasement:

    In order to attempt to deal with their increasing economic problems, the emperors gradually began to devalue the currency. Nero (A.D. 54–68) began with small devaluations and matters became worse under Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–80) when the weights of coins were reduced. “These manipulations were the probable cause of a rise in prices,” according to Levy. The Emperor Commodus (A.D.)

    By Diocletian’s time in the 4th century it reached truly hyper-inflationary levels when measured in other provincial currencies:

    Egypt was the province of the Empire most affected, but her experience was reflected in lesser degrees throughout the Roman world. During the fourth century, the value of the gold solidus changed from 4,000 to 180 million Egyptian drachmai.

    Diocletian’s Dilemma

    Gresham’s Law states that “bad money drives out the good” – it means that rapidly devaluing or debased currencies are traded for anything other than themselves (which drives prices denominated in that currency up) – while “sound” currencies, like gold, or nowadays Bitcoin are hoarded – or at least more carefully spent.

    “[I]n the years before Diocletian, emperors were issuing tin-plated copper coins which were still called by the name ‘denarius.’ Gresham’s Law, of course, became operative; silver and gold coins were naturally hoarded and were no longer found in circulation.” 

    The result of iterative generations of government mismanagement and currency debasement was the hollowing out of the middle class:

    “The middle class was almost obliterated and the proletariat was quickly sinking to the level of serfdom. Intellectually the world had fallen into an apathy from which nothing would rouse it.”

    The same thing is happening today, but in Diocletian’s time, he saw what was happening and moved to impose some kind of order, first by issuing a new Denarious, that after centuries of declining silver content, openly contained none:

    Via Armstrong Economics

    …and then, moving to a system that attempted to replace money entirely (again, hold that thought):

    Since money was completely worthless, he devised a system of taxes based on payments in kind. This system had the effect, via the ascripti glebae [tenant serfs], of totally destroying the freedom of the lower classes—they became serfs and were bound to the soil to ensure that the taxes would be forthcoming. 

    But he had a dilemma:

    The principal reason for the official overvaluation of the currency, of course, was to provide the wherewithal to support the large army and massive bureaucracy—the equivalent of modern government.

    Diocletian’s choices were to continue to mint the increasingly worthless denarius or to cut “government expenditures” and thereby reduce the requirement for minting them.

    In modern terminology, he could either continue to “inflate” or he could begin the process of “deflating” the economy.

    Diocletian decided that deflation, reducing the costs of civil and military government, was impossible. On the other hand: To inflate would be equally disastrous in the long run. 

    Diocletian’s problem is the same one central banks and policy makers face today, all over the world:

    Source: IMF

    The world is awash in too much debt – with debt-to-GDP more than doubling from 100% to over 256% since the Nixon Shock. With interest rates being artificially suppressed for decades – austerity is off the table, for now — I’ve been writing for years how CBDCs and #Netzero are essentially setting the table for forced austerity.

    But we’re not there yet – retail CBDCs are a few years away from being ready but the global financial system is unravelling now (in the meantime, you can get on the waiting list for my CBDC Survival Guide, which is coming out this fall).

    How did Diocletian navigate the quagmire?

    The Solution: Inflate with Price Controls

    As Schuettinger and Butler recount,

    It was in this seemingly desperate circumstance that Diocletian determined to continue to inflate, but to do so in a way that would, he thought, prevent the inflation from occurring.

    He sought to do this by simultaneously fixing the prices of goods and services and suspending the freedom of people to decide what the official currency was worth. 

    Contrary to our own political leaders,  Diocletian wasn’t stupid (in fact, he may have been the most intelligent Roman Emperor after a long string of weak minded half-wits who were propped up by the military).

    He knew that the incentives would be against the productive class working, selling, and entrenpreneuring at a loss and he understood that Incentives Are Everything. In his case:

    “if farmers, merchants and craftsmen could not expect to receive what they considered to be a fair price for their goods they would not put them on the market at all, but would await a change in the law (or in the dynasty).”

    So Diocletian had to realign people’s incentives:

    “From such guilt also he too shall not be considered free, who, having goods necessary for food or usage, shall after this regulation have thought that they might be withdrawn from the market; since the penalty ought to be even heavier for him who causes need than for him who makes use of it contrary to the statutes.”

    The penalty was …death.

    Same for anyone who purchased goods or services at prices above the prescribed amount (no matter how hungry or desperately you needed something or how scarce that something was).

    As draconian as that sounds, it almost looks like more people were killed by deprivation and mob rule than were executed for violating price controls:

    There was much blood shed upon very slight and trifling accounts; and the people brought provisions no more to markets, since they could not get a reasonable price for them and this increased the dearth so much, that at last after many had died by it”

    The authors go on to cite Roland Kent:

    “In other words, the price limits set in the Edict were not observed by the traders, in spite of the death penalty provided in the statute for its violation; would-be purchasers, finding that the prices were above the legal limit, formed mobs and wrecked the offending traders’ establishments, incidentally killing the traders, though the goods were after all of but trifling value; hoarded their goods against the day when the restrictions should be removed, and the resulting scarcity of wares actually offered for sale caused an even greater increase in prices, so that what trading went on was at illegal prices, and therefore performed clandestinely.

    Within four years, the law was set aside, and Diocletian abdicated.

    Michael Rostovtzeff, another leading Roman historian, remarked:

    “Diocletian shared the pernicious belief of the ancient world in the omnipotence of the state, a belief which many modern theorists continue to share with him and with it.”

    Here We Are Again

    Since the unprecedented monetary stimulus during Covid, we are now beginning to see exactly how trapped we are – with politicians taking victory laps for 2.9% inflation (hedonically adjusted and perpetually revised) – nobody is really remarking that the official targeted inflation rate is in the process of being hiked by half from 2% to 3% target.

    The Fed is getting ready to cut interest rates, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the ECB are already cutting and as I told readers in the latest issue of The Bitcoin Capitalist, the Bank of Japan just showed the world that they can’t raise:

    On Tuesday, August 6th, the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance held an emergency meeting, and the next day announced “no more rate hikes” until the global financial system could handle it.

    Which will be never.

    For the first 50 years of the post-Bretton Woods era, since the Nixon Shock, monetary debasement has been mostly under-the-radar and after the stagflationary 70’s, had been largely confined to asset inflation.

    This was thanks to a massive bond super-cycle that saw the cost-of-capital come down for 50 years, igniting an asset bubble on the other side of the ledger:

    Consumer inflation never really started hitting hard until the aftermath of Covid, and the central banks took to hiking rates to try and get it back under control (my suspicion was always that what they really wanted to do was reload as high as possible so they could cut, once again):

    Again, from this month’s TBC (see end of this post for a trial deal):

    We’ve been saying since the Fed originally started hiking, that they would do so until something broke.

    In March of 2023, something broke – with Silicon Valley Bank and the regional banking crisis; it was quickly papered over with FDIC backstops on all deposits, while the Fed abandoned their balance sheet reductions and quickly reinflated the money supply.

    Everything since then has been a theatrical, slow-motion pivot.

    Now, after this Bank of Japan miscalculation, something really broke – and the world now sees how the BoJ is trapped, the rest of the central banks are paused or already cutting, right when the global liquidity cycle is starting to turn back up.

    Via RBC Global Asset Management

    (Also – M2 is also beginning to rise again)

    Price Controls Are The ‘Hail Mary’ Play of a Bankrupt System

    All the usual tricks which got us this far, money printing, interest rate suppression, ballooning debt have finally run out of runway because they are now resulting in. consumer price inflation.

    This is 100% the fault of bad political leadership and central bank policy but that will never be admitted (to be fair, the St. Louis Fed’s Chris Neely authored a piece in 2022 explaining “Why Price Controls Should Stay In the History Books“)

    Instead, politicians will resort ad hominem attacks on the productive class, and absurd accusations that it is the fault of investors and entrepreneurs, who must navigate the risks of monetary debasement, for causing it.

    Hence, we have Kamala Harris seemingly anchoring her political campaign on “ending price gouging” once she’s in office.

    She seems to be channeling Canada’s own champagne socialist, Jagmeet Singh, the Rolex wearing, Versace sporting millionaire  who routinely demonizes CEOs – particularly those of grocery store chains, for causing inflation:

    Corporate greed in our country has reached a breaking point after decades of Liberal and Conservative governments that have rewritten the rules to favour the ultra-rich.

    Now, every bill you pay makes CEOs richer.

    It’s wrong.

    I’ll change the rules to help you, not CEO profits. 

    (What’s ironic in both cases, is Harris is promising to do something upon being elected, although she’s the incumbent Vice President since 2020, while Jagmeet Singh is the one person in Canada, who is single-handedly propping the Trudeau government in power with a coalition government that he could end at any time).

    The Lure of Technocracy For Price Controls

    After one looks at the historical record – 4,000 years of endless failures, in price controls, communism and every permutation of centrally planned economies, there has to be a reason politicians are still reaching for it as a solution to problems they have caused and why a small – but vocal and influential, segment of the public cheerleads this as a net benefit for society.

    The secret sauce of “it’s different this time” is technology – particularly Big Tech, big platforms, Total Information Awareness and surveillance. Central planners think it is now technically feasible to run all the calculations and tracking in real time that would enable unrestrained monetary stimulus while keeping a lid on negative externalities like inflation.

    Politicians like Kamala Harris and Jagmeet Singh are just farming public sentiment created by their own policy failures, but there are very serious people – mostly unelected technocrats of a particular globalist mindset, who think we have the means, motive and opportunity to create a kind of “fully automated luxury communism”.

    One of my go-to clips for illustrating the mindset is J Michael Evans at a WEF meeting talking about coming personal carbon trackers:

    I’ll lay out the quote again here:

    “We are developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual – carbon – footprint – tracker. Stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet, but it’s something we’re working on”.

    The stage is set, when politicians tell you they want to be able to control prices, believe them – but what the public must understand is that price controls means spending controls.

    The politicians will tell you that it’s all about putting “greedy CEOs” in their place.

    What they won’t tell you is that price controls also means is telling  you what you can or cannot eat, how you use energy – whether you’ll be permitted to travel, or make any other kind of economic decision or make any kind of value exchange that you used to take for granted.

    In a world of price controls, that’s over.

    Throughout history, price controls have always brought about serfdom and tyranny because that is the only way to override individual incentives. In today’s highly wired world that would mean total technocratic feudalism.

    The most vivid example we have today is Venezuela – where price controls were so effective, the rabble had to break into public zoos to eat the animals.

    *  *  *

    Sign up for the Bombthrower Mailing List and get The CBDC Survival Guide when it drops this fall (you’ll also get a copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto while you wait). Follow me on Twitter, or Nostr. You should also try The Bitcoin Capitalist for one month here

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 14:00

  • Elon's SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing
    Elon’s SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing

    NASA said it has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring home the US astronauts who were forced to extend their stay at the International Space Station because of the latest debacle plaguing the woke DEI disaster that is Boeing, whose space capsule suffered major technical issues.

    Boeing’s spacecraft will return without people on board, the US space agency said during a Saturday news conference announcing its decision, in which it said that it was too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months.

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

    The contingency plan means that NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams will hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s rival Crew Dragon capsule during a mission slated to launch in late September. That would put them back on US soil in February, when that capsule is slated to return and months later than originally planned. Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in a week or two and attempt to return on autopilot.

    The seasoned pilots have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. A cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred their trip to the space station, and they ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the trip back.

    Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams 

    As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey, with touchdown in the U.S. desert.

    It was a blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side. Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.

    Retired Navy captains with previous long-duration spaceflight experience, Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, anticipated surprises when they accepted the shakedown cruise of a new spacecraft, although not quite to this extent.

    Before their June 5 launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, they said their families bought into the uncertainty and stress of their professional careers decades ago. During their lone orbital news conference last month, they said they had trust in the thruster testing being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed pitching in with space station work.

    Wilmore’s wife, Deanna, was equally stoic in an interview earlier this month with WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, their home state. She was already bracing for a delay until next February: “You just sort of have to roll with it.”

    There were no other options.

    The SpaceX capsule currently parked at the space station is reserved for the four residents who have been there since March. They will return in late September, their stay extended a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency.

    The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of flying only three — two of them Russians wrapping up a yearlong stint.

    So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. It’s due to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four for a routine six-month stay. NASA yanked two to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in late February.

    NASA said no serious consideration was given to asking SpaceX for a quick stand-alone rescue. Last year, the Russian Space Agency had to rush up a replacement Soyuz capsule for three men whose original craft was damaged by space junk. The switch pushed their mission beyond a year, a U.S. space endurance record still held by Frank Rubio.

    Starliner’s woes began long before its latest flight.

    Bad software fouled the first test flight without a crew in 2019, prompting a do-over in 2022. Then parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that nixed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks sprouted following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed.

    All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers remain perplexed as to why some thruster seals appear to swell, obstructing the propellant lines, then revert to their normal size.

    These 28 thrusters are vital. Besides needed for space station rendezvous, they keep the capsule pointed in the right direction at flight’s end as bigger engines steer the craft out of orbit. Coming in crooked could result in catastrophe.

    With the Columbia disaster still fresh in many minds — the shuttle broke apart during reentry in 2003, killing all seven aboard — NASA embraced open debate over Starliner’s return capability. Dissenting views were stifled during Columbia’s doomed flight, just as they were during Challenger’s in 1986.

    Despite Saturday’s decision, NASA isn’t giving up on Boeing.

    NASA went into its commercial crew program a decade ago wanting two competing U.S. companies ferrying astronauts in the post-shuttle era. Boeing won the bigger contract: more than $4 billion, compared with SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.

    With station supply runs already under its belt, SpaceX aced its first of now nine astronaut flights in 2020, while Boeing got bogged down in design flaws that set the company back more than $1 billion. NASA officials still hold out hope that Starliner’s problems can be corrected in time for another crew flight in another year or so.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 13:28

  • Newest US Aid Package For Ukraine Includes More HIMARS Munitions To Attack Russia
    Newest US Aid Package For Ukraine Includes More HIMARS Munitions To Attack Russia

    The United States has introduced another new package of military aid to Ukraine, reported to be worth around $125 million, and this time it includes more munitions for HIMARS systems, at a moment Kiev has acknowledged using the missile system inside Russian territory.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described in press statement at the end of this week that this additional assistance is “provided under a drawdown from Department of Defense stocks, includes: counter-unmanned aerial systems equipment and munitions” as well as “additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).”

    High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), US Army file image

    The statement also listed the following additional items: 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor missiles, Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles, small arms ammunition, ambulances, demolition equipment and munitions, and spare parts, medical equipment, ancillary equipment, services, training, and transportation.

    The Presidential Drawdown Authority is a long-used, albeit controversial, mechanism in Ukraine, that allows the president to transfer weaponry to allies from current US stockpiles. Essentially it depletes America’s defense stores.

    Moscow is sure to take this new package as a huge and intentional provocation from Washington, given it was only days ago that Ukraine’s military for the first time openly acknowledged it is using US-provided HIMARS rocket systems to attack Russia and destroy its major infrastructure, especially bridges, inside its own territory.

    Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces made the admission in a Wednesday Telegram post to its official account, writing: “Where do Russian pontoon bridges ‘disappear’ in the Kursk region? Operators … accurately destroy them.”

    “The statement said U.S.-manufactured HIMARS rocket systems were used,” Reuters described of the statement. What’s more is that Ukraine’s military published footage of US HIMARS being used to target several key bridges in Kursk in a new video montage.

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

    Starting over a week ago, Russian officials began accusing Ukraine forces of using the American-supplied weapon, after at least two bridges were destroyed. By last weekend, a third strategic bridge was taken out as Ukraine forces tried to solidify their hold in Kursk.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 12:50

  • Must Watch: RFK Jr Drops 'Reality' Mic On Dems, Suspends Campaign – "Who Needs Policy When There's Trump To Hate?"
    Must Watch: RFK Jr Drops ‘Reality’ Mic On Dems, Suspends Campaign – “Who Needs Policy When There’s Trump To Hate?”

    The 2024 presidential election race is about to take its next unexpected turn…

    “Democrats have become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money wanting to abandon democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president.

    I left the party to run as an independent…

    The DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for VP Harris based upon nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates. Only smoke and mirrors.”

    “A Chicago circus that is based on NOTHING. Who needs a policy if you hate Donald Trump?“

    “How did the Democratic Party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle?” Kennedy asked.

    “We know the answer: They did it by weaponizing the government agencies. They did it by abandoning democracy. They did it by suing the opposition and by disenfranchising American voters. What most alarms me isn’t how the Democratic Party conducts its internal affairs or runs its candidates. What alarms me is the resort to censorship and media control and the weaponization of the federal agencies.”

    Kennedy refuses to be a spoiler… “Many months ago, I promised the American people that I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler… In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control.”

    “I am simply suspending it and not ending it. My name will remain on the ballot in most states.

    I encourage you to vote for me.

    In an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election.

    After all, the polls consistently showed me beating each of the other candidates.

    In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name.”

    …

    I throw my support behind Donald Trump.”

    Kennedy said that in a series of meetings with Trump and his team, he realized he shared more in common with the former president than he thought. He compared their potential partnership to President Lincoln’s famous “Team of Rivals,” which saw him stock his Cabinet with former foes.

    “In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues. In those meetings, he suggested that we join forces as a unity party. We talked about Abraham Lincoln’s team of rivals. That arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately and fiercely if need be on issues over which we differ while working together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance.”

    “I was a ferocious critic of many of the policies during his first administration, and there are still issues and approaches upon which we continue to have very serious differences.” 

    “But we are aligned with each other on other key issues like ending the forever wars, ending the childhood disease epidemics, securing the border, protecting freedom of speech, unraveling the corporate capture of our regulatory agencies, getting the US intelligence agencies out of the business of propagandizing and censoring and surveilling Americans and interfering with our elections.”

    “Suspending my candidacy is a heartrending decision for me. But I’m convinced that it’s the best hope or ending the Ukraine War and ending the chronic disease epidemic that is eroding our nation’s vitality from the inside and for finally protecting free speech.”

    “I feel a moral obligation to use this opportunity to save millions of American children above all things.”

    Most notably, RFK Jr. admitted in front of the nation that he attempted to contact VP Harris first and that she neither wanted to talk or meet with him is a strong message to Independent voters:

    “Following my first discussion with President Trump, I tried unsuccessfully to open similar discussions with Vice President Harris. Vice President Harris declined to meet or even to speak with me.”

    “Democrats want nothing to do with you, Republicans will at least give you a seat at the table.”

    RFK addressed details on the Russia-Ukraine war (via Kyle Backer): 

    “We have pushed Russia closer to China and Iran. We are closer to the brink of nuclear exchange than at any time since 1962. And the Neocons in the White House don’t seem to care at all.”

    “Our moral authority and our economy are in shambles. And the war gave rise to the emergence of BRICS, which now threatens to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.”

    “This is a first class calamity for our country.”

    “Judging by her bellicose, belligerent speech last night in Chicago, we can assume that President Harris will be an enthusiastic for this and other Neocon military adventures.”

    “President Trump says he will reopen negotiations with President Putin and end the war overnight as soon as he becomes president.”

    “This alone would justify my support for his campaign.”

    “Last summer, it looked like no candidate was willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine War, to tackle the chronic disease epidemic, to protect free speech, our Constitutional freedoms, to clean corporate influence out of our government or to defy the Neocons on their agenda of endless military adventurism.”

    “But now, one of the two candidates has adopted these issue as his own to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration.”

    “I am speaking, of course, of Donald Trump.”

    Trump expressed his gratitude:

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

    Must Watch:

     

    As Kyle Backer wrote on X: 

    I don’t think a politician has ever moved me emotionally like RFK Jr. did in his speech since at least Ronald Reagan. 

    Truly sincere and stirring speech that speaks highly of his intellectual honesty and moral integrity.

    The Truth is a very powerful thing. It is obvious why social media giants and captured corporate media colluded so closely to deprive RFK Jr. of a bigger platform.

    And the attacks begin:

    In response to RFK Jr.’s endorsement of Trump, his family members have issued a strong statement condemning the move:

    “Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story.”

    The Trump campaign just released a memo on RFK Jr dropping out and endorsing the former president.

    “As you can clearly see, in every single state RFK Jr.’s vote breaks for President Trump.”

    *  *  *

    As we detailed earlier, Robert Kennedy Jr. is expected to suspend his presidential race, and if the rumors are true, he will endorse Donald Trump in a stunning rebuke to the party that is inexorably linked to the legacy of his father and his uncle, brothers Jack and Bobby Kennedy.

    While Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann point out that RFK Jr. was never a serious candidate, he had a famous name (to those of us old enough to remember), a tinge of legitimacy, and a wealthy billionaire running mate to keep the train going.

    It wasn’t enough to reach office but it got his foot in the door after RFK Jr. was shunned by Democrat Party insiders in their initial effort to prop up husk of a president, Joe Biden.

    Now they are stuck with Biden’s insurance policy, Kamala Harris.

    It terrified the Dems to have RFK Jr. in the running, so they rigged the rules, banned him from state ballots, and vilified him as extreme. And to dampen his impact on the Harris-Walz ticket, after trying to deny him ballot access and remove RFK Jr. from the state ballots he made his way to, Democrats will now attempt to keep him on ballots to hurt Trump.

    Such hypocrites.

    He’s an environmental attorney, about as Lefty Democrat as you can get! He was expected to capitulate, kiss the crown, and get in line with everyone else. Instead, he went rogue. He showed them by unexpectedly running as an Independent. 

    In exchange for his potential endorsement, what can Trump promise?

    A cabinet post? Being named director of the FBI to clean up that mess? Or ironically, heading up the CIA? Maybe after six decades, we’ll find out exactly what was the role of the agency in assassinating his uncle and if it had any role in his own father’s assassination.

    He’s now rumored to be ready to endorse Trump and is expected to announce his campaign suspension in Phoenix, where Trump is scheduled to hold a rally nearby. Coincidence? Unlikely.

    If this happens, it will take much of the post-DNC momentum away from Harris-Walz and focus attention on the PR value of RFK Jr.’s endorsement.

    Imagine the son of RFK and the nephew of JFK, endorsing a Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump no less.

    It will be a net positive gain for Trump, although not much and only for so long. But it could make all the difference in a race that’s expected to be tight in the all-important swing states—especially Pennsylvania.

    After spending millions to keep him off the ballot, the Democratic National Committee released a memo Friday dismissing the potential impact Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Donald Trump will have on the presidential race.

    The DNC claimed, without evidence, that the only reason Kennedy was in the race was to be a spoiler candidate to help former President Trump, but derided him as “a near-negligible factor” with “no meaningful base of support.”

    The DNC memo purported, again without evidence, that Trump was “at a low point and acting out of desperation.”

    “Embracing RFK Jr. now —when he has nothing to offer but months of disqualifying revelations—is not a decision a campaign makes when they’re acting from a position of strength.”

    The memo went on to accuse RFK Jr. as having an “unsavory and reckless past, ties to MAGA donors, and MAGA-lite positions on abortion bans and January 6th pardons,” and assert that “his support has dwindled to make him a near-negligible factor.”

    “The little support that remains is soft, split across ideologies, and disproportionately among lower propensity voters. With no meaningful base of support and sky-high negatives among Democrats, RFK Jr.’s threat to VP Harris was neutralized,” the DNC memo stated.

    The DNC memo argued Kennedy could actually hurt Trump because of his allegedly “controversial” positions on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Sept. 11 attacks and vaccines.

    Right now, in their post-DNC euphoria, Democrats believe that they have positioned Harris to win.

    Don’t be fooled by their misplaced optimism. It’s an illusion even when presented by seasoned political analysts like Mark Halperin.

    Where Things Stand in the Swing States

    Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,

    From west to east, let’s look at the latest polling, factoring in the impact of the potential Kennedy endorsement factored in, considering how the polls misread the 2016 and 2020 results. Remember that if Trump wins the states he did in 2020 and adds Georgia and Pennsylvania, he’s at the 270 Electoral College votes needed to become the 47th president of the United States. We are also factoring in Harris’s surge in polling in the wake of her anointment after Joe Biden ended his reelection bid. The latest polling and anecdotal analysis indicate that the surge is fading and that the Harris-Walz ticket, especially in the wake of Walz misstating (the way the mainstream media is couching his lies) his personal story. On Thursday afternoon on her podcast, Megyn Kelly ripped Walz apologist Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) a new one in a very contentious interview. That damage on the stolen valor issue has yet to be fully baked into the electoral cake.

    (Response bias and Democrat oversampling in many of the polls—most specifically the New York Times/Sienna poll—over the last month radically shifted the polls after Biden ended his campaign.)

    We should note that Harris is lagging behind Biden’s polling at this point in 2020 with Black, Latino, and blue-collar voters in all of the crucial swing states.

    Nevada: In recent election cycles, Nevada is trending right. With its large hospitality industry voter base in Las Vegas, Trump got out in front of Democrats with his no taxes on tips policy position. It was such a positive move, that it was quickly copied by Harris. But hospitality segment workers are smart enough to realize that Trump is the better choice to look out for their interests. Taking into consideration Trump’s increasing appeal to the state’s Hispanic community along with rural Nevada’s traditional right leanings, Trump could potentially win the state by as much as five percent, especially when the way past polls have consistently underestimated Trump in both 2016 and 2020 even though he lost Nevada in both previous races.

    Arizona: Arizona was one state that massively benefited from the move from Biden to Harris. Before the swap, Trump was comfortably leading Biden but that gap closed with Harris actually leading in some polls. But things have swung back in the opposite direction. Factor in RFK Jr.’s withdrawal in a tight race and it appears to shift the advantage back to Trump. What can be important in Arizona is that with the shift back to Trump, can he carry Kari Lake across the finish line? She is currently losing to Democrat Rubin Gallego by up to five percent in most polls. Immigration is indirectly on the ballot in Arizona and, as Election Day approaches, should benefit both Trump and Lake. As with other tight races, just 20 or 30 thousand net votes moving from RFK Jr. to Trump could easily deliver Arizona back to the GOP.

    Wisconsin: Harris is currently up by 1 percent in Wisconsin according to the latest Rasmussen polling, which over the last two election cycles has been the most accurate. But several other polls show Trump outperforming his 2020 results. And this is another state where polls in both 2016 and 2020 underestimated Trump’s support. The polling is likely underestimating his support this year as well and if that turns out to be the case, Trump is probably leading by 3 to 4 percent. Democrats will continue trying to keep Harris’s unpopular far-left positions cloaked, much as they did in 2020 with Biden. But it is unlikely that the strategy will work this time. Expect Harris’s numbers to plummet after Labor Day, especially following the first—and currently only confirmed—debate on September 10 in Philadelphia, hosted by the Harris-friendly ABC network. Notably, Democratic shill George Stephanopoulos will not be moderating. Harris’s policies on the border and the economy are likely to face intense scrutiny.

    Michigan: Of the six swing states, Michigan is the least favorable for Trump but with its large Muslim population in the Detroit area, Michigan is trending away from the Democrats and Harris knows it. She will try her best to tack away from Biden’s unpopular support for Israel but it’s going to be very difficult to do. This only got worse with Democrat leadership’s decision to not offer Palestinian Americans any speaking slot at the DNC. We don’t think this important voting block will vote for Trump but they can show their displeasure by staying away from the polls in November. In a tight race, that could swing the state to Trump. Also, with its very heavy blue-collar auto workers constituency, Trump’s stance on electric vehicles could prove to be a deciding factor even without RFK Jr.’s endorsement. (More than any other state, in Michigan Harris-Walz is caught between a rock and a hard place on the Israel-Palestinian Gaza conflict. Democrats have alienated both sides.)

    Georgia: In a state where Trump lost by 0.2 percent in 2020, even factoring in the state’s large Black population, it appears that Harris is not moving the needle. Trump is very strong in the rural areas and is improving in the Atlanta suburbs he lost in 2020 after winning them in 2016. We expect that Georgia will flip back in 2024, especially if Trump continues to improve his numbers with Black men. Previously, Trump shot himself in the foot with his previous ill-advised attacks on popular Governor Brian Kemp (who is supporting Trump). But yesterday Trump and Kemp settled their differences dating back to the 2020 election with Kemp issuing a full-throated endorsement of Trump. Trump currently enjoys a two percent lead in the polling aggregates and with Kemp’s endorsement its 16 EC votes should go to Trump. We think that with Kemp’s endorsement—who defeated Stacey Abrams for Governor twice and has a powerful statewide machine—Georgia’s is now off the table for Harris-Walz. Look for Trump to win Georgia by four points or more.

    Pennsylvania: It’s been our observation since Biden stepped down with Harris taking his place, by selecting Tim Walz instead of Josh Shapiro as her running mate, she’s made a huge mistake with national implications. Those implications? Jewish voters in other crucial swing states will view the snub of Shapiro in a very negative way. It seems that Democrats think they can win the Keystone State without him being her running mate. Pennsylvania has been trending to the right with Republicans enjoying a big edge in new voter registrations. This is one state where RFK’s exit from the race should benefit Trump. In the multi-candidate polls, RFK was taking more votes from Trump than Harris. Depending on which poll you follow, the state is anywhere from +1 for Harris to +4 for Trump. With RFK Jr. just dropping out (and not endorsing Trump), it looks like Pennsylvania’s 19 EC votes will go to Trump giving him the election.

    (With an RFK Jr. endorsement combined with Glenn Youngkin’s popularity, is Virginia now a swing state that Trump can flip? This bears watching between now and the first debate in September.)

    The RFK Jr. campaign probably peeled off more Dems than Republicans, so this endorsement is going to piss off the Dems in a higher proportion to the votes they will lose. They realize the mistake they made by trying to sabotage Kennedy’s presidential bid, and now an RFK Jr. endorsement puts new swing-state wind into Trump’s sails. To understand the full extent of disillusionment of the Kennedy campaign over Democrat Party sabotage, here is VP candidate Nicole Shanahan—a California Democrat lawyer—eviscerating her party over its naked election interference.

    If anything, it will be entertaining to see left-on-left infighting. Dems will not take this endorsement lying down; they will trot out Kennedy’s “weirdness” (seems to be more projection than usual coming from them) and maybe tout his betrayal of the Kennedy legacy as if anyone under 60 even remembers. The left hates defectors from the plantation, no matter what legacy a defector’s surname might suggest.

    The 2024 race has been the wildest in modern American history and it’s not even Labor Day yet. And what will be this cycle’s October Surprise? In this crazy year, we predict it’s going to be Biden’s resignation after the one scheduled debate so Harris can run as the official incumbent. Could that swing the final result back to Harris? We shall see. Buckle up, it’s only going to get crazier over the next 70 days.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 12:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 24

Today’s News 24th August 2024

  • COVID-19: The Preventable Pandemic
    COVID-19: The Preventable Pandemic

    Authored by Jeff M. Smith via RealClearWorld,

    When the Heritage Foundation released its comprehensive report on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, headlines tended to focus on the cost to the U.S. That’s not surprising: At an eye-popping $18 trillion, it’s almost 10 times the projected 2024 budget deficit.

    Arguably, however, the Commission’s most infuriating conclusion was this: The global pandemic was “totally preventable,” in the words of Commissioner Dr. Robert Redfield, an experienced virologist who headed the CDC during the outbreak.

    Had the Chinese government been more transparent and cooperative at the outset of the pandemic, millions of lives and trillions of dollars could have been spared. The pandemic’s “proximal origin,” the Commission found, was the Chinese government’s “aggressive opposition to honesty, transparency, and accountability” along with its “systemic cover up.”

    The Cover-Up

    The Commission—a blue-ribbon team of experts led by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and supported by data scientists, economists, and lawyers—concluded that the SARS-CoV-2 virus began circulating months before Beijing warned the world, likely in August-September 2019. The Chinese government then not only withheld key details, it engaged in an elaborate and deadly coverup.

    Dr. Jamie Metzl—one of the Commission’s Democrats who served at the National Security Council, U.S. Senate, and State Department—condemned Beijing for having “destroyed samples, hidden records, imprisoned Chinese citizen journalists, gagged Chinese scientists, blocked any meaningful international investigations, and cynically sandbagged the World Health Organization.”

    Ratcliffe described China’s behavior during this period as “frankly inexcusable.”

    Added Metzl: “There can be, in our view, little doubt that China’s government is primarily responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. But for the unique pathologies of the Chinese state, there very likely would have been no pandemic at all.”

    The Cost

    Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic is considered one of the seven deadliest plagues in human history, with excess deaths topping 28 million, according to some estimates. The World Bank has characterized the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic as “the largest global economic crisis in more than a century,” with low-income countries hit the hardest.

    The Commission’s assessment that the pandemic cost the U.S. alone $18 trillion includes $8.6 trillion in “excess deaths,” $1.8 trillion in income lost, $6 trillion in chronic conditions like “long COVID,” $1.1 trillion in mental health costs, and $400 million in education losses.

    The Origin

    While the origin of the pandemic wasn’t the focus of the Commission, notably all nine Commissioners concluded, without dissent, that the pandemic “very likely stemmed from a research-related incident in Wuhan.”

    Indeed, evidence continues to emerge further strengthening the “lab leak” theory and casting greater doubt on the “natural spillover” theory. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was at the time conducting dangerous gain of function experiments to make coronaviruses more transmissible to humans, and it was doing so in alarmingly unsafe conditions.

    The WIV experienced an unspecified “incident” in 2019, when several lab workers fell sick, the Chinese military abruptly assumed control of the lab, the lab mysteriously deleted its online database of over 10,000 bat virus samples at 2:00am, and ordered an expensive new air incinerator. A Chinese military scientist then produced a vaccine with logic-defying speed before suddenly going missing and being scrubbed from government records.

    In recent months, new details have emerged about a 2018 grant proposal that sought funding to manipulate coronaviruses at the WIV in very specific ways—ways that exactly match the highly unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have never been seen in nature.

    At the event unveiling the Heritage report, Dr. Redfield contended SARS-CoV-2 shows “clear signs of engineering” and its origin “had nothing to do with” a natural spillover event at a Wuhan animal market. The full Commission report concludes that despite four years of extensive hypothesis testing, today “there is no evidentiary basis” for the theory of natural spillover. The handful of early pandemic academic papers advancing the natural spillover theory have since been hollowed out by fatal challenges to their underlying methods and conclusions.

    Rather than a viral leap from animal to humans, Dr. Redfield contended that the pandemic was “a direct consequence of scientific arrogance, with the scientists that were intentionally teaching this virus how to infect humans never recognizing something would ever go wrong. And, in fact, unfortunately this virus did escape.”

    Preventing Another Pandemic

    To avoid a future pandemic and hold the Chinese government accountable, the Commission report concluded with several practical recommendations for the U.S. government:

    • Establish a bipartisan national COVID commission to conduct “a review of China’s negligence and cover-up as well as an evaluation of domestic policies that were implemented” in response to the pandemic;

    • Create a bipartisan reparations or compensation task force to cover claims against the Chinese government;

    • Facilitate the filing of civil claims against China to allow civilians harmed by COVID to receive compensation by amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act;

    • Decouple U.S. government and commercial supply chains from Chinese state-backed companies;

    • Audit all U.S. government funding for biomedical research and related research activities in China;

    • Impose economic sanctions on Chinese officials and entities who were complicit in or supported the “distortion and concealment” of information related to the COVID pandemic.

    The COVID-19 pandemic was almost certainly the deadliest and costliest event of the 21st century. Beijing’s ability to escape virtually any accountability—and the global media’s relative disinterest in the pandemic’s origins, cost, and China’s culpability—are equal parts confounding and infuriating.

    “China’s response to SARS1 20 years ago was abysmal,” Dr. Metzl argued at the Heritage event. “China’s response to SARS2, 20 years later despite all these international processes, was even worse. And the reason…is there was no accountability for all the obfuscation in the first case. With 28 million people dead as a result of COVID-19 and tens of trillions of dollars in damages it simply unacceptable, and frankly unimaginable, that every stone should not be overturned examining what went wrong.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 23:40

  • The Top 10 Countries By Gold Reserves In 2024 (& Who's Adding Most)
    The Top 10 Countries By Gold Reserves In 2024 (& Who’s Adding Most)

    Central banks hold gold reserves due to their safety, liquidity, and return characteristics.

    They are significant owners of gold, accounting for approximately a fifth of all the gold mined throughout history.

    The country with the most gold is the United States, with 8,133 tonnes, which has a value of $579 billion.

    The top ten countries in total gold reserves (tonnes) as of May 2024.

    These figures come from the World Gold Council.

    Amid escalating geopolitical tensions, increased sanctions, and discussions around de-dollarization, interest in gold purchases is rising.

    But which countries are leading the charge in increasing their gold reserves?

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, ranks the top 10 countries by the change in gold reserves over the past decade (2013-2023).

    The figures, measured in tonnes, were compiled by the World Gold Council.

    Russia and China Lead in Gold Purchases

    Central banks, particularly those of Russia and China, have bought gold at the fastest pace as countries seek to diversify their reserves away from the dollar.

    Russia’s reserves jumped from 1,035 tonnes in 2013 to 2,333 in 2023. China’s reserves rose from 1,054 tonnes to 2,235 in 2023.

    In third place in our ranking of central bank gold additions, Türkiye increased its reserves from 116 tonnes in 2013 to 540 tonnes in 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 23:15

  • Government Report Links High Fluoride Exposure With Low IQ Among Children
    Government Report Links High Fluoride Exposure With Low IQ Among Children

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Exposing children to high levels of fluoride is “consistently associated” with lower IQ, and potentially other neurodevelopmental issues, according to a report by the National Toxicology Program (NTP).

    Water from a tap fills a glass in San Anselmo, Calif., on July 6, 2023. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    In 2016, NTP started a systematic review of scientific literature to ascertain links between fluoride and cognition. On Aug. 21, it published a report detailing its findings. A total of 72 studies reviewed in the report examined how fluoride exposure affected children’s IQ. Sixty-four of these studies found an “inverse association between estimated fluoride exposure and IQ in children,” meaning higher exposure was linked to lower IQ and vice versa.

    “This review finds, with moderate confidence, that higher estimated fluoride exposures … are consistently associated with lower IQ in children,” the report stated. NTP is a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

    NTP defined high exposure as drinking water with fluoride concentrations that exceed the 1.5 mg/L limit set by the World Health Organization.

    The allowable limits in the United States are different. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set a threshold of 0.7 mg/L for fluoride presence in drinking water (including naturally occurring and added fluoride, or fluoridation), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a limit of 2 mg/L.

    As of April 2020, community water systems in the United States supplied water containing 1.5 mg/L or more of naturally occurring fluoride to 0.59 percent of the country’s population, which comes to approximately 1.9 million people, NTP stated. Around 1 million people were supplied water with 2 mg/L or more of naturally occurring fluoride.

    “There is also some evidence that fluoride exposure is associated with other neurodevelopmental and cognitive effects in children; although, because of the heterogeneity of the outcomes, there is low confidence in the literature for these other effects,” the report stated.

    The studies on children’s IQ reviewed in the report were conducted in 10 countries, including Canada and Mexico. No studies from the United States were included in the review.

    Fluoride is a mineral that prevents and repairs damage to the teeth caused by bacteria. In 1945, the United States introduced a community water fluoridation program, which has been considered a successful public health measure.

    However, there were concerns that children and pregnant women may ingest fluoride in excess amounts due to exposure to the mineral from a variety of sources, including water, beverages, toothpaste, and teas, the NTP said. This led the program to conduct the current study.

    Fluoride Debate

    The NTP report follows a study published in May that looked at mother-child pairs from Los Angeles and concluded that prenatal fluoride exposure was associated with “neurobehavioral problems” among children.

    Lead investigator of the study Ashley Malin said the results suggest fluoride may negatively affect fetal brain development. She pointed out that there is “no known benefit” of fluoride consumption for fetuses.

    “We found that each 0.68 milligram per liter increase in fluoride levels in the pregnant women’s urine was associated with nearly double the odds of children scoring in the clinical or borderline clinical range for neurobehavioral problems at age 3, based on their mother’s reporting,” she said.

    In a May 22 statement, the American Dental Association (ADA) said the study was not “nationally representative” and that it did not measure the “actual consumption of fluoridated water.”

    “The JAMA study should be considered exploratory. To date, the ADA has seen no peer-reviewed research that would change its long-standing recommendation to the public to brush twice a day with fluoride toothpaste and drink optimally fluoridated water,” the group said.

    “Tooth decay is one of the most common chronic diseases among children. There are decades of research and practical experience indicating community water fluoridation is safe and effective in reducing cavities by 25 percent in both children and adults.”

    It endorsed community water fluoridation as a “safe, beneficial, and cost-effective” way to prevent dental cavities.

    Another study from January found that many parents were exposing children to high amounts of fluoride. When parents used toothpaste for their children aged under 24 months, the fluoride dose was 5.9 to 7.2 times higher than what was recommended, the study found.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 22:50

  • Snipers Respond To Islamist-Inspired Rebellion, Hostage Crisis At Russian Prison
    Snipers Respond To Islamist-Inspired Rebellion, Hostage Crisis At Russian Prison

    Russian authorities have confirmed that on Friday there was a major, violent uprising at a maximum security prison in the country’s south. It appears unrelated to the ongoing Ukrainian invasion of Russia’s southern border regions, and reportedly involved Islamist prisoners affiliated with ISIS.

    Several officers at the penal colony in the town of Surovikino were killed, and several staff were taken hostage by the rebelling inmates, before it was put down by an elite Russian commando team. The location has been identified as IK-19 Surovikino facility in the southwestern Volgograd region.

    Penal Colony 19 in Volgograd.

    The National Guard of Russia, also known as the Rosgvardia, announced in a Telegram statement: “Snipers from the special forces of the Russian National Guard in the Volgograd Region neutralized four prisoners who had taken prisoner employees hostage with four precise shots; the hostages were freed.”

    Videos from the scene which emerged on social media and showed the hostage-takers waiving ISIS flags. State media sources say that at least eight prison officers had been taken hostage during the ordeal. Other sources say a dozen total people were held hostage, which included some inmates who weren’t among the attackers.

    Russia’s RT reports the following details:

    According to the WarGonzo Telegram channel, one of the hostage-takers was wearing a purported suicide belt which failed to detonate.

    The identities of the attackers have been confirmed, according to media reports citing court records. One of the four was a convicted murderer while the other three were serving time for drug trafficking charges. All were reportedly natives of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

    Another regional outlet reported the following:

    Photos shared by the pro-Kremlin Telegram news outlet Mash showed prison inmates with knives standing above bloodied guards. In unverified videos shared on Telegram, the alleged attackers said they were affiliated with the Islamic State militant group and taking revenge for the Crocus City Hall terror attack in March.

    The assailants stabbed the employees, including some who tried to resist. At least three were killed, and there were conflicting reports from officials over the fate of a fourth prison guard.

    The uprising involved crude weapons, and the deceased guards reportedly died due to stab wounds. Two of the attackers later succumbed of their wounds at a hospital after being shot by sniper teams.

    CNN comments on some of the disturbing images as follows: “Graphic footage circulating on social media showed three uniformed prison staff members lying motionless in pools of blood, one with his throat slashed. A fourth staff member is seen on his knees in a doorway.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 22:25

  • Curcumin Is Effective In Reducing Cardio-Metabolic Risk Factors: Study
    Curcumin Is Effective In Reducing Cardio-Metabolic Risk Factors: Study

    Authored by Zrinka Peters via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Curcumin is well known for its widespread health benefits, particularly for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. A polyphenol (a chemical compound in plants that offers specific health benefits) found in turmeric, curcumin is primarily responsible for its vibrant yellow color and is widely used in Indian and Asian cuisines.

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    Despite the many claims of curcumin’s ability to help alleviate health concerns, including a variety of skin conditions, arthritis, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, depression, and more, obtaining its full benefits can be a challenge. Curcumin has poor bioavailability and solubility and is rapidly eliminated from the body.

    Curcumin’s potential health benefits, along with advances in research exploring ways to increase the bioavailability of curcumin, inspired Thai researchers to study the effect of curcumin on atherosclerosis in patients with Type 2 diabetes and obesity.

    Atherosclerosis is a hardening of the arteries as a result of plaque build-up, and complications resulting from atherosclerosis (e.g., heart attacks and strokes) are the leading cause of death worldwide.

    The Study

    The randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial, published in Nutrients last month divided 227 participants into two groups of roughly equal size. One group took six capsules of curcumin per day (two 250 milligram (mg) capsules after meals, three times per day, for a daily total of 1500 mg), while the other took a placebo.

    The participants were tested at zero, three, six, nine, and 12 months for indicators of anti-atherogenic activity, including pulse-wave velocity (PWV), as well as several cardiometabolic risk factors including total cholesterol, triglycerides, and uric acid. Levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines were recorded, as well as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels (to evaluate systemic inflammation).

    The results showed significant improvements for the curcumin-supplementing participants in each of the areas in which data was collected. Pulse wave velocity, which measures arterial stiffness and is considered to be a predictor for adverse cardiovascular events, was significantly lower in the curcumin-treated group at three, six, nine, and 12 months than in the placebo control group.

    Levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, small dense low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and uric acid were likewise all significantly lower in the curcumin-treated group at three, six, nine, and 12 months.

    Measurements of waist circumference, total body fat, and visceral fat were significantly lower in the curcumin group than in the placebo group at the six-, nine-, and 12-month visits. Insulin resistance was also significantly lowered in the curcumin-treated group.

    The study authors concluded, “[C]urcumin significantly reduced the PWV, substantiating its role in mitigating arterial stiffness and potential cardiovascular disease risk.” They also recorded a reduction in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, “a marker associated with inflammation and cardiovascular risk,” after three months. The positive results across multiple risk factors highlight curcumin’s potential role in cardiometabolic health.

    The researchers went on to say, “These multi-target effects and historical usage underscore the importance of natural products in creating effective, holistic treatments for metabolic diseases.” No serious adverse effects were noted among the curcumin-treated group.

    Finding the Right Measure

    As a natural, easily accessible, and inexpensive supplement with a strong safety profile, curcumin offers possible support in maintaining or improving cardiometabolic health. Though the dosage used in this study was 1500 mg per day, other studies have demonstrated that dosages as high as 8000 mg per day have been well-tolerated. However, some people need to exercise caution when considering whether curcumin supplements may be helpful for them.

    Cardiologist and cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Bhaskar Semitha told the Epoch Times, “It’s crucial to discuss curcumin supplementation with your doctor before starting, especially if you have CVD [cardiovascular disease] and take medications. While curcumin generally has a good safety profile, there are some considerations for patients with CVD taking medications.”

    “Curcumin can interact with certain medications, including blood thinners (e.g., Warfarin) and anti-platelet medications (e.g., Clopidogrel). This could increase bleeding risk. Curcumin might [also] interfere with the absorption of some CV medications, potentially reducing their effectiveness,” Semitha said. “If your doctor approves curcumin, it’s advisable to begin with a low dose and monitor for any side effects.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 22:00

  • These Are The Countries With The Highest Wealth Inequality
    These Are The Countries With The Highest Wealth Inequality

    How is wealth distributed across countries, and what is the scale of these disparities?

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, shows wealth inequality by country in 2023, based on data from UBS.

    How Wealth Inequality Compares Globally

    One common way of measuring wealth distribution in a country is the Gini coefficient. In this index, scores closer to zero indicate more equal wealth distribution, while a score of 100 indicates that one individual holds all the wealth.

    Here are Gini index scores across select countries, highlighting how they have changed over time:

    South Africa ranks highest overall, with 10% of the population controlling approximately 80% of the country’s wealth.

    Over the last 15 years, wealth inequality has increased. Unemployment has surged to 32%, up from 20% in 2008, while inflation-adjusted GDP per capita has declined. Even though apartheid took place three decades ago, race remains a key factor in income disparities.

    Ranking in second is Brazil, a country where the richest 10% control half of the nation’s wealth. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of billionaires in the country jumped from 51 to 64, making Brazil home to the tenth-highest number of billionaires in the world.

    Despite being a socially democratic country, Sweden ranks fifth overall. The country has one of the highest billionaires per capita, at one per 250,000 people. By comparison, the U.S. has roughly one per 500,000 people. Driving this concentration of wealth is the country’s thriving tech sector, which has produced over 40 unicorn companies, such as Spotify and Skype, over the last two decades.

    We can see that the U.S. follows next, a country whose wealth inequality has fallen marginally since 2008. A similar trend of declining wealth inequality can be seen across other European nations including Germany, Switzerland, and Austria in addition to South Korea and Hong Kong.

    Particularly in developed countries, the wealth gap has narrowed since 2008 as the middle segment experienced faster wealth gains than those in higher wealth brackets.

    To learn more about this topic from a U.S.-based perspective, check out this graphic on wealth distribution by income group in America.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 21:35

  • Saudi Courts Oversee Surge In Executions For Drug Offenses
    Saudi Courts Oversee Surge In Executions For Drug Offenses

    Via Middle East Eye

    Dozens of prisoners in Saudi Arabia are facing the death penalty for drug offences, as rights groups warn of a surge in executions despite authorities’ pledges to stop the punishment. 

    The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) said on Thursday that there has been a sharp increase in the use of the death penalty between May and August, with executions reaching 30 by August 22.

    Prior Captagon seizure by Saudi authorities

    In Tabuk General Prison alone, at least 50 people are facing execution. According to ESOHR, 34 Egyptians are among those sentenced to death in the prison, along with other foreigners, including Jordanians and Syrians.

    Two Egyptian nationals, Walid al-Baqi and Youssef Khudair, were executed on August 13 on charges of smuggling marijuana and amphetamines, the rights group said. 

    ESOHR also documented abuses faced by Egyptians on death row in Tabuk prison, including a lack from the Egyptian embassy in the kingdom, denial of their right to adequate defense, failure to appoint lawyers for them and instances of torture and ill-treatment.

    Between 2020 and 2022, Saudi Arabia halted executions for drug offences. However, they resumed in December 2022, provoking an outcry from campaigners.

    The kingdom has executed hundreds of people in recent years for various offences, including political dissent.

    In 2023, a joint report by ESOHR and Reprieve revealed that Riyadh’s execution rate has almost doubled since King Salman and his son, Mohammed bin Salman, came to power in 2015. Between 2015 and 2022, executions surged by 82 percent.

    In February this year, seven Saudi men were killed in a mass execution, the highest number put to death in one day since 81 were killed in March 2022.

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    According to Reprieve, foreign nationals, including female domestic workers and drug offenders, are “disproportionately” targeted.

    Despite the crown prince’s pledge in a 2018 interview to minimize executions, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most prolific executioners.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 21:10

  • SpaceX Prepares For Historic Spacewalk Under Polaris Dawn Mission
    SpaceX Prepares For Historic Spacewalk Under Polaris Dawn Mission

    While Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin struggles to get its rocket off the ground, Elon Musk’s SpaceX continues to dominate the space race with the most rocket launches and satellite deployments to low-Earth orbit worldwide. Meanwhile, Musk has become a target for Democrats, with even the White House weaponizing federal agencies against the billionaire, given his support for free speech through the X platform and support for former President Trump. 

    Next Monday, Musk’s SpaceX will usher in a new era of commercial space exploration when a Falcon 9 rocket ferries four astronauts to space via Dragon capsule under the Polaris Program to test and develop new spaceflight technology. 

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    “This milestone mission will include testing a next-generation spacesuit during the first commercial spacewalk; endeavoring to achieve the highest altitude of any human spaceflight mission since the Apollo program; and testing a new communication system using Starlink,” the Polaris Program wrote in a release. 

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    It added, “The four crewmembers will also use their approximately five days on-orbit to conduct nearly 40 critical health research experiments, all while raising funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.” 

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    Here are the four major milestones the Polaris Dawn’s four-person crew will attempt to achieve next week: 

    1. Flying higher than any previous Dragon mission to date and reaching the highest Earth orbit ever flown while moving through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt at an orbital altitude of 190 x 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from Earth’s surface – or more than three times higher than the International Space Station. This will be the highest altitude of any human spaceflight mission in more than a half-century since the Apollo program;

    2. Attempting the first-ever commercial spacewalk. This will take place at an elliptical orbit of 190 x 700 kilometers (435 miles) above Earth in newly developed SpaceX EVA spacesuits. During the spacewalk, the crew will conduct a series of tests that will provide necessary data that will allow SpaceX teams to produce and scale for future long-duration missions. The crew worked with SpaceX engineers throughout suit development, testing various iterations for mobility and performance (along with mobility aids and systems procedures), and conducted operations inside vacuum chambers to validate pre-breathe protocols and the readiness of the EVA suit;

    3. Testing laser-based satellite communication using optical links between the Dragon spacecraft and Starlink satellites, revolutionizing the speed and quality of space communications;

    4. Conducting nearly 40 experiments for critical scientific research designed to advance our knowledge of human health both on Earth and during future long-duration space flights

    Separately, NASA is set to announce the planned return of two stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts aboard the ISS on early Saturday afternoon. Reports have already suggested that the space agency has discussed the possibility of ferrying the astronauts on a SpaceX Dragon. 

    If NASA selects Musk’s SpaceX to rescue the stranded astronauts on the ISS, it could trigger rage among Democrats, as Trump’s most outspoken supporter would dominate the news cycle on the rescue mission while leftist MSM artificially propping up Kamala Harris fades into darkness.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 20:45

  • US Natural Gas Is America's Clean Energy Standard
    US Natural Gas Is America’s Clean Energy Standard

    Authored by  Jason Hayes & Timothy G. Nash via RealClearEnergy,

    Abundant and affordable energy drives America’s powerful and productive economy. That’s been true throughout our nation’s history, and America’s recent achievement of energy independence provides the most concrete illustration of that fact.

    But to keep our nation firing on all eight cylinders, we need government policies that prioritize providing adequate, reliable and secure domestic energy supplies.

    Our recently published report, “Grading the Grid,” reviewed a variety of potential energy sources. Two — natural gas and nuclear — stood out as the most sensible energy options for the future.

    No other energy source fits the abundant, affordable and secure prescription as well as American natural gas. Despite increased use, new drilling technologies, such as fracking, produced a 79% increase in annual natural gas production in the U.S. from 2007 to 2021.

    As we produce more of it, prices are dropping. American families saved $147 billion over the last decade because of more affordable natural gas. American Gas Association testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability indicated that households that use natural gas for heating, cooking and other appliances save an average of $1,068 per year compared to homes using electricity for such appliances. Natural gas powered 36% of America’s total energy needs in 2023 and 43% of U.S. electricity generation. 

    Natural gas also helps improve air quality. Americans are enjoying 78% cleaner air since 1970. The transition from older coal-fueled technologies to more efficient natural gas turbines for electricity generation is the primary reason that the U.S. is a world leader in lowering carbon emissions. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by more than 18% since 2007, while electricity generation from natural gas increased over 88%. Natural gas, with its distinctive blue flame, has cleanly powered American homes and industry for many decades.

    Natural gas should be the standard by which other hydrocarbon energy sources are measured, such as fuel oil, kerosene, petroleum and coal. Pipeline-quality natural gas — gas that has been processed to remove contaminants and to meet specific quality standards — sets a high but reasonable bar for clean energy. Policymakers in Washington D.C. and state capitals should craft legislation that targets these standards of affordability, reliability and cleanliness that natural gas achieves.

    Using natural gas as the standard could encourage the development of technologies, like catalysts or formate, that allow us to continue using hydrocarbons, like fuel oil, kerosene, diesel, or coal, to produce energy and then use captured greenhouse gas emissions associated with their combustion to generate useable fuels.

    These are engineering challenges that are both economically feasible and technologically sound. They are also exactly the kind of ground-breaking idea that the U.S., the most innovative society on earth, is known for. There is no reason to take affordable and reliable energy sources off the table when we can rely on American ingenuity to produce clean electricity from what has traditionally been allowed to escape into the air as a waste product

    Nuclear power is the second most promising energy source. It is also affordable like natural gas, but even cleaner and more reliable. American nuclear plants produce effectively emission-free electricity and can do so 24-7-365 for many decades.

    Nuclear power has supplied about 20% of the electricity needed in the U.S. since the 1990s. However, a combination of misinformation and government overregulation of nuclear power limits its expansion. It can, and should, be America’s largest source of baseload grid-scale electricity generation.

    America’s increasing population will need more electricity in the future. As data centers and artificial intelligence become more prevalent, nuclear and natural gas become even more important. Former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz highlighted how the expansion of artificial intelligence and data centers are rapidly growing electricity demand.

    If America is to maintain and grow its economic prosperity, Moniz explained at the 2024 CERAWeek meeting in Houston, it needs a far more reliable electricity supply — what nuclear and natural gas provide. “[U]tilities will have to lean more heavily on natural gas, coal and nuclear plants, and perhaps support the construction of new gas plants to help meet spikes in demand,” he said. “We’re not going to build 100 gigawatts of new renewables in a few years.”

    Energy affordability and independence are the new keys to American prosperity. Nearly 60 million Americans consider energy affordability a factor when they decide who they will support in an election. Hardworking Americans deserve a sensible energy strategy that maximizes the use of our existing nuclear plants and our abundant supplies of natural gas. Energy policy must also encourage private investments in innovation that can help other energy sources meet the pricing, reliability and cleanliness standards of American natural gas.

    Jason Hayes is director of energy and environmental policy at the Mackinac Center. 

    Dr. Timothy G. Nash is director of the McNair Center at Northwood University.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 20:20

  • B-2 Stealth Bomber "Hot Pits" At Indian Ocean Air Base, Positioned Within Striking Range Of Iran
    B-2 Stealth Bomber “Hot Pits” At Indian Ocean Air Base, Positioned Within Striking Range Of Iran

    The Middle East has been on edge all week as the world awaits a retaliatory Iranian attack on Israel that could spark a regional conflict. As of Friday, Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah rebels have been exchanging fire, and an oil tanker earlier this week in the southern Red Sea was hit by a missile attack, likely from Iran-backed Houthi forces.  

    With all eyes on the Middle East, our attention shifts to a “hot pit event” on Wednesday with a Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and US Air Force Airmen assigned to the 110th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron at the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, according to the USAF. 

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    The US military uses Diego Garcia as a strategic point for launching operations in the Indo-Pacific. The hot pit event allowed the B-2 to land and refuel without shutting its engines down. 

    “If we lose a tanker or don’t get a tanker for aerial refueling, a hot pit enables us to move our jet from location to location, refuel and complete the mission,” said the 110th EBS deputy commander and B-2 pilot.

    USAF noted, “Conducting hot pit events in various locations around the globe enables aircrew and support Airmen to maintain a high state of readiness and proficiency.” 

    Diego Garcia is located about 1,000 miles off the southern tip of India and is more than 3,000 miles from Iran. B2s have a range of about 6,000 nautical miles. 

    A  United States Institute of Peace map shows Iran’s ballistic missiles range from 200 km to 3,000 km (123 miles to 1,864 miles). This puts Diego Garcia out of Iran’s threat range. 

    A nervous calm has been cast over energy markets as Brent crude hovers below $80/bbl in late afternoon trading on Friday.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 19:55

  • Americans Now Need $2.5 Million To Be Considered Wealthy: Charles Schwab Survey
    Americans Now Need $2.5 Million To Be Considered Wealthy: Charles Schwab Survey

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

    The amount of money required to be seen as rich has risen over the past years amid inflation, with younger people having a lower wealth benchmark, according to a recent survey by financial services company Charles Schwab.

    “Americans now think it takes an average of $2.5 million to be considered wealthy—which is up slightly from 2023 and 2022 ($2.2 million),” reads an Aug. 21 statement by the company.

    “By generation, Boomers have the highest threshold of what it takes to be considered wealthy, at $2.8 million, while the younger generations, Millennials and Gen Z, have lower thresholds of what is considered wealthy” at only $1.2 million, it adds.

    California had the highest wealth expectations, with respondents from San Francisco saying it takes $4.4 million to be considered rich. Southern California was at the second spot with $3.4 million. Dallas, Phoenix, and Houston had the lowest thresholds at $2.2 million to $2.3 million.

    The jump in the level of what is considered wealthy has happened amid a period of surging inflation, which has raised the overall cost of living. As living expenses rise, so does people’s estimate of how much money is required to live a wealthy life.

    The survey’s $2.5 million wealth threshold is nearly 14 percent higher than the 2022 level.

    During this period, the cost of living rose by more than 11 percent, according to data from the St. Louis Fed.

    Despite facing the challenge of high inflation, more than one in five Americans said they were “on track to be wealthy,” with optimism highest among Generation Z and lowest among baby boomers, according to the statement.

    Moreover, nearly a third of respondents said they were on track to be in control of their finances, with millennials and Gen Z more optimistic in this regard.

    “Wealth means different things to different people, whether it’s financial freedom, enriching experiences with friends and family, or a certain dollar amount,” Rob Williams, managing director of financial planning at Charles Schwab, said in the statement.

    “Our survey reinforces that people with a written financial plan are more confident about achieving their personal financial goals. Financial planning helps people understand where they are today and create a roadmap to get where they want to be.”

    Inflation Eroding Wealth

    The Schwab survey comes amid concerns about rising prices negatively affecting people’s lifestyles.

    In May, the Federal Reserve published its report on the state of finances in U.S. households in 2023, finding that nearly two-thirds of Americans felt they were financially worse off than the previous year due to “changes in the prices they paid.” This included “19 percent who said price changes had made their financial situation much worse.”

    The report points out that “inflation continued to be the top financial concern, despite the inflation rate falling over the prior year.”

    Increasing costs not only affects the current financial situation but future planning as well. A May survey by asset management firm Schroders found that the possibility of rising prices lowering the value of savings was “weighing heavily on the minds of retirees.”

    Less than half of Americans in retirement believed they had saved enough, with a significant share convinced they did not accumulate necessary savings. Almost 90 percent expressed worries about inflation reducing the value of their assets, according to the survey.

    “Whether it’s a trip to the gas station, grocery store, or pharmacy, prices in the U.S. have increased noticeably in recent years, and that is particularly challenging for retirees living on fixed income sources,” Deb Boyden, head of U.S. defined contribution at Schroders, said in a statement.

    However, higher inflation does not always translate into eroding asset values all the time. The effect on investments is largely dependent on the type of assets an individual owns, notes financial services firm Western & Southern Financial Group.

    For instance, investments with a fixed return, such as certain bonds or certificates of deposits, usually are a bad choice. The fixed interest amount received annually would be worth less and less with each passing year as inflation erodes the value of cash.

    When it comes to stocks, the effect can be mixed, depending on the nature of the business.

    “Value stocks (companies that investors think are undervalued by the market) tend to perform better than growth stocks when inflation is high,” a post by U.S. Bank states.

    Investments in commodities such as oil, precious metals, or agricultural goods do well during periods of high inflation, according to Western & Southern Financial Group.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 19:30

  • San Fran Man Robbed Thousands Of Dollars Of Equipment From FBI Truck, Traded It For $20 In Meth
    San Fran Man Robbed Thousands Of Dollars Of Equipment From FBI Truck, Traded It For $20 In Meth

    More signs of utopia unfolding in the liberal run wasteland of San Francisco…

    A thief who ransacked an FBI truck in San Francisco and made away with thousands of dollars of equipment turned around and traded it all for a $20 bag of methamphetamine, according to a report by the NY Post.

    The truck that was raided contained flash-bang grenades, a tear gas launcher, surveillance equipment and bulletproof vests. The perpetrator, 29 year old Gregory Acosta-Alvarez, was arrested after being caught on multiple surveillance cameras. 

    After stealing equipment, he rode his bike to a nearby hotel where he was staying, according to the criminal complaint. By the time agents visited him at the hotel around 3 p.m., the ballistic vest and tear gas gun were already gone, the report says.

    The report says the ballistics vest alone was worth $1,500.

    When questioned, Alvarez claimed he traded the stolen items for $20 worth of meth. He remains in custody, facing charges for felony theft of government property, burglary, grand theft, and drug possession related to this incident and a 2023 arrest.

    Either the man had no idea how much more meth he could have gotten with market prices…or inflation has really hit the meth market…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 19:05

  • Southern California City Bans Smoking And Vaping In Apartments, Condos
    Southern California City Bans Smoking And Vaping In Apartments, Condos

    Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

    Starting next year, smoking or vaping inside apartments, condos, or other multi-family housing in Carlsbad, Calif., will be illegal, the city council decided Aug. 20.

    In a 4–1 vote Tuesday, city leaders approved a smoke-free ordinance for multi-unit housing in the coastal city of 115,000 people, about 35 miles north of San Diego.

    The new law, which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2025, covers all smoking and vaping, including marijuana used for recreational and medical purposes.

    Although medical marijuana is legal in California, the city can prohibit its use in some places, according to Carlsbad City Attorney Cindie McMahon.

    “The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its state counterpart do not require a reasonable accommodation for anything that poses a health and safety risk to other parties,” McMahon said at Tuesday’s council meeting.

    The city expects landlords and property management companies to enforce the new rules by including them in future lease contracts instead of the city hiring more code enforcement or police officers to respond to citizen complaints.

    Councilwoman Melanie Burkholder, a mental health counselor and former U.S. Secret Service agent, voted against the measure.

    “It feels like to me an overreach of the city,” she told other councilors at a meeting July 30, when the ordinance was introduced.

    “I don’t think we should be property managers or landlords to that extent. It just sounds like the city’s telling someone how to live their life.”

    Many residents and property owners agreed.

    Condo owner Cheryl Knebel was one of many private citizens to oppose the plan.

    “I am strongly against this idea,” Knebel wrote to the City Council.

    “I am a nonsmoker but challenge the restriction on smoking inside a privately owned residence. I understand that smoking is awful for those who live next door. I wouldn’t like it. However, as a homeowner no one should be able to dictate what I do inside my residence as long as it is legal.”

    Shiella McNulty, also a nonsmoker, said the ordinance goes too far.

    “I’m a lifetime nonsmoker and I would love to never smell pot or cigarettes burning near me again!” she wrote to the City Council.

    “It’s disgusting! However, this proposal goes too far from a societal perspective. … Do we really want to squeeze our neighbors again when they are addicted to a substance that apparently gives them some relief or enjoyment? In their own home?”

    Councilwoman Teresa Acosta supported the new rules, along with the mayor and other councilors.

    “I am in support of it, and I think it is one of the things we need to do as leaders, is to stand up for the health of residents,” Acosta said in the July 30 meeting.

    “Especially knowing this is not just a toxic issue, but also deadly. We need to watch out for smoking in multi-family units.”

    The idea is not new. In 2011, former California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law giving landlords the right to make their properties smoke-free.

    According to Mike Strong, the city’s assistant director of community development, 84 California cities and counties have adopted no-smoking policies for multi-unit housing.

    City staff was directed in 2023 to develop a no-smoking ordinance. Staff consulted with the Public Health Law Center at Mitchell Hamline School of Law—a national nonprofit law group based in St. Paul, Minn.—which created a model smoke-free housing template for California cities and counties in 2020.

    The city expects to get up to 10 complaints per month about violations once the ordinance goes into effect, Strong told councilors July 30.

    The ban applies to apartment buildings, condos, townhomes, senior assisted living facilities, long-term health care facilities, and single-family homes licensed as care facilities.

    Not included in the ordinance are hotels, motels, mobile home parks, campgrounds, single-family homes, and accessory dwelling units, sometimes referred to as mother-in-law units built behind single-family homes.

    Smoking and vaping any substance will also be off-limits in rental housing parking lots, playgrounds, halls, and other common areas.

    The ordinance allows landlords to designate a smoking area as long as it is 25 feet from housing units and other amenities.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 18:40

  • Atlantic Ocean's Sudden Cooling Baffles Climate Scientists… Have They Ever Heard Of La Nina?
    Atlantic Ocean’s Sudden Cooling Baffles Climate Scientists… Have They Ever Heard Of La Nina?

    How it started. 

    How it’s going? 

    What happened to the existential threat of ‘human-caused climate change’ boiling the Atlantic Ocean? 

    New data from NOAA shows that cool waters along the equator may lead to a “cold phase of a natural climate pattern” known as an Atlantic Niña event. This comes after these waters, which reached record highs earlier this year, have begun to cool rapidly.

    This destroys the climate doom narrative Al Gore pushed at Davos earlier this year. 

    “If these cold conditions persist to the end of August, a phenomenon known as Atlantic Niña may be declared,” NOAA wrote in a recent update.

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    Record-high Atlantic Ocean temperatures were seen during the strong El Niño years of 2023-24. The sudden cooling in the Atlantic is perplexing to climate doomers, whose primary goal is to push fear in hopes of pressuring lawmakers to ban cow farts and petrol-burning engines, all to usher in a ‘green’ economy. The journos who push climate fear around the clock are potentially blinded by the woke/climate mind virus that is not rooted in reality. 

    Flipping back to La Nina.

    NOAA added, “We’ll be keeping an eye on this event in coming weeks, and will have a follow-up post later this month letting you know whether an Atlantic Niña fully developed.” 

    Here’s what X users are saying…

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 18:15

  • More Than 165,000 Pounds of Perdue Chicken Recalled For Metal Contamination
    More Than 165,000 Pounds of Perdue Chicken Recalled For Metal Contamination

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Georgia-based Perdue Foods is recalling large quantities of chicken products after consumers complained about contamination, according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

    The front of a recalled Perdue chicken breast tenders package. FSIS via USDA

    The recall is applicable to roughly 167,171 pounds of frozen, ready-to-eat chicken breast nuggets and tenders that are potentially contaminated with metals, according to an FSIS announcement on Aug. 16.

    “The problem was discovered after the firm received consumer complaints about metal wire embedded in the product and notified FSIS of the issue,” the agency stated.

    “There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider.”

    The products being recalled are 22-oz. Perdue Simply Smart Organics Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets, 29-oz. Perdue Chicken Breast Tenders, and 22-oz. Butcherbox Organic Chicken Breast Nuggets.

    All three products have a “Best if Used By” date of March 23, 2025, indicated on the back of the package.

    The items were produced on March 23 with the establishment number “P-33944.” They were shipped to retail outlets nationwide and also sold online.

    FSIS said it was concerned that some of these items may have already been bought by customers and urged them not to consume them. The agency advised customers to throw away the items or return them to the place of purchase.

    People with questions about the recall can get in touch with Perdue consumer care at 1-866-866-3703.

    The recall is among many food product recalls in recent months because of concerns about the presence of metals. In late July, Colonna Brothers of North Bergen, New Jersey, voluntarily recalled its cinnamon products amid concerns about an elevated presence of lead.

    Earlier in April, H-E-B Grocery Company recalled three-ounce cups of Creamy Creations ice cream for potential metal presence.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 17:50

  • Hamas Executing Hostages? Autopsies Of 6 Bodies Recovered From Gaza Reveal Bullets
    Hamas Executing Hostages? Autopsies Of 6 Bodies Recovered From Gaza Reveal Bullets

    On Tuesday the Israeli military (IDF) announced that it had recovered six deceased hostages in a hidden tunnel network under the Gaza Strip. 

    The grim development has served to underscore that time is running out on getting the hostages back. A total of 105 hostages remain unaccounted for since they were brutally kidnapped on Oct.7, but many could already be dead, Israeli officials suspect. New controversy has emerged over the precise circumstances surrounding the deaths of the latest six recovered.

    Via Reuters: Funeral for Yoram Metzger, one of the six deceased hostages retrieved from Gaza.

    Most were elderly, and may have died significantly prior to the recovery operation. They are: Haim Peri, 80; Yoram Metzger, 80; and Alexander Dancyg, 75; Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Yagev Buchshtab, 35, and Avraham Munder, 79. They had all been residents of border communities which had been raided by Hamas.

    The New York Times on Friday details the fresh controversy as follows:

    A group representing relatives of hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel said on Thursday that autopsies showed “bullets were found in the bodies” of six captives Israeli troops recovered from an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, raising questions about how they died.

    The group, the Hostages Family Forum, said that the autopsy results indicated that the six hostages “were taken alive and executed in the tunnels of Hamas.”

    But an Israeli military spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter to families, said on Thursday that the autopsies showed “marks suggestive of gunshots” on the bodies and stressed it was too soon to determine whether gunshot wounds were the cause of death.

    This has raised the question or even likelihood that they were all executed as hostage talks dragged on, and as the IDF has expanded its military operations in the Strip.

    However, adding to the mystery is that four other bodies were found in the tunnels near the bodies – but which did not have bullets in them – and the military suspects these to be Hamas members.

    The Times report continues: 

    How and when the hostages died has been a matter of contention. Hamas has blamed the deaths on Israeli airstrikes, and the Israeli military has acknowledged some of them likely died while Israel was carrying out military operations in the area where they were found. Some Israel news outlets reported the hostages may have suffocated when the tunnel filled with toxins after an airstrike.

    And there has also been speculation that their deaths may be related to large-scale Israeli airstrikes above the tunnels:

    On Tuesday, Adm. Hagari was asked again about how the hostages died at a news conference. He repeated what he had said in June — that the “hostages were killed while our troops were operating in Khan Younis” — and added that a forensic examination would reveal more.

    Israeli news media reported on Tuesday that initial assessments suggested that five of the six hostages had died from suffocation when an Israeli airstrike hit another tunnel, causing the one they were in to fill with carbon dioxide. The Times could not confirm those reports.

    Or it could be that as IDF troops were close in on the location of the militants and hostages, the Hamas members decided to conduct a summary execution on the spot.

    Some within Israeli media have speculated on the possibility of a ‘friendly fire’ accident by the IDF, which wouldn’t be the first time. At this point, an official autopsy report on the six has not been made public, and it’s uncertain if the official findings when they are produced will ultimately quell the controversy.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 17:25

  • Judge Dismisses Machine Gun Charges Against Kansas Woman, Citing Supreme Court Decision
    Judge Dismisses Machine Gun Charges Against Kansas Woman, Citing Supreme Court Decision

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A U.S. judge has dismissed charges against a woman who possessed a machine gun, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that shifted the framework for how courts analyze cases dealing with constitutional rights.

    A man fires a machine gun in New Hampshire in an undated file photograph. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

    Machine guns fall under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, U.S. District Judge John Broomes found.

    That means prosecutors must show that the law barring possession of machine guns is rooted in historical firearm restrictions, under the 2022 Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, he added.

    “In this case, the government has not met its burden under Bruen and Rahimi to demonstrate through historical analogs that regulation of the weapons at issue in this case are consistent with the nation’s history of firearms regulation,” Broomes wrote in his 10-page ruling on Aug. 21. “Indeed, the government has barely tried to meet that burden. And the Supreme Court has indicated that the Bruen analysis is not merely a suggestion.”

    Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in Bruen, said that when the Second Amendment is found to apply, government officials must show that the regulation in question “is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

    In the recent ruling in United States v. Rahimi, the justices found that a law prohibiting people under domestic violence-related restraining orders from possessing guns does not violate the Second Amendment, and they clarified how courts should analyze such regulations.

    “A court must ascertain whether the new law is ’relevantly similar‘ to laws that our tradition is understood to permit, ’apply[ing] faithfully the balance struck by the founding generation to modern circumstances,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. He said that some courts had misunderstood Bruen.

    Broomes’s decision came after prosecutors charged Tamori Morgan, a Kansas resident, with illegally possessing an Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 .300 caliber machine gun and a machine gun conversation device.

    Morgan’s lawyer argued that the charges should be dismissed because the law that she allegedly violated unconstitutionally strips people of their right to possess machine guns. He noted that the history of machine gun prohibition is limited, with Congress not enacting the ban until 1968.

    Government lawyers argued that machine guns are not covered by the Second Amendment and, even if they are, banning their possession is consistent with English common law and a North Carolina law that banned dangerous and unusual firearms.

    Broomes sided with the defendant, noting that hundreds of thousands of machine guns are legally possessed because the 1986 law included a grandfather clause.

    “Even today, it is perfectly legal for a person who has not been divested of his firearm rights under some other provision of law to acquire and possess a machinegun, so long as it was lawfully possessed by someone before the relevant date in 1986, and so long as he complies with the National Firearms Act’s requirements to obtain and possess the weapon. In that sense, machineguns are not unusual,” he wrote.

    The judge cautioned that the ruling applies only to Morgan and that the government could later demonstrate that the machine gun ban is rooted in the nation’s history.

    “Importantly, this decision says little about what the government might prove in some future case,” Broomes said. “Rather, under Bruen’s framework for evaluating Second Amendment challenges, it is the government’s burden to identify a historical analog to the restrictions challenged in this case. This the government has failed to do. The court expresses no opinion as to whether the government could, in some other case, meet its burden to show a historically analogous restriction that would justify § 922(o).”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 17:00

  • Money-Market Funds & Bank Deposits See Huge Inflows As Stocks Rebounded
    Money-Market Funds & Bank Deposits See Huge Inflows As Stocks Rebounded

    Money market funds saw significant inflows for the third straight week (+$24.9BN) pushing total assets under management to a new record high of $6.24TN, despite the rebound in stocks…

    Source: Bloomberg

    As both retail and institutional MM funds saw inflows, US bank deposits (on a seasonally-adjusted basis) rebounded from last week’s big decline with $36.3BN in inflows in the week-ending 8/14…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Also, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, US bank deposits surged $72.3BN, erasing all of the prior week’s declines…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Particularly interesting is the fact that since the March 2023 SVB collapse in deposits, this week has now seen both SA and NSA deposits perfectly back in line…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Excluding foreign deposits (which saw major inflows), US banks inflows were not enough to offset last week’s outflows (SA +$13.5BN vs -$68.5BN and NSA +$46.2BN vs -$76.1BN). On an NSA basis, the inflows were almost entirely in large banks (+$45.7BN) and on an SA basis, small banks saw $5BN outflows (large banks +$18.5BN)

    Source: Bloomberg

    On the other side of the ledger, loan volumes rebounded in the week-ending 8/14 – after shrinking dramatically the prior week…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, US equity market capitalization rebounded strongly this week, despite negligible change in bank reserves held at The Fed…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Of course, now that Powell has pivoted, we suspect these inflow trends will shift (as rates decline)… unless, of course, the typical post-Jackson-Hole plunge prompts derisking.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 16:40

  • DOJ IG Finds FBI Systematically Mishandled Classified Info
    DOJ IG Finds FBI Systematically Mishandled Classified Info

    Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

    Talk about irony: The FBI, which was willing to use deadly force over Donald Trump allegedly mishandling classified documents, has been systematically mishandling similar information for years, according to bombshell findings released Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

    Pallets of FBI boxes containing potentially classified information were found sitting in an unsecured warehouse. PHOTO: DOJ-IG

    The DOJ-IG said it discovered the FBI’s mishandling of classified information while auditing a contract related to how the bureau destroys electronics containing “sensitive-but-unclassified” information, as well as classified national security information.

    According to Horowitz’s audit, the FBI labels computers that handle such information when it sends them to a facility to be destroyed. However, it does not label internal hard drives extracted from those computers. The FBI also doesn’t properly track thumb drives and disk drives containing information of varying classification levels, according to Horowitz.

    Compounding the security risk is the fact that those unmarked internal hard drives, thumb drives and disk drives often end up in a physically unsecured warehouse.

    Horowitz said that when his staff visited an FBI “Media Destruction Team” facility last October, they found “non-accountable” hard drives and other electronic storage devices sitting in an open pallet-sized box. Horowitz said he’s not disclosing details about the facility since it’s not secured.

    “A [property-turn-in] staff member told us that the pallet for the loose media was unsecured for extended periods, sometimes spanning days or even weeks because PTI would wrap the pallets and move them to the Facility shelves only when the box reached full capacity,” the Inspector General said.

    During the same visit last October, Horowitz said his staff also found a container from January 2022 that identified its contents as “non-accountable.”

    “Notably, the container’s shrink wrapping was torn, and boxes inside were visibly open and contained hard drives marked Secret,” he said.

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

    Horowitz added that after his team spotted the box, the FBI’s Asset Management Unit “promptly secured” it with additional shrink wrap. However, the FBI’s PTI supervisor and contractor told Horowitz that they would not be aware if someone was to take hard drives from the pallets because these assets are not counted or otherwise tracked.

    According to the DOJ-IG, at least 395 people have access to the FBI’s unsecured facility as of May, including 28 task force officers and 63 contractors from at least 17 companies.

    “There is no physical barrier preventing FBI and non-FBI personnel and contractors from other Facility operations from accessing PTI’s work area and the pallets of unsanitized assets in the Facility shelving space,” he said.

    And even though there is apparently a door to the Media Destruction Team’s work area, the FBI doesn’t close it to prevent non-Asset Management Unit personnel from accessing the area, the IG found.

    If all those security failures weren’t enough, Horowitz also said one of the key surveillance cameras at the facility wasn’t working when his team visited. The FBI apparently told Horowitz last December that it was installing a new camera there, but it still wasn’t in place when the DOJ-IG made a follow-up visit in February.

    “We believe that the combination of the FBI’s lack of accountability of the electronic storage media, lack of internal physical access control, and lack of sufficient video surveillance compounds the risk of media, potentially with sensitive and classified information, being lost or stolen without detection,” Horowitz concluded.

    It appears as if the problems identified by Horowitz have been around for almost a decade, if not longer.

    During his investigation, Horowitz said his staff determined that an interim accreditation was granted in 2015, but had expired in March 2016. An accredited open-storage secure area is a space with reinforced construction in which classified materials, up to and including at the Secret collateral level, may be stored.

    “Following our observations, the FBI performed a site visit in November 2023 to confirm the remediation of the security enhancements required from a 2015 open storage inspection checklist. The FBI granted the Facility its final open storage accreditation in January 2024,” he said.

    “The FBI stated that the lack of final accreditation was an administrative oversight and that enhancements had been completed in the interim. However, the FBI could not provide evidence of when the required enhancements were completed.”

    FBI whistleblower Greg Roman told Headline USA that the label “Classified National Security Information” indicates some of the FBI’s unsecured boxes potentially contained Top Secret information.

    “Second, it appears the location of this facility warehousing these hard drives, flash drives, floppy disks ie external media is located in Cheverly, MD just outside of Washington DC: Does that mean FBI offices from across the country were sending this ‘stuff’ to an undisclosed FBI facility near DC for proper destruction?” Roman added.

    “That might indicate why none of was marked.”

    The IG said his audit is still ongoing, but he wanted to alert the FBI about its problems so they can fix them promptly. The IG made a series of recommendations for how the FBI could improve its security and disposal procedures, and the bureau agreed with them all—such as placing its boxes of non-accountable hard drives inside secure cages at the warehouse.

    Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 16:20

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Aug 23

Today’s News 23rd August 2024

  • Kiev's Plan To Ban The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Shows How Insecure It Is About National Identity
    Kiev’s Plan To Ban The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Shows How Insecure It Is About National Identity

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    Kiev hates that a significant share of the population refuses to conform with the “negative nationalism” that they’ve aggressively enforced upon them since 2014 by continuing to worship at the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches’ sites instead of the government-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s.

    The Rada passed a law earlier this week for banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by the middle of next year if it doesn’t sever all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Kiev has accused the UOC of being under the ROC’s sway even though the UOC declared full autonomy from the ROC in early 2022. The authorities envisage replacing the UOC with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that was controversially recognized as autocephalous by the Ecumenical Patriarchy in 2019.  

    Readers can learn more about this complicated subject in RT’s detailed article from last August about “The Last Crusade: How the conflict between Russia and the West has fueled a major split in the Orthodox Christian Church”. All that’s sufficient for average folks to know though is that the OCU is part of post-2014 Ukraine’s Western-backed efforts to craft an anti-Russian national identity, which includes restricting Russian-language rights and arbitrarily persecuting those who still speak it in public.

    Putin’s magnum opus from summer 2021 “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” is worth reading for those who’d like to understand how Ukraine’s separate, though originally not radically anti-Russian, identity came to be. In brief, it was largely the result of the erstwhile Kievan Rus’ collapse, after which its heartland that’s nowadays known as Ukraine fell under Lithuanian and then Polish influence. This was then followed by some Austrian, Imperial German, Nazi, and now American influences too.

    Throughout the centuries, linguistic differences developed between the indigenous inhabitants from this part of that former civilization-state and its northeastern reaches from where the future Russian Empire emerged, and these paired with different historical experiences to form a separate Ukrainian identity. Instead of celebrating its closeness with Russia’s due to their shared roots, ultra-nationalists became hellbent on exaggerating and even manufacturing differences in order to form a “negative nationalism”.

    What’s meant by this is that Ukrainian identity, both on its own due to some local demagogues but also especially as a result of the aforementioned foreign influences, came to be defined by how different it supposedly is from Russia’s. That trend turned Ukraine and those of its people who adhered to this particular form of identity into foreign powers’ geopolitical proxies against Russia, with the associated process unprecedentedly accelerating with American support in the aftermath of “EuroMaidan”.

    To be clear, Putin isn’t against a separate Ukrainian identity per se as proven by what he wrote in his magnum opus about this:

    “Things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!”

    He immediately added though that this newly formed identity mustn’t be weaponized against Russia, though that’s regrettably what happened with Ukraine’s. The latest example of this is the law that was described at the beginning of this analysis about banning the UOC by the middle of next year on the false pretext that it’s operating as the ROC’s proxy inside the country. The real reason, which the reader can now better understand after the preceding paragraphs’ worth of background, is Ukraine’s insecurity.

    Its leaders hate that a significant share of the population refuses to conform with the “negative nationalism” that they’ve aggressively enforced upon them since 2014 with American support by continuing to worship at the UOC’s churches instead of the OCU’s. They accordingly suspect that their ideological mission hasn’t been anywhere near as successful as they’ve publicly presented it as being and fear that everything that they did over the past decade could be reversed if they lost power.

    Basically, a large portion of Ukrainians don’t believe in obsessing over their identity differences with Russia, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re “pro-Russian” in a political sense but they’re also not ethnic Russophobes like the Azov Battalion is either. They might disapprove of the special operation while also disliking their post-2014 regime. These so-called “moderates” don’t want to fight for Ukraine against Russia, but they also don’t want to engage in sabotage against their government either.

    Some might secretly hope that Russia overthrows Zelensky, but they’ve also reconciled themselves with living under him and his successors if that doesn’t happen. Their government considers them a threat precisely because they don’t hate Russia, which the authorities suspect is due to the UOC allegedly being under the ROC’s influence and therefore indoctrinating them with “Kremlin propaganda”. The reality though is that these people independently arrived at their views.

    Nevertheless, Kiev is hellbent on destroying the UOC in order to then force those of its citizens who worship at its churches to do so at the OCU’s, from where they’d then be exposed to anti-Russian propaganda in the expectation that they’d eventually come to hate Russia. If this plan doesn’t succeed, then Kiev will remain paranoid that these “moderates” might one day be radicalized by their regime’s forcible conscription policy, deteriorating economic conditions, and “Kremlin propaganda” into rebelling.

    What Zelensky and his clique can never accept is that these “moderates” embrace the original Ukrainian identity, which considers itself separate from Russia but still friendly with it, while their regime espouses the weaponized version that was artificially manufactured under demagogic and foreign influences. The very fact that the UOC remains the country’s largest in spite of everything that Kiev has done over the past decade proves how genuinely popular the “moderate” version is compared to the radical one.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/23/2024 – 02:00

  • Defense Budget Talks Reignite Debate Over Military Draft For Women
    Defense Budget Talks Reignite Debate Over Military Draft For Women

    Authored by Michael Washburn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Provisions in the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require women to register for the military draft, while carving out an exemption from serving in front-line roles, have sparked vigorous debate among combat veterans and enlisted personnel about the wisdom of such changes and their likely impact on the armed forces.

    Female Marine recruits stand in line for lunch in the chow hall during boot camp at MCRD Parris Island, S.C., on Feb. 26, 2013. Scott Olson/Getty Images

    Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) announced the filing of the bill, S. 4638, last month. On Aug. 1, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted unanimously, 28–0, to move its version forward for a full Senate vote in the near future. The House of Representatives approved its own version of the bill on June 13.

    The 607-page bill authorizes topline funding of $911.8 billion for the military and contains a number of provisions aimed at improving military life. They include an increase in monthly pay for junior enlisted personnel, housing allowances for junior personnel on sea duty, extensions of bonus schemes that were set to expire, and making promotions that were subject to delays in Senate confirmation effective retroactively.

    The bill also pushes back slightly against the efforts of the Biden administration, often through executive orders, to bring the military into line with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals by amending the United States Code to forbid use of Department of Defense money and facilities for gender alteration surgeries.

    In other ways, the bill dramatically widens the front of the Biden administration’s push for inclusivity and diversity by revising selective service requirements to include women.

    Subtitle J of the bill reads, “The committee recommends a series of provisions that would require women to register for selective service under the same conditions as currently applied to men.”

    Section 529B of the bill contains an exemption that would, in theory, limit the impact of the proposed change.

    It states, “The committee recommends a provision that would specify that women drafted into service under the Selective Service System may not be compelled to join combat roles that were closed to women prior to December 3, 2015, train or become qualified in a combat arms military occupational specialty, or join a combat arms unit.”

    This stipulation notwithstanding, members of the military community are sharply divided on what effect the bill will have if passed in its current form.

    Upholding Standards

    The impact of gender integration on physical fitness requirements and standards in the military has been a source of controversy for years.

    Even after President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, announced in December 2015, that previously all-male combat positions would be open to women, the number of women seeking entry to the Marine Corps was small and the number who passed fitness tests was even smaller.

    Members of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2023 complete squad combat course training as part of a program to transition the candidates from civilian to military life, in Annapolis, Md., on Aug. 1, 2019. ENS Marion Bautista/Released/U.S. Navy

    As of August 2017, nearly two years after Carter declared the far-reaching policy change, fewer than one percent of female inductees into the corps sought out combat roles, and of the number who did, only 25 percent met the physical requirements, according to a Marine Times report citing Training and Education command data. Fully 96 percent of male Marines who took the same tests passed, the report said. Those women who did not pass had to seek out noncombat roles.

    Given these realities, and the exemption from combat roles in the new NDAA bill, some observers do not see the change to the selective service criteria as especially significant.

    “There are plenty of noncombat and support roles in the U.S. military, and expanding the draft to include women does not mean putting women in the infantry or the Rangers,” Keith Naughton, the principal of Silent Majority Strategies, a Germantown, Maryland-based consultancy, told The Epoch Times.

    “When conservatives slap the DEI label on everything they don’t like, it loses its effect and makes it more difficult to stop the growth of DEI where it matters.”

    Recruitment Challenges

    The danger of aggression from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, various terrorist groups, and other hostile powers pushes the Department of Defense to ensure a large enough military to protect American interests.

    In fiscal year 2023, the Department of Defense missed its recruitment goals by no fewer than 41,000 personnel.

    “The Military Services continue to face unprecedented recruiting challenges,” the department’s recruiting and retention report for the year ending in May 2023 states.

    As interest in national service dwindles among the younger population, the danger of an understaffed military incapable of carrying out its functions grows, said Scott McQuarrie, a former officer in both the Army and the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, who now works as an attorney.

    A police officer stands near a military recruitment center in New York’s Times Square on July 26, 2017. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    “We must have a sufficiently sized, adequately trained and equipped military in order to deter potential adversaries from drawing us into what would be a devastating conflict or, in the event of a conflict, to protect and defend the homeland and our national security interests,” McQuarrie told The Epoch Times.

    “If we cannot fill the ranks with volunteers and/or afford a volunteer force, what are the alternatives? The American people must answer that difficult question,” he said.

    McQuarrie said trying to maintain military readiness while relying exclusively on the pool of young men who volunteer for service might lead to an unpalatable outcome: lowering the standards and requirements for male inductees.

    The armed forces took such a course during the Vietnam War under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in a program known as Project 100,000. McQuarrie described Project 100,000 as nothing short of a disaster for the military and the country.

    He suggested that drafting a small number of women to serve in noncombat roles could be one way to address the personnel shortfall and maintain the highest standards for men who do take on frontline combat roles.

    U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsmen practice running an IV line during a medical response team training aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort. U.S. Navy via Getty Images

    “I believe the political climate today is conducive to addressing these questions, but it will happen only if enough leaders have the political will and moral courage to put the issues on the table for the American people to discuss and decide,” McQuarrie said.

    Maintaining Cohesion

    Others who are familiar with the realities of training and combat are sober about the practical challenges of upholding standards while incorporating larger numbers of women into the armed forces.

    If the NDAA passes in its current form, it is not impossible to envision a near future where more women seek entry to—and are granted—frontline combat roles.

    But given time-tested differences between the sexes’ physical aptitudes, this is all but certain to require adjusting physical standards, they say.

    “I think the message that citizenship sometimes comes with an obligation to one’s country is an entirely healthy message to send to both sexes, not just young men,” Sebastian Junger, a journalist and documentarian who spent years embedded with U.S. forces in combat zones in Afghanistan, told The Epoch Times.

    But there can be no illusions about the arduous nature of frontline duty and the immense physical exertions it involves, he stressed. Junger drew an analogy between the U.S. military and fire departments, which are subject to calls for diversification, often from people who have never been firefighters themselves.

    “Combat, like firefighting, is incredibly rigorous and demanding, and efforts to integrate fire departments with women have found themselves at a kind of crossroads. Do you scale down the physical requirements in order to get more women into firehouses, or keep the number of pull-ups you have to do exactly the same and have virtually no women passing?” he said.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 23:25

  • America's Energy Divide: How Democrats And Republicans Feel
    America’s Energy Divide: How Democrats And Republicans Feel

    Energy and climate issues have long been a point of division in American politics, with Democrats generally believing in investing in renewable energy sources while Republicans are more supportive of expanding energy production more broadly, including the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

    This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, shows the portion of Democrat (and Democrat-leaning) and Republican (and Republican-leaning) U.S. adults who favor expanding various energy sources in the United States.

    The figures come from a Pew Research Center survey of over 8,500 U.S. adults conducted in May 2024.

    Which Energy Sources Do Democrats and Republicans Support?

    Nuclear energy has the smallest partisan gap out of any energy source (18 percentage points). Around two-thirds of Republicans support expanding nuclear energy compared to roughly half of Democrats.

    In total, 56% of U.S. adults surveyed are supportive of expanding nuclear power in America.

    Democrats are far more supportive of expanding renewable energy sources like solar and wind compared to Republicans, while Republicans are more supportive of fossil fuels like oil and coal.

    Coal mining has the greatest partisan gap at 48 percentage points, with only 16% of Democrats favoring coal expansion compared to 64% of Republicans.

    2024 U.S. Presidential Candidates’ Energy Policies

    This energy divide is reflected in the 2024 presidential candidates’ positions on energy policy, which largely fall along party lines.

    Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump has vowed to issue rapid approvals for nuclear power plants, while focusing on energy independence and stopping energy-based inflation through increased fossil fuel use.

    Democrat candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris has historically been a strong supporter of transitioning to clean energy and was a early co-sponsor of the Green New Deal when she was a senator.

    Energy isn’t the only topic Democrats and Republicans are divided on. Check out this graphic to see how the two parties feel about industries like mining, oil and gas, higher education, news media, and more.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 23:00

  • Vo-Tech Education Is Taking Off, And It's Not Your Dad's Shop Class Anymore
    Vo-Tech Education Is Taking Off, And It’s Not Your Dad’s Shop Class Anymore

    Authored by Vince Bielski via RealClearInvestigations,

    Jon Graft is on a mission to reignite the passion for learning by pushing a long-denigrated  classroom practice: vocational education.

    The superintendent of the Butler Tech District of high schools in Ohio is a leader in the growing movement to revive public education, marred by low test scores and high absenteeism, through a hands-on approach to learning that prepares students for careers in today’s tech-driven economy. Traditionally a means of funneling disadvantaged kids into outdated shop classes and dead-end jobs, vocational education is being reimagined by Graft and others in sophisticated career and technical education (CTE) programs nationwide, offering high school students of all academic abilities training in healthcare, computer science, engineering, skilled trades, and even the arts.

    Butler Tech and other state-of-the-art CTE programs strive to keep students engaged with career-relevant coursework, apprenticeships, and internships, giving them direction and excitement about their futures. “We are changing the mindset of our communities,” Graft said. “They see that CTE is the way public education should be delivered to all high school students, not just a narrow demographic. It leads to a much higher trajectory in life, whether they go off to university or directly into the workforce.”

    Big ideas to improve public education come and go like the flu, but CTE has established a notable track record, boosting student engagement, graduation rates, employment outcomes, and income, according to several studies. Butler Tech’s graduation rate of 98% is well above the average for Ohio and the nation, with 64% of graduates enrolling in two- and four-year colleges and other training.

    As a new school year begins, the results explain why Butler Tech and programs in Connecticut and other states have waitlists while many traditional schools struggle to fill seats. Despite the demand, advocates say, programs are struggling to expand because the traditional school system continues to underfund CTE. Parrticularly in many wealthier districts, school leaders still consider career training as a less worthy Plan B for students who can’t handle the rigors of college. 

    The views of families, however, are changing. CTE is part of an ongoing sea change in education, which has seen a decade-long decline in college enrollment, particularly in the liberal arts. Some education scholars question the wisdom of having high schoolers focus on careers rather than the fundamental truths found in Great Books. But families that are switching to CTE say there’s no greater truth than a good job. 

    The soaring cost of college is helping drive the demand for career education. Families are rejecting the proposition that spending as much as $350,000 on a four-year degree is the only path to promising careers. Some CTE students have no desire to go to college and instead seek hands-on training in fields like manufacturing and auto repair that provide stable jobs. They prefer learning by doing, such as building an AI-powered robot, over reading a textbook about the birth of modern science in the 17th century. An increasing number of students are college-bound, using CTE to explore pathways in the biosciences and engineering to help make smarter financial decisions about their choice of universities and majors. 

    “In some places, CTE has been attracting a larger share of students who previously would have only taken conventional college preparatory coursework,” said Boston College’s Shaun Dougherty, a leading expert in the field. “They recognize that CTE is a chance to learn about applied pathways and can be a springboard to four-year colleges.”

    That’s the case for Alliyah Newsome. Unhappy at her traditional high school, she transferred to Butler Tech near Cincinnati as a junior to figure out if nursing was the right path for her. 

    Her human-body systems and patient-care classes in the school’s healthcare science program, one of 31 career areas of study, were valuable. But the clincher for Newsome was the field experience: working in a hospital in her junior year, obtaining a nurse’s aide credential and then getting a job immediately after graduation at the prominent Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. 

    Newsome is now a nursing student at Miami University in Ohio with plans to get a master’s degree. “Butler confirmed for me that I want to become a nurse and spend thousands of dollars to get my degree,” she said. “This wouldn’t have happened without Butler.”

    CTE’s Second-Class Status

    The participation rate in CTE remains relatively low. In 2022, about 2.8 million secondary students, or 16% of the total, enrolled in a concentration of career courses, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Many students took these classes in their traditional high schools, which typically don’t offer the intensity and breadth of programs found in dedicated CTE centers like Butler Tech.

    CTE advocates say the biggest challenge is that funding has not kept pace with demand. As many as 50% of all high schoolers would concentrate on CTE if more programs were available in their districts, estimates Catherine Imperatore, research and content director at the Association for Career and Technical Education. Her estimate is supported by a 2021 survey showing that 70% of Americans now have a positive view of vocational education.

    Yet CTE remains on the sidelines because the traditional public school system continues to prioritize sending students to college, Imperatore says. The college-for-all mantra took hold in the 1980s as an idealistic response to the landmark “A Nation at Risk” report, which called for higher standards to fix the failing school system. 

    Since then, soaring student debt has made the push for a four-year degree harder to justify. As of July, 43 million borrowers held more than $1.6 trillion in outstanding federal student loans, or double the amount in 2010, according to the Education Data Initiative. That averages about $37,000 per student, not a small sum for a 22-year-old college graduate.

    In recent years, lawmakers have buttressed career education as the need for skilled employees grows in healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries. New laws aim to improve the uneven quality of programs, requiring districts to report on student performance and making work-based learning, an essential piece of CTE, more accessible and credit-bearing. 

    But direct federal and state funding has only increased marginally over the last decade. Funding through the Perkins Act, the main source of federal support, has remained relatively flat since the 1990s and now sits at $1.44 billion, or about $100,000 per school district, enough to hire one or two teachers. When adjusted for inflation, the funding is below the 2004 level, according to Advance CTE, a non-profit that represents state leaders in the field. 

    “There’s always a push for increasing the investment,” said Emily Passias, the deputy executive director of Advance CTE. “We continue to see little baby-step increases over time that in no way outpaces the cost increases due to inflation.”

    Most funding comes from states, which vary greatly in their support for career education. Although at least 27 states have boosted high school CTE funding in the last decade, the total investment was only $5.9 billion in 2022. That amounts to less than 1% of total state funding for K-12, well below the percentage of students who participate in career programs, according to the nonprofit group. 

    A handful of states, including Maryland, Oregon, and Wisconsin, provide no direct continuous support, leaving it to districts to decide if they want to run programs, sometimes with the aid of state grants, according to an Advance CTE report. But districts find expanding career education is a tough sell in many communities where families want to protect college-prep programming.

    “School district budgets are typically a zero-sum game,” Boston College’s Dougherty said. “They have a fixed budget to work with. So choosing to add CTE programs invariably means cutting arts or world language programs. And that can be contentious.”

    Ignite Pathways Takes Off

    Ignite Pathways, a dedicated CTE school in Iowa, found a way to open in 2021 without the financial backing of nearby districts. Ignite rallied the support of rural Woodbine residents who wanted an alternative to traditional public education. They overwhelmingly passed a $3 million bond measure, and businesses in search of employees tossed in $9 million to help finance a new high-tech school building for Ignite. 

    “These are hardworking people who want education to be more relevant to give students skills that quickly make them productive members of society,” said Ignite Superintendent Justin Wagner. “The potential for students to be adrift after high school is a concern.”

    Like many CTE schools, Ignite operates hand-in-hand with local businesses. The school set up programs in aviation, healthcare, business, and agricultural science after a feasibility study showed that these industries needed employees. 

    Students must take all the state-required core classes in math, English, and other subjects to graduate. But business leaders helped create new curricula that customized these courses to the needs of each program and also formed advisory committees to better link the school to the job market. 

    Wagner says an even bigger challenge was overcoming inflexible federal regulations that undermined the exploration of different careers by forcing students to make long-term commitments to a single apprenticeship. “We have challenged the system at every turn on behalf of the kids,” said Wagner, who expects at least 50% of his students to engage in some form of work-based learning in the new school year. 

    The superintendent says Ignite has given students a greater sense of purpose and self-direction, with about 60% of its graduates continuing their education at technical schools or colleges and 40% getting jobs. 

    Jordan Kerger is one of them. While a junior at a traditional high school, Kerger says he felt pressure to go to college, but then he enrolled in Ignite’s aviation program, with coursework in the flying environment, aircraft systems, and a flight simulator to teach the basics of flying.

    Kerger was hooked. Next came live flight lessons to get a private pilot’s license and then two commercial licenses. He did enroll at the University of Nebraska for a semester but found he wasn’t interested in non-aviation coursework. So he went to Florida to train as a flight instructor, which will help him accumulate enough flight time to become a commercial airline pilot, an in-demand profession. 

    “Ignite gave me an early start right out of high school on what I really want to do, and that’s been great,” Kerger said. “I know others from school who still to this day don’t know what they want to do.”

    CTE Waiting Lists Grow

    In Oklahoma, career-based schools have to turn away hundreds of students like Kerger each year. The state is CTE-friendly, with a separate education department to oversee and fund its 29 dedicated centers, which also get support from traditional districts and local taxpayers. Yet at centers like Francis Tuttle, the waiting list to enroll is growing.

    For the upcoming school year, Francis Tuttle will seat about 2,000 high school students and place 400 others on a waiting list even after recently expanding its automotive, medical, and cybersecurity programs and adding one for teacher preparation, says Superintendent Michelle Keylon. What’s also noteworthy is that most of the students are coming from wealthier suburbs, showing the changing demographics of CTE. Only about 40% of students are from low-income families, well below the state average. 

    Keylon says the sky-high cost of a college degree has made Francis Tuttle a better option for many families with high-performing kids. While college used to be the default plan for 90% of students in the area, she says, now families focus on what their kids want to do after high school and the best way to get there. 

    For college-bound students, Francis Tuttle lets them try out engineering, bioscience, and computer science to see what inspires them. Others opt for the school’s popular advanced manufacturing program, in which professionals from industries serve as guest lecturers and mentors and often offer students internships and jobs after graduation. 

    Among recent Francis Tuttle graduates, 74% continued to post-secondary education, and 22% found jobs. “I would love more funding because we can see results from the programming we already have in place,” said Keylon. “But our politicians don’t think that all students need access to CTE, so they don’t provide enough funding.”

    CTE schools in Massachusetts and other states are also producing strong results. Boston College’s Dougherty co-authored a large study of Connecticut’s 16 dedicated CTE high schools where students take several career-focused courses over four years. Researchers found “robust positive effects” for male students of different socioeconomic backgrounds and abilities. They were 10 percentage points more likely to graduate and had 44% higher total earnings after graduation compared to a control group. 

    This year, a broader meta-analysis of CTE involving 28 studies across multiple states and types of programs also revealed benefits to students. Co-author Katherine Hughes of the CTE Research Network says their analysis showed large positive effects, particularly on high school graduation, two-year college enrollment, and employment, hammering home the point that CTE programs are a bright spot in the beleaguered public education system.

    Where Career Ed Falls Short

    To be sure, plenty of lackluster programs still exist that continue to give CTE a bad name. Researchers say some programs lack a sequence of courses that allow students to build skills in a particular field and don’t offer pathways that go beyond the basic trades. Others don’t provide work-based learning and connections to nearby college programs. 

    In New York City, a hotbed of CTE, Dougherty found “considerable variation” in the quality of the dedicated schools. Two high schools offered fewer than 4 CTE credits, and six failed to provide work-based learning in at least one grade. 

    “Overall, CTE programs may be more than halfway in their evolution to providing a high-quality education,” said Hughes. 

    Another concern is that the early focus on career skills denies students the chance to build more fundamental knowledge in math, science, and English that may be more helpful to their careers in the long term. CTE students fill their elective slots with career training rather than classes that develop basic analytical skills like classical philosophy or advanced math. 

    The risk is that CTE students are less adaptable to significant changes in the labor market, says Eric Hanushek, a prominent scholar of the economics of education at the Hoover Institution. His research of apprenticeship programs in Europe found that graduates eventually dropped out of the labor market a few decades later when their skills were no longer in demand. 

    “CTE makes the transition from high school to a job easier, but the concern is that they will have more difficulty adjusting to changes later in their careers,” Hanushek said. 

    Career education, however, might be just what traditional high schools need to bring students back to the classrooms and motivate them, says Dougherty. The strong demand from families is perhaps the best sign that CTE can provide a much-needed fix.  

    “The established evidence that CTE can engage students suggests that expanding high-quality programs could meet this need to reengage learners,” he said. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 22:35

  • Are Co-Ops Two Blocks From Central Park Really Selling For $174,000?
    Are Co-Ops Two Blocks From Central Park Really Selling For $174,000?

    That does, in fact seem to be the case. The city of New York is selling apartments on the Upper West Side, two blocks from the park, for as low as $173,801, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

    There are seventeen studio and one-bedroom units in a pre-war walk-up with hardwood floors and air conditioning, according to the report. They will be sold via lottery to New Yorkers earning under 120% of the area’s median income and with assets under $280,000.

    The deadline to apply is August 27 and so far over 10,000 people have applied. 

    The Upper West Side building on West 80th Street is near the American Museum of Natural History, Zabar’s, and the subway. Nearby, a four-bedroom condo is listed at $7.8 million, while studios start at nearly half a million dollars.

    Photo: Bloomberg

    One woman who walked by to check out the building said: “It seems too good to be true. This is almost what I bought my house for in 1991.”

    Bloomberg reported that for the West 80th Street building, households of two earning up to $149,160 or three earning up to $167,760 can apply for a one-bedroom unit. The apartment must be the buyer’s primary residence, with a 5% down payment required and resale restrictions in place.

    NYC Housing Connect’s lottery allows eligible applicants to apply once per development. The program includes buildings on city-owned land or those benefiting from affordable housing subsidies or tax exemptions, the article notes. 

    Units are priced as low as $340 per square foot, a bargain compared to Manhattan and cities like Austin and Santa Monica. The city is also raffling homes in high-end areas like Hudson Yards, with two-bedroom rentals at $3,861 per month for families of four earning up to $194,125, as well as properties in Astoria and the Upper East Side.

    The Department of Housing Preservation and Development placed a record 9,550 households into affordable units last year. Mayor Eric Adams is pushing for more residential construction, including 7,000 new homes in the Bronx through rezoning.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 22:10

  • The Tale Of Two Conventions: Gingrich
    The Tale Of Two Conventions: Gingrich

    Authored by Newt Gingrich via RealClearPolicy,

    Historians will look at the 2024 Democratic and Republican national conventions as harbingers of profound changes in American politics and government.

    Callista and I participated in the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, so we got a good sense of who was there and what was happening in the GOP. When we watched the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the contrast between the two was overwhelming.

    The Republican National Convention was shaped by the reality of the Trump revolution. President Trump miraculously survived an assassination attempt the Saturday before, and the convention simply added to the sense of drama. After nine years of campaigning (starting with the trip down the Trump Tower escalator in June 2015) Trump steadily gained support across the entire GOP.

    Trump’s emergence and dominance changed the fabric of the Republican Party. This was illustrated by who was not in Milwaukee. President George W. Bush and Vice Presidents Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle, and Mike Pence were absent. Former Republican presidential nominee and current Sen. Mitt Romney was missing. Former Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he would write in an alternative candidate rather than vote for President Trump.

    The 2024 Republican National Convention was proof of the profound, wrenching shift in the power base of the Republican Party. The old guard was gone, and a new movement was emerging. Importantly, this change had been initiated by Republican voters.

    The MAGA movement is the core of the Republican Party. It’s leader, President Trump, is now the central figure in a party which dates to 1854.

    Consider the contrast with the Democrats in Chicago.

    The leftwing establishment, which traces its dominance of American politics and government back to the election of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was in full force.

    Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton were there – along with former Secretary of State and Sen. Hillary Clinton, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, and the entire hierarchy of the Democratic Party.

    The Republican convention in Milwaukee represented a party reflecting its voters’ wishes. The Democratic Party in Chicago represented a party firmly controlled by its leaders and focused on continuity of power.

    Just think about the processes of Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and 2024.

    In 2020, Democrat voters wanted a change from the establishment. There was a real possibility that self-proclaimed Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders could become the nominee. He was building momentum after a strong race against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

    The senior leadership maneuvered to work against Sanders and ensure that Biden would be nominated. This was an amazing considering Biden had come in fifth in Iowa and New Hampshire. Then-House Democratic Whip James Clyburn delivered the Democratic Primary in South Carolina. After that, Biden gained momentum. Suddenly, Biden’s other establishment opponents began to drop out and endorse him. Sanders – and the will of many Democrat voters – were blocked in a beautifully executed campaign behind the scenes by the Party’s bosses.

    This year, the Democrats faced a new dilemma. After President Biden fell apart in his June 27 debate with President Trump, the Democratic Party leadership concluded that Biden could not win. The prospect of a second Trump presidency was so horrifying to them they decided to push Biden out.

    An amazing pressure campaign was undertaken to force Biden’s withdrawal. It was instigated by the Democratic leadership and executed by their media allies. Day-by-day, new pundits came out calling for Biden to step aside. Various members of Congress followed suit. Finally, it became obvious that Biden was a no-go, and donors started to voice their concerns.

    Biden had won 98 percent of the delegates. No serious candidate entered the primaries against him. The party that preached saving democracy had a choice: principled defeat or hypocrisy with a chance to win. The Democratic Party power brokers forced Biden to retire without defeating him in a single caucus or primary. It was an astonishing example of top-down political power.

    More impressive than Biden’s ouster was the instantaneous shift to Vice President Kamala Harris. She never won a primary. In 2019, she was such a bad candidate she dropped out before a single vote was cast.

    So, in the name of supposedly saving democracy, the Democrats now have a candidate for whom no one voted.

    Here’s what this means to voters. The Democrats’ backroom politics guarantee a continuity of the same failed policies that have frustrated Americans and made life harder. They are the same policies which led to the current populist uprising in America.

    The Republican Party is listening to people and changing. The Democratic Party is using machine tactics to avoid change and maintain power.

    That’s the tale of the two conventions.

    For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 21:45

  • China Steel Mill Profits Collapse, Goldman Issues: "Bleak Outlook" For Iron Ore 
    China Steel Mill Profits Collapse, Goldman Issues: “Bleak Outlook” For Iron Ore 

    The global commodities market peaked in early 2022 and stumbled ever since. China’s property sector remains in a multi-year slump, resulting in soft demand for base metals like iron ore and copper. Last week, Baowu Steel Group Chairman Hu Wangming warned that the economic conditions in the world’s second-largest economy felt like a “harsh winter.”

    As the world’s largest steel producer, Baowu Steel’s chairman warned that the steel industry’s downturn could be “longer, colder, and more difficult to endure than expected,” potentially mirroring the severe downturns of 2008 and 2015. This should serve as a major wake-up call for macro observers that a recovery in China isn’t imminent; in fact, Beijing might not unleash the monetary and fiscal cannons until after the US presidential elections. 

    Commenting on Chinese iron ore markets is a team of Goldman analysts led by Aurelia Waltham and Daan Struyven. The analysts provided a very straightforward note to clients on Thursday, pointing out that iron ore’s “fundamental outlook remains bleak” as prices trade below $100/ton level. 

    Here are the highlights from the note:

    • The fundamental outlook remains bleak, in our view. While both port and in-plant iron ore stocks declined this week, visible stocks remain elevated compared to ‘normal’ August levels and mills’ destocking (despite the drop in iron ore prices) could be an indication of a negative production outlook. This would not be surprising given only 1% of Chinese steel mills are currently profitable, according to a Mysteel survey.

    • Meanwhile, our China property team have cut their forecasts for gross floor area starts and completions for 2024, and our China economists have highlighted rising downside risk to Chinese growth, both of which could have negative implications for steel demand, discussed in this week’s Macro Highlight.

    • In the absence of a hot metal output recovery, continued strong iron ore supply means that we maintain the view that iron ore needs to remain below $100/t for long enough to trigger a sufficient supply response to re-balance the market.

    The analyst said macro data in China printed on the soft side in July. They were worried about “continued weakness across property sales, new starts and completions.” Also, they pointed out that Goldman’s property team slashed forecasts for the second half of 2024.

    Here’s more from the note: 

    With continued weakness across property sales, new starts and completions, our China Property team have cut their forecasts for H2 2024. The new 2024 full year base case is a YoY contraction in gross floor area (GFA) sales of -20% (prev. -12%), new starts of -22% (prev. -15%) and completions of -13% (prev. +3% YoY). The team’s forecast for property FAI remains unchanged at -12% YoY for 2024. While the new base case does imply some sequential improvement in GFA completions (currently at -22% YoY for Jan-July 2024), the expectation is that new starts (the more steel-intensive stage of property construction) continue to trend substantially below last year’s level (already a low base) over the remainder of the year, diminishing hope for any substantial pick-up in long steel demand, which is down 21% YoY YTD, according to Mysteel data, with output down by the same percentage. Also relating to Chinese long steel demand, our China economists have noted that after years of rapid infrastructure building (which has helped to put a floor under long steel consumption despite very weak property new start data over the past two years), finding new projects with decent return profiles has become increasingly challenging, posing further downside to steel demand in coming years.

    However, as we have noted previously, more concerning for iron ore consumption are the growing risks to flat steel demand (used in manufacturing and for exports) due to the strong correlation with hot metal output and iron ore consumption. With export growth expected to moderate, our China economists state that higher domestic demand growth is needed to fill the gap in order to achieve the 2024 growth target of “around 5%”. Likewise, we argue that stronger domestic demand will be necessary in supporting flat steel production, and therefore iron ore consumption, in the scenario that steel exports, either direct or indirect via manufacturing, fall. This is a scenario that looks increasingly likely.

    However, we are doubtful of the extent to which domestic demand will be able to pick up any slack. In the near term, our China economists believe that the downside risk to China growth is rising, and private demand appears to be weakening in the data. Urban unemployment rates appear to be increasing, which could have a negative impact on household consumption in H2 (for example, potential further weakness in retail sales following declines in June and July), and corporate demand deposits dropped 18% YoY, suggesting that corporates do not plan to increase investment in the near term. Alongside potentially weaker demand, destocking could also trigger a further reduction in flat steel output in H2. Mysteel-reported flat steel stocks are significantly above August levels of previous years on record (Exhibit 19), concentrated in traders’ holdings (mills’ stocks are within a normal range). Today’s data showed the biggest WoW drop in traders’ flat steel stocks since the post-Lunar New Year destock in March, and we will be keeping an eye on whether this trend continues over the coming weeks.

    Beyond this year, our China economists expect GDP growth to slow from a nearly 7% average in the 5 years before the pandemic to 3% by 2034 on weakening demographics, the prolonged property downturn, and global supply-chain de-risking. This will likely have mostly negative effects on global commodity demand growth, including for steel, for which we estimate global demand growth falls by 1.4pp when China growth slows by 1pp.

    This is the most stunning chart from the report, showing that only 1% of steel mills are profitable in the world’s second-largest economy. As profitability collapses, hot metal output declines. 

    Iron ore prices in China have slid to a 21-month low. 

    Metal stocks are high at ports and steel mills. Reports have surfaced that producers are flooding the world with cheap iron ore. 

    Global supplies are still elevated. 

    And consumption is soft. 

    Meanwhile, JPM Global Manufacturing PMI has slid (<50) into a contraction. 

    While the property market slowdown continues in the world’s second-largest economy, in the US—the world’s largest economy—there are new fears that government statisticians may have overstated the economy’s strength (read here), influenced by the White House in an election year, leading to concerns that the economy may be much weaker than cheerleaded by VP Harris and President Biden.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 21:20

  • FBI Chief Warns Of Unprecedented Rise In Security Threats
    FBI Chief Warns Of Unprecedented Rise In Security Threats

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    The United States is facing an unprecedented confluence of security threats, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who said the agency is deeply concerned about the simultaneous rise in terrorism, cybercrime, foreign election interference, and espionage activities by adversarial powers.

    Speaking to reporters from The Associated Press at the FBI’s Minneapolis field office on Aug. 21, Wray said he’s “hard-pressed to think of a time” in his career “where so many different kinds of threats are all elevated at once.”

    “I worry about the combination of that many threats being elevated at once, with the challenges facing the men and women in law enforcement more generally,” Wray said, pointing out the stark statistic that law enforcement officers are being killed in the line of duty in the United States at a rate of about one every five days.

    Wray declined to go into detail about any specific investigation or threat but noted that the FBI is concerned about Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft, foreign election interference, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled threats, and terrorism.

    He said better cooperation between law enforcement agencies is a key part of confronting the unprecedented security landscape.

    Wray added that he hopes that the U.S. tech industry, in particular its developments around cutting-edge AI, can also play a role in helping protect Americans from AI-enabled threats coming their way.

    The FBI director’s latest remarks build on his previous warnings, including that China-sponsored hackers are poised to hit U.S. infrastructure at any time with a “devastating blow” to induce panic and that the FBI is increasingly concerned about the potential for a coordinated terror attack on the U.S. homeland.

    From the specter of terrorism to the growing menace of cyberattacks, Wray’s warnings reflect the findings of several key national security reports, including a 2024 White House report of the Cybersecurity Posture of the United States and the Director of National Intelligence’s 2024 annual threat assessment and its National Counterintelligence Strategy.

    Foreign intelligence threats to the United States are unprecedented as foreign adversaries deploy various tactics to focus on a range of possible targets, according to the counterintelligence strategy report.

    It warns that the Chinese communist regime and the state of Russia pose “the most significant intelligence threats,” adding that these leading adversaries are working together more often to amplify threats to the homeland.

    “An expanding array of actors are attempting to steal national secrets, sensitive data, intellectual property, and technical and military capabilities, and undermine and disrupt U.S. foreign policy and intelligence operations,” the strategy document warns.

    Foreign intelligence entities are actively trying to compromise U.S. infrastructure crucial to health, safety, and the economy, per the document. They also aim to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, targeting government, commercial firms, defense contractors, think tanks, and academic institutions to obtain sensitive information.

    The report on the cybersecurity posture of the United States identifies five key trends, each posing distinct challenges to national security and the country’s broader digital ecosystem.

    “Nation-state adversaries” have increasingly targeted critical infrastructure, not just for espionage but as a strategic leverage point, per the report. Ransomware attacks have also grown more sophisticated, posing ongoing threats to national security and economic stability as attackers refined their tactics to outmaneuver defenses, it adds.

    Moreover, the exploitation of complex supply chains, the rise of commercial spyware, and the rapid advancement of AI presented new risks, the report warns, while highlighting the need for robust cyber defense strategies.

    The intelligence community’s annual threat assessment additionally highlights the ongoing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear threats from North Korea, as well as the potential for interstate conflicts in regions including the South China Sea.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 20:55

  • This Is The Chart That Keeps Japanese Policymakers Up At Night
    This Is The Chart That Keeps Japanese Policymakers Up At Night

    Japan has a demographic crisis that started in 2017 and picked up steam in 2020 and will accelerate from there into at least 2050… as a high life expectancy and a low birth rate has created an unprecedented aging population.

    As a simple and effective measure of that ‘crisis’, we look at the old-age dependency ratio measures the number of people over the retirement age of 65 for every 100 working-age people.

    The higher dependency ratio means fewer workers are supporting a growing number of retirees, which strains social security systems, healthcare, and pension funds. This situation could lead to economic stagnation or decline unless addressed through policy changes like increasing immigration or boosting birth rates.

    In charts by creator Preyash Shad, Visual Capitalist looks at old-age dependency ratios of the top 10 economies based on data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

    Japan in Trouble

    Japan has had a rapidly rising old-age dependency ratio for several decades and has the highest ratio currently at 54.5.

    Meanwhile, Germany is the runner-up in the top 10 economies with a distant second-place dependency ratio of 41.4.

    At the same time, the United States maintains a relatively low old-age dependency, with a ratio of 31.3, which places it seventh among the top 10 economies.

    India, now the world’s most populous country, has the lowest ratio of 11.6, in large part because it also has the youngest population.

    Projections for 2050

    By 2050, Japan will maintain the highest old-age dependency ratio of the group, moving from 54.5 to a staggering 80.7.

    In an effort to head-off such a high ratio, Japan is has put policies in pace to attract young immigrants and migrant workers.

    However, despite government incentives, cultural shifts towards later marriages, fewer children, and more women entering the workforce have not significantly reversed the trend in Japan (or many other nations).

    Italy, which is facing similar demographic pressures, will move from distant third to a close second, moving from a ratio of 40.9 to 74.4.

    China, because of the results of the one-child policy and low immigration, could surpass the U.S. by 2050 with a ratio of 47.5.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 20:30

  • The Perpetual Struggle Of Libertarian Candidates: Why They Face An Uphill Battle
    The Perpetual Struggle Of Libertarian Candidates: Why They Face An Uphill Battle

    Authored by Conor Sanderson via The Mises Institute,

    The Libertarian Party was assembled in 1971 and has proven throughout its history to be a resoundingly-unsuccessful third-party venture in American politics. While libertarians are outspoken in their advocacy for individual liberties, limited government, and free markets, their presidential candidates have proven largely unsuccessful throughout history.

    Why have they not experienced greater success in the face of confronting what has become two ideological extremes?

    Further, if a “protest vote” for the libertarian candidate isn’t sitting well with you, which party is more aligned to libertarian policies?

    Libertarians face an eternal uphill battle in the face of American politics.

    As it stands, third party campaigns are almost entirely funded by grass-root donations, which pale in comparison to the millions of dollars that special interest groups and corporate donors pour into Democratic and Republican campaigns.

    Mainstream media tends to focus on the two major parties; hence, very little exposure and airtime is given to third party candidates.

    Even though libertarianism primarily focuses on individual freedoms of its citizens, most voters have associated the party with the “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” views. This allows for common ground to alienate voters on both sides of the perceived party lines.

    No matter the reasoning, it’s undeniable that a Libertarian candidate for president is a pipe dream. As a libertarian who considers the reality we face, which party is most aligned with our shared values?

    The Republican leans more towards libertarianism than the Democratic party.

    Here’s how:

    Republicans have traditionally garnered the mantle of limited government spending and limited levels of taxation. The most were during the Reagan era and, therefore, it appealed to libertarians. Though this line is blurred more and more as each day passes, Republicans still hold the torch in this arena.

    Free market economics is another plane where traditional Republicans have shown their affinity with libertarians, though this interventionism has been tempered in the cases of healthcare, education, monetary policy, and the military.

    In many cases, Republicans oppose excesses of regulation by the government—a general reflection of the libertarian disdain of a creeping bureaucracy.

    Caveats apply, though: Republicans are more socially conservative than libertarians, and the agendas inherently clash with each other.

    Republicans have also frequently supported military intervention and “national security” over the libertarian principle of non-interventionism.

    In the end, the winning combination of libertarian candidates is to rise above both structural and ideological obstacles.

    While the Republican Party is part libertarian when it comes to economic and fiscal issues—having manifested itself in this way—its social conservatism and an interventionist attitude in some aspects create a dichotomous relationship between the two ideologies.

    Ultimately, however, libertarians will have to moderate their message and otherwise change stratagems to capture more mainstream voters, or else find places to build coalitions with other, like-minded organizations interested in making their policy preferences a reality.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 20:05

  • Taxpayer-Funded Oregon Group Offers $30,000 To Home Buyers… As Long As They're Not American Citizens
    Taxpayer-Funded Oregon Group Offers $30,000 To Home Buyers… As Long As They’re Not American Citizens

    Only days after it was announced that California will be pushing a bill to give illegal aliens access to zero down, no payment home loans, it has been revealed that a taxpayer-funded group out of Oregon called Hacienda CDC is already offering non-citizens a $30,000 home assistance loan for new homebuyers through a program called Camino a Casa.  

    Screenshots from the Hacienda website posted by X user Oregon Citizen note:

    “Only for people who are not American citizens…”

    “Clients work closely with financial coaches and HUD-certified housing counselors throughout the entirety of the homebuying process. In addition to mortgage readiness and financial fitness workshops, we provide various opportunities for down-payment assistance…”

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    Hacienda CDC is funded in part by Business Oregon, which is a state institution that manages state and federal tax dollars for economic development in Oregon.  Business Oregon’s director is Sophorn Cheang, who is also a coordinator for the Oregon governor’s “Racial Justice Council.”  As Business Oregon mentions in her bio:

    “Prior to her work with the Governor’s Office, Cheang served as Senior Community Development Manager and Director of the Asian Family Center for the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, where she developed and directed culturally specific programs and services for immigrants and refugees; mobilized diverse community leaders across the state to address social and racial injustices; and performed other strategic planning and advocacy work…”

    The funding is funneled through the Economic Equity Investment Program (EEIP), an equity-based beneficiary project established through the Economic Equity Investment Act (SB 1579), which the Oregon legislature passed in 2022. The organization receives millions in Oregon state taxpayer money and federal taxes through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), according to its recent annual report.

    Hacienda CDC works with credit unions that offer mortgage loans for non-citizens who cannot get a social security number. Instead, these credit unions use an IRS loophole by processing the mortgage with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs).

    As Fox News argues, programs like these appear to be an attempt by progressive institutions and politicians to buy a new voting base.  They offer vast incentives to illegals, give them special treatment through a two-tier system (as we have seen in the UK), eventually secure their citizenship through sweeping amnesty bills and then register them to vote Democrat. 

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    If this trend continues it could be less than a decade before legal citizens and conservative are completely sidelined within their own country by an army of foreign mercenary voters, mostly from third-world countries.  Good luck winning local and state elections let alone federal elections ever again. 

    Beyond the election issue, there is the ongoing problem in US housing.  Millions of illegal migrants pouring into the US under the Biden Administration have escalated a housing shortage and exacerbated an already existing inflation crisis.  With upwards of 2 million (or more) migrants crossing the border illegally every year, there is an endless supply of non-citizens trying to access welfare programs and housing programs they have never paid a cent into.  Meanwhile, real American citizens are struggling with a 30% increase in home and rental costs in the past four years.  

    Bringing home prices down would be a matter of increasing supply without building new homes with inflated material costs.  The easiest way to do that would be to either kick out as many illegal immigrants as possible, or force international corporate buyers like Blackstone to dump their distressed mortgage holdings (or do both). 

    However, as long as blue states continue to incentivize illegals with access to welfare programs and easy money and as long as the federal government continues to refuse to do it’s duty and protect the southern border, there is little chance of stopping the steady flood on non-citizens.  The “great replacement” continues.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 19:40

  • Fast-Food Restaurants Fight To Keep Customers As Food And Wage Costs Spike
    Fast-Food Restaurants Fight To Keep Customers As Food And Wage Costs Spike

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

    Fast-food restaurants survive by providing affordable, quick, and convenient meals, but cost inflation is now pushing their business models to the brink.

    A customer waits to order food at a McDonald’s fast-food restaurant in Miami on July 26, 2022. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

    It has become more expensive to eat out over the past five years, with food away from home increasing by 30 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In just the past year, the cost of eating at a fast-food restaurant has increased by more than that of a full-service restaurant.

    Within the consumer price index, the limited-service meals category (food that is ordered at a counter and taken to go) rose by 4.3 percent year over year in July. By comparison, full-service meals (sit-down restaurants with wait staff) increased by 3.8 percent over the same period.

    Mcdonald’s was recently stung by reports that it was charging $18 for a Big Mac, prompting the company’s president to issue an open letter in May.

    “I can tell you that it frustrates and worries me, and many of our franchisees, when I hear about an $18 Big Mac meal being sold—even if it was at one location in the U.S. out of more than 13,700,” McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger wrote, noting that the average price of a Big Mac across all U.S. franchises had gone up by 21 percent since 2019, from $4.39 to $5.29 today. 

    According to a McDonald’s “myths vs. facts” sheet, the company increased average menu prices by about 40 percent over the past five years, which is in line with the increase in the firm’s costs. Employee salaries have gone up by 40 percent since 2019, and food and paper costs went up by 35 percent during the same period, the company stated. 

    At some point, however, customers will question the value of fast food, compared to alternatives such as full-service restaurants or eating at home, industry experts say. 

    “People like going to Subway to grab lunch. It’s cheap, it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s good. But they question whether they want to pay $12.99, or $14.99, for what used to be an $8.99 bundled meal,” Gary Pryor, a former owner of restaurants and food production companies and a business consultant at Waters Business Consulting Group, told The Epoch Times.

    According to a May survey of 2,000 U.S. adults by Lending Tree, price hikes have caused 78 percent of Americans to view fast food as an increasingly unaffordable luxury. And while three-quarters of Americans say they typically eat fast food at least weekly, nearly two-thirds say they are now eating it less due to rising prices.   

    Chipotle increased menu prices four times between 2021 and 2023, according to an American Institute of Economic Research report by economists Thomas Savidge and Andrew den Boggende, prompting a backlash from customers who also accused the chain of reducing portion sizes. Viral complaints by diners circulating the internet prompted then-CEO Brian Niccol to assure customers in a Fortune interview in May that portion sizes had not changed. 

    Niccol left Chipotle on Aug. 13 to take the helm at Starbucks, which is also struggling. Starbucks reported in its third-quarter fiscal 2024 results that sales were down by 3 percent, driven by a 5 percent decline in the number of customer transactions, although there was an average 3 percent increase in what each customer paid at the coffee chain. 

    McDonald’s reported in July that its quarterly sales were down by 1 percent worldwide and by 0.7 percent in the United States. At the same time, its operating income decreased by 6 percent, indicating the company’s difficulties with both income and expenses.

    Getting Squeezed

    “Restaurant owners are really stuck between a rock and hard place, whether it’s Chipotle, which doesn’t franchise, or McDonald’s, which does,” Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.

    “The last thing they want to do is raise menu prices any more than they have over the past couple of years. But ultimately, there’s going to have to be some painful choices made.”

    The more obvious options for fast-food restaurants are higher prices, smaller portions, or less staff, which often means longer lines and a less pleasant dining experience, he said. 

    The industry is currently racing to figure a way out of the current situation.

    McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said on the company’s April 30 conference call that “everybody’s fighting for fewer consumers or consumers that are certainly visiting less frequently.”

    “We’ve got to make sure we’ve got that street-fighting mentality to win,” he said.

    Cratering sales led Subway last week to call what was reported to be an “emergency meeting” of the 19,000 franchisees of its North American sandwich shops to discuss price promotions, discounts, and other ways to increase customer traffic.  

    The industry is at a “crossroads,” according to Michael Podolsky, CEO and co-founder of an online review platform and consumer advocacy group.

    “While these brands remain strong players, consistent issues with customer service, food quality, and pricing are causing consumer dissatisfaction,” Podolsky told The Epoch Times. “Addressing these concerns will be critical for staying strong on the market, otherwise, consumers might switch to a better quality dining experience at similar or slightly higher prices.”

    Searching for Solutions

    Some restaurants are getting creative in their search for solutions.

    This includes Taco Bell offering Happier Hour, when drinks are discounted to bring more customers in during slower hours. It includes customer loyalty programs such as MyMcDonald’s Rewards, which can award frequent customers points toward free meals.

    Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner told investors in February that the fast-food chain was considering instituting a “flexible pricing” system, which would adjust menu prices based on customer demand, similar to “surge pricing” spikes charged by Uber during rush hour. This sparked protests from customers, as well as accusations from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) of “price gouging,” prompting Wendy’s to issue a statement saying it wouldn’t implement the practice. 

    While the fast-food industry looks for solutions to remain profitable as its costs continue to rise, restaurants are being hit by not only escalating costs for food, energy, and materials but also by wage hikes. Wage expenses are typically between 25 and 30 percent of total costs for fast-food restaurants. 

    On April 1, California increased the state minimum wage to $20 per hour for fast-food employees, in a growing trend of states mandating higher labor costs. Currently, 29 U.S. states now have a minimum wage at or above $10 per hour, according to data collected by the Economic Policy Institute. This compares to the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which has not increased since 2009.

    In addition, 15 states now have a minimum wage above $14 per hour, or approximately double the federal rate. Seven states—Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming—have no state minimum wage, although in those states, the federal minimum applies. 

    Many restaurants unable to pass these costs on to diners simply close. 

    Based on data collected from Google maps and tracking the number of locations that were listed as “permanently closed,” a restaurant services company called Snappy calculated that 1,040 fast-food restaurants had closed in California in the four months since the state’s $20 minimum wage took effect, compared to 315 that had closed in 2024 prior to the wage hike. 

    Other restaurants are looking to invest in automation to increase worker efficiency and cut staffing levels. According to a February 2023 survey by the National Restaurant Association, 58 percent of restaurant operators said they intended to rely more on automation in the coming years to reduce the need for human workers.

    Entry-Level Jobs Going Away

    For many lower-skilled or entry-level workers, however, restaurants often provided an entry point into the labor market, allowing them to build skills and experience toward higher-paying jobs.

    “Employers are going to be hesitant to take on an unskilled employee and bear the cost of teaching them a skill,” Savidge said. “They’re going to be less willing to take a risk on those new, inexperienced employees who are looking to build up job experience and enter the job market.”

    While the inflation growth rate has slowed over the past year, price pressures remain throughout the food industry, which is now also facing an increasingly cost-conscious consumer.

    “They’re spending money on their vacations or things, but eating out at fast food is not a valuable proposition for a family of five people when it’s costing $100,” Pryor said.

    And beyond the struggle to keep menu prices down, there is the pressure on fast-food restaurants to provide meals with the same speed and efficiency, even as they try to cope with staffing issues.

    “Costs don’t always get translated in menu prices,” Savidge said. “Sometimes, the cost is sitting in a really long drive-through line, waiting 20 minutes to just take your order there.

    “That in itself is a cost—the value of your time.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 19:15

  • Thanks, Biden-Harris: Map Shows Worst Housing Affordability In America
    Thanks, Biden-Harris: Map Shows Worst Housing Affordability In America

    Buying the average American home today involves a much larger slice of people’s income—mainly realized under the Biden-Harris administration. Shortly after the Biden-Harris team took office in 2021, housing affordability began to slide, then collapse. 

    Now at record lows.

    The biggest theme in the real estate market in the last 3.5 years has been high mortgage rates and record-high home prices, which have kept home ownership out of the reach of millions of Americans—stuck in the renting economy.

    Tight housing supplies have driven up housing prices across the country. However, failed Bidenomics unleashed an inflation storm, which forced the Federal Reserve into an interest rate hiking cycle that was one of the driving forces behind the affordability collapse. 

    Even as overall inflation moderates, the latest data from the National Association of Realtors shows affordability conditions have yet to improve, still trending at record lows. The Biden-Harris team spent the last 3.5 years championing Bidenomics.

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    Fast forward to today, Harris admits Bidenomics has failed. 

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    Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris team offered no real solutions to cushion Americans in some of the worst housing affordability conditions in a generation.  

    But last week, Kamala Harris unveiled her housing plan. Given the continued affordability crisis, this is just a few years too late for Democrats.

    Anyway, the think tank Hoover Institution pointed out that Harris’ housing plan “does not address the most important reason why housing is expensive: high construction costs. Instead, the plan significantly subsidizes housing demand, which will put upward pressure on housing costs.”

    “One of the biggest demand subsidizers in the proposal is to provide $25,000 to first-time home buyers,” the think tank said, adding, “Based on the information Harris provided, I expect about 20 million US renters would be eligible and apply for this program if Harris wins the presidency.” 

    As Hoover pointed out in the note titled “The Unpleasant Arithmetic of Kamala Harris’s Housing Plan,” Harris’ plan concentrates on subsidizing demand, not improving supply. Thus, government subsidies would only supercharge demand and worsen the unaffordability crisis by sending prices higher.

    This leaves us with Nick Gerli, CEO of research firm Reventure, who showed on X what prospective buyers need regarding salaries for the most basic homes on a state-by-state level today. 

    Not surprisingly, Californians must earn more than $200,000 annually to afford the average home. 

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    The affordability gap for Californians is shocking and happening under left-wing Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

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    “But don’t sleep on a state like Massachusetts. It’s lack of affordability is right up there with California,” Gerli said. 

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    Gerli provided an informative graphic on a state-by-state basis of the incomes needed to afford basic homes. 

    The focus here should be on the collapse of housing affordability under Biden-Harris’ watch. The administration offered zero policies to address the crisis effectively. Yet Democrats under Harris want to address the crisis by subsidizing housing demand, which would only worsen the situation by sending prices higher. This is clown world. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 18:50

  • Judge Dismisses Lawsuit From Disabled Workers Against Elon Musk's X
    Judge Dismisses Lawsuit From Disabled Workers Against Elon Musk’s X

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin on Aug. 21 dismissed a lawsuit against social media platform X brought by people with disabilities who were fired by the company after Elon Musk bought it.

    Dmitry Borodaenko, an engineering manager who was with X until late 2022, said the firings violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by treating disabled workers differently from others.

    Borodaenko did not provide evidence to support this position, Martinez-Olguin ruled.

    “Borodaenko fails to show how employees with disabilities were treated differently by Twitter’s broad return-to-the-office policy and increased workload,” she said.

    “Borodaenko’s theory improperly relies on the assumption that all employees with disabilities necessarily required remote work as a reasonable accommodation.”

    Borodaenko brought the case, and two other disabled former employees were later named as additional plaintiffs.

    Arguments against X, formerly known as Twitter, partly rested on the experience of Hana Thier, one of the additional plaintiffs. According to the new ruling, Thier was improperly added after a different judge permitted Borodaenko to file an updated complaint.

    Plaintiffs had alleged that Musk was “openly hostile towards disabled employees and insinuated that they were lazy,” and that he had “tweeted that a disabled former Twitter employee used his disability as an excuse not to work.”

    Musk later apologized to the worker, who has muscular dystrophy, “for [his] misunderstanding of [the employee’s] situation.”

    The plaintiffs also highlighted how Musk quickly reversed previously broad work-from-home policies after buying X, and said any employees who remained with the company would have to be exceptional people and work long hours.

    While Musk’s comments “may contribute to a showing of animus, they fall short of illustrating how the new return-to-the-office and increased workload policies treated employees with disabilities differently than similarly-situated employees,” Martinez-Olguin said.

    Accusations that Musk’s policies significantly discriminated against disabled workers and are not justified by business necessity also fell short, the judge said.

    The allegations presented in the updated complaint “are nothing more than conclusions devoid of factual support,” she said, adding later that “the new allegations fail to move the needle to plead a plausible disparate impact claim.”

    The earlier version of the suit had been dismissed but Borodaenko was allowed to file a new version.

    The claims “were previously dismissed by the court because plaintiffs failed to allege facts to plausibly state a claim for relief under a theory of either disparate treatment or disparate impact disability discrimination,” X lawyers said. “These same defects remain in the” updated complaint, they said.

    The judge dismissed the lawsuit but said that Borodaenko could file an amendment complaint that adequately fixes the failings within 28 days.

    Lawyers for X and the plaintiffs did not respond to requests for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 18:25

  • Supreme Court Allows Arizona To Require Proof Of Citizenship For State Votes, But Not For Congressional Or Presidential
    Supreme Court Allows Arizona To Require Proof Of Citizenship For State Votes, But Not For Congressional Or Presidential

    Today the Supreme Court cleared the way for a provision of Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in state rolls, the first time the high court has weighed in on a voting dispute in the run-up to the presidential election.

    The order means Arizona election officials must reject state registration forms if voters don’t provide documentation of citizenship.  In other words, Arizonans newly registering to vote for the coming election will have to provide copies of one of several documents, including a birth certificate or a passport, in order to prove their citizenship.

    However, the justices kept on hold provisions of the law that could have disqualified voters who register separate federal forms from casting ballots in a presidential contest in person or by mail. In other words, Arizona voters can still register using a federal form, without proof of citizenship, and vote in the presidential contest.

    Which, in light of recent revelations about noncitizens voting in various elections, and the Democrats’ push not to require voter id for presidential elections, is downright bizarre.

    The high court’s 5-4 action, split along gender lines with men voting for and the women against, follows an emergency appeal by the Republican National Committee and lawmakers in Arizona, which is considered a key swing state in the election.

    Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said they would have denied the request from Arizona lawmakers. What is notable however, is that Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have gone further and allowed the federal-form provisions of the 2022 law to take effect.

    In other words, another SCOTUS appeal may be all it takes to prevent widespread cheating in the Nov presidential elections.

    The decision did not include any legal reasoning, which is common in such emergency applications. But there were signs that the court was divided over the issue, and that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh may have split their votes between two factions.

    Republicans have made noncitizen voting a focus in 2024, amid revelations that it is increasingly prevalent. They are pushing a national proof of citizenship bill, and a handful of states have measures related to noncitizen voting on November’s ballot.

    Why is this such a critical issue? As noted on X, over 40,000 people have registered to vote in federal elections in Arizona without providing proof of citizenship. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes. In other words, in the handful of swing states that will decide the outcome of the Electoral College, where the margin of victory can be in the thousands or even hundreds of votes – every single illegal vote matters, which is why Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to preserve the ability for non-citizens to keep picking the next president!

    While Republicans say the measures are necessary to prevent cheating and allowing noncitizens to cast ballots for Democrat candidates who allow millions of illegals to enter the country no questions asked, Democrats have decried the efforts arguing that they are intended to preemptively question the legitimacy of the upcoming election.

    The efforts could result in eligible voters being removed from voting rolls, Democrats argue, which of course is idiotic since one needs an id for virtually any activity in the US, yet somehow voting should be excluded. They say the measures are ultimately about revving up conservative voters on the hot-button issues of immigration and voter fraud.

    Speaking to the deep-left Washington Post, Richard Hasen, a UCLA law professor and alleged election law “expert”, said the court’s action would “make it moderately more difficult” for some voters and “for no good reason, because noncitizens are not voting in large numbers.” Well, if they are not voting in large numbers then it’s not an issue, and requiring those who do vote in large numbers to present an id is hardly a problem in a country where one needs an ID to enter a nightclub, buy a drink or drive a car.

    Sensing which way the wind is blowing, Democrats are scrambling to make a huge issue out of the long overdue requirement to show some proof of citizenship when voting for, well, anything. Wendy R. Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice’s democracy program said the change in registration requirements three months before the election will result in a scramble for voters, election officials and voting rights groups.

    “There needs to be a massive education effort for people who do not have documentary proof of citizenship for them to understand the correct way to register to vote if they want to be able to vote in the federal elections,” Weiser said. “There’s a real risk of confusion when there are two different voter registration forms.”

    Well, Wendy, if people do not have documentary proof of citizenship – say a driver’s license – by voting age, one can safely say they are illegal aliens and have been carted into the US, mostly likely in the deep of night on Biden airlines, for one purpose and one purpose only: to cheat in the November election.

    Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) agreed. He emphasized that state election officials would abide by the court’s decision and “implement these changes while continuing to protect voter access.”

    Gina Swoboda, chair of the state Republican Party praised the decision, calling it a “tremendous victory for every Arizona voter who demands confidence that our elections are protected from non-citizen interference. The Supreme Court’s ruling ensures that Arizona can uphold the integrity of its elections.”

    The Biden administration and a number of Arizona groups sued to block the law in July 2022, arguing that the federal National Voting Rights Act of 1993 and a 2018 consent decree between the state and the League of United Latin American Citizens, preempts the Arizona law’s requirements related to the federal voter registration form. The act requires voters to attest they are citizens under penalty of perjury but does not require them to submit proof.

    Under that agreement, applicants who cannot show proof of citizenship on their state forms would still be registered to vote if their citizenship could be proved through documents from Arizona’s Transportation Department.

    Those challenging the law also pointed to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that said states violate the Voting Rights Act if they reject a federal voter registration form by requiring a person to submit proof of citizenship. Republicans argued that the ruling does not apply in the current case.

    A trial court judge blocked the Arizona law in 2023, citing the rationale put forward by the Biden administration and the state groups. The Republicans then asked the Supreme Court to put the district court’s decision on hold pending an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. They also requested a prompt ruling, saying the state has an Aug. 22 deadline to resolve litigation related to the election because counties need to begin printing ballots.

    “The district court’s injunction is an unprecedented abrogation of the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections,” the Republicans wrote in their filing.

    U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar argued on behalf of the Biden administration that “judicial intervention at this stage would undermine the orderly administration of the election.”

    In a hilarious attempt to downplay the risk of millions of illegal aliens illegally voting in the November election, the abovementioned socialist rag Washington Post said that “noncitizen voting is illegal in federal elections and allowed only in some local municipalities and jurisdictions.”  Oh, so it’s only “some” then… and since it is illegal to do something, well clearly nobody will do it. Might as well avoid double checking. And while we are at it, we should also allow everyone to drive a car on the honor system, just tell the cop you have a driver’s license somewhere, just not with you.

    Trump has repeatedly claimed, not without justification, that noncitizen voting cost him the 2020 election and narrowed his margin of victory in the 2016 presidential contest.

    The punchline: a handful of cities, including that socialist hellhole Washington, D.C., allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. And since nobody checks if those same noncitizens also vote in presidential elections (because “it is illegal to do so” so may as well trust them), it is guaranteed that millions of unqualified votes are cast each and every year for Democrat candidates, which is also why Democrats are doing everything in their power to allow half of Latin America in the US so actual legal votes are forever drowned out by the army of “free shit” illegals coming here for the promise of a better life, funding by other honest working taxpayers and legal American citizens, as long as they vote for Kamala.

    The good news: this fall, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky and Idaho will vote on ballot measures to enact constitutional bans on noncitizen voting. How these measures are not ironclad in every state, boggles the mind.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 18:00

  • Quinn: They've Selected Kamala & This Is Their Plan
    Quinn: They’ve Selected Kamala & This Is Their Plan

    Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

    “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” ― H.L. Mencken

    The Powers That Be/Deep State have gone to Plan B, since Plan A was a dementia ridden, pants shitting, child sniffing, corrupt, global embarrassment. Everybody knows Kamala Harris is an extremely unlikable, vacuous, commie, diversity shill, Obama puppet. She couldn’t get above 2% support in the 2020 Democrat primaries and had the lowest popularity rating of any VP in history, because she is an honest to goodness moron. She was selected because she can read a teleprompter better than the shuffling cadaver in the White House. Every time she is stumped by a question, she cackles like a hyena, so she cackles a lot.

    She hasn’t had an original thought or idea in her entire worthless, sleeping up the ladder, life. But, suddenly she is the toast of the town and the regime media has gone into full propaganda mode to elevate her as the joyful diversity queen who will lead us to the promised land. It is beyond laughable, but have you observed the ignorant masses and their immense gullibility and lack of critical thinking skills? The Deep State engineers have, and they know they can place her in the oval office. The propaganda media machine is in full “elect Kamala” mode, as can be seen in the graphic below.

    The plan to place this low IQ diversity puppet into the White House is multi-faceted.

    • First, they will flood the airwaves with negative ads about Trump, because her record is non-existent/disastrous. They have hundreds of millions to do so.

    • Second, they will have their regime media outlets heap praise upon her glorious rise against all odds through her joyful brilliance, while scorning Trump as a criminal, white supremacist, Putin puppet.

    • Third, they will try to duplicate the “Basement Biden” strategy of 2020 by never letting her speak off the cuff, do interviews without having the questions a week in advance, or god forbid do a press conference. They will make up reasons why she won’t debate Trump, and then blame Trump for not debating. They cannot allow her to talk, because it will immediately reveal she is one of the dumbest human beings on the planet.

    • Fourth, they will conspire with their regime media partners to rig the polls, showing Kamala leading on a national level and either leading or very close in the seven swing states that matter. Absolutely nothing has changed regarding mail-in ballots since the 2020 stolen election. The Dems continue to register illegals as voters. With the cover of fake polls showing a close race, they will cheat again in all the Democrat controlled urban shitholes to win again. The left wing governor of PA, who isn’t Kamala’s VP because he is a Jew and was nixed by her handlers, has already announced the PA results will not be final on election night. They need to see how far behind they might be to get just enough additional votes from Philly to win the state. Remember the left wing media polls in 2016? Their game plan hasn’t changed.

    • Fifth, the Deep State will continue to try and drum up a new pandemic (Monkeypox, Bird Flu, New Covid strain) in order to drastically reduce or eliminate in-person voting, so they can commit more mail-in ballot fraud. They also have the old electronic ballot machine manipulation as a back-up plan.

    If this multi-faceted plan does not seem to be doing the trick, they will take more extreme measures, as desperation will creep in, knowing their wealth, power and control over the country is in jeopardy. They already tried to assassinate Trump and missed by inches. They will try again and make it look like Iran was the culprit. It isn’t a coincidence they keep pushing us closer and closer towards war with Russia and Iran. As a last resort, they will create a false flag incident designed to start WW3 and rally the country behind the existing regime. They will declare a national emergency and declare it too dangerous to hold elections, so they will be suspended.

    No matter how the next three months play out, there will be blood.

    They will do anything to place that cackling diversity drunk into the White House, and if they fail, all hell will be unleashed, as their BLM, Antifa, and illegal immigrant hordes are activated and instructed to burn it all down. Buckle up. A shit storm is coming.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 17:40

  • Spot The Odd One Out: EV Adoption By State
    Spot The Odd One Out: EV Adoption By State

    In 2023, sales of electric vehicles (EVs) passed the 1.6 million mark.

    To visualize where EVs are the most popular, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti maps the number of registered EVs per 100,000 people by state as of June 2024.

    The vehicle registration data is sourced from the U.S. Department of Energy, while population data is from the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Only all-electric vehicles are included on the map.

    California Leads EV Adoption

    California has the highest number of electric vehicles, with 1.1 million. Florida follows with 231,000 EVs, and Texas ranks third with 210,000.

    When considering EVs per 100,000 people, California also leads with 3,026 cars per 100,000 people, followed by Washington, Hawaii, and Oregon.

    U.S. State EVs per 100k people
    California 3026
    Washington 1805
    Hawaii 1686
    Oregon 1422
    Colorado 1405
    Nevada 1379
    New Jersey 1349
    Arizona 1139
    Vermont 1129
    District of Columbia 1115
    Utah 1078
    Maryland 1050
    Florida 1024
    Massachusetts 983
    Connecticut 818
    Georgia 771
    Delaware 745
    Illinois 741
    Texas 690
    New Hampshire 660
    New York 622
    Minnesota 591
    North Carolina 589
    Oklahoma 564
    Rhode Island 542
    Pennsylvania 499
    Maine 489
    Michigan 454
    New Mexico 452
    Tennessee 428
    Idaho 406
    Missouri 398
    Ohio 391
    Montana 373
    South Carolina 358
    Kansas 354
    Indiana 350
    Alaska 346
    Nebraska 319
    Iowa 260
    Kentucky 238
    Alabama 232
    Arkansas 214
    South Dakota 169
    Louisiana 165
    North Dakota 112
    Mississippi 110

    Mississippi has the fewest electric vehicles proportionally, with only 110 EVs per 100,000 people. North Dakota has a similar lack of EVs, with 112 per 100,000 people in the state.

    Additionally, California has the highest number of EV charging stations, with over 15,000, making up 29% of all charging stations in America. As of 2022, the Golden State had nearly double the number of chargers compared to the next three states combined: New York, Florida, and Texas.

    If you liked this post, check out Ranked: The Top 10 EV Battery Manufacturers in 2023. In this graphic we rank the top 10 EV battery manufacturers by total battery deployment (measured in megawatt-hours) in 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 17:20

  • Life In A Sound-Money World
    Life In A Sound-Money World

    Authored by John Rubino via Substack,

    Pretend, for a moment, that it’s 1971 and you’re President Richard Nixon (admittedly disturbing fantasies, but bear with me). You face the perennial government income/outflow dilemmas, and other countries, noting your struggle, are trying to cash their dollars in for your limited pile of gold bars.

    But this time around you don’t cave and “close the gold window,” ushering in the Age of Fiat Currencies. Instead, you cut spending and raise revenues however you have to. You balance your budget and convince your trading partners that the dollar remains “good as gold.”

    Thanks to you, the US and by extension the world remains on the post-WW II Bretton Woods quasi gold standard. And what follows is very different.

    But how different, exactly? How would a sound-money world depart from the financial train wreck that we’ve come to accept as the new normal?

    One way to find out is to calculate asset prices in terms of gold rather than dollars and see what kind of price action the past half-century would have experienced under a gold standard.

    Stocks: Only Dividends Matter

    Let’s start with stocks. When valued in real money (i.e., gold) the S&P 500 is virtually unchanged since 1971. The following chart ignores the dividends paid by public companies, so let’s give stocks a positive real return of maybe 2% a year, all of it from profitable companies returning cash to shareholders.

    Share prices still rise and fall, but the fluctuations are more muted and less disruptive than the serial bubbles of the past five decades.

    GDP: The Long Depression?

    When priced in gold, the US economy (measured by gross domestic product, or GDP) is actually smaller than it was in 1971, giving credence to the people who claim we’ve been in a “capital D” depression since 2000 if not 1971.

    Oil: Life Keeps Getting Cheaper

    As the saying goes, “energy is life, life is energy.” In dollar terms, oil and its distillates like gasoline are far more expensive these days, as is life in general. But priced in gold, oil is actually down by almost two-thirds since 1971.

    In our hypothetical gold standard world, energy is making life easier and more manageable instead of harder and more stressful.

    Houses: Our Kids Get Their Starter Home

    Housing might be the part of life where inflation has been most debilitating, with two entire generations now priced out of home ownership. What would it be like under a gold standard? US houses would be about as cheap as they’ve been in the past century.

    Rents would be lower, and our kids and grandkids would own their own homes rather than renting (or staying with us).

    Life In a Sound Money World

    What a difference a single policy decision can make. Had the US just gotten its act together in the 1970s and maintained sound money, today we’d be buying stocks for their 2% dividend yield rather than betting our life savings on never-ending boom/bust cycles. We (and more important, our kids) would be living in affordable houses. We’d have no trouble filling the gas tank to get to work. And the Aristocracy wouldn’t be feasting on the peasants and shredding the fabric of society.

    A gold-standard world would, in short, be a saner and more sustainable place in which we’d be a lot less worried about the chaos to come.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 17:00

  • Get Woke, Go Broke: Disney Cancels Gay Star Wars Show After One Season
    Get Woke, Go Broke: Disney Cancels Gay Star Wars Show After One Season

    In the past 10 years Disney has generated a magnificent reputation for failure.  Consider for a moment the overwhelming catalog of marketable properties the company has purchased through its acquisition of companies like 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm – The possibilities for profits are endless.  Star Wars itself was long considered to be a bulletproof brand, a beloved franchise that had hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of fans attached to it due to sheer nostalgia alone. 

    It would take a screw-up of epic proportions to take a loss on Star Wars.  Or, maybe a deliberate agenda to deconstruct and destroy the very foundations of the story that made it so popular in the first place.

    The Acolyte, directed by Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant Leslye Headland and produced by Steven Spielberg’s former assistant Kathleen Kennedy, is the pinnacle of this agenda.  Kathleen Kennedy’s notorious ‘Story Group’ set out to fundamentally change Star Wars from the very beginning with the increasing injection of third-wave feminism, woke ideology and ultimately sexual fetishism. 

    They first tested the waters through a bizarre series of young adult novels called ‘The High Republic’, which ended up on clearance shelves within a year.  The Acolyte was an attempt to double down on the High Republic in television/streaming format.  The goal?  To turn a story about the basic roots of love, friendship, responsibility and good and evil into a degenerate tale of moral relativism and identity politics.  Headland was given a $180 million budget and an incredible amount of creative control by Lucasfilm.

    In the Acolyte, the Jedi are the bad guys (and they are all murdered in the end), the Sith are portrayed as relatable and justified, lesbian space witches reproduce through immaculate conception and high concept adventure takes a back seat to talking, talking, talking.  The original audience for Star Wars has always been predominantly male.  The new audience was intended to not just be female, but feminist females.  It was a recipe for financial disaster.

    The Acolyte has now officially been cancelled with Disney and Lucasfilm announcing they have no intention of pursuing a second season.  Though Disney initially boasted about the series being the “most watched” on Disney Plus in 2024 (because there was very little competition), Nielsen numbers for streaming originals indicated the show did not make the cut for the top 10 most viewed streaming originals during four of the seven weeks it was on the air. 

    Not surprisingly, woke activists are in an uproar.  They claim that the show was sabotaged by the “review bombing” of “racists and misogynists”.  In reality, there is no such thing as “review bombing.”  Either a show has a large audience, or it doesn’t.  Either it appeals to a wide group of consumers, or it doesn’t.  If most people hate a show that’s not review bombing, that’s the free market (which leftists despise).  A show does not deserve to remain on the air simply because it has the “right politics”.  

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    Activists claim the cancellation of the show is the same as “letting the bigots win.”  The bigger question that leftists need to ask themselves is this:  Where were they?  If this show has such a large audience, why didn’t they show up and fight the “bigots” themselves?  

    The reason companies like Disney often hide the real numbers is not only because of financial optics – They also know that the woke left is a paper tiger, an astroturf movement based mainly on social media and college campuses with barely a footprint in the real world.  The more these shows and films bomb, the more that fact becomes apparent and the con game is exposed.    

    George Lucas’ space opera extravaganza started out as a love letter to the sci-fi and adventure serial shows of the 1940s and 1950s.  It was combined with a homage to Akira Kurosawa’s film ‘The Hidden Fortress’ and, most importantly, it followed the story beats of Joseph Cambell’s study on inherent symbology titled ‘The Hero’s Journey.’  The archetypal nature of Star Wars, its clear delineations on good and evil, the path to the dark side and the existence of the Jedi (the ultimate good in the universe) appeals to the human subconscious in a way that Hollywood did not understand at first.

    They tried many times to copy the formula to no avail, because, frankly, Hollywood is not run by normal humans, it’s run by narcissists and psychopaths.  They aren’t going to get it because they are incapable of relating to it.  But since Star Wars made loads of money, Lucas was left to his own devices. 

    In our current cultural dark age, however, money is not as important to the ideologues as it used to be.  They see profits as secondary to propaganda and if a film or streaming series does not convey the proper messaging it is unlikely to be made at all.  On the other hand, if a production has all the right rhetoric, the correct ethnic pie chart of people and sexual orientations then it will probably be made even if it’s terribly written and the creators are incompetent.  The multicultural cult of globalism must be front and center in the public mind at all times; it doesn’t matter if they are entertained or not.

    The thing is, the woke cultists made a faulty assumption:  They believed that if they saturated the market with woke imagery and messaging that eventually the public would give up, submit, and consume whatever products they were fed without question.  In other words, Disney and their ilk believed the populace could be brainwashed into compliance over time.

    This has not happened.  In fact, audiences have become more discerning and savvy.  And, you can’t feed a vast corporation on ideology, eventually you have to start bringing in profits again.  This is why The Acolyte was canceled and why this event likely heralds the beginning of the end for woke content in general.       

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/22/2024 – 16:40

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  • The Political Matrix Sustains The Illusion Of Freedom
    The Political Matrix Sustains The Illusion Of Freedom

    Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” 

    – Neil Postman

    What you smell is the stench of a dying republic.

    Our dying republic.

    We are trapped in a political matrix intended to sustain the illusion that we are citizens of a constitutional republic.

    In reality, we are caught somewhere between a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).

    For years now, the government has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the American people, letting us enjoy just enough freedom to think we are free but not enough to actually allow us to live as a free people.

    In other words, we’re allowed to bask in the illusion of freedom while we’re being stripped of the very rights intended to ensure that we can hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution.

    We’re in trouble, folks.

    This is no longer America, land of the free, where the government is of the people, by the people and for the people.

    Rather, this is Amerika, where fascism, totalitarianism and militarism go hand in hand.

    Freedom no longer means what it once did.

    This holds true whether you’re talking about the right to criticize the government in word or deed, the right to be free from government surveillance, the right to not have your person or your property subjected to warrantless searches by government agents, the right to due process, the right to be safe from militarized police invading your home, the right to be innocent until proven guilty and every other right that once reinforced the founders’ commitment to the American experiment in freedom.

    Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property and our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have to speak freely and think for ourselves.

    My friends, we’re being played for fools.

    On paper, we may be technically free.

    In reality, however, we are only as free as a government official may allow.

    We only think we live in a constitutional republic, governed by just laws created for our benefit.

    Truth be told, we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle. And now the government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.

    With every court ruling that allows the government to operate above the rule of law, every piece of legislation that limits our freedoms, and every act of government wrongdoing that goes unpunished, we’re slowly being conditioned to a society in which we have little real control over our lives.

    As Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone and an insightful commentator on human nature, once observed, “We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”

    Indeed, not only are we developing a new citizenry incapable of thinking for themselves, but we’re also instilling in them a complete and utter reliance on the government and its corporate partners to do everything for them—tell them what to eat, what to wear, how to think, what to believe, how long to sleep, who to vote for, whom to associate with, and on and on.

    In this way, we have created a welfare state, a nanny state, a police state, a surveillance state, an electronic concentration camp—call it what you will, the meaning is the same: in our quest for less personal responsibility, a greater sense of security, and no burdensome obligations to each other or to future generations, we have created a society in which we have no true freedom.

    Government surveillance, police abuse, SWAT team raids, economic instability, asset forfeiture schemes, pork barrel legislation, militarized police, drones, endless wars, private prisons, involuntary detentions, biometrics databases, free speech zones, etc.: these are mile markers on the road to a fascist state where citizens are treated like cattle, to be branded and eventually led to the slaughterhouse.

    Freedom, or what’s left of it, is being threatened from every direction.

    The threats are of many kinds: political, cultural, educational, media, and psychological. However, as history shows us, freedom is not, on the whole, wrested from a citizenry. It is all too often given over voluntarily and for such a cheap price: safety, security, bread, and circuses.

    This is part and parcel of the propaganda churned out by the government machine.

    That said, what we face today—mind manipulation and systemic violence—is not new. What is different are the techniques used and the large-scale control of mass humanity, coercive police tactics and pervasive surveillance.

    We are overdue for a systemic check on the government’s overreaches and power grabs.

    By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

    For years now, we have suffered the injustices, cruelties, corruption and abuse of an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution or the rights of the citizenry.

    We have lingered too long in this strange twilight zone where ego trumps justice, propaganda perverts truth, and imperial presidents—empowered to indulge their authoritarian tendencies by legalistic courts, corrupt legislatures and a disinterested, distracted populace—rule by fiat rather than by the rule of law.

    Where we find ourselves now is in the unenviable position of needing to rein in all three branches of government—the Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative—that have exceeded their authority and grown drunk on power.

    We are the unwitting victims of a system so corrupt that those who stand up for the rule of law and aspire to transparency in government are in the minority. This corruption is so vast it spans all branches of government.

    The predators of the police state are wreaking havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government doesn’t listen to the citizenry, it refuses to abide by the Constitution, which is our rule of law, and it treats the citizenry as a source of funding and little else.

    The American kleptocracy has sucked the American people down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe in which the Constitution is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry is powerless to defend itself against government agents who steal, spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.

    This dissolution of that sacred covenant between the citizenry and the government—establishing “we the people” as the masters and the government as the servant—didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen because of one particular incident or one particular president. It is a process, one that began long ago and continues in the present day, aided and abetted by politicians who have mastered the polarizing art of how to “divide and conquer.”

    Unfortunately, there is no magic spell to transport us back to a place and time where “we the people” weren’t merely fodder for a corporate gristmill, operated by government hired hands, whose priorities are money and power.

    Our freedoms have become casualties in an all-out war on the American people.

    Through every fault of our own—our apathy, our ignorance, our intolerance, our disinclination to do the hard work of holding government leaders accountable to the rule of law, our inclination to let politics trump longstanding constitutional principles—we have been reduced to this sorry state in which we are little more than shackled inmates in a prison operated for the profit of a corporate elite.

    If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.

    For there to be any hope of real change, we must change how we think about ourselves, our fellow human beings, freedom, society, and the government.

    The following principles may help any budding freedom fighters in the struggle to liberate themselves and our society.

    First, we must come to grips with the reality that the present system does not foster freedom. The government’s primary purpose is maintaining power and control. It’s an oligarchy composed of corporate giants wedded to government officials who benefit from the relationship. In other words, it is motivated by greed and exists to perpetuate itself.

    Second, voting is no guarantee of liberty. Voting is a way to keep the citizenry pacified. That’s why the government places so much emphasis on the reassurance ritual of voting. It provides the illusion of participation while maintaining the status quo. As Jordan Michael Smith, writing for the Boston Globe, concludes about the American government, “There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.”

    Third, question everything. Don’t assume anything the government does is for the good of the citizenry. As James Madison warned, “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    Fourth, there is little hope for any true resistance if you are mindlessly connected to the electronic concentration camp. Remember, what you’re being electronically fed by those in power is meant to pacify, distract, and control you.

    Fifth, be wise and realize that there is power in numbers. Networks, coalitions, and movements can accomplish much—especially if their objectives are focused, practical and nonviolent—and they are very much feared by government authorities.

    Sixth, as always, change must start with “we the people.” I’ve always advised people to think nationally, but act locally. Yet it can be hard to make a difference locally when the local government is as deaf, dumb and blind to the needs of its constituents as the national government.

    Seventh, local towns, cities and states can nullify or say “no” to federal laws that violate the rights and freedoms of the citizenry. When and if you see such federal laws passed, gather your coalition of citizens and demand that your local town council nullify such laws. If enough towns and cities across the country would speak truth to power in this way, we might see some positive movement from the federal governmental machine.

    Clearly, it’s time to clean house at all levels of government.

    We have been saddled with the wreckage of a government at all levels that no longer represents the citizenry, serves the citizenry, or is accountable to the citizenry.

    “We the people” are not the masters anymore.

    It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the federal government, state governments, or local governing bodies: at all ends of the spectrum and every point in between, a shift has taken place.

    “We the people” are not being seen, heard or valued.

    We no longer count for much of anything beyond an occasional electoral vote and as a source of income for the government’s ever-burgeoning financial needs.

    Everything happening at the national level is playing out at the local level, as well: the violence, the militarization, the intolerance, the lopsided governance, and an uneasy awareness that the citizenry have no say in how their communities are being governed.

    So, what’s the answer?

    For starters, stop tolerating corruption, graft, intolerance, greed, incompetence, ineptitude, militarism, lawlessness, ignorance, brutality, deceit, collusion, corpulence, bureaucracy, immorality, depravity, censorship, cruelty, violence, mediocrity, and tyranny. These are the hallmarks of an institution that is rotten through and through.

    Stop holding your nose in order to block out the stench of a rotting institution.

    Stop letting the government and its agents treat you like a servant or a slave.

    You’ve got rights. We’ve all got rights. This is our country. This is our government. No one can take it away from us unless we make it easy for them.

    You’ve got a better chance of making your displeasure seen and felt and heard within your own community. But it will take perseverance and unity and a commitment to finding common ground with your fellow citizens.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we’re making it way too easy for the police state to take over.

    So, stop being an accessory to the murder of the American republic.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 23:25

  • Beijing Rips Biden For 'Peddling China Nuclear Threat Narrative'
    Beijing Rips Biden For ‘Peddling China Nuclear Threat Narrative’

    China has responded to the fresh NY Times revelation that President Joe Biden recently (and secretly) approved a new nuclear strategic plan that includes US preparations for a simultaneous nuclear war with Russia, China, and North Korea. The new strategic doctrine was reportedly put into effect in March.

    “The U.S. is peddling the China nuclear threat narrative, finding excuses to seek strategic advantage,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded on Wednesday.

    Via Xinhu

    “China is seriously concerned about the relevant report and the facts have fully proved that the United States has constantly stirred up the so-called China nuclear threat theory in recent years,” she added.

    Mao insisted that instead of hyping fake threats, Washington should pursue setting an example of nuclear disarmament and de-escalation, and reminded a press briefing that Beijing officially maintains a a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons.

    “China has always kept its nuclear capabilities to a minimum required for national security needs with no intention to engage in any arms race with any country,” the spokeswoman continued.

    She then called attention to the fact that the US possesses “the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal” and at the same time “stubbornly adheres to a nuclear deterrence policy based on the first use of nuclear weapons.”

    As we featured previously, the US nuclear strategy is updated about every four years or so and is highly classified. The Times described the new strategy as the “first to examine in detail whether the United States is prepared to respond to nuclear crises that break out simultaneously or sequentially, with a combination of nuclear and nonnuclear weapons.”

    China’s arsenal is still just a fraction of what the US and Russia possess. The State Department said in July that the US has 5,748 warheads, including 2,000 that are retired and awaiting dismantlement.

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    According to the Arms Control Association, Russia has 5,580 warheads, including 1,200 that are retired and awaiting dismantlement. Russia has 1,549 nuclear warheads that are deployed, and the US deploys 1,419.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 23:00

  • Diversity Is A False Religion To Destroy America
    Diversity Is A False Religion To Destroy America

    Authored by Teresa Manning via American Greatness,

    This week, the National Association of Scholars (“NAS”) and the Heritage Foundation are sponsoring a panel discussion on diversity ideology in higher education. A number of reports have recently been published on the topic, with most documenting monies spent by state universities on “diversity, equity and inclusion” (“DEI“). The Maryland affiliate of the National Association of Scholars released the most recent such report this summer, but the Virginia affiliate issued one last year, while Idaho, North Carolina, Maine, and Tennessee produced similar documents before that.

    The Maryland report reminds state officials that “diversity” is usually a cover for race-based practices that are now likely illegal under the 2023 United States Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (or “SFFA”). That opinion found that racial preferences in university admissions were a violation of federal civil rights laws and also the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. SFFA means that any race-based practice in college is presumptively unlawful. As the Court said, “Eliminating discrimination means eliminating all of it … distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their nature odious.”

    Virginia’s report is similar to the others with its focus on money, asking Should Virginians Pay for University “Diversity” Leftism? It found that DEI expenditures at Virginia’s state universities have exploded with the University of Virginia (UVA) probably the worst offender. In 2020, for example, UVA spent $4,149,732 on DEI programs with 38 DEI administrators; but within one year, both those figures had nearly doubled. In 2021, UVA spent $6,924,279 on DEI and had 77 DEI administrators. Incredibly, more recent findings show that UVA’s DEI expenditures have skyrocketed even more, with over $20 million spent in 2023 including for 235 DEI employees.

    That’s taxpayer money not spent on instruction, library holdings, or lab equipment.

    The “diversity” contagion is a relatively recent mind virus. The word was almost unheard of for most of American history, making its first real appearance in a 1978 United States Supreme Court case finding racial quotas in school admissions illegal but allowing some consideration of race for the sake of diversity in education. The brief mention may have seemed innocuous but “diversity” was then seized upon by those hostile to Western civilization to dilute social cohesion in Western nations. (Diversity is not a thing in Japan, which would likely view it as an act of war.)

    America typifies the West as it is a product of Great Britain and, for its first 200 years, was populated almost entirely by Western peoples of the United Kingdom and Europe. America’s founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—enshrine Western principles of limited government for a free and presumably moral people. In fact, most founders emphasized that the Constitution would not work without a moral people. And the governance established by the Constitution—its separation of powers, its checks and balances including between the federal and state powers—reflects America’s Christian heritage and especially the Christian notion of man’s tendency toward corruption and sin. Hence the checks on power. As Lord Acton famously explained, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

    Nowhere in these founding documents does the word “diversity” appear, nor do its partner buzzwords “equity,” “inclusion,” etc. In fact, diversity ideology is not only un-American (that is, not part of our basic laws), it’s arguably anti-American in that it obsesses about race to pit Americans against each other. It also undermines America as the land of opportunity where individuals matter most—their talent, industry, and character.

    Where America would value the individual, DEI wants tribes. It’s preoccupied with groups, typically based on race or sex. All this fosters poisonous identity politics where the individual barely matters. This also undermines excellence as the tribe trumps individual talent. It’s no coincidence that collectivist, socialist regimes tend to have crumbling bridges, bad cars, and outdated technologies. They’re against individual achievement. America was never like this. But it’s getting that way now.

    Worse, diversity ideologies always have a religious flavor. They’re packaged as moral imperatives and pitched especially to young people as if they’re a “new and improved” ethics. Young people are by definition inexperienced and usually unwise—which is to say, they’re easy prey. Family and societal breakdown has also made them unanchored, free radicals who are even easier to manipulate, indoctrinate, and control. And they’re tragically ignorant not only of their own Western heritage but also of norms throughout the world. For example, young Americans are taught the evils of slavery, where the simplistic story is that African Americans were victims and Americans of European descent were victimizers. But they’re never taught that Africans also participated in the slave trade, with one African tribe often selling another to the Europeans. They also don’t seem to realize that Europeans—“whites”—were the ones to abolish slavery. Even today, slavery remains a common practice in much of the world, especially within the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia. Any praise for Western civilization and especially its religious heritage for this moral progress? Nope. Just more diversity propaganda, the false religion.

    America needs to reject these destructive diversity ideologies and return to its place as the land of opportunity for individuals—its citizens. It can start by rooting out DEI in its educational institutions, starting with colleges and universities. It’s none too soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 22:35

  • Staggering Incompetence: Biden's Commerce Secretary Is "Not Familiar" With The Bureau Of Labor
    Staggering Incompetence: Biden’s Commerce Secretary Is “Not Familiar” With The Bureau Of Labor

    We are too speechless to even offer any snarky, sarcastic commentary because, frankly, this is beyond idiotic.

    Asked about today’s near record downward jobs revision, Biden’s Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo – who we repeat, is the Secretary of the Department of Commerce which is responsible among other things, for the Bureau of Economic Analysis – said she “doesn’t believe” the revision because, somehow Trump was behind it. But when she was informed that the data comes from her own administration, namely the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, Raimondo’s response was simply legendary: “I am not familiar with that.”

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    And there you have it: the person who is at the top of the US propaganda data collection and distribution pyramid is, checks notes, “not familiar” with the Bureau of Labor.

    To this, all one can ask the former Governor of Rhode Island and current “Commerce Secretary” is what would you say… you do here?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 22:10

  • Don't Expect A Radical Response From Russia To Washington's Involvement In Ukraine's Invasion Of Kursk
    Don’t Expect A Radical Response From Russia To Washington’s Involvement In Ukraine’s Invasion Of Kursk

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    Russia’s foreign spy agency SVR revealed that “the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operation in the Kursk region was prepared with the participation of the special services of the USA, Great Britain and Poland. The units involved in it underwent combat coordination in training centers in Great Britain and Germany. Military advisers from NATO countries provide assistance in managing the UAF units that have invaded Russian territory and in the use of Western types of weapons and military equipment by Ukrainians.”

    They ended their statement to popular newspaper Izvestia by adding that “The alliance countries also provide the Ukrainian military with satellite intelligence data on the deployment of Russian troops in the area of ​​the operation.” This coincided with the Russian Foreign Ministry summoning the US charges d’affaires to protest American journalists’ illegal crossing of their border for propaganda purposes in support of this invasion as well as the military role therein played by at least one American PMC.

    Commander of the Akhmat Special Forces from Russia’s Chechen Republic Apty Alaudinov accused the invaders of carrying out a spree of war crimes as part of Zelensky’s stated goals of carving out a “buffer zone” and bolstering Ukraine’s “exchange fund” for future prisoner swaps. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had earlier warned in an interview with leading Russian media that Ukraine might actually want Russia to use nuclear weapons, the possible rationale of which was explained here.

    What all of these details show is that what’s happening in Kursk is a real NATO-backed Ukrainian invasion of universally recognized Russian territory, not some “5D chess master plan” by Russia to encircle the Ukrainians in a “cauldron” like some in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) have speculated. The US can play dumb about this all it wants, but Russia is convinced that it orchestrated this unprecedented provocation, thus raising questions about how it’ll respond.

    A lot of AMC folks on social media demand something radical like Russia striking targets in NATO and/or having Wagner carry out cross-border incursions against its frontline members from Belarus, but neither are likely to materialize. Regardless of whatever one’s personal opinion might be about his approach, Putin has proven to have the patience of a saint by refusing to escalate in response to the slew of provocations that have been carried out against his country since the special operation began.

    This includes Ukraine’s bombings of the Crimean Bridge, its destruction of the Kakhovka Dam which risks turning Crimea into a desert, the assassination of journalists like Darya Dugina, incessant attacks against civilians in Russia’s new regions, the bombing of its strategic airbases and early warning systems, involvement in the Crocus terrorist attack, and even attacking the Kremlin. All of these provocations and more were carried out with American assistance, yet Russia hasn’t radically responded to any of them.  

    The most that it’s done is carry out strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in an attempt to impede its military operations as well as recently carve out a tiny buffer zone in Kharkov Region, but it won’t bomb bridges across the Dnieper nor political targets like the Rada.

    Time and again, Russia consistently refuses to escalate, only doing the bare minimum of what its most zealous supporters in the AMC demand when it finally decides to do something out of the ordinary.

    The reason for this (some would say too) cautious approach is Putin’s fear of inadvertently triggering World War III, which he’s afraid might become inevitable if Russia radically responds to its foes’ provocations due to the fast-moving sequence of events that it could lead to. To be clear, Russia has the right to respond in such a way, but it’s voluntarily eschewing that right for the aforementioned reasons that it considers to be for the “greater global good”.

    Accordingly, it’s highly unlikely that Putin will finally throw his characteristic caution to the wind by deliberately risking World War III (or at least that’s how he’d see everything as being) by opting for a radical response to his government’s conclusion that the US is involved in Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk.  

    The only plausible scenarios in which he’d change his calculations would be if there was a nuclear provocation, a high-level assassination, or a terrorist attack even worse than the recent Crocus one.

    Recalling what was written earlier about how Lukashenko warned that Ukraine might actually want Russia to use nukes, none of these scenarios and whatever other ones might cross Putin’s non-negotiable red lines (which the previously enumerated provocations didn’t do) can be ruled out. They’d also likely be used in the far-fetched event of a Russian military collapse along its western border, or Belarus’ collapse along its own with NATO or Ukraine, and subsequent large-scale invasion.

    From Russia’s perspective, Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk remains manageable despite the US’ involvement in this unprecedented provocation, thus meaning that Putin probably won’t resort to the radical response that many in the AMC have been fantasizing about. If he finally decided to let loose, however, then he might only ramp up the intensity of the special operation in Ukraine instead of attacking NATO and thus risking the outbreak of World War III that he’s worked so hard to avoid thus far.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 21:45

  • Northwestern Implements 'Mandatory Anti-Hate Trainings' Following Chaotic Gaza Campus Protests
    Northwestern Implements ‘Mandatory Anti-Hate Trainings’ Following Chaotic Gaza Campus Protests

    Higher education is nothing more than leftist indoctrination camps, costing students (or taxpayers, in some cases) tens of thousands of dollars per year to be uploaded with the woke mind virus. Some of these woke activist students were triggered earlier this year, spewing racist hate speech and death threats against Jewish students (and we’re sure the hate went both ways) over the Israel-Gaza conflict. 

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    The chaos and hate that flooded schoolyards at universities and colleges like Northwestern University earlier this year has served as a major wake-up call for Americans, leading many to question how leftist institutions might be indoctrinating vulnerable young minds. 

    Hate at Northwestern must have been such a serious issue for the administration because now, the school has announced mandatory training for all students on preventing antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus. 

    “There is no room on our campus for antisemitism; there is no room for Islamophobia; there is no room for racism and other forms of identity-based hate. Northwestern will not tolerate behavior or speech that harms members of our community,” Northwestern President Michael Schill wrote in a statement. 

    Schill revealed new ‘educational opportunities’ for students this coming semester:

    • Mandatory trainings on antisemitism and other forms of hate will be used in September at incoming student orientation and over the Fall Quarter for all returning students. Training also will be provided to staff and faculty.

    • A set of lectures and panels on antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism as well as the history and politics of the conflict in the Middle East.

    This comes as pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators clashed on campus in late 2023 and through the spring 2024 semester. Also, there was a failed effort by the pro-Palestinian side to force Northwestern’s administration to divest from all things Israel. 

    Meanwhile, Harvard University added a new essay topic for applicants: how they handle disagreements.

    The changes are coming in response to a nation shocked after witnessing the out-of-control uprisings at left-wing colleges and universities over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, along with the surge of hate that emerged from these woke institutions.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 21:20

  • Supreme Court Urged To Overturn Federal 'Ghost Gun' Regulation
    Supreme Court Urged To Overturn Federal ‘Ghost Gun’ Regulation

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

    A former police officer challenging the federal government’s rule regulating so-called ghost guns that can be assembled at home urged the Supreme Court on Aug. 13 to strike down that rule.

    The new filing previews the arguments that will be made when the Supreme Court hears the high-profile case, Garland v. VanDerStok, on Oct. 8.

    The petitioner is U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. The lead respondent who brought the original lawsuit is Jennifer VanDerStok, a high school teacher and former police officer in Texas who wants to make her own firearms.

    “Ghost gun” is a term used to describe a homemade firearm that lacks a serial number and therefore can’t be tracked by law enforcement.

    Although some states regulate homemade guns, gun control organizations have been trying for years to ban or regulate homemade guns and gun-assembly kits at the federal level but have failed to persuade Congress to act.

    President Joe Biden has claimed that privately made guns, which are often made with gun kits, are the “weapons of choice for many criminals.”

    The regulation in dispute—the government’s “frame or receiver” rule—dates to April 2022. It requires individuals who assemble homemade firearms to add serial numbers to them. The rule also mandates background checks for consumers who buy gun kits from dealers.

    Pieces of guns that are shipped are nonetheless guns and are subject to existing laws, the government argues.

    In June 2023, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor disagreed. He blocked the rule and determined that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), went beyond its statutory authority in regulating “partially manufactured firearm components, related firearm products, and other tools and materials.”

    In July 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with O’Connor. In September 2023, the judge narrowed his injunction, but the DOJ told the Fifth Circuit he was ignoring the Supreme Court’s October 2023 order that temporarily reinstated the rule.

    Also in October 2023, the Fifth Circuit said it disagreed with the DOJ’s argument, but at the same time found O’Connor’s injunction “sweeps too broadly” because it affected persons who were not participating in the litigation.

    The circuit court vacated the part of the injunction that applied to gun kit customers, saying it did so based on the federal government’s assurances that it “will not enforce the Final Rule against customers who purchase regulated ‘frames or receivers’ and who are otherwise lawfully entitled to purchase firearms.”

    The federal government appealed the ruling, filing a petition with the Supreme Court on Feb. 7, which granted it on April 22.

    In the new brief filed on Aug. 13, VanDerStok says that the federal Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 regulates firearms, which are defined as “any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive,” and “the frame or receiver of any such weapon.”

    Around the same time, a regulation defined “frame or receiver” as “that part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward position to receive the barrel.”

    A breechblock closes the rear end of the barrel and blocks gases from escaping.

    That definition “said nothing about precursors of frames or receivers or parts kits,” the brief says.

    But in April 2022 the ATF created a rule that expanded the definition of “firearm.” The rule defined “frame or receiver” to encompass “precursors that ‘may readily be … converted to function as a frame or receiver.’”

    The rule defined firearm “to include weapon parts kits that ‘may readily be … converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” The rule also modified the definition of “frame or receiver” to cover the “housing only of the breechblock (for receivers) or one component of the firing mechanism (for frames),” the brief says.

    The changes included in the rule “are inconsistent with the GCA’s definition of firearm,” and parts kits are not “firearms” within the meaning of the statute, the brief says.

    It is key that when Congress passed the statute it chose “to focus on the commercial firearm market rather than the private making of firearms for personal use.” This means the law does not cover “the items used in private firearm making that ATF attempts to regulate.”

    Only Congress, not the ATF, gets to make the changes the ATF desires, the brief says.

    In its petition, the DOJ previously argued that the rule should be upheld because it “makes clear that a weapon parts kit that allows a purchaser to readily assemble an operational weapon is a ‘firearm.’”

    “Those provisions of the Rule reflect the plain meaning of the relevant provisions” of the GCA, which the Fifth Circuit “failed to meaningfully analyze.”

    The circuit court’s interpretation “would frustrate the Act’s design and make it trivially easy to circumvent the central requirements of the federal firearms laws,” according to the petition.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the DOJ for comment on the new brief but did not receive a reply by publication time.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 20:55

  • Ford Ditches Plans For Electric SUV As Industry Continues To Backpedal From EVs
    Ford Ditches Plans For Electric SUV As Industry Continues To Backpedal From EVs

    The trend of legacy automakers ditching their plans and investments in EVs continues, with Ford reportedly the latest to cancel plans for a large three-row electric sport-utility vehicle, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

    The company will take $1.9 billion in related special charges and write-downs as a result, the report said. 

    Ford is canceling due to pricing pressures and increased competition, instead opting to focus on hybrid versions of its popular Explorer and Expedition models.

    This decision reflects a broader trend among automakers that we have written about over the last year or two, especially since the UAW extorted negotiated their latest labor contracts from the Detroit automakers. 

    Additionally, consumer demand has been weaker than anticipated, with concerns over cost and charging infrastructure. As a result of all of these factors, combined with increased competition out of China, legacy automakers are scaling back EV investments. VW also announced it was stepping back from EVs to focus on hybrids earlier this year, as we wrote in May.  

    Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler commented: “Based on where the market is and where the customer is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions.”

    The WSJ reported on Tuesday that Ford has also delayed the launch of a new electric pickup truck to 2027, marking the second postponement, and reduced its EV investment to 30% of its budget, down from 40%.

    The company expects to lose $5 billion on its EV business this year, with a loss of about $44,000 per vehicle in the second quarter. Executives are focused on reducing losses and ensuring future EVs are profitable.

    Despite recalibrating plans to include more hybrids, Ford is still moving forward with several full EVs, including an electric commercial van in 2026 and two new pickup trucks in 2027, according to the report. 

    Farley said last month: “We believe that the fitness of the Chinese in EVs will eventually wash over our entire industry in all regions.”

    We wrote back in June that nearly half of EV drivers in the U.S. were considering switching back to gas. Forty-six percent of EV owners surveyed in the United States say they will likely return to driving gas-powered vehicles.

    Globally, the survey of 30,000 respondents in 15 countries found that more than one-quarter (29 percent) of EV owners are likely to go back to driving gas-powered cars.

    Recall back in April we noted that Ford was “re-timing” its efforts to go all electric and back in February we wrote that GM was shifting to plug-in hybrids, too. 

    CEO Mary Barra said on an earnings call back in February: “Let me be clear, GM remains committed to eliminating tailpipe emissions from our light-duty vehicles by 2035, but, in the interim, deploying plug-in technology in strategic segments will deliver some of the environment or environmental benefits of EVs as the nation continues to build this charging infrastructure.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 20:30

  • China's CDC Reports New COVID-19 Cases Hit Nearly 20 Percent
    China’s CDC Reports New COVID-19 Cases Hit Nearly 20 Percent

    Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

    The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that new COVID-19 infections in the country of origin have increased to nearly 20 percent in the past few weeks, as two new Omicron subvariants spread across the country.

    But while increases to China’s official COVID-19 test positivity rate mirrors that of the rest of the world, its number of reported COVID-19 deaths remains orders of magnitude lower than is expected for a country of its population, given the ongoing reports of COVID-19-related deaths in other countries.

    According to its Aug. 8 report, China’s CDC reported that the COVID-19 test positivity rate in the country spiked to 18.7 percent in the last week of July, up from 8.9 percent at the start of the month. According to the official data, that rate has not exceeded 8 percent since the start of the year.

    The trend of China’s official infection data parallels that reported in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S. CDC), in its Aug. 8 biweekly update, reported that the COVID-19 test positivity rate in the United States had increased in the past six months to 17.6 percent.

    According to the World Health Organization’s monitoring data from 84 countries, the overall COVID-19 test positivity rate stands above 10 percent but varies by region. That percentage has been rising for weeks, it said. Europe also reported a 20 percent increase in its positive COVID-19 tests since the start of 2024.

    But for the month of July, China’s CDC reported only two deaths from COVID. Meanwhile, the U.S. CDC data reflected significantly more provisional COVID-related deaths, with 1,920 U.S. deaths reported in July citing COVID-19 as an underlying or contributing cause. China also has a much larger population: 1.4 billion to the United States’ 335 million.

    China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been accused by the international community of downplaying and covering up the true scale of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the country since late 2019, when COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan, in the country’s Hubei Province.

    New Omicron Subvariants

    China’s CDC named the XDV and JN.1 Omicron subvariants as the prevalent strains contributing to the 7,042 COVID-19 cases officially recorded in July.

    The official Chinese reporting said that Omicron subvariant XDV and its descendants accounted for 38 percent to 43 percent of infections, while Omicron subvariant JN.1 and its descendants—including the subvariants JN.1.7, JN.1.18, KP.2, KP.3, and LB.1—accounted for 55 percent to 60 percent of infections.

    U.S. CDC data showed that as of Aug. 8, XDV.1 subvariant of parent strain XDV accounted for only 0.3 percent of cases in the United States—a reduction from previous months. Meanwhile, the KP.3.1.1 variant is now the most common strain in the United States, followed by KP.3, LB.1, KP.2.3, and KP.2—all of which came from the JN.1 parent strain. The U.S. CDC said it saw no evidence that these new variants were causing more severe symptoms.

    Dr. Dong Yuhong, an infectious disease specialist and senior medical columnist for The Epoch Times, said on Aug. 9 that the JN.1-derived subvariants “KP.3 and KP.2 have similar virological and epidemiological characteristics” but that their test positivity rate in China has increased.

    She noted that the variants have a stronger ability to evade the antibodies that people have developed from past infections or vaccination.

    China’s latest vaccine targeted the XBB.1.5 variant, she said, which belongs to a different sublineage of the shared parental BA.2 Omicron variant.

    Dong said that while there are again signs of increased COVID-19 transmission, it remains unclear whether a deadly COVID-19 strain that could cause another pandemic could emerge. She added that COVID-19 “requires continuous monitoring and close observation.”

    She said that the speed of vaccine development “can’t keep up” with the virus’s continuous mutation and that “simply depending on vaccines is unsafe and unreliable.”

    “We have an innate multi-immune barrier in each of us,” she said. “As long as we pay attention to strengthening and protecting it, it will be effective.”

    She advised everyone to avoid habits that damage immunity, such as smoking, drinking, and staying up late, and develop more good habits that enhance immunity, such as regular exercise, meditation, and improving our capacity to regulate our emotions.

    “That’s a positive approach to dealing with epidemics,” she said.

    No Transparency, Trust

    After years of controlled releases of approved official data, censorship of whistleblowers, and mandating COVID-19 restrictions and prolonged lockdowns across China, the CCP suddenly reversed course and lifted all its restrictions, testing, and reporting about COVID-19 in 2022. But it continued with its lack of transparency, leaving many Chinese feeling that they are unable to trust their institutions and still in the dark about the true seriousness of the COVID-19 epidemic in the country.

    The Chinese regime’s experts estimated that 80 percent of China’s population was infected with COVID-19 at the end of 2022 when its restrictions were lifted.

    Recent posts by Chinese doctors on Chinese social media heightened the populace’s fear, with a number saying that a more contagious COVID-19 variant is responsible for China’s new infections.

    Hu Yang, a chief physician of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care at Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital and associate professor at Tongji University, said in a video posted on Chinese social media that with the recent wave of COVID-19 infections, some young people have also been found to be suffering severe infections in their lungs and exhibiting white lung symptoms.

    “With the virus causing COVID-19 still mutating, the dominant virus strain [in China] has become XDV, which is more contagious, and many people have been infected again,” Hu said. “At present, XDV mutant strains can still spread in high-temperature environments.”

    Feng Ge, a member of the China Association for Research and Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, wrote on Chinese social media on Aug. 4 that “currently, there are two new most poisonous subvariants spreading—XDV and KP.3.”

    He warned that children have been more vulnerable to the new subvariants and that parents shouldn’t treat an illness caused by them like a simple cold.

    Dr. Guo Kai, the deputy chief physician of the Department of Pediatrics at the Wangjing Hospital in Beijing, posted on Chinese Weibo on Aug. 2 that the new variant KP.3 has been “fierce” and that four types of pediatric medicines should be kept on hand.

    Parents with children suffering from respiratory diseases line up at a children’s hospital in Chongqing, China, on Nov. 23, 2023. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

    Reports of Youth Infections, Deaths

    Sean Lin, a microbiologist and assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Fei Tian College in New York, says the Chinese regime continues to hide information about COVID-19 cases in China.

    “The Chinese government has concealed the number of people who have died from COVID-19,” Lin told The Epoch Times in an interview on Aug. 9.

    “I think many elderly people with poor immunity may have already died in the past multiple waves of COVID-19 in China. And now, it’s spreading rampantly among young people.”

    Lin said that now, KP.3 in China has the momentum to replace some of the other JN.1 subvariants causing the rise in infections.

    “However, I think the situation in China is not just a problem of virus mutation, because this variant also occurs in other parts of the world,” he said. “I think it is that the immune systems of so many ​​young Chinese people have been exhausted. I think China’s problem is a comprehensive health problem.”

    Lin said of COVID-19 infections outside of China: “The hospitalization rate has not increased, and the death rate has not increased, although the transmission rate has increased. The entire society does not feel the impact of COVID that much, as most people can recover from it after about two weeks.”

    “But the situation in China is different,” he said.

    A resident of Huzhu County, in Qinghai Province in northwest China, who asked to be referred to only as Yang out of fear for his safety, told The Epoch Times in early August that there have been several families around him in which their children were infected with COVID-19.

    “The outbreak is still very serious in some places,” he said.

    Patients line up for an emergency pre-check at the new pediatric building of Xinhua Hospital in Shanghai on the evening of Sept. 25, 2023. The emergency and night care outpatient hall is crowded with children and family members waiting for treatment. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

    Yang also noted that there have been known incidents of “many people of all ages dying very suddenly.” This is despite that all of them have received COVID-19 vaccines for earlier variants, he noted.

    Cao, a resident of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province who also asked to withhold his first name, told The Epoch Times that locals believe there have consistently been people infected with COVID-19 in recent years, despite the lack of testing and reporting.

    “Unexplained sudden deaths also occur from time to time,” he said. Some of his relatives and friends have been among the casualties.

    A citizen of Nanyang in Henan Province in central China, who also asked to be referred to as Yang, told The Epoch Times that local clinics have consistently been busy.

    “But doctors don’t tell patients the truth,” he said. “They go around it and won’t tell you anything.”

    He said that some locals are suspected to have died from COVID-19, including many young people.

    “I went to the hospital and there were quite some people in their 20s and 30s who died,” he said. “There were more people who had myocardial infarction [a known side effect of COVID-19 vaccinations]. Many of us know that there is no way to solve it.”

    In dealing with the ongoing infections and side effects, Lin suggested that Chinese people abandon the CCP’s materialism and atheism, which gives people no mental solace or moral support, and look for meaning and hope in China’s own rich spiritual traditions, “whether it’s Buddhism, Taoism, or Falun Gong.”

    “There are too many examples of pandemics in history that show many people could handle it if they had faith and can maintain a kind heart. This is still very important,” he said. “After all, I think it gives people all over the world a chance to survive amid all kinds of hardships.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 20:05

  • Wall Street Outraged Over Latest Epic F*ck Up By Biden's Labor Department
    Wall Street Outraged Over Latest Epic F*ck Up By Biden’s Labor Department

    It’s delightfully fitting that on the day the entire financial world was holding its breath for Biden’s highly politicized and grossly incompetent Bureau of Labor Statistics to admit it had massively fucked up the jobs data over the past year, that Biden’s highly politicized and grossly incompetent Bureau of Labor Statistics fucked up even more.

    At exactly 10am ET this morning, the BLS was supposed to publish its annual CES Preliminary Benchmark Announcement revision, an update on how many jobs in the past year were, for lack of a better word, made up (as we reported earlier, it just so happened that the number was 818,000, which was the second biggest annual overestimation of job creation in US history… something that surely was pure coincidence in an election year).

    However, 10:01am ET hit… and nothing happened: millions of traders, thousands of economists and countless macrotourists were furiously slamming the F5 key, refreshing the revisions page to see…. nothing change. This went on, and on, and on…. and even though the market actually reacted as if data had been published, it turned out that algos were merely responding to phantom triggers in hopes of triggering momentum ignition up or down. No actual data was reported.

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    As the desperate wait continued, and as seconds turned to minutes, we joked – nearly 30 minutes after the report was originally due – by publishing the phone number for the BLS department responsible for today’s report.

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    As it turns out, at least some people had more luck than us in reaching said department (we repeatedly got voicemail with the promise that someone would get back to us in 24-48 hours), because as Bloomberg reports, “at least three banks managed to obtain key payroll numbers Wednesday while the rest of Wall Street was kept waiting for a half-hour by a government delay that whipsawed markets and sowed confusion on trading desks.”

    That’s right: while the rest of the world was freaking out, paralyzed by the gross incompetence of the Biden Department of Labor (which, as a reminder, was merely informing us of just how incompetent it truly was by overestimating nearly 1 million jobs in 2024), banks such as Mizuho, BNP Paribas and Nomura all called into the phone number listed above… and got the answer, by some absolute BLS moron who was not aware that they are leaking material, non-public information to extremely sophisticated investors while the rest of the world was stuck in the dark courtesy of, well, other absolute BLS moron who had days if not weeks to prepare today’s report and yet still couldn’t get it out on time… or even 30 minutes after time.

    And then, frustration turned to anger and outrage on Wall Street as word spread from trading desk to trading desk that the BLS was releasing the number to some firms over the phone!

    When the data was finally released shortly after 10:30 am, it showed payrolls will likely be revised down by 818,000 for the 12 months through March, the biggest downward revision to the job numbers since 2009.

    Stocks initially jumped and bonds gained because the report lent support to speculation that the Fed will start cutting interest rates next month, then quickly reversed as panic seemed to sweep over Wall Street at the thought that the BIden admin had been actively covering up a labor market recession. In the end, hopium won out and stocks closed near the highs of the day, because – well – Powell will always make sure stocks keeps rising.

    “I don’t wonder that people are upset,” Nancy Tengler, the chief executive officer of Laffer Tengler Investments. “The whole thing reeks of incompetence.”

    Well, yeah, but what makes it especially hilarious is that the incompetence came on the day the BLS was admitting 12 months of prior propaganda incompetence. Seriously, not even the USSR had fuck ups of this caliber.

    The delay – and subsequent one-by-one disclosure – is the latest in a series of embarrassing mishaps to roil Labor Department data releases, which hilarious is who the markets have to rely on for “accurate” data on the state of the US labor market and the trajectory of inflation and the economy.

    In a post on X, the agency said it was “looking into the reason for the delay”…

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    … to which we responded that when the idiots responsible for this latest fuck up are fired, the BLS should make sure to seasonally adjust it so it adds at least another 1 million government jobs.

    As Bloomberg reminds us, the government’s economic data reports were once released under tightly controlled embargos to accredited news agencies, including Bloomberg. But the practice was abandoned during the pandemic, when departments across the government shifted to just releasing the data on the Internet to everyone at once. Officials said that method would better protect the security of market-moving data, but instead all it did was create groups of wealthy “super users” who had preferential and early access to government data from Biden’s corrupt agency.

    When it didn’t come out on time, Yelena Shulyatyeva, senior US economist BNP Paribas, said she kept refreshing the web page, waiting for the numbers. Then “we called the public line a couple times and they gave us the number,” she said.

    Steven Ricchiuto, chief US economist at Mizuho, did the same. “Knowing the data was delayed we had to call for the number before it showed up on their website,” he said.

    ZeroHedge itself received the leaked data at 10:24am ET through our expert network, but not even we dared to publish it to our premium subscribers amid concerns that the BLS could not possibly be this stupid and incompetent to be releasing the number on a case by case basis instead of blasting it to the entire world at the same time.

    In the end, it turned out the BLS was even more incompetent than we could possibly imagine.

    “I am more than a little annoyed,” said Troy Ludtka, senior US economist at SMBC Nikko Securities Americas, who was among those who waited on the public release.

    “To put it in the most generous terms: Government agencies absolutely cannot be selectively releasing critical, market-moving information to some agents and broker dealers first via telephone while keeping others in the dark,” he said. “This is anathema to the very idea of a balanced market built on fair, accessible information.”

    Troy, but you ain’t seen nothing yet: if Kamala wins and if the US goes full Kam-unist, the very idea of a balanced market will be anathema, replaced by centrally planned… well, everything.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 19:40

  • Fascism 2.0 – The Changing Face Of Social-Media Censorship
    Fascism 2.0 – The Changing Face Of Social-Media Censorship

    Authored by Paul Lancefield via Off-Guardian.org,

    Facebook make only about £34 a year from the average customer in the UK – a little under £3 a month (and that’s before costs) so clearly there is no head-room or motivation, for a human level of customer service or attention. The user is not the customer; rather, they are the product whose data is sold to advertisers.

    Thus, users do not have a direct customer relationship with the platform. The network is not directly incentivised to “care” about the user before the advertiser. And no matter where you lie on the spectrum between “free speech absolutism” and “private entities have the right to censor any user”, with such low margins it is inevitable machine processing will have to be used to moderate posts and deal with the customer interface.

    But it is a fact the customer processing and management capabilities Social Networks are now evolving is being utilised in a variety of ways beyond just moderation. And it is also true this automated processing is being done at scale and is now applied to every post every member makes. 68% of US voters are on Facebook. In the UK it’s 66% and France 73.2%. The figures are similar for every democratic nation in the West. So it is vitally important the applied rules should be politically neutral.

    The power that exists within the ability to machine-process every users posts is far deeper and more profound than perhaps many realise. And while it can’t directly dictate what users write in their messages it has the capacity to fundamentally shape which messages gain traction.

    Social Media services have become de-facto town squares and most would agree their corporate owners should avoid ever putting a hand on the scales and influencing politics.

    Additionally as everyone who uses Facebook is aware, especially when it comes to politically sensitive topics, the system will qualify an individual’s reach; sometimes to an extreme degree. Or that user will simply be banned for a period of time, or banned from the network entirely.

    So we can ask the question, since the social media corporations have so much censorship power, how do we know they aren’t engaging in unethical political interference? Can they be trusted with the responsibility?

    I will return to this question, but it’s clear that trust in these corporations is deeply misplaced.

    The pandemic woke many people up to the levels of control those in charge of our Social Media networks are imposing. They, write the rules to boost engagement for posts they favour, making certain individuals’ follower counts more valuable. Conversely, users who go against the grain (or against the establishment narrative) see their engagement subtly reduced or even tank, or they can be banned from the service entirely. And the evidence is that, somewhat contrary to the principles of democracy, hands have been very firmly placed on the scales at Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

    When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he invited independent journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Schellenburger into the Twitter offices to research internal company communications and see how far the previous owners had been censoring user tweets.

    The Twitter Files are the result, and they clearly demonstrate there has been interference on a major scale and that it has also in many cases been on political grounds. The Twitter Files team established government agencies have been firmly embedded at the company monitoring and censoring US citizens and the citizens of other nations and government agencies were regularly (strongly) requesting censorship actions. But more than this they have also revealed similar levels of interference have been taking place at other Social Media networks such a Facebook.

    But since The Twitter files evidence of interference, a new and potentially even greater interference threat has emerged.

    AI.

    There was a time it seemed like algorithms were the only topic of conversation digital marketers could discuss. And since there is no margin for human intervention at the level of individual posts, algorithms were what was being used.

    To start with they were quite simple, like the equations we practiced in school math class, so they were relatively easy to work out. Google’s rise was powered by a simple yet brilliant idea: counting external links to a webpage as a proxy for relevance.

    But algorithms have since given way to more complex machine-learning models which still at core, rely on algorithms, but now they are automatically generated and so vast any human attempt to untangle them is a non-starter. So we confine our thinking about them to what they can achieve, what significant things they can discriminate rather than exactly how the code works.

    And now we have entered a third generation of technology. Machine learning has transformed into the development of Large Language Models (LLMs) or, more popularly, AI. And with this latest evolution, corporatists have found immense and frightening new opportunities for power and control.

    The creation of LLMs involves training. The training imbues them with specific skills and biases. The purpose of the training is to fill in gaps, such that there are no obvious holes in the LLMs capacity to deal with the building blocks of human conceptualisation and speech. And this is the distinguishing feature of LLMs; that we can converse with them and the conversation flows, and the grammar and the content feels normal fluent and complete. Ideally, an LLM acts like a refined English butler—polite, informative, and correct without being rude. But also training confers specialisations to the LLM.

    In the context of social media – and this is where the frightening levels of power start to become evident – LLMs are being used to act as the hall monitor, enforcing “content moderation.”

    Meta’s Llama Guard is a prime example, trained not just to moderate but also to report on users. And this reporting function embodies not just the opportunity to report, but also through that reporting data, the mining of opportunities to influence and make suggestions about the user and too the user. And when I say suggestions, an LLM is capable not only of the obvious kind that the user might welcome and is happy to receive, but also a more devious unconscious kind that can be manipulative and designed to control.

    There is not yet evidence gathered (that I’m aware of) LLMs in particular are being used this way; yet. But the capability is most certainly there and if past behaviours indicate future developments, likely to be so used.

    You only need watch the 2006 episode from the Derren Brown’s TV show “Derren Brown: The Heist” where he convinces a group of strangers they have to commit a bank heist, to appreciate just how deep, and powerful the use of suggestion can be. For those unaware of Derren Brown, he is is a stage hypnotist and mentalist, who tends to emphasise the power of suggestion over hypnosis (most of his shows contain no hypnosis at all). Merely through the power of suggestion he gets people to do the most extraordinary things.

    “Derren-Brown-like” suggestions work because the human brain is actually far less agile and far more linear than we like to think. Consciousness is a precious resource and many actions we do frequently are transferred to habit, so we can do them without thinking and this is so we can preserve consciousness for where it is needed most.

    Through habit we change gear in a stick-shift car without having to think about it. And we’ve all experienced that game where you have a set time to think of a list of things such as countries, ending with the letter A. If put on the spot in front of a crowd, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with any at all. The brain often isn’t actually that good at thinking creatively or making fast conscious on the spot recall.

    But, if someone you spoke too a few minutes before the game told you about their holiday in Kenya, you can be sure Kenya will be the first answer to pop into your head. More than that the association will happen automatically, whether we want it to or not!

    This is simply the way the brain works. If information is conveyed at just the right time and in the right way, it can be made almost a dead cert a given suggestion will be followed.

    Derren Brown understands this and is a master at exploiting it.

    Search engines and social media platforms wield immense power to engineer behaviour through subtle suggestions. And indeed, there is evidence Facebook and Google have done so.

    Professor and researcher Dr Robert Epstein – as it were – “caught Google out” manipulating the search suggestions box that appears under the text box where users enter a search request. The whole episode became additionally sordid when it become clear they were being deceptive and had a level of were awareness their experimentation is unethical. I won’t recount the full details, but do check out the links to this – it is an interesting story in its own right.

    Users are in a particularly trusting and receptive mental state when using Google’s suggested links function and don’t notice when the results contain action and imperative suggestions that, far from being the best answer to your search query – are there to manipulate a user’s subsequent actions.

    In relation to Social media posts, the use of suggestion is often far more subtle, making it harder to detect and resist. LLM analysis across the database of user Posts can reveal related posts which supply suggest actions. Here the network can utilise the fact they have many millions of user messages at their disposal, including messages suggesting preferred outcomes. Such messages can be selected and preferentially promoted in user feeds.

    Content moderation is, of course, necessary to handle unacceptable language and anti-social behaviour. However, there’s a large grey area where disagreeable opinions can labeled as “hate speech” and because it is a grey area, there is much leeway for the social network to intrude into the personal politics and free speech space.

    The term “hate speech” has been very effective device for justifying use of the ban-hammer, but the main concern now is that, with the deployment of LLMs a major historical milestone has passed with barely a whisper that implies a whole new level of such constraints and threats to users freedom to communicate.

    And that milestone is that now LLMs are being used to govern human behaviour and not the other way around. The passing of this milestone has barely been noticed because we already previously had more simple algorithms performing this role and it is done in the dark anyway.

    User’s don’t see it until unless they are affected by it in an obvious way. But even so there is ample reason to think in the future we may will look back and recognise this milestone was something of a critical juncture after which some version of a “Sky-Net” like future became inevitable.

    Just last week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a police initiative to use social media to identify those involved in quelling public disorder, illustrating how LLM automated reporting is poised to be used beyond social media and in the context of law enforcement.

    There is no detail as yet of how this monitoring will be done, but, having experience of Tech Project pitching you can be sure the government will have a roster of technology firms suggesting solutions. And you can be sure LLMs are being pitched as integral to almost all of them!

    So we have established Social Media is closed and proprietary and has enabled new media power structures to be established. We have seen Social Media owners have the power to suppress or boost a posts virality and have now implemented policing and reporting by LLM (AI) which looks set to extend into real world policing. We have seen, through the Twitter Files, social media corporations broke the law during the Pandemic and displayed a willingness to collaborate with government agencies to censor and suppress disfavoured

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 19:15

  • After Undercover Ops, Texas Launches Investigation Into Orgs 'Illegally Registering Non-Citizens To Vote'
    After Undercover Ops, Texas Launches Investigation Into Orgs ‘Illegally Registering Non-Citizens To Vote’

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) launched an investigation on Wednesday into organizations that are allegedly registering non-citizens to vote.

    Following undercover operations, the AG’s Election Integrity Unit found that multiple nonprofit organizations have opened booths outside of Texas Department of Public Safety Driver’s license offices in order to ‘assist’ with voter registration.

    According to Paxton’s office, “Texans are deeply troubled by the possibility that organizations purporting to assist with voter registration are illegally registering noncitizens to vote in our elections.“

    “The Biden-Harris Administration has intentionally flooded our country with illegal aliens, and without proper safeguards, foreign nationals can illegally influence elections at the local, state, and national level. It is a crime to vote—or to register to vote—if you are not a United States Citizen. Any wrongdoing will be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Paxton continued.

    As American Greatness notes further, 

    On Sunday, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo revealed on X that, according to a friend, Democrats had set up voter registration drives outside of three DMVs in Weatherford and Fort Worth.

    “Friend of mine’s wife had to take her 16 yr old son to the DMV this week for a new license,” Bartiromo began.

    Couldn’t get an online appointment (all full) so went in person and had to go to 3 DMV’s to get something done. First DMV was in Weatherford. Had a massive line of immigrants getting licenses and had a tent and table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote! Second one was in Fort Worth with same lines and same Dems out front. Third one was in North Fort Worth had no lines but had same voter registration drive.

    Brady Gray, Chairman of the Parker County Republican Party in Weatherford, reacted to the report on X, saying he would look into it.

    “Under Kamala’s watch the border has been overrun, now MY county is being overrun,” Gray wrote. “I’m done listening to those who claim ‘replacement theory’ is racist and conspiratorial. Democrats are intentionally trying to circumvent law to steal elections. That’s not hyperbole, it’s a fact.”

    The Republican chairman added that since Bartiromo’s disturbing post went out, he had been inundated with messages from concerned residents asking if the Parker County GOP was aware of the report.

    “We are, and I will be fully investigating the claims in our community,” Gray said.

    Bo French, chairman of the Tarrant County GOP also reacted to the story on X: “This is beyond troubling. It’s time we not only shut down the border, we need to immediately implement e-verify, proof of citizenship to vote and deport every illegal alien in America,” he said.  “As for this election, we need intervention from @GovAbbo @DanPatrick @KenPaxtonTX to prevent illegals from voting. We are on the cusp of losing Texas forever.”

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton reposted Bartiromo’s post on Sunday without comment, signaling that the shocking report was also on his radar.

    American Greatness has reached out to the Texas AG’s office, the Parker County GOP, and the Tarrant County GOP for further comment.

    Another X account, Hollywood Resistance, reported a similar voter-registration drive was happening in McKinney, Texas.

    “On either side of the [DMV]doors were voter registration tables, & all the signs were in Spanish. Not one word of English. No asking for ID, just for an address,” Hollywood Resistance wrote.

    The Biden regime has allowed and in many cases, facilitated the entrance of 12 to 18 million migrants into the United States in the past three and a half years, leading many Republicans to fear that a “perfect storm” of election-changing voter fraud is imminent.

    Election Integrity Network founder Cleta Mitchell told RealClearInvestigation’s Ben Weingarten that two factors are about to produce that perfect storm: “the invasion of our country by millions of illegals” and new Democrat-driven policies that ease voter registration and participation limits.

    A new study estimates that 10–27 percent of noncitizen adults are registered to vote illegally, and 5–13 percent expected to cast illegal ballots in 2024.

    According to Mitchell and other election integrity experts, significant numbers of these noncitizens will wind up on voter rolls thanks to Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which directs every federal agency to register and mobilize voters.

    Officials in Alabama and Mississippi say that under the executive order, which RCI has previously examined, authorities are already attempting to register noncitizens to vote. The Biden Administration initiative calls on federal agencies to coordinate with third-party groups in pursuit of its objectives as well.

    In testimony before the House Administration Committee in May,  J. Christian Adams, a fellow former DOJ official and president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, affirmed that “most often noncitizens are getting on the rolls through the motor voter registration process or third-party registration drives.”

    During the congressional election integrity hearing in May, New York University Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman repeated the Democrat mantra that “under current law, noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal four times over: it is both a state and federal crime to register to vote, and it is both a state and federal crime to vote in federal elections.”

    While its arguable that these laws are sufficient to curb noncitizen registration and voting, voter integrity experts claim that the ultimate goal of illegal voter registrations is to generate ballots for Democrat groups to harvest.

    According to Adams,  there is “almost nothing the public or political parties can do on the back end to identify, challenge, and invalidate noncitizen votes prior to election certification.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 18:50

  • Harris's Kamunist Agenda Faces Harsh Reality
    Harris’s Kamunist Agenda Faces Harsh Reality

    Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

    Don’t cry for me, Argentina.

    Cry for Kamala the Kamunist.

    It took them a while, it’s true, but at least Argentina has someone with a rudimentary knowledge of economics in charge.

    Indeed, Javier Milei, one of my favorite leaders on the world stage today (along with Viktor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, Georgia Meloni, and Nayib Bukele) is a Trump-like dynamo.  If I had a more developed entrepreneurial bent, I would try marketing a line of Milei chainsaws in the United States.  Just as he took a chainsaw (sometimes literally) to excessive spending, regulation, and bureaucracy in Argentina, so my Milei Chainsaws could be employed against waste, fraud, and abuse here across the fruited plain. Milei’s robust policies have put Argentina on the runway to economic success. They have slashed inflation—some 200% when he took office—and his abolition of rent control—surprise, surprise—has sparked a 195% rise in available housing stock.

    Meanwhile, the socialists funneling ideas to Harris have put together an economic plan redolent of Venezuela or, indeed, the Soviet Union.  Its centerpiece revolves around centrally promulgated and enforced wage and price controls—a recipe for shortages and inflation.

    The plan itself has been ridiculed across the ideological spectrum, from CNN to The Wall Street Journal.  “Harris’ plan to stop price gouging,” quoth CNN in a masterpiece of understatement,  “could create more problems than it solves.”

    The WSJ was a bit franker. For one thing, there is “no evidence that supermarkets or other food retailers are gouging anyone. Food prices are higher than they were before the Biden Presidency, but that is because of inflation.”

    And who caused that inflation, Kemo Sabe? The man with the keys to the money duplicating machine, Joe Biden or his handlers.

    Moreover, “fixing prices is a recipe for shortages, as controls would discourage grocery suppliers. Voilà, empty store shelves. Price controls have led to shortages everywhere they’ve been tried, from Moscow to Caracas.”

    Some of the propaganda press—The New York Times, MSNBC, etc—have been working overtime to keep up a brave face. The low hum you hear is the hydrogen pumps shooting gas into the leaky balloon of the Democrat consortium.  As I have noted ever since Kamala was plucked out of the bin marked “ridiculous” and dusted off as the mannequin’s understudy, the intoxicating paroxysms of glee that convulsed the left-leaning media pundits was but a sugar-high. It induced feelings of giddiness but could not last.  I thought it would probably linger through the DNC convention next week, but the manic phase is already passing the stupor consequent on the sudden drop in energy has set in.

    The depressive funk is not helped by the Harris campaign’s strategy of “out-of-sight-out-of-mind.” They concluded that it worked with Joe Biden in 2020, and so they thought they would try it again.  But there is no COVID emergency to shut the country down this time around and it is pretty clear that the Dems’ basement strategy cannot be successfully dusted off and applied to Kamala.  True, she is nearly as inarticulate as Biden, but the public will not put up with the Wizard of Oz gambit a second time.

    Besides, Team Trump is wheeling out all sorts of embarrassing things that will destroy Harris if they are not effectively answered. 

    For example, a clip of Harris discussing her support of the government taking over private patents by fiat has surfaced and is being industriously circulated.

    I will snatch their patents, so that we [the American government] will take over.

    Yes we can do that!

    The question is: ‘Do you have the will to do it’!?

    I have the will to do it.

    Noted.

    I almost feel sorry for Harris, emphasis on the adverb.  Reports are that 100,000 protestors are set to converge on Chicago next week to torch the city and torment Democrat convention-goers. Will it be a bigger, badder version of what happened in Chicago in 1968?  That time, golden boy Hubert Humphrey*  went in on a cloud of fairy dust and came out of the convention 20 points behind Nixon.

    Efforts to paint Trump and JD as “weird” have failed miserably, as have the embarrassing efforts to gild the Harris-Walz socialist platform and history of failure by stealing various Trump ideas like exempting tips from federal income tax.

    Even more damaging have been the mounting attacks by conservatives on the whole Harris-Walz concession.  Governor Walz has turned out to be a special kind of liability, a sick freak who orders schools to put tampons in boys’ bathrooms while sitting back and watching Minneapolis burn as the BLM rioters rampaged through the city. His patina of plaid, dad-like folksiness is completely belied by his sympathy for Communist China not to mention his personal inclinations.

    Why was Walz picked as Harris’s running mate in the first place?  One midwestern friend might have hit upon the answer.  Tim Walz, he said, was what the coastal elites of this country believe a midwesterner looks and acts like.  He has all the “progressive” attitudes of the left, but he articulates them accoutered in a more string-tie, aw-shucks manner

    I expected a certain amount of small-caliber fire by now, but it turns out that Trump supporters are already pounding Harris-Walz with heavy artillery.  For example, speaking on “The Five” just a few days ago, Greg Gutfeld utterly vaporized Harris’s record on the border, inflation, and other issues.

    What’s coming will not be pretty. But I predict that it will be cathartic.  It’s hard to know just how much of a hose Trump’s victory will be for the rank Augean stables of Democrat incumbency. Doubtless, many clumps of ordure will remain.  Many, however, will be flushed into the impatient, rushing currents of change.  I am looking forward to it.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 18:25

  • Israeli Assassinations Are Near-Daily In Lebanon, Airstrikes Reaching Deeper
    Israeli Assassinations Are Near-Daily In Lebanon, Airstrikes Reaching Deeper

    The past several days have seen a significant uptick in rare Israeli airstrikes deep into Lebanese territory, with multiple airstrikes having hit the Bekaa Valley in the country’s east.

    Most of the strikes were late Monday into Tuesday, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) describing that fighter jets attacked a “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the area of Bekaa Valley in Lebanon” – resulting in massive fireballs lighting up the night sky.

    Burned-out car after a Wednesday strike on the outskirts of Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon, which reportedly killed a Palestinian commander, via Reuters.

    “Following the strikes, secondary explosions were identified, indicating the presence of large amounts of weapons in the facilities struck,” the Israeli army said.

    These strikes occurred more than 40 miles from the Israeli border, and Israeli typically launches such rare long-range operations in response to deadly Hezbollah rocket attacks. This latest escalation came after a Hezbollah attack killed a 45-year old IDF Warrant Officer in the Western Galilee.

    As for the latest IDF attacks on Bekaa, Lebanon’s health ministry said in the aftermath that eight people total, including two Syrian children, were wounded. Hezbollah then retaliated with some 200 rockets fired at Israel on Tuesday.

    “Hezbollah said the attack was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night that killed one and injured 19,” AP reports. “On Tuesday, Hezbollah launched more than 200 projectiles toward Israel, after Israel targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the border, a significant increase in the daily skirmishes.”

    Wednesday has seen at least 50 Hezbollah rockets fired on northern Israel, reportedly in response to the IDF assassinating a top Palestinian official from the West Bank who was in southern Lebanon when his vehicle was struck. The targeted killing happened outside the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon. Al Jazeera’s correspondent details:

    The strike targeted Khalil al-Maqdah, a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a loose coalition of Palestinian groups that believe in armed resistance. The Martyrs Brigades issued a statement, calling [al-Maqdah] a commander who played a key role in supporting the Palestinian people and supporting Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.

    A short while ago, we saw the Lebanese army take away the car that [al-Maqdah] was targeted in.

    Israel has been escalating its attacks as of late, expanding the scope of its attacks. And clearly there’s no front line any longer.

    Al Jazeera concludes after this latest that “Targeted killings are becoming a near-daily occurrence.”

    Below: Hezbollah arms depot struck, far away from Israeli border…

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    As both sides slide closer to potential all-out war, which could eventually witness an Israeli military invasion of southern Lebanon, the AP tallies that “The exchanges have killed more than 500 people in Lebanon — mostly militants but also including around 100 civilians and non-combatants — and 23 soldiers and 26 civilians in Israel.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 18:00

  • 'Two Minutes Of Hate': Dems Roll Surreal, Unhinged Attack Montage On Loop At The DNC
    ‘Two Minutes Of Hate’: Dems Roll Surreal, Unhinged Attack Montage On Loop At The DNC

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via The Daily Bell,

    In George Orwell’s prophetic and seminal work, 1984, the Two Minutes of Hate was a daily ritual of operant conditioning, in which a video reel depicting enemies of the state was broadcast throughout society with the express aim of whipping the masses into a frenetic state of loathing towards any who opposed Big Brother.

    Since the appearance of the “Dark Brandon” entity, the non-brainwashed have been wary of the nasty turn politics has taken in the United States, and elsewhere.

    If four years of unhinged Trump Derangement Syndrome from the MSM wasn’t enough, now the President and incumbent party was channeling unrestrained animus at roughly half the U.S. population.

    While constantly professing to be the party for “preserving democracy” and “inclusivity”, the US Democratic Party is channeling ominous and blatant overtones of repression, dare I say, even hatred toward their fellow citizens who may not be so like-minded.

    So far the Democratic National Convention has been a dumpster fire of cringe, disrespect and hypocrisy but one takeaway, posted on twitter (I originally saw it here) takes the cake:

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    The profanity laden video depicts political opponents as cockroaches (could you imagine the reaction if a conservative made that comparison?), and sprinkles in sexualized images, including Elon Musk deep throating a phallic object labeled “MAGAsickle”.

    If there was any doubt that the Democratic Party has been captured by far-left lunatics, the big takeaways were:

    • America is evil (MAGA literally stands for restoring the country to its former grandeur)

    • Wealth is evil (“F*CK BILLIONAIRES”), and

    • Literal communism (“REDISTRIBUTE THAT SHIT”)

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    In case you were wondering what you’re really voting for if you tick the box for the Dems this November – it’s looks like some kind of deranged mutation of Orwell’s 1984 and Ayn Rand’s “We The Living”, replete with wealth redistribution and re-education camps.

    Remember – it’s always relatively easy to vote your way into communism – but you have to fight your way out.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 17:40

  • Top Biden-Harris Official Calls For 'Queering Nuclear Weapons'
    Top Biden-Harris Official Calls For ‘Queering Nuclear Weapons’

    A recent Biden-Harris administration Department of Energy high level hire is attracting controversy, as well as appropriate widespread mockery, for publishing formal articles calling for the “queering of nuclear weapons”. This is almost word-for-word an actual title of one of her papers.

    Sneha Nair was named special assistant in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) less than a year ago, and since then several of her recent academic papers have been unearthed, focusing on “the relationship between queerness and nuclear policy” as a “substantive” issue. Bellow is one such paper co-authored by Nair, featured at the prominent publication Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists…

    The article, which is one of several such examples authored by her, claims that “discrimination against queer people can undermine nuclear security and increase nuclear risk.”

    “Equity and inclusion for queer people is not just a box-ticking exercise in ethics and social justice; it is also essential for creating effective nuclear policy,” Nair continues. 

    And supposedly the US homeland faces greater nuclear risk if there is “exclusion” and “unfair” treatment under the aegis of the supposed white male patriarchy. Below are some actual segments taken from this top Biden official’s work, which includes interesting buzzwords like a “male-dominated” “nuclear priesthood” [emphasis ZH]: 

    Exclusion and unfair treatment of queer individuals and other minorities by a homogenous, cis-heteronormative community of practitioners also creates vulnerabilities in nuclear decision making.

    * * *

    Including a wider range of perspectives in nuclear decision making creates a more comprehensive definition of who or what constitutes a “threat” to nuclear security. An example of this is the threat posed by some white supremacist groups with plans to acquire nuclear weapons or material, which can go undetected when a white-majority workforce does not perceive these groups and their ideological motivation as a relevant threat to their nuclear security mission.

    * * *

    Nuclear deterrence is associated with “rationality” and “security,” while disarmament and justice for nuclear weapon victims are coded as “emotion” and a lack of understanding of the “real” mechanics of security.

    * * *

    Queer theory is also about rejecting binary choices and zero-sum thinking, such as the tenet that nuclear deterrence creates security and disarmament creates vulnerability.

    * * *

    Diversity and inclusion are especially important for the policy community dealing with arsenal development and nuclear posture. Women familiar with this “nuclear priesthood” describe it as “male-dominated and unwelcoming.”

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    And considering one more rather interesting quote, perhaps Russia’s Putin or China’s Xi is open to hearing about the “hidden stories” of “trauma” among those personnel overseeing America’s nuclear arsenal?…

    “Finally, queer theory informs the struggle for nuclear justice and disarmament,” Nair wrote. “Queer theory helps to shift the perception of nuclear weapons as instruments for security by telling the hidden stories of displacement, illness, and trauma caused by their production and testing.” 

    Nair appears to have risen to her position on a DEI wave of new hires. She has recently vowed to focus her efforts on implementing ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ values at the highest levels of US national security. “By understanding DEI as a set of values critical to security, and therefore as an element of an effective nuclear security culture, stakeholders can explore how DEI can contribute to stronger security at nuclear facilities,” she has written. 

    Meanwhile, Fox News has also noted her pre-administration position and funding:

    Before she joined the administration, she worked for the Stimson Institute, which has received hundreds of thousands from Soros’ Open Society Foundations and millions from “The Embassy of the State of Qatar” over the years, Fox News Digital’s review of their funding sources revealed. 

    This is all coming to light quite dangerously at a moment the Ukraine war is escalating by the day, given especially that the ongoing Kursk incursion risks deeper NATO involvement, and amid the recent infusion of more Western weapons into the conflict, especially US-made F-16 fighter jets.

    Additionally, just this week The NY Times revealed that President Biden last March made changes to US strategic doctrine. “In a classified document approved in March, the president ordered U.S. forces to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea,” the Times wrote. Alongside, Putin and Xi, North Korea’s Kim is surely not going to be ‘scared’ or impressed by our new DEI nuke officials.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 17:20

  • US Jobs Revised Down By 818,000 In Election Year Shocker, Second Worst Revision In US History
    US Jobs Revised Down By 818,000 In Election Year Shocker, Second Worst Revision In US History

    Back in March, when most of Wall Street and economists still believed the lies spewed forth by the Biden Bureau of Labor Statistics, which intentionally uses inaccurate, rushed “data” from the Establishment survey which is meant to pad sentiment and make the economy appear far stronger than it is for propaganda purposes (as one can see by the constant monthly downward revisions), we did an in-depth analysis looking at the actual, “uncooked” numbers published by the Philadelphia Fed preview of the annual Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages employment revision, and warned our readers that actual US payrolls are overstated by at least 800,000.

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    Specifically, we concluded that “the BLS had overstated payrolls by 800,000 through Dec 2023 (and more if one were to extend the data series into 2024)” and added that “it’s truly statistically remarkable how every time the data error is in favor of a stronger, if fake, economy.”

    Furthermore, we also noted that the revision “also means that far from the stellar 230K average monthly increase in payrolls in 2023, which the White House would spin time and again as direct evidence of the benefits of Bidenomics, the true average monthly payroll increase in 2023 was only 130K! The full monthly change in payrolls as originally reported by the BLS (in green) and the actual monthly number, as per the QCEW (in red) is shown below.”

    This matters because as we reminded our followers this weekend, today at 10am, the BLS would publish its annual nonfarm payrolls benchmark revision where it would unveil as , which it did (with the usual 35 minute delay because that’s the kind of service $35 trillion in debt buys you), and it confirmed that we were right almost to the dot, because as the BLS unveiled in its CES Preliminary Benchmark Announcement, “the preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision indicates an adjustment to March 2024 total nonfarm employment of -818,000 (-0.5 percent)” or just above the 800,000 was said to expect back in March.

    The revision is mainly due to the highest-paying sectors: i.e., professional services -358k, leisure -150k, and manufacturing -115k. Not at all surprising: government was revised +1,000.

    As an aside, while the data were scheduled to be released at 10 a.m. in Washington but didn’t appear on the BLS’s website for more than a half hour later. A spokesperson for the agency didn’t answer Bloomberg’s questions as to why the figures were delayed, but we have some pretty good guesses about the panic that gripped the BLS as they realized they needed a green lights from the propaganda ministry before going live with this number.

    How big is the 818,000 revision in context? As the chart below shows, the 2024 revision was the biggest in the past decade, and the second biggest on record, with just the 824K downward revision in 2009 just (barely) greater.

    The revisions confirm that – as we had been warning for much of the past year – the labor market started moderating much sooner than flawed conventional wisdom thought. It wasn’t until earlier this month that markets and economists grew concerned with the release of the July jobs report. That set off alarm bells with a weak pace of hiring and a fourth month of rising unemployment, but other metrics like jobless claims and vacancies have suggested a more moderate slowdown.

    Putting it all together, we now know – as we reported first back in March – that the labor market is, and was, far weaker than conventionally believed. In fact, no less than 800,000 payrolls would end up “missing” when one uses the far more accurate Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data rather than the BLS’ woefully inaccurate and politically mandated payrolls “data”, and if one looks back the the monthly gains across most of 2023, one gets not 218K jobs added on average every month but rather 150K, a 31% decline. Needless to say, the market would look very different if it had known that effectively all the payroll “beats” of the past year would be deleted!

    Of course, none of that paints Bidenomics, or Kamalanomics, or whatever it is now, in a flattering picture, because while one can at least pretend that issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days to add 3 million jos per year is somewhat acceptable, learning that that ridiculous amount buys 800,000 jobs less is hardly the endorsement that the White House needs. On the flip side, pretending that the US had added an additional 800,000 jobs in the past year is precisely what Biden, and now, Kamala would have wanted to generate the kind of buzz and momentum that somehow translates into the “greatest economy ever”… at least until it is all revised away as the admin’s lies finally wash away.

    What is the implication for the market? Well, as UBS trader Leo He correctly notes, “the Fed is well aware of nonfarm payrolls (establishment survey) overstating the job market, but unemployment rate (household survey) underestimating the job market” and he goes on to quote Governor Bowman’s speech on Tuesday:

    “There are also risks that the labor market has not been as strong as the payroll data have been indicating, and it appears that the recent rise in unemployment may be exaggerating the degree of cooling in labor markets. The Q4 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) report suggests that job gains have been consistently overstated in the establishment survey since March of last year, while the household survey unemployment data have become less accurate as response rates have appreciably declined since the pandemic. The rise in the unemployment rate this year largely reflects weaker hiring, as job searchers entering the labor force are taking longer to find work, and layoffs remain low. It is also likely that some temporary factors contributed to the soft July employment report. The rise in the unemployment rate in July was largely accounted for by workers who are experiencing a temporary layoff and are more likely to be rehired in coming months. Hurricane Beryl also likely contributed to weaker job gains, as the number of workers not working due to bad weather increased significantly last month.”

    At the end of the day, all this does is cement the Fed’s 25bps rate cut next month.

    As for broader socio-political implications, the reactions are already pouring in with those on the blue side of the spectrum pretending nothing happened, while those on the other side of the aisle raging at what has now become clear propaganda by the highly politicized Department of Labor. To wit, here is RFK, Jr., proposed VP candidate Nicole Shanahan slamming the BLS, and using our data to do so:

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has long been used as a tool of propaganda by the executive branch. Here’s how: they distort definitions, manipulate data, exclude discouraged workers, and revise past reports to create narratives that fit the agenda of whichever administration is in power. This skews the actual economic picture and misleads citizens about the true state of our economy. It’s like a game of musical chairs, and neither side wants to be caught standing when the music stops. The Constitution doesn’t grant the government the authority to track unemployment statistics, so why do we even have this agency? Perhaps it’s time to get rid of it. Their $750M budget could surely be put to better use, and private companies already track U.S. unemployment for free. Win-win.

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    We agree: back in March we concluded our article, which predicted today’s revision with near 100% accuracy, by warning that the staggering size of the revised data “is also why nobody in the mainstream media – which is now nothing more than the PR smokescreen for the Biden puppetmasters, the government and the deep state – will ever mention this report.”

    Today it will be more difficult for the propaganda press to ignore it.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 17:16

  • Weight Loss Drug Linked To 45% Higher Suicidality; WHO Data Shows
    Weight Loss Drug Linked To 45% Higher Suicidality; WHO Data Shows

    Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times,

    A new study has linked semaglutide, the active drug ingredient in weight-loss and diabetic drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, to suicidal ideation.

    The finding “warrants urgent clarification,” the authors wrote.

    Researchers analyzed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) database for adverse drug events. They compared the reporting rates of suicidal ideation and other suicidal behaviors from reports about semaglutide and another weight-loss drug of the same class, liraglutide (brand name Victoza and Saxenda). The reporting rates of suicidal ideation and other self-injurious behavior were then compared against all other drugs in the WHO database. The findings were also compared to other antidiabetic drugs like dapagliflozin, metformin, and orlistat.

    The results, published on Wednesday in the JAMA Network Open, show that semaglutide was linked with a 45 percent greater likelihood of suicidal ideation when compared to other drugs. Liraglutide had no significant link to suicidality.

    The authors noted a slight increase in adverse drug reports for both semaglutide and liraglutide up until August 2023. However, the rise was substantially more pronounced for semaglutide, climbing from 0 percent in 2017 to 0.8 percent in 2023, compared to liraglutide’s increase from 0.09 percent in 2014 to 0.4 percent in 2023.

    Semaglutide was approved in 2017 while liraglutide was approved in 2011.

    “What I take away from this is that there is increased reporting, we should be aware of this,” Dr. Roger McIntyre, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times in an email.

    “The reporting of an elevated signal in a pharmacovigilance database cannot establish causation, it is association only,” he said.

    “Most of the drugs that have been studied for the management of obesity are central nervous system drugs. And so there’s long been a concern about any psychiatric adverse events associated with those drugs, be it anxiety, insomnia, depression, any of these things,” Patrick O’Neil, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina and was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times.

    Most Reports Linked to Off-Label Use

    The authors evaluated over 36 million reports in the pharmacovigilance database. They identified 110 cases of suicidality among semaglutide users and 160 cases among liraglutide users.

    Between the two drugs, around half of the suicidality cases occurred when people took the drug off label, the researchers said.

    “The observed high proportion of cases due to possible off-label use and a recently published postmarketing signal of misuse or abuse call for urgent clarification of patient-related and drug-related risk factors,” the authors wrote.

    Taking semaglutide with antidepressants or benzodiazepines, a drug often prescribed for anxiety, was associated with a 150 to 300 percent greater increase.

    “People with anxiety and depressive disorders maybe at higher probability of reporting suicidal ideation when medicated with semaglutide,” the study authors wrote.

    It is very difficult to study suicidality in obese patients given the bidirectional relationship between obesity and depression, O’Neil said. That is, people who are depressed are more likely to be obese, and people who are obese are more likely to develop depression.

    Conflicting Findings

    The study is one of many that have linked semaglutide drugs to suicidal ideation and other suicidal behaviors. There have also been studies that found semaglutide was linked to reduced suicidality, as well as studies that found no significant link between use of such drugs and suicidal behavior.

    Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medical Agency have investigated the link between semaglutide and suicidality. Both investigations yielded inconclusive results, though the FDA’s investigation is still ongoing.

    “Contradictory results in studies based on pharmacovigilance data are quite expected,” Drs. Francesco Salvo and Jean-Luc Faillie, who wrote an editorial accompanying the JAMA Network Open study, said. A disproportionate study, like the current study, tends to use a larger variety of methods and models than other studies, thus having a wider variety of results, they noted.

    “[There are] probably more studies not seeing a relationship than there are that find it. Does that mean we can rule [suicidality] out? No,” O’Neil said.

    No Established Mechanism

    There is currently no mechanism that can explain the difference in drug adverse event reporting rates between the two drugs, according to McIntyre.

    Unlike rimonabant, an obesity drug that was pulled off the market due to early reports of suicidality, there was a possible clear mechanism for rimonabant explaining why some people may become suicidal. Rimonabant targeted the endocannabinoid receptors to reduce people’s appetite and drive for more food, which are the same receptors cannabis targets to cause psychoactive effects.

    McIntyre previously commented that semaglutide and liraglutide, which have been shown to reduce food cravings in both animals and humans, should be linked to a decrease in impulsivity and therefore suicidality.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 17:00

  • Return To Sender: Panama Starts Flying Migrants Home… At US Taxpayer Expense
    Return To Sender: Panama Starts Flying Migrants Home… At US Taxpayer Expense

    The Republic of Panama on Tuesday initiated a new program by which illegal immigrants transiting the country are flown back to their native nations — with the cost borne by US taxpayers.

    The repatriation flight program is one of multiple avenues by which new Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino is following through on his campaign pledge to end his country’s role as a major funnel of illegal immigrants bound for the United States. Last year saw a new record, with more than a half-million migrants crossing the infamous Darien Gap jungle wilderness that spans the Panama-Colombia border region. 

    Under watch of dozens of National Border Service officers, a shackled Colombian migrant boards a plane at Panama City’s Tocumen International Airport (Aris Martinez via Reuters)

    Tuesday’s first repatriation flight was loaded with 29 Colombians, all of whom have criminal records in their home country, with one alleged to be a member of the powerful Clan del Golfo gang, aka the Gaitanistas. Each was caught after they’d made it through the Darien Gap, and were in handcuffs and ankle-irons as they were guided onto an Air Panama plane. Panama’s senior migration-management officer, Roger Mojica, told reporters that flights to other destinations are in the works — including India and Ecuador — with the next flight happening as soon as Friday. 

    Critically, the deportation of Venezuelans — who represent the largest subset of the illegal migrant flow — could be delayed, thanks to Panama’s suspension of diplomacy with Venezuela following July’s contested presidential election. Pre-election polls indicated many Venezuelans intended to leave their country if President Nicolas Maduro won. His declared victory is in dispute, and the Biden administration wants him to regime change himself. Supporting Washington’s agenda, Panama’s Mulino offered Maduro “safe passage” en route to a third country; Maduro warned Mulino not to “mess” with Venezuela. 

    Migrants slogging their way across the dangerous Darien Gap. The top four countries of origin are Venezuela, then Colombia, Ecuador and Haiti (Getty Images via BBC)

    In accordance with a deal announced on the same July day on which Mulino was sworn into office, the United States government will cover Panama’s expenses for deporting people who enter Panama illegally, in addition to helping with “equipment, transportation and logistics.” The initial commitment has America on the hook for $6 million. 

    The famed Pan-American Highway has a 66-mile gap that starts just inside Colombia — forcing migrants to make a treacherous journey on foot through a mountainous, marshy region called the Darien Gap. They not only have to survive dangerous natural conditions, but robberies, kidnappings, rapes and murders perpetrated by criminal gangs lurking in the hot jungle. 

    Earlier this month, Panamanian border police arrested 15 people linked to an illicit “VIP” migrant-smuggling operation that caters to Chinese clients. Using boats, canoes, ATVs and horses, the top-tier service promised a faster, easier and safer passage into Panama — at a higher price. Migrants pay about $500 for a standard escort through the gap, but fees for the expedited trip range from $2,600 to $8,000. 

    Referring to Tuesday’s flight taking Colombians back home, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Marlen Pineiro told reporters, “The message we’re sending is very clear: Darien is no longer a route.” Considering she was referring to a few dozen Colombians against an estimated 8,000 people who crossed the gap in just the first few weeks of August, that’s some pretty big talk. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 16:40

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Aug 21

Today’s News 21st August 2024

  • Germany To Extend Border Controls To Combat Illegal Migration
    Germany To Extend Border Controls To Combat Illegal Migration

    Authored by Grzegorz Adamccyk via ReMix News,

    External border controls will continue around Germany until the number of illegal migrants drops significantly, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stated on Monday during a meeting with Federal Police Chief Dieter Romann in Rostock.

    Although numbers have started to decline, they remain higher than in previous years.

    “I am not willing to accept these figures,” Faeser emphasized.

    The German interior ministry is reportedly frustrated by the uneven distribution of refugees across Europe, according to Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

    Faeser pointed out that only a few countries are shouldering the bulk of the migration burden.

    She also confirmed that existing controls at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Switzerland will remain in place until the implementation of the Common European Asylum System which was approved this spring.

    However, this process will take several more months, with the earliest end to the checks expected in June 2025.

    Despite a record influx of nearly 128,000 illegal migrants last year, this year’s numbers have dropped, with 53,000 illegal entries reported so far — a 16 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. German authorities attribute this decline in part to the reintroduced border controls.

    The Federal Police report that most illegal entries occur via Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Switzerland.

    The stationary checks on the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland were initially introduced on Oct. 16, following the earlier reinstatement of controls at the Austrian border.

    The decision came as German authorities noticed a rising influx of refugees and increased human smuggling activities along these routes.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/21/2024 – 02:00

  • From Agrarianism To Transhumanism: The Long March To Dystopia
    From Agrarianism To Transhumanism: The Long March To Dystopia

    Authored by Colin Todhunter via Off-Guardian.org,

    “A total demolition of the previous forms of existence is underway: how one comes into the world, biological sex, education, relationships, the family, even the diet that is about to become synthetic.”

    Silvia Guerini, radical ecologist, in ‘From the ‘Neutral’ Body to the Posthuman Cyborg: A Critique of Gender Ideology’ (2023)

    We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain.

    The big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and big financial institutions, like BlackRock and Vanguard, are also involved, whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, pushing biosynthetic (fake) food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating and financing the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.[2]

    The billionaire interests behind this try to portray their techno-solutionism as some kind of humanitarian endeavour: saving the planet with ‘climate-friendly solutions’, ‘helping farmers’ or ‘feeding the world’. But what it really amounts to is repackaging and greenwashing the dispossessive strategies of imperialism.

    It involves a shift towards a ‘one world agriculture’ under the control of agritech and the data giants, which is to be based on genetically engineered seeds, laboratory created products that resemble food, ‘precision’ and ‘data-driven’ agriculture and farming without farmers, with the entire agrifood chain, from field (or lab) to retail, being governed by monopolistic e-commerce platforms determined by artificial intelligence systems and algorithms.

    Those who are pushing this agenda have a vision not only for farmers but also for humanity in general.

    The elites through their military-digital-financial (Pentagon/Silicon Valley/Big Finance) complex want to use their technologies to reshape the world and redefine what it means to be human. They regard humans, their cultures and their practices, like nature itself, as a problem and deficient.

    Farmers are to be displaced and replaced with drones, machines and cloud-based computing. Food is to be redefined and people are to be fed synthetic, genetically engineered products. Cultures are to be eradicated, and humanity is to be fully urbanised, subservient and disconnected from the natural world.

    What it means to be human is to be radically transformed. But what has it meant to be human until now or at least prior to the (relatively recent) Industrial Revolution and associated mass urbanisation?

    To answer this question, we need to discuss our connection to nature and what most of humanity was involved in prior to industrialisation — cultivating food.

    Many of the ancient rituals and celebrations of our forebears were built around stories, myths and rituals that helped them come to terms with some of the most fundamental issues of existence, from death to rebirth and fertility. These culturally embedded beliefs and practices served to sanctify their practical relationship with nature and its role in sustaining human life.

    As agriculture became key to human survival, the planting and harvesting of crops and other seasonal activities associated with food production were central to these customs.

    Humans celebrated nature and the life it gave birth to. Ancient beliefs and rituals were imbued with hope and renewal and people had a necessary and immediate relationship with the sun, seeds, animals, wind, fire, soil and rain and the changing seasons that nourished and brought life. Our cultural and social relationships with agrarian production and associated deities had a sound practical base.

    People’s lives have been tied to planting, harvesting, seeds, soil and the seasons for thousands of years.

    Silvia Guerini, whose quote introduces this article, notes the importance of deep-rooted relationships and the rituals that re-affirm them. She says that through rituals a community recognises itself and its place in the world. They create the spirit of a rooted community by contributing to rooting and making a single existence endure in a time, in a territory, in a community.

    Professor Robert W Nicholls explains that the cults of Woden and Thor were superimposed on far older and better-rooted beliefs related to the sun and the earth, the crops and the animals and the rotation of the seasons between the light and warmth of summer and the cold and dark of winter.

    Humanity’s relationship with farming and food and our connections to land, nature and community has for millennia defined what it means to be human.

    Take India, for example. Environmental scientist Viva Kermani says that Hinduism is the world’s largest nature-based religion that:

    “…recognises and seeks the Divine in nature and acknowledges everything as sacred. It views the earth as our Mother and hence advocates that it should not be exploited. A loss of this understanding that earth is our mother, or rather a deliberate ignorance of this, has resulted in the abuse and the exploitation of the earth and its resources.”

    Kermani notes that ancient scriptures instructed people that the animals and plants found in India are sacred and, therefore, all aspects of nature are to be revered. She adds that this understanding of and reverence towards the environment is common to all Indic religious and spiritual systems: Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

    According to Kermani, the Vedic deities have deep symbolism and many layers of existence. One such association is with ecology. Surya is associated with the sun, the source of heat and light that nourishes everyone; Indra is associated with rain, crops, and abundance; and Agni is the deity of fire and transformation and controls all changes.

    She notes that the Vrikshayurveda, an ancient Sanskrit text on the science of plants and trees, contains details about soil conservation, planting, sowing, treatment, propagating, how to deal with pests and diseases and a lot more.

    Like Nicholls, Kermani provides insight into some of the profound cultural, philosophical and practical aspects of humanity’s connection to nature and food production.

    This connection resonates with agrarianism, a philosophy based on cooperative labour and fellowship, which stands in stark contrast to the values and impacts of urban life, capitalism and technology that are seen as detrimental to independence and dignity. Agrarianism, too, emphasises a spiritual dimension as well as the value of rural society, small farms, widespread property ownership and political decentralisation.

    The prominent proponent of agrarianism Wendell Berry says:

    The revolution which began with machines and chemicals now continues with automation, computers and biotechnology.”

    For Berry, agrarianism is not a sentimental longing for a time past. Colonial attitudes, domestic, foreign and now global, have resisted true agrarianism almost from the beginning — there has never been fully sustainable, stable, locally adapted, land-based economies.

    However, Berry provides many examples of small (and larger) farms that have similar output as industrial agriculture with one third of the energy.

    In his poem ‘A Spiritual Journey’, Berry writes the following:

    And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
    no matter how long,
    but only by a spiritual journey,
    a journey of one inch,
    very arduous and humbling and joyful,
    by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
    and learn to be at home.”

    But in the cold, centralised, technocratic dystopia that is planned, humanity’s spiritual connection to the countryside, food and agrarian production are to be cast into the dustbin of history.

    Silvia Guerini says:

    The past becomes something to be erased in order to break the thread that binds us to a history, to a tradition, to a belonging, for the transition towards a new uprooted humanity, without past, without memory… a new humanity dehumanised in its essence, totally in the hands of the manipulators of reality and truth”.

    This dehumanised humanity severed from the past is part of the wider agenda of transhumanism. For instance, we are not just seeing a push towards a world without farmers and everything that has connected us to the soil but, according to Guerini, also a world without mothers.

    She argues that those behind test-tube babies and surrogate motherhood now have their sights on genetic engineering and artificial wombs, which would cut women out of the reproductive process. Guerini predicts that artificial wombs could eventually be demanded, or rather marketed, as a right for everyone, including transgender people. It is interesting that the language around pregnancy is already contested with the omission of ‘women’ from statements like ‘persons who can get pregnant’.

    Of course, there has long been a blurring of lines between biotechnology, eugenics and genetic engineering. Genetically engineered crops, gene drives and gene editing are now a reality, but the ultimate goal is marrying artificial intelligence, bionanotechnology and genetic engineering to produce the one-world transhuman.

    This is being pushed by powerful interests, who, according to Guerini, are using a rainbow, transgenic left and LGBTQ+ organisations to promote a new synthetic identity and claim to new rights. She says this is an attack on life, on nature, on “what is born, as opposed to artificial” and adds that all ties to the real, natural world must be severed.

    It is interesting that in its report Future of Food, the UK supermarket giant Sainsburys celebrates a future where we are microchipped and tracked and neural laces have the potential to see all of our genetic, health and situational data recorded, stored and analysed by algorithms that could work out exactly what food (delivered by drone) we need to support us at a particular time in our life. All sold as ‘personal optimisation’.

    Moreover, it is likely, according to the report, that we will be getting key nutrients through implants. Part of these nutrients will come in the form of lab-grown food and insects.

    A neural lace is an ultra-thin mesh that can be implanted in the skull, forming a collection of electrodes capable of monitoring brain function. It creates an interface between the brain and the machine.

    Sainsburys does a pretty good job of trying to promote a dystopian future where AI has taken your job, but, according to the report, you have lots of time to celebrate the wonderful, warped world of ‘food culture’ created by the supermarket and your digital overlords.

    Technofeudalism meets transhumanism — all for your convenience, of course.

    But none of this will happen overnight. And whether the technology will deliver remains to be seen. Those who are promoting this brave new world might have overplayed their hand but will spend the following decades trying to drive their vision forward.

    But arrogance is their Achilles heel.

    There is still time to educate, to organise, to resist and to agitate against this hubris, not least by challenging the industrial food giants and the system that sustains them and by advocating for and creating grass-root food movements and local economies that strengthen food sovereignty.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 23:25

  • They Truly See Their Corruption As Heroism
    They Truly See Their Corruption As Heroism

    Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics,

    Most of us get the big things right: Don’t touch fire, wrestle alligators, or play in traffic. But beneath these necessary survival strategies, we are boundless reservoirs of delusion.

    While many of our unmoored beliefs are specific to us – I seem to be the only person who thinks I have a beautiful singing voice – some are universal. Chief among these is the claim: I’m my own worst critic.

    Instead, we cut ourselves slack at every turn. I have a million reasons why I fell down on the job and disappointed my pals. You see, it’s like this … But woe to the other guy who falls short. Come on, man, stop making excuses.

    We instinctively make ourselves the hero of our own story, concocting tales to convert our vices into virtue. This dynamic is ever at work in each of us. On the plus side, if we don’t love ourselves, who will?

    But delusion can also grip us on a mass scale – it is the great danger of ideology and fuels the madness of crowds.

    We are seeing this unfold with terrible consequence as the dominant media betrays the very foundations of journalism – starting with demanding that only certain leaders answer questions – to transfigure Kamala Harris into a combination of Rosa Parks, Franklin Roosevelt, and Beyoncé.

    Their partisanship is so manifold and manifest that it has created a cottage industry in conservative media, which creates terabytes of content each day exposing the false narratives and double standards advanced by Democrats and their laptop lackeys. Such debunking is necessary and important. But there’s a bit of delusion at work here, too: Despite all evidence to the contrary the critics somehow believe their fact-checking and truth-telling will pressure the propagandists into changing their ways.

    It won’t. They are impervious to challenge. They are beyond shame.

    How come? To figure out why they persist in this untoward conduct, daily compromising the values of skepticism, fairness, and bringing truth to power that they say they hold dear, we need to ask: What higher value do they believe they are serving? What do they tell themselves so they can see their corruption as heroic?

    The answer is obvious: They sincerely believe that Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy, an American Hitler. If that’s the case, why would you give him a fair shake or hold his opponents’ feet to the fire?

    I know this explanation is not revelatory; the Hitler analogy has been critiqued for years. But I’m not so sure that we have fully reckoned with how deeply a large percentage of the nation is in the grip of this delusion.

    Displaying textbook symptoms of the addled, they insist that falsehoods are truths. Despite unimpeachable evidence to the contrary, they continue to maintain that Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election, that he called all Mexicans rapists, praised neo-Nazi marchers at Charlottesville, advised Americans to inject bleach to combat COVID, and promised a “bloodbath” if he loses in November.

    They are not lying when they make these claims – they sincerely believe they are expressing truths the rest of us just can’t see. This makes them immune to reason.

    Echoing multiple conversations I’ve had with educated and engaged Democrats, a respected plastic surgeon recently told me, “If Trump wins, we will not have any more elections.”

    He saw Jan. 6, 2021, as a dress rehearsal for the coming coup – never mind that Trump left office peaceably two weeks later. When I asked him how Trump might pull this off, he said the former president would declare a national emergency and GOP leaders would rally to his call for martial law, rounding up and jailing those who oppose him.

    I pushed him again, to explain how all this might work. “Let’s say Trump and his Republican allies truly want to cross that Rubicon,” I said. “They couldn’t do it alone, right? They would probably need the Supreme Court, many state leaders, and the military to come on board. Do you really think the armed forces would support the overthrow of the Constitution?”

    He didn’t respond. “Most important,” I said, “he would need the backing of his voters. Do you really believe that half the American people think ending elections and jailing untold numbers of people is fine and dandy?”

    “Yes,” he said.

    “Okey, dokey,” I said, switching the conversation to my concerns about the New York Yankees’ starting pitching.

    His last comment suggested the dangerous depth of the delusion so many Democrats take for reality. They don’t just see Trump, but the other half of America as an existential threat to our Republic. Maybe they will defeat Hitler this November, but what to do with his tens of millions of brown-shirts?

    Extreme times will require more extreme measures – more coercion, more censorship, more abrogation of rights in the name of liberty. They will heroically destroy our country in order to save it.  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 23:00

  • Inflammation: The Body's 'Fire' Burns Threats, But Things Go Wrong When It Smolders
    Inflammation: The Body’s ‘Fire’ Burns Threats, But Things Go Wrong When It Smolders

    Authored by Flora Zhao via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Many people experience chronic inflammation without even knowing it, Arch G. Mainous III, a professor at the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

    Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock

    A large-scale study published in Frontiers in Medicine in 2024 showed that among adults in the United States, almost 35 percent had systemic inflammation. Even among healthy individuals (with no evidence of disease), the proportion was about 15 percent.

    Chronic inflammation is linked to a wide range of conditions and often “touches on some big diseases,” Dr. Frank A. Orlando, the medical director of UF Health Family Medicine–Springhill, told The Epoch Times. And its cause lies in what we eat and do every day.

    When the Fire Is Allowed to Smolder

    “We need inflammation,” Peter Osborne, a clinical nutritionist and chiropractic doctor, told The Epoch Times. The inflammatory response is an essential part of the immune system. When the body is infected or injured, inflammation—often likened to fire—is nature’s way of burning away pathogens and repairing damage. Once the threat is eliminated, inflammation should subside. But if the fire continues to smolder, it can become a chronic issue.

    Inflammation that persists for more than three months is chronic inflammation, which triggers heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, sarcopenia, autoimmune disease, and neurodegenerative disorders, among others.

    Inflammation is the body’s immune defense. However, when it persists for more than three months, it becomes a chronic condition. Illustration by The Epoch Times

    A review published in Nature Medicine indicated that over 50 percent of deaths can be attributed to inflammation-related diseases.

    Chronic inflammation is a significant contributor to many heart diseases. For example, scientists’ understanding of atherosclerosis has evolved from viewing it as a passive accumulation of cholesterol to recognizing it as a condition driven by chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation triggers biochemical reactions that lead to the formation of atherosclerotic plaques and can cause these plaques to rupture.

    A meta-analysis published in The Lancet found that levels of inflammation are linked to increased mortality risk for heart disease, stroke, and several types of cancer. Specifically, every threefold increase in the concentration of C-reactive protein—a standard marker of inflammation—was associated with a 37 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease and a 27 percent higher risk of ischemic stroke.

    On the other hand, lower inflammation levels appear to be associated with increased longevity. A study involving hundreds of centenarians in Japan found that inflammation levels were more accurate predictors of longevity than telomere length and better predictors of daily living capabilities and cognitive function in older people than age. The study suggested that “suppression of chronic inflammation could be an essential step towards further improvements in human healthy lifespan.”

    Short-Term Solution

    Most inflammation can be controlled with medications, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) (e.g., ibuprofen, naproxen, and aspirin), steroids, and immunomodulatory drugs. In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved colchicine as the first anti-inflammatory drug for heart disease.

    But while using anti-inflammatory drugs is common in clinical practice, “there are no guidelines recommending NSAIDs for general use long-term to control chronic inflammation,” said Orlando. He added that even over-the-counter NSAIDs carry risks, such as heart attack, stroke, acute kidney injury, and upper gastrointestinal bleeding, and can interact with other medications.

    “We do not want to put people on those [medications] for a long time,” especially when it comes to more potent anti-inflammatory drugs like corticosteroids and colchicine, said Mainous, who is also vice chair for research in the Department of Community Health and Family Medicine at UF.

    Osborne, who practices functional nutrition, said that anti-inflammatory drugs can affect gut microbiome health and disrupt the production and absorption of certain nutrients. A deficiency in nutrients responsible for regulating inflammation can, in turn, exacerbate inflammation. For example, NSAIDs may lead to vitamin C deficiency, while corticosteroids can result in vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium deficiencies.

    Relying solely on medication won’t lead to resolution, said Osborne.

    He highlighted a phenomenon: Developed countries have some of the best health care systems in the world, but when it comes to chronic inflammation, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, and other conditions, “we spend more money trying to treat these diseases, but we fail.”

    David Furman, who holds a doctorate in immunology and is the director of the 1000 Immunomes Project at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said that modern lifestyle is a key problem.

    While modern technology makes life more convenient and comfortable, this convenience is merely a façade, he said. “We sit for long periods, eat fast food and highly processed foods, and endure high levels of work stress, all of which can trigger and worsen inflammation,” he said.

    Unhealthy lifestyles drive chronic inflammation, which leads to a variety of diseases. Illustration by The Epoch Times

    Diet Is a Main Driver

    “The biggest driver of chronic inflammation is found in our food,” Osborne said.

    Food’s role is to nourish the body, providing energy and nutrients to maintain proper function. However, various food additives, such as artificial flavors, colors, emulsifiers, and added sugars, can contribute to chronic inflammation. Studies have demonstrated that common emulsifiers in processed foods, such as carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and polysorbate 80 (P80), can damage the gut and induce inflammation. Additionally, the high levels of sugar and refined carbohydrates in ultra-processed foods can lead to elevated blood sugar and oxidative stress, triggering inflammation.

    A large study published in 2020 found that individuals who followed a pro-inflammatory diet had elevated levels of multiple inflammatory markers and a 38 percent increased risk of heart disease. Another study based on data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), published in 2022, found that those who consumed a high amount of pro-inflammatory foods had a 41 percent increased risk of cancer mortality.

    “You do not eat the food today, and you have a heart attack because of it tomorrow,” said Osborne. The problem is “when you eat poorly day in and day out for decades of your life,” which gradually prevents the body from ceasing inflammation until its defenses break down and disease occurs.

    However, Osborne said that doctors in most countries rarely emphasize nutrition. During their eight years of medical education, they receive minimal training in that area. He hopes that diet will become a fundamental component when doctors educate patients on combatting diseases.

    Several experts highlighted that avoiding ultra-processed foods is more important than simply consuming foods with potential anti-inflammatory properties. Mainous pointed out that eating a single anti-inflammatory food, such as a specific fruit, may not yield the desired anti-inflammatory effects.

    Another important factor contributing to diet-induced inflammation is food allergies.

    “There’s an old saying: One man’s food is another man’s poison,” Osborne noted, sharing the story of a patient he helped. The 6-year-old girl, who had an inflammatory disease, was given only six months to live. Fortunately, Osborne discovered that the child was allergic to blueberries, which her mother had been giving her every morning in a blueberry smoothie. Eliminating blueberries from the girl’s diet saved her life.

    Gluten and certain substances in soy and milk can also cause inflammation in some individuals, Osborne added. Through modern medical tests and examinations, people can identify their trigger foods and adjust their diets to mitigate and prevent inflammation.

    Toxins Inside and Outside Our Homes

    Various synthetic ingredients in everyday household items and cosmetics not only directly irritate the skin but can also enter the body, leading to inflammation.

    Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), found in drinking water, cookware, and food packaging, can increase inflammatory responses.

    Harmful chemicals also exist in the air we breathe, especially in a bustling metropolis. According to Furman, types of air pollutants such as PM2.5 and PM10 (particle matter with diameters of less than 2.5 micrometers or 10 micrometers, respectively) can cause inflammation in the brain and lungs. Moreover, formaldehyde in new furniture or newly constructed homes can lead to cardiovascular inflammation. Osborne recommends using an air purifier at home as a basic protective measure for people living in areas with poor air quality.

    High Body Fat, Low Muscle Mass

    A 2021 study found that prolonged sitting raises pro-inflammatory cytokines in older women and lowers anti-inflammatory cytokines in older men. Another study showed that individuals who sit for long periods have elevated levels of various inflammatory biomarkers in their blood.

    A sedentary lifestyle leads to more fat accumulation. “Thirty percent of the interleukin-6 in our bloodstream is secreted by fat cells,” said Furman, noting that this substance contributes to inflammation.

    Adults who do not exercise also experience a 3 percent to 8 percent reduction in muscle mass every decade. Several experts highlighted and emphasized the anti-inflammatory benefits of exercise and maintaining muscle during interviews.

    Greater muscle mass leads to the production of more anti-inflammatory molecules, said Furman.

    “You have to think about the muscle as a secretory organ,” he said. Muscles produce and release cytokines and various small proteins into the bloodstream, which systemically reduce inflammation. This secretion is even more pronounced during muscle contractions.

    A study conducted in the United Kingdom that tracked over 4,000 adults with an average age of 49 over a 10-year follow-up period found that those who exercised regularly exhibited reduced levels of two inflammatory markers: high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and interleukin-6. Notably, those who engaged in at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week had the lowest levels of inflammation.

    People who exercise regularly have lower levels of two inflammatory markers than people who don’t. Illustration by The Epoch Times

    Mainous recommends aiming for 150 minutes of exercise per week, with the type of exercise tailored to individual health conditions. For young adults, moderate-to-intense exercise can temporarily increase acute inflammatory markers but helps reduce inflammation over the long term. For older adults and those with chronic conditions, it is crucial to avoid overexertion.

    A Silent Inflammatory Agent

    Experts also highlighted that stress, while intangible and invisible, is a major contributor to chronic inflammation.

    One theory behind stress-induced inflammation is that it reduces the sensitivity of immune cells to signals that usually resolve inflammation.

    Additionally, “stress causes inflammation by activating the body’s fight-or-flight response, which then triggers the release of what we refer to as pro-inflammatory chemicals and hormones,” Stephen Sideroff, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and the Department of Rheumatology at the University of California–Los Angeles’ School of Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

    Sideroff said that the first step in managing stress is to reframe adverse events as positive challenges. He explained that moderate and well-timed stress can be beneficial as it activates the sympathetic nervous system, preparing people to handle threats effectively.

    Many people feel powerless against stress, but this mindset contributes to the problem, according to Sideroff. He recommends adopting a growth mindset toward stress: “I have to learn something new if I am going to handle the situation better.” Through this learning process, one can “figure out a better way of dealing with the stressors in one’s life,” he said.

    Excessive stress introduces another problem: As we use our energy to manage stress, our metabolism ramps up to produce more energy and directs more blood to the muscles and brain. However, “we all have just a certain amount of personal energy,” Sideroff explained. As a result, the brain reallocates energy from other organs, such as the kidneys, to address immediate needs. This reduces the kidneys’ ability to filter harmful substances from the blood, which can then further trigger inflammation throughout the body. “This is at the heart of one of the ways that stress leads to aging and disease; a lot of the maintenance processes of the body get neglected,” he added.

    Letting go of anger and doubt and facing situations with calmness can also reduce inflammation. Sideroff said that these emotions are similar to stress and consume a significant amount of the body’s energy.

    “The less we interpret other people’s behavior, the less stress,” Sideroff said. We should be “learning and figuring out all of the ways that we stress ourselves unnecessarily.”

    Additionally, it is essential to allow the body’s repair systems more time to heal.

    “After a stress is over, we need to give the body the opportunity to recover, to go into the recovery and healing mode,” said Sideroff. One way to achieve this is finding “time in our day where we can say, ‘I am in a zone of safety, or on an island of safety.’” Even just 10 minutes of letting your guard down and relaxing can be beneficial—whether through meditation or relaxation exercises. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, facilitating the body’s recovery.

    A randomized controlled trial showed that even short periods of meditation can improve mental health, decrease pro-inflammatory cytokines, and increase anti-inflammatory cytokines. Experienced meditators exhibited greater resilience and tolerance to stress and stimuli, with lower levels of inflammation in their bodies.

    Furman added that the detrimental effects of loneliness should not be underestimated. “People who are socially isolated, lack strong community support, or do not have the care of friends and family experience significantly higher levels of inflammation.”

    He said people should choose an anti-inflammatory approach tailored to their individual needs. “It is not a one-size-fits-all,” he added. For instance, someone with a high-stress job—especially if it is their sole source of income—and an unbalanced diet might start by making dietary adjustments and incorporating regular exercise. Additionally, they should focus on strengthening relationships with family and friends to help reduce inflammation.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 22:35

  • Democrats Are Desperate To Keep Red Flag Laws As Legal Opposition Grows
    Democrats Are Desperate To Keep Red Flag Laws As Legal Opposition Grows

    If one was to describe the nature of the anti-gun movement, they would probably use the analogy of the frog in the boiling pot.  Another way to look at it, though, is unwittingly inviting a vampire into your home.  Do it once and he’ll keep inviting himself back every night until you have no more blood left to drain.  Red flag laws are like an open invitation for gun grabbing vampires to enter any firearm owner’s home for almost any reason, slowly but surely confiscating weapons from every American they don’t like.

    It doesn’t have to happen all at once.  It could happen over the span of years, but eventually they’ll get every gun that’s not hidden away without anyone ever committing a crime and without any due process pursued.  Donald Trump gave credence to these policies during his first term and it was one of the dumbest things he did in office.  Under Kamala Harris, however, we can be guaranteed a federal effort to enforce Red Flags.

    Red Flag laws are a backdoor to gun confiscation that undercuts the 2nd Amendment by using standards similar to involuntary civil commitment.  Sometimes all it takes is a couple of random accusations that a person is dangerous and they receive a visit from authorities with a warrant to seize their firearms.  In some states authorities can hold those guns for up to five years if courts deem it necessary, all without the person ever being convicted of a crime. 

    Just like civil commitment, there are a host of constitutional conflicts dealing primarily with the 14th Amendment.  The political left is usually opposed to involuntary commitment for this very reason, yet, they are highly enthusiastic about Red Flag laws.  Apparently, due process applies to some groups and not others.

    A steady avalanche of lawsuits is now underway in multiple states to counter Red Flag measures and Democrats aren’t too happy about the level of opposition.  In an article co-produced by Rolling Stone and The Trace, anti-gunners argue that the lack of compromise on the part of conservatives is putting people’s lives at risk.  They attempt to support their position with a singular anecdote – An ongoing conflict between a 25-year Marine veteran named Don Willey diagnosed with a hoarding disorder and city officials in Cambridge, Maryland demanding he clean up his property. 

    Rolling Stone writes:

    “The right-wing echo chamber expanded, until there was consensus. Red-flag statutes violated due-process rights and protections against unreasonable search and seizure. They also lacked a historical analogue, and, according to a controversial 2022 Supreme Court decision, were therefore incompatible with the Second Amendment. 

    These arguments would form the basis of Willey’s lawsuit, serving up the fresh outrage the gun-rights movement requires to sustain itself…”

    The story drones on, adding little justification as to why Red Flag laws should be tolerated by the greater constitution loving public.  But, it does give insight into how such laws might be applied if they are left unopposed. 

    Rolling Stone describes the battle between the veteran and city bureaucrat Susan Webb as if Willey is a bully terrorizing Webb and other officials with his presence.   He’s a Marine, a Christian, he’s bigger than them, he apparently defends the display of confederate flags, he says mean things, he refuses to let them on his property and he owns guns.  He’s also a member of the Second Amendment Foundation and a legal campaign called Capture the Flag that is opposed to the trespasses of Red Flag laws.

    In other words, Willey is a Democrat bureaucrat’s worst nightmare.  Rolling Stone continues with dismay:

    “The federal judge in the case recently asked Maryland’s Supreme Court to provide him with a definitive interpretation of the state’s red-flag statute, placing the lawsuit on hold. But he indicated that the plaintiff’s narrative carried weight. The court, the judge wrote, “is no doubt sympathetic to the experience Willey endured as he described it.” These were victories in their own right, a degree of validation that also preserves the status quo for Willey, whose property remains unchanged…”

    Here we get a look into the mind of the common Democrat/progressive.  Note that they cling to the idea of the property and Willey’s lack of compliance.  They automatically attach his defiance of the city to the reason for gun confiscation, and this is a twisted mentality.

    The debate over property rights and hoarding is beyond the scope of this discussion, but there’s nothing within the law that allows for law enforcement to disarm a person simply because they have too much trash and they’re not cooperative with the city government. 

    Red Flags allow such officials to find ways to punish people for non-compliance by removing their 2A rights based on subjective accusations of danger rather than proof of a crime.  Maybe they find a relative, an ex girlfriend or a neighbor that doesn’t like the target individual and they coax those people to write up a testimony.  In the case of Willey, the city tried to use Veteran’s Affairs documents citing a previous struggle with PTSD as a reason why he should be disarmed. 

    Once you have disarmament in play, now it’s no longer a legal impasse between the city and the individual.  Now they have instigated a confrontation which could end in bloodshed.  Rolling Stone claims this concern has been inflated by pro-gun groups, but this is exactly how it works in most states with Red Flag laws.  

    In California, San Diego has been beta testing Red Flag confiscation for the past few years and they are avidly promoting the use of “task forces” to ensure guns are surrendered.  There are no provisions within San Diego’s Red Flag measures allowing for true due process.

    In 2022, the California State Legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom approved an expansion of California’s red flag law allowing eligible petitioners to include additional family members, roommates, individuals with a dating or co-parental relationship with a person who may pose a risk to themselves or others.

    City officials in San Diego touted a decrease in overall gun homicide rates, but those stats conveniently end in 2020 when violent crime in CA began to spike again.  

    Maybe Rolling Stone is right and Don Willey is not a nice guy (they do attempt to dig up every last piece of dirt on the man’s life while saying little about Susan Webb).  Maybe his land is covered in junk.  Maybe his yard is a fire hazard.  All of this could be true and it would be irrelevant to his gun rights. 

    Democrats think very differently, though.  The core of Rolling Stone’s argument and The Trace’s argument is that Willey could be perceived by them as dangerous, and that’s enough to trample his rights.  The problem is, leftists are terrified of everything and see danger under every rock and behind every tree (or junk pile).  They are not qualified to be the arbiters of what constitutes a “dangerous person” and this is why they’re being buried in lawsuits.  

    Once these arbitrary distinctions and accusations are allowed, anything goes.  A combative post or politically incorrect comment on social media could one day become a justification for a Red Flag visit. “Guilty until proven innocent” is an unacceptable dynamic in America and should not be tolerated. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 22:10

  • Lobster-Chasers Gather In Florida For The Thrill Of The Early Hunt
    Lobster-Chasers Gather In Florida For The Thrill Of The Early Hunt

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

    “The Turk” was anchored off near the southern tip of Florida, and the small boat had divers in the water when a large fishing vessel cruised directly over the dive site.

    A man holds one of the lobsters that he caught during the two-day mini-season in Miami on July 28, 2010. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

    The smaller boat’s owner, dentist Jeff Pacha, watched furiously, anxiously. He worried, knowing as little as 13 feet of water might separate his wife and daughter—the two divers searching for lobsters on the ocean floor—from the intruder’s two sharp propellers.

    Despite Pacha’s diver-down flag, the incoming boater idled across the area, presumably looking for a spot to anchor within the 100-yard safety perimeter the flag commands in open water.

    Pacha waved and shouted. And the other vessel eventually turned and slowly moved away.

    Pacha’s wife and daughter were able to return to the surface unharmed. But the scene repeats far too often this time of year, sometimes with deadly consequences, Pacha told The Epoch Times.

    The dangerous encroachment illustrates the risks of seeking what’s known as a tasty treasure during Florida’s annual lobster mini-season.

    During this year’s mini-season, which ran from July 24 to 25, one diver was hospitalized after being struck by a boat. Two other boating accidents required rescues, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

    During the two days of early lobstering, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office alone issued at least 12 citations requiring boat operators to appear in court, and they stopped more than 500 vessels for inspections.

    What caused excitement to boil over was the annual early chance to find Florida’s spiny lobster.

    The state’s regular season for lobster runs from midnight on Aug. 6 until a minute before midnight on March 31. The first two weekends are the busiest, Pacha said.

    But for two days every summer, enthusiasts from around the country dive into what could be their best chance to seize their share of the most expensive item on the menu.

    Lobsters. Right there for the taking. Straight from the ocean.

    Boats filled with lobster divers speed past each other in Florida on July 25, 2024. T.J. Muscaro/The Epoch Times

    How to Catch a Feast

    Divers are required to purchase a lobstering permit, a $5 add-on to a $17 saltwater fishing license.

    Then they legally can seek the quarry that hides in shallow, warm, tropical waters.

    The red, 10-legged crustacean with a spiky exoskeleton is prized for the meat in its tail. The Florida variety doesn’t have large, meat-filled claws, like its New England cousin.

    Wild lobsters hide during the day under outcroppings of rock, wood, and other large objects. To get them out, divers swim to the ocean floor, find a likely hiding place, and poke into it a long metal stick. They try to “tickle” the “bugs”—as the creatures are called by those who hunt them—out of their holes and catch them in a net as they flee.

    Down on the sandy ocean floor, Nicki Pacha, 25, and her mother Dee Pacha, 67, circled a cluster of coral and rock. They could see lobsters huddled within.

    They poked their ticklers under the rock, gently jerking them in a scooping motion. The goal was to coerce the lobsters to exit the hiding place and swim past them.

    They’d have to act fast to position their nets right at the mouth of the lobster’s hide-out. If everything goes according to plan, the lobster will swim right into the trap.

    If a lobster is caught, a gloved diver first must flip it over to check for eggs that may be clinging to the bottom side of its tail. If there are no eggs, the diver next must use a measuring stick to check its size.

    If the protesting bug passes inspection, it gets zipped up in the bag bound for the surface.

    For a lobster to be a “keeper,” the carapace—the firm shell covering the head and legs—must be at least three inches long. Any lobster that’s smaller or is carrying eggs must be released.

    Captain Tony Young, owner-operator of Forever Young Charters in Islamorada, compared the two days of early lobstering to the opening day of any hunting season. The opening days offer lobsters aplenty, he told The Epoch Times.

    “It’s the best time of the year to catch lobster in the state of Florida.”

    Nicki Pacha looks for lobsters in the waters off Summerland Key, Fla., on July 24, 2024. T.J. Muscaro/The Epoch Times

    Boat or No Boat, the Hunt Is On

    A boat isn’t even a requirement.

    Along U.S. Highway 1, boatless lobster hunters park their cars along the side of the road and wade into shallow water.

    They climb out of their vehicles, donning an array of wetsuits, rashguards, and bathing suits. They awkwardly carry nets, fins, and dive flags under their arms. They step out cautiously on the rocky coastline and plunge into the water.

    Later, the waterlogged variants waddle back to their vehicles, many with bags brimming with lobsters.

    Aaron and Jenny Prost stood on the shoreline at the southern end of Marathon, a city on a narrow stretch of land in the middle of the Florida Keys, watching their boys hunt in the shallow waters on the second day of mini-season.

    The couple from Venice, Florida, has gone on diving adventures together for years. This was the first time their two sons joined in on the fun, hoping to bag a few keepers.

    Suddenly, their oldest, Samuel,14, popped up next to his diver-down flag about 50 yards from the shoreline.

    “I got one!” he shouted.

    But he wasn’t sure his catch was big enough to keep.

    His father shouted back instructions on how to take a proper measurement, telling him to keep the lobster in the water until they knew for sure, according to state regulations. Lobsters, like fish, have to remain underwater to breathe.

    Making sure to gently hold his catch below the water’s surface, the teen shuffled toward the shore for help. After a few moments, his father announced bad news: the lobster was millimeters too short.

    Samuel groaned and slumped, then trudged back out from the shore to put the lobster back where he’d found it.

    He’d faced a harsh reality of lobstering: It’s not as easy as advertised.

    Lobsters are fast and tricky, and divers require a certain set of skills to catch them.

    All the energy spent swimming in open water, all the time spent holding one’s breath, and all the effort spent struggling to stay down, stay level, tickle, and grab a lobster can leave a diver empty-handed.

    A man prepares the lobsters he caught on the first day of the mini-season in Miami on July 28, 2010. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

    Keeping It Legal

    Jeremiah Wann and his family from Mercer, Pennsylvania, rounded up about 10 lobsters during mini-season by snorkeling right off the pier of their vacation home on the ocean side of Tavernier, Florida.

    The Wann boys—Holden, 16, and Lennon, 14—already knew the struggle of finding lobsters large enough to keep.

    After four years of working on their lobstering skills, they’ve steadily improved, they told The Epoch Times. But they know the disappointment of catching lobsters too small to keep.

    Plenty of others were caught ignoring the rules this mini-season. And that can bring serious consequences.

    “The possible penalty for possession of each undersized lobster is up to 60 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both,” according to the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office.

    Of the dozen citations issued over the two days by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, most were for possession of too-small lobsters.

    Lobster hunters face the same maximum penalty for taking a lobster with eggs, using a spear to catch one, or taking more than the law allows. Each violation may be charged separately.

    State regulations allow divers to harvest six lobsters per day and 12 for the entire mini-season. A larger limit can be earned by helping the FWC eliminate an unwanted species from Florida waters.

    Pacha and his family have taken that bait.

    They participate in the FWC’s annual lionfish challenge, which offers prizes for divers helping to remove the venomous, invasive fish from reefs.

    One of the prizes is a coin worth the right to take two extra lobsters during the mini-season. It’s earned by catching at least 25 lionfish or a combined total weighing at least 50 pounds.

    By the end of the day, the Pachas had filled their boat’s cooler with 16 angry, snapping lobsters. They toasted their success with cold beer and later reflected on their close call.

    While underwater, Nicki Pacha, 25, heard the idling of a boat above her, engines revving and clicking in and out of gear. She and her mother exchanged glances.

    The 25-year-old medical student has been exploring underwater for about 20 years, both as a free diver and later as a scuba diver. Her parents have been diving together for 35 years.

    Was it their family’s emergency signal? Three revs of their boat’s engine would be a call to surface.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 21:45

  • J.D. Vance's Promise: Economic Mobility And Wealth Creation
    J.D. Vance’s Promise: Economic Mobility And Wealth Creation

    Authored by Terrence Keeley & Jim Sorenson via RealClearPolitics,

    The election of J.D. Vance to the vice presidency could usher in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for dramatic advancements in the lives of America’s most down-trodden, forgotten, and trapped: Such is his promise “to never forget where he came from.” With the right policies, programs, and commitments, his compelling personal story of triumph over a broken home, the ravages of drug addiction, poverty, and cultural isolation could be replicated among millions.

    One of the opportunities for transformative progress in a Trump-Vance administration lies in the fields of economic mobility and wealth creation. Coupled with new approaches to substance abuse and education – topics covered in the first two essays in this three-part series – President Trump and Vice President Vance could help reverse decades of growing wealth inequality between America’s most privileged and least fortunate. Market-oriented changes in three specific areas – homeownership, retirement savings, and employee stock ownership plans – would help end decades of growing inequality not by redistributing existing wealth but by giving historically excluded Americans proven tools for improving their financial well-being all on their own.

    Wealth disparity in the United States is now roughly equivalent to Russia’s – a damning comparison – and much higher than averages in most industrialized nations. Extreme wealth disparity strains social cohesion and undermines public faith in institutions by breeding perceptions of unfairness.

    Americans are also growing more unequal in wealth. In 1963, the wealthiest American families had 36 times the wealth of families in the middle distribution; by 2022, this disparity had doubled to 71 times as much.

    U.S. wealth inequality has overwhelming racial correlations. According to research by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, African American families today have 23 cents for every dollar of white family wealth, and Hispanic families have only 19 cents. These gaps have also grown larger over time.

    In our country, homeownership is the primary way citizens build wealth. In 2018, the black-white homeownership gap reached its highest level in 50 years. Today, black Americans remain the only racial group with a homeownership rate below 50%. If we want to narrow the wealth inequality gap between races, black and Hispanic homeownership must increase.

    Improving home affordability, access to credit, helping people remain in their homes, and changing cultural mindsets are all needed for growing disparities in American homeownership to change. Reforming local land-use and zoning policies, deploying more public-private partnership resources to expand the supply of affordable for-sale housing, increasing down-payment assistance, and educating the broader public on ownership-vs-renting benefits are all part of the solution.

    Homeownership could also be dramatically increased by unlocking appreciating home equity for first-time home buyers, enabling them to come up with a down payment and lower mortgage debt. Capital for these shared appreciation loans could come from institutional investors on a pro-rata basis. Home equity is America’s second-largest asset class at $31 trillion, but it largely sits untapped. As an asset class, home equity generates attractive, diversified, low-risk, positive inflation-adjusted returns. Policy initiatives and regulatory changes designed to unlock this appreciating asset class to the direct benefit of first-time and existing homeowners present a scalable solution for millions of people who have been left out of the housing market.

    Expanding home ownership in lower-income, racially segregated communities would have significant ancillary benefits beyond wealth generation. Children of home-owning parents have greater educational attainment and income mobility than children of renters. This difference is especially stark among low-income families. Homeownership feeds directly into improved health, educational, and career outcomes, all vital components of family well-being.

    Americans have consistently built wealth in two other ways beyond homeownership: First, by staying invested in the stock market over long periods of time; and second, by sharing in the wealth creation process of individual businesses. Basic market-friendly changes in retirement savings programs and more support for employee stock ownership plans would present two additional policy priorities for a Trump-Vance administration.

    Today, 70 million hard-working Americans aren’t offered any retirement benefits through their place of employment. Among the bottom 50% of America’s wealth holders, the median retirement savings account balance is $0. For the most part, tax policies regarding retirement savings hinge on granting tax benefits through deductions, as opposed to credits or direct matches. This deduction approach is regressive because those with the highest incomes and the highest marginal tax rate gain the most.

    The simplest and most tax-efficient way to help lower-income Americans save for their retirement is to give them the exact same benefit provided to every U.S. federal employee: access to the wealth-building vehicle known as the Thrift Savings Plan. The federal Thrift Savings Plan has a multi-decade history with 6.5 million federal employees who voluntarily set aside portions of their pay to invest in a range of target date and multi-asset funds.

    Such funds ensure that beneficiaries have high equity exposures when they are young and higher bond exposures as they age, ensuring greater predictability in retirement income. The plan’s common stock index fund has returned 10.83% per year since its inception 35 years ago, meaning its holders have, on average, doubled their retirement savings every 6½ years. The Retirement Savings for Americans Act – bipartisan legislation that uses the same model as the Thrift Savings Plan – would similarly provide a path to more secure retirement for tens of millions of hardworking Americans. A supplemental retirement market reform sponsored by a Trump-Vance administration could augment retirement savings among lower-income groups by partially funding such accounts at birth, something the state of Connecticut has started to do with its CT Baby Bonds program. 

    Some 32 million American workers are employed by 2.9 million privately held firms owned by individuals at or near retirement age. A final, market-friendly policy the Trump-Vance administration could embrace involves creating employee stock ownership plans (ESOP). Here, bipartisan legislation has already been proposed in the Senate. The Employee Equity Investment Act would create a public-private partnership vehicle that facilitates the sale of privately-held companies to their employees – allowing them to maintain their jobs and build more wealth for themselves in the future. According to Jack Moriarty of the Lafayette Square Institute, such a program would build “a more competitive, resilient and broadly prosperous American economy.” ESOP participants have more than twice the average retirement balances of other Americans, proof of their effectiveness in building and retaining personal wealth over decades.

    Transformational policy changes require vision, strong White House leadership, and a proven willingness to work across political lines. In areas as diverse as homeownership, retirement savings, and employee stock ownership, the time is ripe for generational reform. By providing heightened focus to proven methods for enhancing economic mobility and wealth creation – along with substance abuse and education – J.D. Vance, working side-by-side with Donald Trump, could improve the lives of millions of Americans. Such would be the promise of “remembering where he came from.” And such would be the promise of reinvigorating and restoring the American Dream.

    Part one: Addressing Substance Abuse

    Part two: Bolstering Education

    Terrence R. Keeley is author of “Sustainable” and “Ending ESG.”

    Jim Sorenson is the chairman of the Sorenson Impact Foundation.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 21:20

  • Russia Summons US Envoy Over Presence Of American Mercenaries, CNN Crew In Kursk Region
    Russia Summons US Envoy Over Presence Of American Mercenaries, CNN Crew In Kursk Region

    Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned a senior US Embassy official in Moscow in order to protest several issues related to US interference in the Kursk region, which has been scene of heavy fighting since Ukraine’s cross-border incursion kicked off on Aug.6.

    Russia condemned “provocative actions” of both American journalists and US mercenaries spotted on Russian territory in the context of the Kursk invasion.

    Via Fox News

    The foreign ministry in the meeting with US Embassy Chief of Mission Stephanie Holmes issued “strong protest” in “connection to the provocative actions of American reporters who illegally entered the Kursk region to produce propaganda for covering up the crimes of the Kyiv regime.”

    The statement further said that national law enforcement authorities plan to “carry out the necessary investigative measures” examining the American journalists’ work.

    Last week a CNN crew filed a report from the heart of the Russian town Sudzha just after the Ukrainian army took it over. It was clear that the CNN journalists were there under the protection of the Ukrainian military, as their words describing a segment indicated:

    Chief International Security Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh gained some of the first access to a Ukrainian-held Russian town Friday, to witness their control over the town of Sudzha and the intensity of the fight. CNN was accompanied by the Ukrainian military who reviewed the video without sound prior to release for operational security reasons, yet had no editorial control.

    Watch: Some of CNN’s footage inside the southern Russian town…

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    Moscow views his as unauthorized American journalists illegally entering Russia’s sovereign territory without permission, ultimately to assist with Ukrainian propaganda under Kiev’s military protection.

    But among the more interesting charges aimed at Holmes from the Russian Foreign Ministry centers on the alleged presence of US military contractors assisting the Kursk invasion. 

    The ministry pointed to “evidence that has emerged of the participation of American private military companies on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces during” the offensive into Russia.

    While not naming specific companies or firms, Russian state sources have flagged a posting by the American military lifestyle brand Forward Observations Group.

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

    The organization recently posted photos of alleged US mercenaries on Instagram, apparently on the Kursk battlefield, with a caption that reads: “the boys in Kursk.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 20:55

  • Distorting Biden's Foreign Policy Record To Promote Harris' Candidacy
    Distorting Biden’s Foreign Policy Record To Promote Harris’ Candidacy

    Authored by Francis P. Sempa via RealClearDefense,

    The great James Burnham in The Machiavellians distinguished between the “formal” and “real” meaning of political rhetoric. The formal meaning of such rhetoric, Burnham wrote, helps to disguise the real meaning.

    The American foreign policy establishment has begun to spin the foreign policy legacy of President Joe Biden. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Jessica Matthews, Distinguished Fellow and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, claims that although “it is too soon to judge the historical significance of Joe Biden’s one-term presidency, it is clear that the past four years have witnessed remarkable achievements in foreign policy.” But this narrative is not just about Biden’s supposed foreign policy legacy. It is also an effort to boost the foreign policy credentials of Vice President Kamala Harris.

    According to Matthews, Biden shifted U.S. foreign policy “from an unhealthy reliance on military intervention to the active pursuit of diplomacy backed by strength,” strengthened our alliances, deepened our presence in Asia, promoted multilateralism, and ended the war in Afghanistan. “Biden,” she writes, “has made profound changes in foreign policy–not to accommodate American decline but to reflect the country’s inherent strength.”

    Matthews credits Biden with “boldness” in withdrawing from Afghanistan–others would describe it as amateurish and humiliating. She claims that Biden’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has been both skillful and innovative” and “masterful,” forgetting perhaps that he was the president that failed to deter that invasion. Biden’s “strength” that supposedly backed his diplomacy consisted of diminished relative naval power, a military leadership that prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion and efforts to combat climate change, an emboldened Iran in the Middle East, and an even more aggressive China in the western Pacific. It was during Biden’s presidency that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea grew closer–his administration did nothing to attempt to widen potential cleavages among the so-called “axis of autocracy.”

    What Matthews tries to obfuscate is that under Biden, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, Iran-backed Hamas invaded Israel, Russia invaded Ukraine, and China became more aggressive in the western Pacific, threatening both Taiwan and the Philippines. This is not a record of “remarkable achievement.” It almost makes Jimmy Carter look good by comparison.

    In Ukraine, instead of using American “diplomacy backed by strength,” Biden has rejected any suggestions for a negotiated ceasefire in favor of support for a Ukrainian “victory.” This is the exact opposite of the kind of “realism” that Matthews claims to support. There is no end in sight to the Ukraine war, and the longer it lasts, the greater the chances of escalation to a wider European, or even global, war.

    Matthews is closer to the mark when she characterizes the Biden Middle East policy as a “mix of inattention and wishful thinking,” and that is being generous. Matthews writes that Biden should have been willing to use our leverage to “compel Israel” to wage war the way we–separated from our enemies by oceans–think they–surrounded by enemies–should wage it.

    Matthews also criticizes Biden for his Taiwan policy, even though she mysteriously credits him for implementing the “pivot to Asia.” She worries that Biden’s policy has strayed from her preferred policy of “strategic ambiguity.” Matthews apparently still believes that the failed dual policy of engagement/competition can still work with China. Her criticism of Biden here is off the mark. Biden has mostly moved away from the more confrontational policy pursued by the Trump administration during its last two years. The fact that Matthews thinks Biden has been too tough on China with respect to Taiwan reveals more about her worldview than Biden’s. Overall, she writes, “relations with China are steadier than those he inherited.”

    Biden gets poor marks for his failure to “advance nuclear arms control and nonproliferation.” Matthews criticizes Biden for providing weapons grade fuel to our ally Australia for its submarines. Meanwhile, China has engaged in what some strategists call a nuclear “strategic break out,” which will result in China’s ability to deploy more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, and 1,500 such warheads by 2035. And Iran is well on its way to obtaining (if it already hasn’t) nuclear weapons. 

    But in the end, it is the “remarkable achievements” of the Biden administration that Matthews touts because the real purpose of the article is not to praise Biden’s foreign policy legacy as much as it is to persuade voters to choose a candidate this fall who will “share [Biden’s] worldview.” The choice, she concludes, is between an unmentioned Kamala Harris, who presumably shares Biden’s worldview, and Donald Trump, who will return to a foreign policy of “populism, go-it-alone nationalism, or even isolationism.”

    Back to Burnham: Matthews’ formal meaning of her article is to generally applaud the foreign policy record of President Joe Biden, but the real meaning is to persuade voters to vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.

    Francis P. Sempa is the author of “Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century” and “America’s Global Role.” His work has appeared in Strategic Review, the Diplomat, Joint Force Quarterly, the Claremont Review of Books, the Asian Review of Books, the South China Morning Post, the National Interest, and other publications.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 20:30

  • University Of California Bans Encampments, Face Masks
    University Of California Bans Encampments, Face Masks

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

    The president of the University of California (UC) said on Monday that the 10-campus university system would enforce policies banning encampments and the wearing of masks to conceal identity in response to pro-Palestinian protests across the country.

    Student protesters set up at the intersection of Campus Drive and W. Peltason Drive near the University of California–Irvine in Irvine, Calif., on April 29, 2024. Rudy Blalock/The Epoch Times

    In a letter to the university community, UC President Michael V Drake said that his office and campus leaders have reflected on “the events of the past year” and sought ways to strengthen policies and procedures.

    They found that while the “vast majority” of protests held on UC’s campuses were peaceful and nonviolent, some activities over the past year were not.

    Drake said that “consistent application of policies and laws” is needed to balance protecting free speech rights with ensuring the safety of students and maintaining critical university operations.

    He said the policies would prohibit encampments, unauthorized structures, and restrictions on free movement on university property. They will also ban the use of masks to conceal identity and prohibit people from refusing to identify themselves to university personnel.

    Drake said the university will also develop a framework for consistent enforcement of its policies and responses to policy violations, as well as launch a campus climate initiative.

    “Our ultimate goal is for all of our community members to feel supported in their ability to express themselves, and to pursue their studies, research, patient care, and other work on our campuses,” he stated.

    In a separate letter to campus leaders, Drake said the university will implement a “consistent tiered response” for those who violate institutional policies.

    Individuals who violate campus policy will first receive a warning. If the conduct persists, the UC police department or campus fire marshal will assess the situation and may issue an unlawful assembly notice.

    In the final phase of the tiered response, those who continue to break the law “may be cited, detained and arrested for unlawful behavior, or subject to other police actions.” Stay-away orders may be issued for “higher severity violations” and repeat offenses.

    This came a week after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by three students, prohibiting the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) from providing programs and access to buildings if Jewish students were blocked.

    The students sued UCLA in June for allowing protesters to barricade the center of the campus and establish an encampment that obstructed passage to campus facilities.

    In his 16-page ruling on Aug. 13, U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi described the situation at UCLA as “unimaginable” and “so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.”

    The university is among the many campuses in the United States where demonstrators have set up encampments to protest the war in Gaza, which was Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 20:05

  • Harris' Unrealized Gains Tax Would Obliterate The U.S. Economy
    Harris’ Unrealized Gains Tax Would Obliterate The U.S. Economy

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    On Tuesday, it was announced that Presidential candidate Kamala Harris would be supporting President Joe Biden’s tax proposals for 2025, which include a 44.6% capital gains rate and a 25% tax on unrealized gains.

    Having used up all of the rest of the batshit, insane, counterintuitive economic dirty tricks left in the “we’ll literally do anything but cut spending” bag, the Biden administration began pushing this tax idea in April 2024 when I first wrote about it. Unrealized gains taxation could be the most destructive idea for our country since prohibition, I joked at the time.

    As part of its budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year, the Biden administration was trying to raise an addition $4.3 trillion over 10 years in the worst way possible: imposing a minimum tax equal to 25 percent of a taxpayer’s taxable income and unrealized capital gains less the sum of their regular tax, for taxpayers with wealth over $100 million.

    Putting aside the fact that this high-risk idea only amounts to a pittance, $430 billion per year, the introduction of taxing unrealized gains could be one of the worst slippery slopes we ever dare to roll our country’s economy down.

    I mean, shit, we could save $1 trillion just by not sending $100 billion a year to other nations for starters. But I digress. For an outline of exactly what an unrealized gains tax is, here’s the American Institute on Economic Research:

    A tax on unrealized capital gains means that individuals are penalized for owning appreciating assets, regardless of whether they have realized any actual income from selling them. 

    If you purchased a stock for $100 this year, for example, and it increased to $110 next year, you would pay the assigned tax rate on the $10 capital gain. You didn’t sell the asset, so you don’t realize the $10 appreciation, but must pay the tax regardless.

    Taxing unrealized capital gains contradicts the basic principles of fairness and property rights essential for a free and prosperous society. Taxation, if we’re going to have it on income, should be based on actual income earned, not on paper gains that may never materialize.

    AIER notes that implementing such a tax not only deeply infringes upon personal liberty and private property rights — but I can’t help but think about how it also sets a destructive wrecking ball rolling down a slippery slope for the first time in our nation’s history.

    And, given the precarious state of our nation’s finances, it doesn’t seem like the best time to start spitballing about new risky ideas that may or may not catch on only because they sound like they are addressing the problem of a widening wealth gap that Federal Reserve policies created and continue to exacerbate to begin with.

    If the administration really wanted to address the problem of wealth inequality, it would be setting its sights on the central bank that sacrificed price stability so it could spray trillions of dollars in “stimulus” toward financial assets, while cutting American families paltry checks of just $600, during COVID. When I did the math during COVID, the total amount spent to bail out the country when we decided to shut down the economy and have the Federal Reserve replace it with a fiat house of cards amounted to something like $17,500 per every citizen in the United States.

    Except, again, only $600 of that went to each individual. The rest went to the financial sector, in turn widening the inequality gap further as billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos saw tens of billions of dollars added to their net worth in a matter of months.

    And so now, rather than take tangible, decisive action to actually address the problem, the Harris administration is putting forth a plan that won’t just be negative for the country, it could very well be the hill that our country’s economy dies on. And to be honest, I’m not being hyperbolic.

    Over the last few years, we have seen an extraordinary exodus from places like New York and California, to places like Florida and Texas, because the former states were essentially taxing far too much relative to the benefits of what they were providing for citizens.

    California and NY exodus - a MILLION residents have left since July 2020 | Daily Mail Online

    Source: Daily Mail

    Ergo, places like California have seen people like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk move to Texas, while states like New York have seen businesses like Ken Griffin’s Citadel move to Florida. There’s nothing to read between the lines about when it comes to this capital flight out of one state and into another. It is simple cause and effect: at some point, people simply don’t think it is worth living in these states due to the taxes being too high.

    It’s a quintessential example of the Laffer Curve. Tax too much, people are disincentivized to generate productivity, or in this case, live in your state.

    Harris’ proposal to raise regular capital gains taxes is one thing, albeit still egregious; it is far lesser noxious of the two proposals. Taxing unrealized gains is an exponentially worse type of taxation that introduces not just a higher tax rate and a 3rd type of income tax, but a completely new system for taxation – one that taxes people’s assets as they appreciate, not just when they realize the gains of said appreciation.

    “But it will only be against people worth more than $100 million,” proponents of the idea will exclaim. Hell, I’m not worth 1% of that, so why should I even care?

    First off, it can’t be understated how earth-shattering it is to put this terrible idea into motion, regardless of who it is going to affect. You can’t justify a stunning overreach on people’s constitutional rights and civil liberties just because they sit in a certain tax bracket. And it is a line that, once crossed, the government won’t backtrack on. Once taxing unrealized gains makes its way into the zeitgeist, it sticks around for good. And, if it sticks around, it’ll only be another meaningful step moving the U.S. economy closer to an anemic corpse of a state-planned economy.

    A tax of this nature creates a vacuum that does nothing but suck the vibrancy out of an economy. In addition to setting a new moral hazard standard, the tax directly targets the people with the most capital at work in our country. By specifically targeting the people that have the means to create new enterprises and invest using this capital, and then driving them out of the country, the tax is a surefire way to suck the lifeblood out of what’s left of the United States economy.

    Make no mistake: it will be a clarion call for billionaires to simply move out of the United States and into tax havens. And think about it — these are the people that have the means to up and simply leave the country and relocate anytime they want. For them, if it makes financial sense, they will do it. Implementing this unrealized gains tax will set the ball in motion, you can mark my words. The rich will be as good as gone.

    🔥 40% off FOR LIFE: Use this special coupon link and get 40% off an annual subscription, good for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber.

    And when billionaires decide to up and leave the United States, all of the tax revenue they were generating otherwise — not just the unrealized gains tax — leaves with them. In other words, an unrealized gains tax will push them past their limit and result in catastrophic consequences for the country’s tax revenue as a whole. It’ll literally do far more harm than good. If I can understand why, a fifth grader can. That means the ultra-rich, who are much smarter than I am, definitely understand it. They’re not going to be interested in hanging around and forking over this much more cash “for the good of the cause”. They already likely have a plan in such case this tax is passed, and — as a hint — it isn’t to happily hand over a check to the Harris administration and say “thanks for being such great stewards of my capital, keep up the good work”.

    In reality, it likely involves yachts, dual passports, “investments” in places like Bermuda and Mauritius, attending F1 races and tennis matches, expensive champagne and Eastern European escorts (hereinafter referred to as: “The Hunter Biden Experience”).

    But seriously, setting aside the billionaires for a moment, the tax is going to dampen everybody’s incentive to try and earn and invest to begin with. Who wants to invest in the market if they’re going to be taxed on their gains the very next day?

    Possibly the worst part of this idea is its timing. The country is running a massive deficit now that looks to continue to widen because of our government’s refusal to cut spending on both sides of the aisle. As a reminder, you can only push the tax base so far before they turn tail and run. I know I’ve made jokes in the past (read: yesterday) about our government going through all of the solutions mandatory before arriving at any solution that works in the slightest, but this would be the granddaddy of all examples if implemented.

    The timing of this proposed solution couldn’t be worse. We are at a point in our country’s fiscal history where we need balance more than ever.

    We have the largest deficit and the most debt relative to GDP we have had in recent history.

    The BRICS nations, including Russia, China, and India, are actively pursuing ways to break off of the Western banking system and challenge the U.S. dollar.

    Inflation is running rampant and high interest rates are more than likely to cause our economy to slow down in marked fashion.

    We’re running deficits, but we need the tax revenue we are currently bringing in if we have any hope of cutting spending to balance our budget and right the country’s ship economically. The loss of tax revenue as a result of capital flight from the United States responding to this proposed unrealized gains tax would be catastrophic and would accelerate the country’s financial and monetary demise, not help it.

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    QTR’s Disclaimer: I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR, reprinted under a Creative Commons license or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 19:40

  • Putin Opens Russia As Haven For Westerners Fleeing 'Destructive Neoliberal Ideas'
    Putin Opens Russia As Haven For Westerners Fleeing ‘Destructive Neoliberal Ideas’

    Under a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin, Russia is relaxing temporary residence requirements for foreign citizens wishing to escape “destructive neoliberal ideas...which run counter to traditional Russian spiritual and moral values,” state news agency TASS has reported. 

    Under the terms of the decree, foreigners will have the privilege of applying for temporary residence “outside the quota approved by the Russian government and without providing documents confirming their knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and basic laws.”

    The stated aim of President Putin’s decree is to provide “humanitarian support to persons sharing traditional Russian spiritual and moral values”

    The Russian foreign ministry has been directed to initiate the new, expedited process for obtaining three-month visas as early as September. In support of the initiative, the foreign ministry will, within 30 days, publish a list of countries that are imposing destructive ideals on their citizens in conflict with traditional values embraced in Russia. 

    Those determinations will be driven by Putin’s November 2022 executive order regarding “Fundamentals of State Policy to Preserve and Strengthen Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values.” In part, that document states:  

    Traditional values include life, dignity, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, civic consciousness, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its destiny, high moral ideals, strong families, productive labour, the primacy of the spiritual over corporeal, humanism, charity, justice, collectivism, mutual assistance and mutual respect, historical memory and the continuity of generations, as well as the unity of Russia’s peoples.

    TASS notes that, in February, Putin commented approvingly on Italian student Irene Cecchini’s proposal that Russia relax its residency rules for foreigners who embrace traditional values. In June, Cecchini was a panelist at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, at a session titled “Time to Live in Russia.” She studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. 

    Putin’s new policy may have been inspired by a suggestion from Italian Irene Cecchini, a student at a Moscow university

    In May 2023, Russia announced it would build a village near Moscow to accommodate immigrating conservative Americans and Canadians. At the time, Russian immigration lawyer Timur Beslangurov told RIA Novosti that such people were eager to emigrate because of the “propaganda of radical values: Today they have 70 genders, and who knows what will come next. Many normal people emigrate and are considering Russia, but they’re faced with huge bureaucratic problems with Russia’s migration law.” Putin’s new decree is apparently a first step in cutting that red tape. 

    As for Putin’s suggestion that Western values are eroding, could he be referring to the routine appearance of creatures like this at school board meetings and at the front of classrooms?

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

    …or maybe President Biden’s appointment of luggage-stealing, dress-wearing, puppy-play freak Sam Brinton (left) to a high post managing nuclear waste?  

    …or perhaps VP candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s mandate that schools stock boys’ bathrooms with tampons?

    We could go on for days, but we’ll leave you with this depiction of a Russian family that chose the reverse path of relocation: 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 19:15

  • Numbers Don't Lie: Women Thrived Under Trump, Suffered Under Harris
    Numbers Don’t Lie: Women Thrived Under Trump, Suffered Under Harris

    Authored by Elise Stafanik via RealClearPolitics,

    Of the countless lies about Kamala Harris perpetuated by Democrats and their loyal stenographers in the mainstream media, one of the most egregious is that a Kamala Harris presidency will deliver historic economic opportunity for working women. Unfortunately for these desperate Democrats attempting to erase publicly available data, numbers tell the exact opposite story. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden saddled women with the largest pay cut, inflation crisis, tax hike, and economic crash so far this century, whereas President Trump delivered the greatest economic boost for American women of any modern day president. 

    The median income for women increased every year during the Trump administration, reaching the highest on record in 2020. Real average weekly earnings increased 8.2% under President Trump yet decreased 3.9% under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  The unemployment rate for women overall and for black women in particular reached a record low during President Trump’s term. In 2019, the workforce participation gap between men and women shrank to the narrowest in history. President Trump’s economy made history with the most women in the workforce ever. 

    This wasn’t by accident. Understanding that working women are also balancing families, President Trump delivered a pro-family economic agenda that included doubling the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child and expanding eligibility. Nearly 40 million families received an average benefit of $2,200 under his leadership, totaling credits of approximately $88 billion. 

    He then created the first-ever paid family leave tax credit for employees earning $72,000 or less and signed into law 12 weeks of paid parental leave for federal workers. He also signed the largest-ever increase in child care and development block grants – expanding access to quality, affordable childcare for more than 800,000 low-income families. President Trump signed into law a provision that enabled new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child.  

    The oft-asked question about balancing work and family life is: Can women have it all? Under President Trump’s leadership, the answer was a resounding yes. 

    Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, not so much. 

    Biden and Harris’ failed economic policies hurt every American but hit women hardest of all. Women are bearing the brunt of Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote for Biden’s comically named “Inflation Reduction Act,” which turbocharged inflation with a glut of ridiculous climate spending. Women are working longer hours and delaying retirement as a result. 

    Talk to any woman in America and there is no question that inflation is a women’s issue. Since Kamala Harris was sworn in as vice president, prices have risen by 19.4% – making it increasingly difficult for women to provide for their families. Women are the majority of grocery shoppers, and grocery bills have skyrocketed, forcing many Americans to cut back on essentials. A single mother of two in Nevada had to sell her car to afford groceries under Biden. A mother of two in Michigan had “to think about putting gasoline prices before buying my kids clothes” because of Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote for Biden’s radical green energy agenda.

    Families now need an extra $12,590 annually just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed three years ago, according to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee—and 67% of parents say inflation has impacted their ability to pay for their children’s education, school supplies, and extracurricular activities this past school year. The cost of childcare has increased 32% for the average family since 2019, and nearly two-thirds are spending 20% or more of their annual income on childcare. The average price for a pack of disposable diapers has increased 32% since 2019, and 47% of families reported struggling to afford them. In 2022, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ incompetence created a baby formula shortage, causing the price to soar to an all-time high. Some 44 million people were living in food insecure households in 2022, a 31% annual increase and the largest one-year increase since 2008. 

    Women make up the majority of voters in America, so it’s no wonder the Harris propaganda machine is in overdrive attempting to gaslight them into thinking they’ve never had it better. But as much as Democrats may lie, numbers never do. They show that President Trump not only cares deeply about women and all Americans but also knows what it takes to stimulate the economy to create historic opportunities on our behalf. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, sees women as a convenient voting block to pander to, deceive, and then abandon in favor of an economically poisonous, radically liberal agenda. 

    To my fellow women voters: Don’t be fooled. 

    Rep. Elise M. Stefanik represents New York’s 21st congressional district. She is the House Republican Conference chair, and chair of Women for Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 18:50

  • US, Allies Condemn China's Actions Against Philippine Vessels In South China Sea
    US, Allies Condemn China’s Actions Against Philippine Vessels In South China Sea

    Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The United States and several of its allies condemned China over what they said were dangerous actions by Chinese coast guard vessels after they collided with Philippine coast guard vessels in the South China Sea.

    Photos provided by the Philippine coast guard show damage in the auxiliary room on the port side near the port auxiliary engine of Philippine coast guard vessel BRP Bagacay/MRRV-4410 (L) and on the coast guard vessel BRP Cape Engano/MRRV-4411 (R), following collisions with Chinese coast guard vessels in the disputed South China Sea, on Aug. 19, 2024. Philippine Coast Guard via AP

    The incident happened in the early hours of Aug. 19 near the Sabina Shoal, with Beijing and Manila accusing each other of being responsible for the collisions.

    U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel criticized China for its actions against “lawful Philippine maritime operations” in an Aug. 19 statement.

    “PRC [People’s Republic of China] ships employed reckless maneuvers, deliberately colliding with two Philippine Coast Guard ships, causing structural damage and jeopardizing the safety of the crew onboard,” Patel said.

    The collision occurred about 20 nautical miles southeast of the Escoda Shoal, which is a part of the South China Sea that the Philippines refers to as the West Philippine Sea. The Sabina Shaol is located near the Second Thomas Shoal.

    The latest incident marks renewed geopolitical tension between China and the Philippines, following a short reprieve since the two sides inked a provisional agreement at the Second Thomas Shoal in July. Earlier this month, the Philippines announced it would lodge a diplomatic protest with China after two Chinese fighter jets deployed fares in the path of a Philippine patrol plane.

    Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general at the National Security Council of the Philippines, said on Monday that the two Philippine coast guard patrol boats, BRP Bagacay (MRRV-4410) and BRP Cape Engaño (MRRV-441), were on a resupply mission for the Philippine outposts at Patag and Lawak islands in the Spratly Islands. The two boats were rammed by Chinese coast guard vessels and suffered structural damage, he said.

    “These actions are the latest examples of the PRC using dangerous and escalatory measures to enforce its expansive and unlawful South China Sea maritime claims,” Patel said. He called on China to abide by international law and desist from “dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”

    Malaya said the United States reaffirms that Article IV of the 1951 U.S.–Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty “extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft—including those of its Coast Guard—anywhere in the South China Sea.”

    International Condemnation

    Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK condemned China’s latest maritime actions.

    Australia’s ambassador to the Philippines, HK Yu, wrote in a post on social media platform X that China’s actions undermine efforts to de-escalate tensions.

    David Hartman, Canada’s ambassador to the Philippines, condemned the “irresponsible and dangerous maneuvers of the China Coast Guard” in an X post.

    “These actions are inconsistent with China’s obligations under international law and undermine efforts to de-escalate tensions in the South China Sea,” Hartman wrote.

    Japan’s ambassador to the Philippines, Endo Kazuya, said in an X post that Tokyo does not tolerate harassment and actions that “increase tensions or disturb navigational rights.”

    Kazuya added that Japan “stands with [the Philiphines] by upholding rules-based order and peaceful settlement of disputes based on [international] law.”

    Earlier this month, Australia, Canada, the Philippines, and the United States held a two-day “multilateral maritime cooperative activity” within Manila’s exclusive economic zones. The drill was aimed at showing the four nations’ “collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” according to a statement from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

    Manila continued its criticism of Beijing over the collision on Tuesday. Alexander Lopez, a spokesperson for the country’s maritime council, expressed “serious concern over the deliberate harassment and infringement by China” on the Philippines’ sovereignty and sovereign rights in the South China Sea.

    In July, Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to President Joe Biden over their concerns regarding China’s use of force against the Philippines in the South China Sea.

    The lawmakers asked Biden to provide a “full list of military, diplomatic, and economic options developed by the Departments of State and Defense to support the Philippines and deter further escalation by the PRC.”

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 18:25

  • What's Really Happening With Monkeypox
    What’s Really Happening With Monkeypox

    Authored by David Bell via the Brownstone Institute,

    The World Health Organization (WHO) acted as expected this week and declared Mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). So, a problem in a small number of African countries that has killed about the same number of people this year as die every four hours from tuberculosis has come to dominate international headlines. This is raising a lot of angst from some circles against the WHO.

    While angst is warranted, it is mostly misdirected. The WHO and the IHR emergency committee they convened had little real power – they are simply following a script written by their sponsors. The African CDC, which declared an emergency a day earlier, is in a similar position. Mpox is a real disease and needs local and proportionate solutions. But the problem it is highlighting is much bigger than Mpox or the WHO, and understanding this is essential if we are to fix it.

    Mpox, previously called Monkeypox, is caused by a virus thought to normally infect African rodents such as rats and squirrels. It fairly frequently passes to, and between, humans. In humans, its effects range from very mild illness to fever and muscle pains to severe illness with its characteristic skin rash, and sometimes death. Different variants, called ‘clades,’ produce slightly different symptoms. It is passed by close body contact including sexual activity, and the WHO declared a PHEIC two years ago for a clade that was mostly passed by men having sex with men. 

    The current outbreaks involve sexual transmission but also other close contact such as within households, expanding its potential for harm. Children are affected and suffer the most severe outcomes, perhaps due to issues of lower prior immunity and the effects of malnutrition and other illnesses.

    Reality in DRC

    The current PHEIC was mainly precipitated by the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), though there are known outbreaks in nearby countries covering a number of clades. About 500 people have died from Mpox in DRC this year, over 80% of them under 15 years of age. In that same period, about 40,000 people in DRC, mostly children under 5 years, died from malaria. The malaria deaths were mainly due to lack of access to very basic commodities like diagnostic tests, antimalarial drugs, and insecticidal bed nets, as malaria control is chronically underfunded globally. Malaria is nearly always preventable or treatable if sufficiently resourced.

    During this same period in which 500 people died from Mpox in DRC, hundreds of thousands also died in DRC and surrounding African countries from tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and the impacts of malnutrition and unsafe water. Tuberculosis alone kills about 1.3 million people globally each year, which is a rate about 1,500 times higher than Mpox in 2024.

    The population of DRC is also facing increasing instability characterized by mass rape and massacres, in part due to a scramble by warlords to service the appetite of richer countries for the components of batteries. These in turn are needed to support the Green Agenda of Europe and North America. This is the context in which the people of DRC and nearby populations, which obviously should be the primary decision-makers regarding the Mpox outbreak, currently live.

    An Industry Produces What It Is Paid for

    For the WHO and the international public health industry, Mpox presents a very different picture. They now work for a pandemic industrial complex, built by private and political interests on the ashes of international public health. Forty years ago, Mpox would have been viewed in context, proportional to the diseases that are shortening overall life expectancy and the poverty and civil disorder that allows them to continue. The media would barely have mentioned the disease, as they were basing much of their coverage on impact and attempting to offer independent analysis.

    Now the public health industry is dependent on emergencies. They have spent the past 20 years building agencies such as CEPI, inaugurated at the 2017 World Economic Forum meeting and solely focused on developing vaccines for pandemic, and on expanding capacity to detect and distinguish ever more viruses and variants. This is supported by the recently passed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR). 

    While improving nutrition, sanitation, and living conditions provided the path to longer lifespans in Western countries, such measures sit poorly with a colonial approach to world affairs in which the wealth and dominance of some countries are seen as being dependent on the continued poverty of others. This requires a paradigm in which decision-making is in the hands of distant bureaucratic and corporate masters. Public health has an unfortunate history of supporting this, with restriction of local decision-making and the pushing of commodities as key interventions.

    Thus, we now have thousands of public health functionaries, from the WHO to research institutes to non-government organizations, commercial companies, and private foundations, primarily dedicated to finding targets for Pharma, purloining public funding, and then developing and selling the cure. The entire newly minted pandemic agenda, demonstrated successfully through the Covid-19 response, is based on this approach. Justification for the salaries involved requires detection of outbreaks, an exaggeration of their likely impact, and the institution of a commodity-heavy and usually vaccine-based response. 

    The sponsors of this entire process – countries with large Pharma industries, Pharma investors, and Pharma companies themselves – have established power through media and political sponsorship to ensure the approach works. Evidence of the intent of the model and the harms it is wreaking can be effectively hidden from public view by a subservient media and publishing industry. But in DRC, people who have long suffered the exploitation of war and the mineral extractors, who replaced a particularly brutal colonial regime, must now also deal with the wealth extractors of Pharma.

    Dealing with the Cause

    While Mpox is concentrated in Africa, the effects of corrupted public health are global. Bird flu will likely follow the same course as Mpox in the near future. The army of researchers paid to find more outbreaks will do so. While the risk from pandemics is not significantly different than decades ago, there is an industry dependent on making you think otherwise. 

    As the Covid-19 playbook showed, this is about money and power on a scale only matched by similar fascist regimes of the past. Current efforts across Western countries to denigrate the concept of free speech, to criminalize dissent, and to institute health passports to control movement are not new and are in no way disconnected from the inevitability of the WHO declaring the Mpox PHEIC. We are not in the world we knew twenty years ago.

    Poverty and the external forces that benefit from war, and the diseases these enable, will continue to hammer the people of DRC. If a mass vaccination campaign is instituted, which is highly likely, financial and human resources will be diverted from far greater threats. This is why decision-making must now be centralized far from the communities affected. Local priorities will never match those that expansion of the pandemic industry depends on.

    In the West, we must move on from blaming the WHO and address the reality unfolding around us. Censorship is being promoted by journalists, courts are serving political agendas, and the very concept of nationhood, on which democracy depends, is being demonized. A fascist agenda is openly promoted by corporate clubs such as the World Economic Forum and echoed by the international institutions set up after the Second World War specifically to oppose it. If we cannot see this and if we do not refuse to participate, then we will have only ourselves to blame. We are voting for these governments and accepting obvious fraud, and we can choose not to do so.

    For the people of DRC, children will continue to tragically die from Mpox, from malaria, and from all the diseases that ensure return on investment for distant companies making pharmaceuticals and batteries. They can ignore the pleading of the servants of the White Men of Davos who will wish to inject them, but they cannot ignore their poverty or the disinterest in their opinions. As with Covid-19, they will now become poorer because Google, the Guardian, and the WHO were bought a long time back, and now serve others.

    The one real hope is that we ignore lies and empty pronouncements, refusing to bow to unfounded fear. In public health and in society, censorship protects falsehoods and dictates reflect greed for power. Once we refuse to accept either, we can begin to address the problems at the WHO and the inequity it is promoting. Until that time, we will live in this increasingly vicious circus.

    David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 17:40

  • WTI Extends Losses After API Reports Small (Surprise) Crude Build
    WTI Extends Losses After API Reports Small (Surprise) Crude Build

    Oil prices limped lower once again today (5th decline in the last six days) as stocks stalled and a potential cease-fire in Gaza built on mounting concern about the global demand outlook.

    On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel accepted a cease-fire proposal and that the next step was for Hamas to agree. In response, the militant group pushed back against the US, denying claims that it was stalling negotiations and saying it was “keen” to reach an accord.

    Meanwhile, China’s worsening economic malaise is keeping the market subdued. Recent data showed shrinking factory activity and a decline in oil demand, while the world’s largest importer is also considering a new rescue plan for its beleaguered property sector.

    The question is, will last week’s unexpected crude inventory build be confirmed as a one-off or is the macro background fear starting to actually impact physical markets.

    API

    • Crude +347k (-2.9mm exp)

    • Cushing -648k

    • Gasoline -1.04mm

    • Distillates -2.24mm

    For the second week in a row, Crude stockpiles saw an increase, while the all-important hub at Cushing saw another draw and product stocks fell…

    Source: Bloomberg

    WTI modestly extended losses on the crude build…

    “The geopolitical risk premium, which had been inflating prices, started deflating when the U.S. announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a bridging proposal to cool tensions between Israel and Hamas,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, in market commentary.

    “A de-escalation in the Middle East could make that risk premium evaporate faster than a puddle in the desert sun.”

    Additionally, Powell could mess it all up:

    “An economic downturn resulting from a ‘Fed mistake’ would lead to a bear market in the global energy markets,” Tyler Richey, co-editor at Sevens Report Research, told MarketWatch.

    So “if we start to see economic data deteriorate in the coming weeks or months, demand estimates penciled in based on the optimistic hope of a soft landing will fall considerably amid an emerging recessionary reality.”

    Now we just have to wait and see what tomorrow’s official inventory and supply data shows.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 17:20

  • What Has The Fed Done To Our Lives?
    What Has The Fed Done To Our Lives?

    Authored by George F. Smith via LewRockwell.com,

    The following is derived from a speech in my novel, The Flight of the Barbarous Relic

    Wars must be funded, and for this governments functioning as states call upon the banking system for assistance.

    Central Bank counterfeiting, which is another name for inflation, is the fuel that energizes the forces of war.  Inflation, or counterfeiting, amounts to issuing receipts for something that doesn’t exist, which legally is the prerogative of the central bank.  Calling such receipts money allows them to be created in massive amounts quickly.  When the US Congress votes to send billions of fiat money to Ukraine, Israel or anywhere else, no one questions the nature of what is being sent because legal tender laws make it all copasetic.

    Yet, we should know better.

    As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, a compulsive payment [Thomas Paine wrote in 1786], it is a most presumptuous attempt at arbitrary power. There can be no such power in a republican government: the people have no freedom, and property no security where this practice can be acted . . .

    If anything had, or could have, a value equal to gold and silver, it would require no tender law: and if it had not that value it ought not to have such a law; and, therefore, all tender laws are tyrannical and unjust, and calculated to support fraud and oppression. [emphasis added]

    Banks belonging to the Federal Reserve central banking cartel can issue credit based on the Federal Reserve Board’s Regulation D, which specifies “a set of uniform reserve requirements for all depository institutions with transaction accounts,” so that, for instance, if the reserve ratio is 1:10, a bank with $10 million in reserve can issue $100 million in credit.  Could you loan $100 to a friend if you only had $10 to spare?

    The Fed dropped the reserve ratio to near zero in March, 2020 during the Covid pandemic.  I’m tempted to say the Fed would react in a similar manner to a Congressional declaration of war, as required by the Constitution, but the war power of Congress has been neglected since WW II.

    We need to keep in mind that lending as such is crucial to our well-being.  As one commentator astutely observed, without an international banking system most of us wouldn’t be alive today. Money and banking make possible the division of labor, which has drastically reduced child mortality and raised living standards wherever free markets flourished.

    But it’s also true that throughout most of banking history, the banks’ practice of generating unbacked money substitutes prevailed. Invariably, some would go too far and depositors would start showing up at teller windows wanting their notes exchanged for gold.  Without enough gold to redeem, many of the banks had to shut their doors.  But only temporarily.

    For reasons of its own, government took a strong interest in the bankers’ plight and usually issued moratoriums on note redemption. For a period sometimes lasting years, banks were permitted to default on their liabilities to note holders while being allowed to conduct all other banking activities.

    Helpful as this privilege was, it wasn’t enough. Banks weren’t always allowed to renege on their promises, their easy credit policies created bankruptcies and recessions, and besides, bank runs were embarrassing. No banker liked seeing crowds swarming at his door demanding what was theirs, even if the law was on his side.

    Enter the central bank

    Fortunately for American bankers and their political allies, Germany provided an example of an ingenious solution to the dilemma of bank counterfeiting. During the early years of the twentieth century U. S. bankers imported some of their ideas and, meeting at Jekyll Island, Georgia  with a few powerful politicians, devised a plan for a banking cartel.

    Americans didn’t like cartels or centralized power, the planners realized, so they called their creature a ‘reserve system’ and dressed it up with regional branches to avoid the appearance of a concentration of power.  Since no cartel will work without government guns it was decided to attach the name ‘federal’ to it, as well. Thus, the American central bank became known as the Federal Reserve System, or the Fed, signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913.

    The Fed became an indispensable instrument of profit and power. Beginning in 1914, it cut reserve requirements approximately in half, dropping the ratio from 21 percent to 11 percent, roughly doubling the money supply and permitting both financial aid to the Allies and eventual American entry into the European war in April 1917.

    Government, meanwhile, used the war as an excuse to create what one economic historian has aptly called a ‘garrison economy.’ Among other things government took over railroads and communications industries, seized hundreds of manufacturing plants, fixed prices, intervened in hundreds of labor disputes, raised taxes, and conscripted over a million men for military service so they could join the bloodbath over there, in
    the European trenches. The Supreme Court, the alleged guardian of the Constitution – which itself is our alleged guardian against an aggressive government – ruled most of the war interventions constitutional, including the draft. Merely questioning the constitutionality of the draft could get you thrown in jail.

    Thus, the federal reserve – a government- protected, government-serving, elaborately-cloaked counterfeiting cartel – played a crucial role in converting a peaceful America into a bellicose, interventionist state.

    We hear voices calling for patriotism during war. But who exactly were the patriots during ‘the war to end all wars’?

    Was it J. P. Morgan, who repeatedly said, ‘Nobody could hate war more than I do’ as he was amassing commissions totaling $30 million as a purchasing agent of war supplies for England and France?

    Was it Morgan’s steel, shipbuilding, and powder enterprises that bought controlling interest in, and editorial control over, the country’s 25 most influential newspapers?

    Was it President Woodrow Wilson who had won reelection with the slogan ‘he kept us out of war’ then five months later asked Congress to join a war that had already killed five million people?

    Was it Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, who rose in the Senate to dissect Wilson’s call for war point by point, arguing that Wilson and his advisors had been colluding with Britain for two years trying to find a pretext for American entry into the fray against England’s enemies?

    Was it the senators who spoke after La Follette and for five hours hotly denounced him as ‘pro-German’ and ‘anti-American’?

    Was it the majority of Americans who in spite of a well-orchestrated media campaign against Germany still opposed joining the war?

    Was it the men who were conscripted and sent overseas, over 100,000 of whom lost their lives?

    Was it the industrial firms back home, thousands of miles from the slaughter on the Western Front, whose income tax records showed huge profits during the war years?

    Was it the millions here who kept their mouths shut about the war because the Espionage Act of 1917 and its successor, the Sedition Act of 1918, hung a 20-year prison sentence over the heads of Wilson’s critics?

    Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and John Quincy Adams are generally considered patriotic, yet they counseled strongly against American entanglement in foreign affairs.

    The Fed, and its partner in theft, the income tax, enabled politicians and their financial backers to ignore their warnings.

    Have you noticed we’ve been at war almost constantly since the Fed was forced upon us? We had World War I, the Great Depression — which was likened to war by the rulers — World War II, then the umbrella of the Cold War under which two hot wars and various skirmishes were fought.

    For a president eager to go to war, the Fed has been a godsend.

    The Federal Reserve makes war seem affordable. The media makes war seem patriotic. And in the background, waiting to be fattened, are the politicians’ corporate supporters who profit hugely from foreign invasions.

    Have you noticed the economic trends since the Fed took over the money supply?  The “elastic currency” today is approaching collapse, and economic calamities live on — the very opposite of the Fed’s alleged raison d’être.   Should we be surprised at these outcomes? Of course not.  The Fed is fulfilling its mission.

    If we truly desire peace and prosperity, we will wipe every trace of central banking and fiat money from the face of the earth. Fiat currencies always bring out the worst in government as it inflates us into war, economic ruin, and autocratic rule.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 17:00

  • China On The Verge: Welfare State Crumbles, Explosion In Social Unrest As Youth Unemployment Soars, Strikes Surge
    China On The Verge: Welfare State Crumbles, Explosion In Social Unrest As Youth Unemployment Soars, Strikes Surge

    In retrospect, it was clear that the bottom was falling out of China’s economy (the real economy, not the fake “as reported” one) last August when shortly after we learned that youth unemployment in the country hit a record 21.3%, Beijing unexpectedly stopped reporting this data entirely, because as Stalin would probably say today if he were still alive, “No data – no problem”!

    Since then, largely as a result of Xi Jinping’s insistence not to stimulate the economy no matter the severity of the deterioration, China’s economy has accelerated down its perilous slowdown. And while Wall Street has gladly assumed that Beijing will be able to get away without a forceful stimulus for the foreseeable future even as GDP ticks down from 5% to 4% to 3% to… you get the picture, a far more credible – and unpleasant – argument for a bazooka stimulus is rearing its ugly head: social cohesion is about to crack.

    We start where we left off last August, with China’s surging youth unemployment rate. Here, as the South China Morning Post reports, China’s revised youth unemployment surged to 17.2% in July (this would be the equivalent of about 23% according to the old series), the highest level since the National Bureau of Statistics adopted a new method of counting.

    The jobless rate for 16- to 24-year-olds (excluding students) was up from 13.2% a month earlier and ended three months of declines, according to the latest NBS data. The rate for December was 14.9%.

    As we reported last year, Beijing introduced the revised method for December after suspending the release of youth unemployment data from July. Under the previous approach, the jobless rate for the 16-24 age group, including students, peaked at 21.3 per cent in June.

    Student numbers were then stripped out of the calculation, a change that the NBS said was to “more accurately” reflect that job-hunting was not a priority for students in China. That, however, is a major problem, as it does not account for the relentless firehose of new entrants that enter the labor market every year when millions of Chinese students graduate and start looking for a job.

    Indeed, as SCMP reports, the rise in unemployment among young jobseekers comes as a record 11.79 million tertiary graduates enter the labor market of the world’s second-largest economy!

    As a result, many fresh graduates have had to scale back salary expectations by about a third as the economy has struggled to gather momentum, according to analysts. One day before the youth jobless reading, the NBS reported that the country’s overall unemployment rate was 5.2%, up for the first time since February.

    “The employment situation has remained generally stable so far this year,” NBS spokeswoman Liu Aihua said, “but we should also see at the same time that pressure … still exists. The structural contradiction of difficulties in both job seeking and recruitment is still prominent.”

    Realizing that tens of millions of unemployed yutes is recipe for revolution, China’s ruling elites have put far more emphasis on dealing with youth joblessness this year – starting with adjusting how it is misreported of course to prevent all out chaos  – in part because of the risks it poses to social stability as well as the pressure lower incomes would put on plans for consumer spending to lead the way to a sustainable recovery.

    At a meeting of the State Council, the country’s cabinet, last Friday, Premier Li Qiang called for more efforts to “stabilize employment for key groups”.  The Communist Party’s Politburo, the main decision-making body in China, had a similar message two weeks earlier, saying priority should be given to university graduates looking for jobs.

    And last month the party’s Central Committee said it would “improve the system of employment support for key groups such as college graduates, rural migrant workers and ex-service members”.

    Which brings us to even more data fudging: since the release of the December data, the Chinese authorities have split the 25-59 age group into two parts – 25-29 and 30-59 – and applied the new statistical method to both.

    The jobless rate for the 25-29 age group, also excluding students, was 6.5% in July, up by 0.1% from June, inching back up after three consecutive months of decline. The rate for the 30-59 age group was 3.9%, just down from 4% reported in June.

    Unfortunately for Beijing, literally nobody believes these numbers, because instead of a picture of economic stability, China now exudes an unprecedented slowdown, one where labor disputes in China’s property and manufacturing sectors have surged as economic growth decelerates, underlining blue-collar workers’ concerns over the country’s social safety net.

    As Nikkei reported last week, while “unrest is rarely reported by the country’s media due to strict government control, signs of public discontent and hardship emerge nonetheless.”

    Recent incidents include a protest by an ex-soldier who sat atop a building in Beijing’s famed Wangfujing shopping street on the evening of Aug. 1. In a video uploaded on the social media platform X, the man in full army uniform unveils a white banner accusing a government office in the city of Kunming, Yunnan province, of “strangling a retired serviceman who had served for 12 years.”

    Two days earlier, another protester displayed a banner on an overpass in the county of Xinhua, Hunan province, demanding freedom and elections. In an accompanying video that spread on X, the protester identified himself as Fang Yirong and claimed to have been targeted by authorities since last summer for supporting democracy. He said he took part in the “white paper” protests in 2022 against China’s harsh COVID-19 restrictions.

    Meanwhile, labor strikes in China increased 3% on the year to 719 incidents in the first half of 2024, according to the China Labor Bulletin (CLB), a Hong Kong-based workers advocacy group.

    Incidents involving the all-important property and manufacturing sectors were up 12%, accounting for 80% of the total.

    “The uptick in strikes is a reflection of the increasing social pressure as the economy struggles to improve,” said Max J. Zenglein, chief economist at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Germany.

    China’s economic growth slowed to 4.7% in the second quarter, from 5.3% in the first, stifled by a persistent downturn in the property sector, which is going from bad to worse seemingly every single month as we will discuss in a subsequent post, and subdued household demand. Sluggish domestic growth has pushed some industries, including solar panels and automobiles, to step up exports and price dumping, sparking howls of outrage from domestic producers in export markets, while those hit by trade tensions with the U.S. have sought to shift production abroad.

    Worker unrest appears to reflect the growing pressures. Among the incidents highlighted in the CLB report was a dispute at solar panel maker Akcome Technology over pay cuts and withdrawal of social security contributions. The Shenzhen-listed Akcome filed for bankruptcy at one of its subsidiaries on July 29, citing an inability to repay debts.

    While there was no indication of the number of protesters at Akcome, CLB in a separate report profiled a strike involving over 1,000 workers at a shoe factory in Jiangsu province that counts Nike, Adidas, Asics, New Balance, Timberland and Salomon among its clients. The dispute at Yangzhou Baoyi Shoe Manufacturing in November took place over compensation issues affecting laid-off workers after the company moved its production to Indonesia.

    “So far in 2024 there has been no notable improvement of the economy, with a weak labor market being a key source of household insecurity that is weighing down on consumption,” said Zenglein.

    The largest proportion of protests — 344 incidents — were carried out by construction workers demanding wages, according to CLB. This is no surprise, said Zenglein, given the growing number of property developers that have run into financial trouble who are unable to pay their employees, resulting in chaos and ripple effects through the economy.

    China’s strikes are usually by workers who face long working hours and low wages, CLB said. This also casts a light on the disparity in social security coverage between urban and migrant workers. Unlike people with a registered household in a city, many laborers from rural areas work without formal contracts despite forming the economic backbone of their adopted cities.

    “It is difficult for migrant workers to find jobs that pay for social security for 15 years, the prerequisite for getting pension when retired,” the report said.

    This scene from a video posted on X shows a banner criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping in Xinhua, Hunan province.

    As migrant workers are largely excluded from such welfare coverage altogether, “work becomes the hedge against an extremely porous social safety net,” said Yun Zhou, a social demographer and family sociologist at the University of Michigan. These workers “are confronting a harsh, discriminatory labor landscape where work availability is highly susceptible to China’s economic downturn and restructuring, working conditions are often at the will of capricious management, and workers’ productivity and worth are tightly managed by technology and algorithms.”

    In a key socioeconomic planning meeting concluded last month, the government vowed to improve the social security system by addressing the restrictions faced by migration workers. In response to the country’s aging population, it added that the statutory retirement age — currently 60 years for men and between 50 and 55 for women — would be raised gradually and voluntarily. Of course, there has been no centrally-planned civilization in history that managed to raise the retirement age either “voluntarily” and without clashes, violence, and collapse in social cohesion, precisely the three things that Beijing fears the most.

    “For China’s urban workers, the talk of raising retirement ages is felt as a delayed, if not broken, promise of social welfare coverage,” said Zhou.

    Which is precisely why Beijing will have no choice but to blink in the end, and that will mean unleashing a much delayed stimulus bazooka that likes of which have not been seen yet.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 16:40

  • Have You Seen Kamala's Proposed Radical Cabinet? Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel, And More…
    Have You Seen Kamala’s Proposed Radical Cabinet? Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel, And More…

    Via Revolver.news,

    It seems Obama is angling for a fourth term, which is why he’s sidelined Biden in favor of Kamala Harris—the unpopular, inexperienced DEI diva who reportedly used her “womanly ways” to get ahead.

    Why do we know this? We got a sneak peek at Kamala’s proposed cabinet, and it’s a who’s who of Obama-era radicals, starting with head Marxist Eric Holder and the progressive disaster who torched Chicago, Rahm Emanuel. If this scary group of radicals doesn’t light a fire in you to ensure President Trump gets reelected, nothing will.

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

    What’s truly frightening is that these names represent a return to some of the most broken aspects of America.

    Many people believe the Harris/Walz campaign is the biggest astroturf psyop in US political history, which says a lot considering what they pulled off with Basement Biden. At least Biden was well-known and liked by some clueless voters. Harris doesn’t even have that going for her, and as for Tim Walz, no one knows who he is unless you call him “Tampon Tim.”

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    We also know that the Harris/Walz duo is the most radical duo to ever grace the campaign trail, and Kamala’s cabinet list tells you that this crazy train isn’t slowing down.

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

    The radical connections—from the trans agenda to backing Hitler-supporting terrorists—are flooding the internet, and the campaign is reeling, even if they won’t admit it.

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

    A Harris/Walz presidency would be the final nail in America’s coffin. Not to be too hyperbolic, but with the level of extremism and liberal insanity that this administration would bring, especially with the likes of Eric Holder, Jake Sullivan, and Rahm Emanuel, there’s no way America could withstand another four years under such extremism.

    You can watch the entire Glenn Beck video here:

    A Harris/Walz presidency would be the final nail in America’s coffin. Without being too hyperbolic, the level of extremism and liberal insanity this administration would bring—especially with figures like Eric Holder, Jake Sullivan, and Rahm Emanuel—would be more than America could withstand. We can’t afford another four years of such extremism.

    It’s time to take a stand and ensure this doesn’t happen. Get out there, make your voice heard, and fight for the future of this country before it’s too late. This is our last stand.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 16:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 20

Today’s News 20th August 2024

  • Why Might Ukraine Want Russia To Use Nuclear Weapons?
    Why Might Ukraine Want Russia To Use Nuclear Weapons?

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned on Sunday in an interview with leading Russian media that:

    “Such escalation on the part of Ukraine (by invading Kursk) is an attempt to push Russia to asymmetric actions.

    Well, let’s say to use nuclear weapons. I know for sure that Ukraine would be very happy if Russia or we used tactical nuclear weapons there.

    They will applaud it. Then, probably, we would hardly have allies left. In general, there would be no even sympathetic countries left.”

    That sounds absurd on the surface, but it actually makes a lot of sense if one thinks more deeply about it.

    The use of nuclear weapons is taboo because of the physical and environmental damage that they cause.

    There are also credible fears that they’d lead to one’s nuclear-armed adversaries retaliating in a tit-for-tat fashion, thus rapidly climbing the escalation ladder to the brink of World War III. Nevertheless, several states still retain nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes in line with their respective doctrines.

    As regards Russia’s, they can be employed in the event of a large-scale conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state, among other conditions. That hasn’t yet happened in the Kursk context, but the hypothetical scenario of that region or another being completely captured by Ukraine might be deemed by some decisionmakers as meeting the criterion depending on how rapidly the front lines collapse. To be clear, there’s no credible indication that anything of the sort will unfold.

    Nevertheless, Ukraine might capitalize upon its attack there by striking the nearby nuclear power plant. A top Russian military journalist had earlier warned that “[Ukraine] plan[s] to strike the storage sites of spent nuclear fuel of a nuclear power plant” in either Kursk or Zaporozhye. This then prompted the Russian Defense Ministry to officially declare that “tough military and military-technical countermeasures will be taken immediately” in that event.

    Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that such strikes against those targets “could result in a large-scale technogenic catastrophe in Europe”, not to mention in the Russian heartland if the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant melts down in the aftermath. These combined conventional (invasion) and unconventional (de facto dirty bomb) attacks could push Russian decisionmakers closer to seriously considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response as a last resort out of self-defense.

    Whether dropped inside of Russia’s own borders or Ukraine’s, they’d send a political shockwave across the world due to breaking the previously mentioned taboo, which could indeed lead to there being “no even sympathetic countries left” in support of Russia barring a few like North Korea.

    China and India would be under immense pressure to distance themselves from Russia, not just by the West, but also for appearance’s sake since they wouldn’t want to legitimize the use of nuclear weapons by their rivals.

    Reports have also swirled that the US might conventionally retaliate against Russian forces inside of Ukrainian-claimed territory if nuclear weapons are used there, thus placing their proxy war on a direct path to World War III if that happens. Ukraine is still losing to Russia despite its sneak attack in Kursk so its leadership might have calculated, however “irrationally” it seems to objective observers, to provoke Russia into raising the stakes to that level.

    It’s this escalation sequence that Lukashenko likely had in mind when warning that Ukraine wants Russia to use nuclear weapons, which could hypothetically occur if it completely captures a Russian region and/or is responsible for a nuclear catastrophe through its attacks against Russian nuclear power plants.

    The first probably won’t happen since their offensive appears to have been halted, while the second is entirely in Ukraine’s hands, so it’s incumbent on the West to do its utmost to stop them from doing this.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/20/2024 – 02:00

  • Time For NeverTrump Republicans To Put On Their Big Boy Pants & Think Of Their Country
    Time For NeverTrump Republicans To Put On Their Big Boy Pants & Think Of Their Country

    Authored by Brian C. Joondeph via American Thinker,

    My flak jacket is on as I write this since I am sure to offend or piss off some friends, family, and colleagues who are ostensibly Republicans or conservatives but have a visceral aversion to Donald Trump.

    Some tell me they are Republican and miss Ronald Reagan but also admit they “couldn’t” vote for Donald Trump in either 2016 or 2020. Nothing says one is Republican like voting for a liberal Democrat.

    This is the NeverTrump wing of the Republican Party, emerging shortly after Trump secured the GOP nomination in 2016. Reasons for NeverTrump-ism are myriad.

    Some were offended by his mean tweets, name-calling, and brash Queens personality. Others disliked his confidence and determination to punch back twice as hard when attacked, particularly when the attacks were bogus (Russian collusion, fine people, grab em by the p***y, etc).

    Many establishment Republicans only wanted a nominee who was part of George Carlin’s “big club,” with the last name of Bush, or endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal, or the Koch brothers.

    Still others bristled at Trump’s desires to secure America’s borders, avoid foreign wars, achieve American energy independence, and level the playing field of global trade. After all, globalists and the military-industrial complex are happy with and profit immensely from open borders, endless wars, high energy prices, and China-centric trade deals.

    Screenshot The Last Refuge, by permission

    In two and a half months, there will be a reckoning, America First versus America Last. The comparisons to four years ago are legion.

    Trump attempted to build a border wall, despite NeverTrump resistance from his own party. Biden opened the border to the tune of 10,000 known illegal crossings per day.

    Trump nominated three Constitutional Supreme Court justices while Biden nominated one who doesn’t know what a woman is. Democrats want to stack the high court with leftists who will rewrite the U.S. Constitution to resemble Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto.

    Trump’s economy had high employment and low inflation. The Biden/Harris/Obama economy provided the opposite. Trump did not start any foreign wars during his four years in office. Harris/Obama/Biden started wars between Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Iran, and Yemen and the Western world.

    Our national debt has eclipsed $35 trillion. Congress spends $12 million per minute. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is 1.37, red line territory. GDP represents all federal income, personal and government, but federal receipts or income is only $4.4 trillion, an eighth of the debt.

    If the federal government aimed to eliminate the debt, it would take eight years with zero spending on anything the government currently funds. Our rapidly growing debt is not sustainable without some serious course correction. Who is more likely to steer America in the right direction? Obama/Harris/Biden or Trump? This should be an easy answer.

    The current Democrat presidential ticket is two Marxists. They want to command and control all aspects of American economics and life. They will weaponize the government even further to achieve their Orwellian dystopia. The U.K. is imprisoning those who post critical or mean comments on social media. Harris/Walz will say, “Hold my beer” and double down on censorship, punishing anyone who disagrees with Big Brother.

    They will regulate the airline industry to the point that air travel is either unaffordable or impractical. Price controls will be added to food and groceries, limiting choices and creating shortages. How did government control of food distribution work in Venezuela and the U.S.S.R.?

    Taxes would rise under a Harris administration. So would the minimum wage, making small business so small it no longer exists, while big business simply passes on increased wage costs to consumers, a stealth tax.

    Under a Democrat administration, America will send money and U.S. soldiers to defend other countries’ borders, while leaving America’s borders wide open. Illegal aliens will continue terrorizing, injuring, or killing Americans, whether at a Missouri laundromat, a Wisconsin home,  or at a Florida motel.

    Cutesy time is over, as Dan Bongino would say. In a few months, America will either have a reset, or a quick slide into tyranny and chaos.

    Trump is Trump, his personality almost 80 years in the making. He will not suddenly become Ronald Reagan, with a smooth voice and disarming charm. But so what?

    Trump’s brashness is a breath of fresh air compared to career politicians who offer a word salad of platitudes and promises while actually accomplishing nothing.

    When you are dying from some strange disease that no one can diagnose or treat, who do you want caring for you? You could have warm, empathetic, fatherly Dr. Marcus Welby, who doesn’t know what’s wrong with you but holds your hand as you die. Or you could have rude, abrasive, obnoxious Dr. Gregory House who, while making fun of you with zero bedside manner, makes the correct diagnosis and prescribes the proper treatment, allowing you to walk out of the hospital a week later.

    We are not choosing a prom date, a spouse, a roommate, or a valentine. We are choosing the leader of America and the free world. You may not like Trump’s calling his opponents mean names. But did you object when Bush was called ‘Hitler,’ Trump ‘a Nazi,’ or Paul Ryan “pushed” granny off a cliff?

    Politics ain’t beanbag. If your opponent is fighting dirty, you had better step up or you will lose. It seems many NeverTrump Republicans, rather than get their knuckles bloody, would rather take the high road and deliver a kindly concession speech.

    What’s more offensive? J.D. Vance tweeting about the new Democrat base of childless cat ladies? Or the U.K. imprisoning one of her citizens for 20 months for posting on Facebook, “Every man and their dog should be smashing f*** out Britannia Hotel.” While at home we have no problem with Daily Beast and CNN contributor Reza Aslan tweeting, “If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f***ing thing down.”

    Assuming the election actually happens (not derailed by pandemic, cyberattack, or war) and that Harris/Walz is the ticket (rather than Obama, Clinton, or Biden), America is faced with a binary choice. At least the Republican ticket was chosen by voters, unlike the Democrat ticket selected in a smoke-filled room by DNC muckety-mucks.

    NeverTrumpers can pout that their preferred guy or gal was rejected, not by the Chamber of Commerce or Wall Street Journal but by Republican voters, instead nominating someone who speaks to the concerns of millions of Americans and is willing to fight for them. It’s a simple choice and not that complicated.

    Insurrection Barbie on Twitter concluded a rant with this:

    When Trump was president, your streets were safer, your border was secure, your wallet had more money in it, you could buy more goods with your paycheck, and the entire world was at peace instead of on fire.

    Voting for communism is not the solution to your precious feelings.

    Get a therapist.

    Time for NeverTrumpers to put on their big boy pants and think of their country, their children, and grandchildren. Do they want the Marxist world the Democrats are eager to usher in, displayed in real time in the U.K.? Or do they want to push back in the only way practical?

    As Ronald Reagan spoke in 1964, it’s “a time for choosing.” Choose wisely.

    Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor, Substack Dr. Brian’s Substack, Truth Social @BrianJoondeph, and LinkedIn @Brian Joondeph.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 23:25

  • More Than 1 In 9 Americans Live In Poverty
    More Than 1 In 9 Americans Live In Poverty

    In 2022, the U.S. official poverty rate was 11.5% with a total of 37.9 million people in poverty.

    This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the three-year average of poverty rates by U.S. state from 2020 to 2022.

    The poverty rates are calculated using the official poverty measure, which defines poverty by comparing the pre-tax annual income to a specific national threshold adjusted for family size.

    The figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau and are updated as of September 2023.

    Southern U.S. Generally More Poor

    U.S. poverty rates were relatively higher in the South.

    Many of the states with the highest poverty rates, including New Mexico (18.2%), Mississippi (17.8%), Louisiana (16.9%), Arkansas (15.9%), and Kentucky (15.8%), are characterized by large rural areas which are historically poorer than urban areas.

    State Number of people in poverty (in thousands) Percentage of population in poverty
    New Mexico 382 18.2%
    Mississippi 518 17.8%
    Louisiana 765 16.9%
    Arkansas 475 15.9%
    Kentucky 706 15.8%
    Oklahoma 620 15.8%
    West Virginia 274 15.6%
    Alabama 738 14.8%
    District of Columbia 98 14.7%
    Texas 4,026 13.7%
    North Carolina 1,407 13.3%
    South Carolina 693 13.3%
    Florida 2,861 13.1%
    Georgia 1,391 13.0%
    Nevada 394 12.6%
    New York 2,410 12.4%
    Arizona 876 12.1%
    Michigan 1,156 11.7%
    Alaska 81 11.5%
    Missouri 695 11.5%
    Ohio 1,345 11.5%
    California 4,439 11.4%
    Tennessee 796 11.4%
    Indiana 739 10.9%
    Pennsylvania 1,368 10.8%
    Montana 118 10.7%
    Delaware 106 10.5%
    Hawaii 146 10.2%
    Connecticut 350 9.8%
    South Dakota 86 9.7%
    North Dakota 73 9.6%
    Oregon 399 9.5%
    Illinois 1,174 9.4%
    Iowa 299 9.4%
    Kansas 260 9.0%
    Idaho 170 8.9%
    Maine 122 8.9%
    Rhode Island 95 8.8%
    Wyoming 49 8.7%
    Maryland 529 8.6%
    Virginia 733 8.6%
    Colorado 489 8.5%
    Massachusetts 589 8.5%
    Vermont 53 8.4%
    Washington 637 8.3%
    New Jersey 749 8.2%
    Nebraska 159 8.1%
    Wisconsin 467 8.0%
    Minnesota 429 7.7%
    New Hampshire 99 7.1%
    Utah 235 7.1%

    Many of these Southern states also have low levels of education attainment and labor force participation, which contribute to slow economic growth and lower personal income levels.

    Nine of the 15 states with the lowest per-worker GDP are in the South, and states like Kentucky and Arkansas are among the states with the lowest prime-age employment-to-population ratio.

    On the county level, about one in five counties in the South experienced “persistent poverty,” maintaining a poverty rate above 20% for three decades. Over 80% of all persistently poor counties in the U.S. are located in the South.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 23:00

  • Manhattan DA Defers To Judge On Delaying Trump's Sentencing Date
    Manhattan DA Defers To Judge On Delaying Trump’s Sentencing Date

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said it will defer to a New York judge on former President Donald Trump’s request to delay his criminal case sentencing until after the presidential election this year.

    Bragg’s office, in a letter received by the court on Aug. 19, wrote that prosecutors will leave it up to Judge Juan Merchan to decide whether Trump’s sentencing in his New York case should be delayed beyond the current Sept. 18 hearing date.

    Trump’s attorneys last week asked the judge to postpone his sentencing until after the November election, where he is the leading Republican candidate for president. Prosecutors did not specifically oppose the former president’s request for a delay.

    Prosecutors wrote in their letter, “Given the defense’s newly-stated position, we defer to the Court on whether an adjournment is warranted to allow for orderly appellate litigation of that question, or to reduce the risk of a disruptive stay from an appellate court pending consideration of that question.”

    “The People are prepared to appear for sentencing on any future date the Court sets,” the letter continued.

    In their request for a delay, Trump’s lawyers last week wrote to the judge that the sentencing should take place after the start of early voting for the election, saying the timing would harm the proceedings.

    “Sentencing is currently scheduled to occur after the commencement of early voting in the Presidential election,” attorney Todd Blanche wrote.

    “By adjourning the sentencing until after that election—which is of paramount importance to the entire Nation, including tens of millions of people who do not share the views of Authentic, its executives, and its clients—the Court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings.”

    They also argued there was not enough time before the sentencing for the defense to potentially appeal Merchan’s ruling on Trump’s request to overturn the conviction due to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity.

    The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision, which related to a separate criminal case Trump faces, found that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for their official acts, and that evidence of presidents’ official actions cannot be used to help prove criminal cases involving unofficial actions.

    Bragg’s office responded by saying that prosecutors will also not take a position, leaving it to Merchan to decide.

    In their letter, prosecutors said the prospect that Trump immediately appeals the judge’s decision on immunity may mean a potential Sept. 18 sentencing would be delayed anyway after “significant public safety and logistical steps” were already taken to prepare for Trump’s court appearance.

    In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records before Merchan set a July 11 sentencing date. The judge later postponed it to Sept. 18 and last month said he would rule on Trump’s immunity claim on Sept. 16.

    During the six-week-long trial, prosecutors said that Trump criminally concealed payments to prevent an adult performer, Stephanie Clifford, from going public about an alleged affair she said occurred in 2006, which the former president has categorically denied. They further argued that the concealing of the payments was designed to impact the 2016 election with the intent to violate election laws.

    Trump faces criminal charges in two other jurisdictions—one in Fulton County, Georgia, and the other in Washington—for alleged election interference after the 2020 election. His classified records case was dismissed by a federal judge last month, although Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought that case and the Washington one, has vowed to appeal the judge’s decision.

    The Fulton County election case, meanwhile, has been postponed as Trump and several co-defendants have appealed a Fulton County judge’s decision that allowed District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case amid allegations of impropriety. His Washington case restarted several weeks ago after the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.

    Trump pleaded not guilty to all the charges, repeatedly saying they’re politically motivated and designed to harm his 2024 candidacy.

    The May conviction was the first time in U.S. history that a current or former president was convicted of a felony crime. Earlier in August, Trump again attempted to have Merchan recuse himself from the case, which the judge denied.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 22:35

  • Which US States Have The Highest Violent-Crime Rates?
    Which US States Have The Highest Violent-Crime Rates?

    In 2022, there were about 1.2 million violent crimes reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

    Violent crimes comprise of four offenses: homicide (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter), rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

    The national violent crime rate has seen a gradual decrease over the last couple of years. In 2020, it sat at 398 incidents per 100,000 people, and as of 2022 the nationwide number sits at 381 incidents per 100,000 people.

    This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the rate of violent crime per 100,000 individuals by U.S. state in 2022, with the figures from the FBI. The data is current as of October 2023.

    The FBI national crime statistics for 2022 are based on data received from 16,100 of 18,930 participating law enforcement agencies in the country that year.

    Nation’s Capital Leads in Violent Crime

    DC recorded the highest violent crime rate in 2022, at 812 incidents per 100,000 residents. The district also saw the highest homicide rate in the country, at 29 homicides per 100,000.

    State Violent crime rate (incidents per 100,000 individuals)
    District of Columbia 812
    New Mexico 780
    Alaska 759
    Arkansas 645
    Louisiana 629
    Tennessee 622
    California 499
    Colorado 492
    South Carolina 491
    Missouri 488
    Michigan 461
    Nevada 454
    Texas 432
    Arizona 431
    New York 429
    Oklahoma 420
    Montana 418
    Kansas 415
    Alabama 409
    North Carolina 405
    Maryland 398
    Delaware 384
    South Dakota 377
    Washington 376
    Georgia 367
    Oregon 342
    Massachusetts 322
    Indiana 306
    Wisconsin 297
    Ohio 294
    Illinois 287
    Iowa 287
    Nebraska 283
    Minnesota 281
    Pennsylvania 280
    North Dakota 280
    West Virginia 278
    Hawaii 260
    Florida 259
    Mississippi 245
    Utah 242
    Idaho 241
    Virginia 234
    Vermont 222
    Kentucky 214
    New Jersey 203
    Wyoming 202
    Rhode Island 172
    Connecticut 150
    New Hampshire 126
    Maine 103

    This trend is continuing to rise in DC, with a 39% increase in violent crime reported in 2023.

    Armed carjackings, particularly involving youth, have become a significant issue in recent years, with cases doubling from 2022 to 2023.

    Some experts attribute the rise in violent crime to DC’s lack of statehood and its complex network of overlapping law enforcement agencies, such as the Metropolitan Police Department, FBI, U.S. Park Police, and Capitol Police, which makes coordination and communication challenging.

    In second-ranked New Mexico, violent crime has seen a steady rise in the past 10 years, with around 11,660 incidents in 2012 to 16,494 in 2022.

    According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 2011 to 2022, there was an 84% increase in the firearm-related death rate in the state.

    To see how the U.S. homicide rate compares with that of Europe and the UK over time, check out this graphic.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 22:10

  • RNC Asks Supreme Court To Block 41,000 Arizona Voters From Voting In November
    RNC Asks Supreme Court To Block 41,000 Arizona Voters From Voting In November

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

    The Republican National Committee (RNC) asked the Supreme Court on Aug. 19 to prevent 41,000 registered voters from voting in the November presidential election because they allegedly did not provide proof of U.S. citizenship.

    Arizona is a hotly contested battleground that could help determine who wins the election. In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

    The new filing in RNC v. Mi Familia Vota came after the RNC filed an emergency application with the court on Aug. 8. Respondent Mi Familia Vota is a nonprofit group active in Arizona and several other states.

    The application is pending before Justice Elena Kagan.

    At issue in the case are the Arizona laws, H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243, which the state Legislature approved in 2022.

    The statutes require people registering to vote in the state to present “satisfactory” proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, to provide proof of eligibility to vote. The laws also require registrants to provide their state or country of birth and require counties to carry out citizenship verifications and purge noncitizens from the voter rolls. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton halted enforcement of the proof of citizenship mandate on May 2, citing the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Law, and a prior state court order.

    U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton halted enforcement of the proof of citizenship mandate on May 2, citing the federal so-called Motor Voter Law and a prior state court order.

    A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed Bolton’s order by a vote of 2-1 on Aug. 1.

    Although Congress has made it easier for Americans to register to vote, federal rules should not be allowed to supersede “the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections,” the RNC said in the application it originally filed on Aug. 8.

    In the Aug. 19 filing, the RNC referenced the other side’s invocation of the so-called Purcell Principle, which is a judicial doctrine that courts should not change rules close to an election because doing so creates a risk of causing confusion.

    But this approach is wrong because it would require “courts to make a freestanding assessment of whether enforcement or nonenforcement of state election law is more likely to cause confusion.”

    The respondents’ argument would impose an unfair standard because it directs federal courts to look at state enforcement policy and “find that the status quo weighs in favor of an injunction if enforcement has not been vigorous enough,” the brief says.

    This refashioning of the Purcell Principle would also make federal courts “weigh Purcell in favor of an injunction if enough state election officials would prefer that result—even when other state officials would enforce state law.”

    This approach to Purcell would allow federal authorities to interfere with state lawmaking processes.

    “Allowing the Ninth Circuit’s weaponization of Purcell against state election law to stand will only encourage more last-minute injunctions by federal courts,” the brief says.

    Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes urged the Supreme Court to reject the application in a brief filed on Aug. 16.

    It is already too close to the election for the Supreme Court to act in this time-sensitive case, he said.

    “In just a mere 7 weeks, early voting in Arizona will begin. To be sure, at this juncture in Arizona elections, time is not only of the essence, but it is in short supply. “

    “Last minute statewide policy changes like those requested in the Application, no matter how small they may seem to some, can (and Secretary Fontes believes will) drastically impact how affected votes are collected and processed.”

    The U.S. Department of Justice urged the Supreme Court to deny the application.

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a brief filed Aug. 16 that because the NVRA “preempts” the Arizona laws’ requirement that voters file “documentary proof in order to vote for President or vote by mail,” the RNC was “unlikely to prevail” in the case.

    Federal preemption means that a state law that conflicts with federal law is invalid.

    It is unclear when the Supreme Court will act on the RNC’s application.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 21:45

  • Fire Rages At Large Russian State Oil Depot, Still Two Days After Ukraine Drone Attack
    Fire Rages At Large Russian State Oil Depot, Still Two Days After Ukraine Drone Attack

    A massive fire has been raging in the southern Russian city of Proletarsk (in Rostov region) for nearly two days, after a cross-border Ukrainian drone strike on its major state fuel storage facility ignited fuel warehouses.

    Large crews of firefighters have been working to extinguish the blaze for well over 24 hours straight at this point, leaving over 40 of them injured.

    Ukraine claimed responsibility for the Sunday morning drone strike on the “Kavkaz” oil and petroleum storage facility, while Russian authorities said that a diesel fire ignited after local anti-air defense batteries downed inbound drones over the city.

    The Kyiv Independent cited Rostov officials who described “Russian air defense units thwarted the drone attack but their efforts caused debris to strike the facility, setting it on fire.”

    Ukraine officials further noted that  “oil and petroleum products, which were supplied to the Russian occupation army were stored here.”

    Follow-up videos after the initial attack showed new explosions at the site, which could be seen at a great distance. An official state of emergency for the area has been declared.

    Image source: v-pravda.ru

    “As of now, 41 firefighters have been hospitalized. Eighteen of them required extended care, with five in intensive care,” Golubev Rostov region hast stated on Telegram.

    One widely circulating video shows a fireball and smoke plumes so large that firefighters are forced to stand helplessly by and appear unable to do anything while the flames rage several stories high.

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

    In total Russia’s defense ministry later said at least five drones were shot down over Proletarsk during the time when the fire erupted at the fuel depot.

    Proletarsk is a significant distance from Ukraine, at some 250 kilometers (or 155 miles) from the border. 

    Ukraine has launched several large-scale drone attacks on Russian airfields and fuel depots during its major cross-border Kursk offensive since the start of the Aug.6 incursion.

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    By the looks of it, fuel worth hundreds of millions of dollars in state reserves is going up in flames.

    This is the latest disaster in a series of ‘bad news’ developments for the Kremlin as Ukraine tries to desperately hit Russian territory with everything it has, even as Ukraine forces are fairing poorly and are still losing ground along the frontlines in the Donbass.

    Planet Labs overhead satellite image taken Monday afternoon local time.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry (MoD) has meanwhile on Monday said it captured the town of Artemovo in Eastern Ukraine (and called Zalizne in Ukraine), with the MoD describing it as one of the area’s “major population centers.”

    More footage showing just how immense the blaze is…

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 21:20

  • IRS Launches Initiative To Combat Growing Number Of Tax Scams
    IRS Launches Initiative To Combat Growing Number Of Tax Scams

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a new coalition with members of the tax industry on Friday seeking to counter the growth of scams threatening tax systems and taxpayers.

    The new “Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats” (CASST) initiative was convened at the request of IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.

    The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington on Jan. 4, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    It will “work to expand outreach and education about emerging scams, develop new approaches to identify potentially fraudulent returns at the point of filing and create infrastructure improvements to protect taxpayers as well as federal, state and industry tax systems,” the IRS said in an Aug. 16 press release.

    The agency has reported a rising number of identity theft cases. In the 2024 filing season, the IRS confirmed 15,242 instances of fraudulent returns, indicating they were filed by scammers to claim refunds owed to other people. The agency prevented the issuance of more than $180 million in refunds related to these returns.

    The 2024 number was more than 20 percent higher than the confirmed identity theft cases during the 2023 season.

    Additionally, the IRS’s Identity Theft Victims Assistance unit received 294,138 reports of identity theft in fiscal year 2023, according to a report by the Taxpayer Advocate Service. This is the second highest in five years and more than 217 percent up compared to fiscal year 2019.

    The CASST task force will “better protect taxpayers from falling prey to unscrupulous actors by leveraging multilateral relationships across the tax ecosystem to minimize the filing of fraudulent tax returns,” the IRS stated.

    In addition to the IRS, other members of the joint effort include the Federation of Tax Administrators which represents state tax agencies, national tax professional organizations, and leading tech firms operating in the tax industry.

    Groups like the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights and the National Association of Computerized Tax Processors have announced their support for the program. In total, the joint effort has the backing of more than 60 different groups from the private sector.

    The joint effort aims to put in new protections by the 2025 filing season to prevent taxpayers from being scammed. The group will work to make structural changes to improve the ability to spot and stop the scams.

    This includes improving PTIN and EFIN validation as well as steps to counter “ghost preparers,” referring to fake tax preparers who encourage people to claim credits and benefits for which they don’t qualify. They charge a hefty fee from taxpayers and then disappear after the return is prepared, leaving taxpayers to deal with the consequences of incorrect claims.

    Scamming Taxpayers

    Over the past months, the IRS has issued warnings about several scams targeting taxpayers. In April, the agency issued an alert over fake charities seeking donations from unsuspecting people.

    “We see repeated instances of scammers using major disasters as a way to prey on well-meaning taxpayers. In these tragic situations, many people want to help, but con artists too frequently come in posing as charitable groups to take advantage of the situation, stealing money and personal information,” said Werfel.

    “People should remember it’s important to never feel pressured to give donations immediately. They should do some research and only donate to clearly established charities that help victims.”

    Some scammers make use of the IRS’s offer in compromise (OIC) program to mislead taxpayers. OIC is an initiative aimed at helping taxpayers who cannot pay federal tax debts.

    Many taxpayers are applying for the program after being pushed into it by scamsters who charged excessive fees for their services, the IRS stated.

    Earlier in March, the IRS warned taxpayers about phishing scams designed to steal their personal information. Identity thieves are attempting to trick taxpayers into clicking online links that entice them to submit private info or download malware to their systems.

    IRS warned people not to click any unsolicited communication claiming to be from the agency as it could load malware onto their computers and steal information.

    Then, there were scams that encouraged taxpayers to apply for refunds for which they are not eligible. For instance, some taxpayers were found claiming fuel tax credits that are only applicable for certain business activities such as running a farm or purchasing aviation gasoline. Taxpayers were found to have created fictional household employees to claim refunds.

    “The IRS has seen hundreds of thousands of dubious claims come in where it appears taxpayers are claiming credits for which they are not eligible, leading to refunds being delayed and the need for taxpayers to show they have legitimate documentation to support these claims,” the agency said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 20:55

  • Democratic D.C Councilman Arrested & Charged With Bribery, Faces 15 Years In Jail
    Democratic D.C Councilman Arrested & Charged With Bribery, Faces 15 Years In Jail

    Washington, D.C., Councilman Trayon White Sr. has been charged with bribery, according to court filings unsealed on Aug. 19.

    White was arrested on Sunday by federal authorities.

    As Zachary Stieber reports at The Epoch Times, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent, White agreed to accept $156,000 in cash in exchange for using his position as a member of Washington’s District Council to pressure government employees to extend contracts valued at $5 million.

    White indeed took payment of $35,000 in cash across four separate occasions—the most recent on Aug. 9—from the owner of the companies that were given the contracts, according to the affidavit.

    City code bars public officials from accepting any gifts from people or entities that have or are seeking to obtain contractual or other business with Washington’s government.

    White and the owner met on June 26 to discuss a scheme that involved the owner paying White money to ascertain whether contracts for the owner’s companies with the District of Columbia Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement would be extended, according to charging documents. White accepted $15,000 at the meeting and said he would discuss with a certain government employee what would happen with the contracts.

    In a meeting about three weeks later, the pair met again and White gave the owner updates on the contracts and received $5,000, the FBI agent said.

    During another meeting in July, the owner allegedly gave White $10,000 and they talked about his ongoing efforts to extend the contracts the companies had with the neighborhood office and the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, which he oversees as chairman of the District Council’s Committee on Recreation, Libraries, and Youth Affairs. White was also working on helping secure new contracts for the companies.

    “I feel good energy about what we embarking on, what we trying to do. I want to bring you up to speed before we go in here about stuff I’ve been working on, trying to get you where you need to be,” White was quoted as saying.

    In the last meeting, in August, White received $5,000, according to the affidavit, which included images of White holding white envelopes that were said to be full of money. He said local officials had told him the contracts were poised to be extended.

    The owner of the companies provided information to federal officials as part of a plea agreement he reached in which he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bribery related to how he fraudulently obtained loans from the federal government and bribed White.

    “Because the investigation into the alleged bribery scheme involved contracts that could soon be awarded and other potential official acts that could be taken, our Office took swift steps to address the alleged crimes we were investigating,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said in a statement.

    A query to a spokesperson for White returned an away message. White has not appeared to comment on his arrest and the charge. He did not have an attorney listed on the court docket.

    White, a Democrat, first joined the District Council in January 2017 and was reelected to another term in 2020.

    The law that White is accused of violating bars officials from demanding, seeking, receiving, accepting, or agreeing to receive or accept anything of value in return for “being influenced in the performance of any official act; being influenced to commit or aid in committing, or to collude in, or allow, any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud, on the United States; or being induced to do or omit to do any act in violation of the official duty of such official or person.”

    White faces up to 15 years in prison as well as a fine of up to three times the money he agreed to accept.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 20:30

  • Into The Great Depression, Part 1: The Roaring '20s & The Creation Of The Fed
    Into The Great Depression, Part 1: The Roaring ’20s & The Creation Of The Fed

    Authored by Tumoas Malinen via substack,

    Something that has been a particular interest of mine is the Great Depression of the 1930s. It continues to be the deepest global economic malaise of modern times, which preceded the most destructive war in human history. The extreme nature of the economic contraction has intrigued me, in addition to the path that led to it. The latter mostly because of the role of the newly created central bank, the Federal Reserve, in it.

    I’ve written extensively on the Great Depression in a book I am writing about forecasting financial crises. I think that the similarities between now and the era leading into the Depression are strikingly similar. This is why I decided to publish a series mapping the path of the U.S., and the world, into the deep global economic collapse. I start by mapping the route to the ‘Great Crash’, that is, to the collapse of the U.S. stock market at the end of October 1929.

    In just four trading bays between 23 and 29 October 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) collapsed by 29% wiping out massive amounts of financial wealth. While the 1929 crash did not start the Great Depression, it laid the groundwork for it. Worryingly we seem to be on a similar road that led to the Great Crash, which I will map in this first entry to the series. I will also detail the creation of the Federal Reserve, which played a major role in the financial mania that led to the crash.

    What is notable with the period, which preceded the Great Depression, is that many leading nations across the world experienced an economic decline at the same time, which manifested into a global banking crisis. We are seeing signs of the same kind of global slowdown now.

    Before we dig deeper, let me inform that I decided to the make my piece on the Systemic Meltdown free to read. This is because, I think that everyone should understand what such an event would entail for the world, and how we could be able to manage it.

    Now, let’s enter the ‘history lane’.

    The Roaring Twenties

    During the 1920’s, the United States became a dominant global power. She was the world’s leading exporter and second as an importer. Also, between 1924 and 1931, the US was responsible for around 60 percent of global international lending, making her the world’s banker.

    High levels of imports and overseas investments from the US provided ample dollar liquidity to other countries, which were used to service international debts and to import goods and services. A high portion of this debt was short-term, but that did not bother the recipient countries.

    The re-established global gold standard also acted in a pro-cyclical manner. Many countries were worried about their currencies appreciating due to capital inflows, and fixed their exchange rates to gold. This included, for example, Finland, France and Italy. But, because real appreciation through consumer price inflation was generally not allowed either, capital inflows were transformed into credit booms. Some countries, like the United Kingdom, fixed their exchange rate too high and were forced constantly to maintain restrictive credit conditions to support the overvalued currency. So, contrary to its original aim, the gold standard and fixed exchange rates actually fed the asset and credit booms or, alternatively, pushed countries to credit contraction.

    The ‘Roaring Twenties’ was thus not a continuous economic boom, with for example the U.S. experiencing three recessions: from January 1920 to July 1921, from May 1923 to July 1924 and from October 1926 to November 1927, according to the NBER. However, it was a relentless financial asset boom with, for example, the DJIA pushing through two recessions without even flinching.

    The role of the newly formed central bank, the Federal Reserve, behind the credit boom of the 1920’s and subsequent crash is undeniable. The creation of the “Fed” was also mired with worries it would end up socializing the economy. As we now know, these fears were not unfounded.

    The creation of the Federal Reserve

    There had been several attempts to create a national or central bank in the U.S. during the 1800s, but those efforts had failed. The Panic of 1907, the first financial crisis of the twentieth century, was a game changer. The crisis started after several investors suffered crippling losses on their speculative bets. This started runs in the banks these investors were associated with. Runs spread to trust companies, which were unregulated financial intermediaries outside the banking system, providing liquidity (loans) to stockbrokers. They were the “shadow banks” of the time, loosely tied to commercial banks but a crucial part of the financial ecosystem. To stem the panic, banker J.P. Morgan personally guaranteed parts of the US banking system and solicited cash from large financial institution and industries to the exchange to support brokers. He also created a group of financiers to support ailing institutions and to buy plummeting stocks of sound companies. Yet, the Panic evolved into a deep economic contraction surpassed only by the Great Depression. Moreover, it gave more power to demands that the US banking system required a “liquidity backstopper”, i.e. a central bank.

    In 1908, a Republican controlled Congress passed the Aldrich-Vreeland Act creating the National Monetary Commission, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich. The Commission introduced a public-private consortium entitled the National Reserve Association, to serve as a central bank. In the proposed institution, the decision-making leaned heavily towards the private sector. For example, out of the 46 proposed directors, 42 were to be appointed, indirectly and directly, by banks. The 1912 elections turned both the Congress and the White House to Democrats, which then made their own efforts for the monetary reform. In 1912, legislation known as the Glass-Willis proposal was introduced. The legislation aimed at creating a central bank through a compromise, which eventually led to the passing of the Federal Reserve Act on 23 December, 1913.

    The “socialization” of the economy, by the Federal Reserve, was especially worrisome to  the Republicans highlighted in the proposition for the National Reserve Association. A German-American banker, Paul Warburg, noted on the situation that “The view was generally held that centralization of banking would inevitably result in one of two alternatives: either complete governmental control, which meant politics in banking, or control by ‘Wall Street’, which meant banking in politics”. Efforts to establish a compromise between these two alternatives took many forms.

    First of all, the power of the Fed to issue legal tender (currency) was restricted by both the ‘real bills doctrine’ and the gold standard. The regional privately-owned Reserve Banks, not the government-controlled Federal Reserve Board, were given the control for the creation of central bank credit, or money. That is, regional Reserve Banks lend to banks in accordance with their needs, and the Federal Reserve Board holds just a supervisory role. The Reserve Board did not conduct independent open-market operations, nor did it have any national interest rate policy. The “monetary policy” was conducted through Reserve Banks, who mostly responded to the needs of commercial banks.

    The real bills doctrine stated that the Fed could only extend credit and thus increase the supply of money against collateral that already had established value through a “commercial transaction”. This meant that the value of the collateral could not be in the future and that it needed to have a price set in the markets. This, effectively, banned the monetization of the federal debt by the central bank, where the central bank buys debt directly from the Treasury. Yet, it was difficult to assess what constituted a “real bill”, which meant that different regional Reserve Banks had differing policies concerning the collateral they received from their loans.1

    It was assumed that such a ‘two-tier system’ would ensure that neither the banks nor the government could take an upper hand in this newly created, “centralized” monetary system. This assumption failed.

    The Fed started to takeover the economy, or to “socialize” it, effectively right after its inception. The real bills doctrine slowly faded away in the 1920s, and the Fed started its open-market operations, where it buys or sells securities of the US treasury to the banks to manipulate the short-term interest rate. Moreover, also in the 1920s, the Fed started to develop the federal funds market, where deposits or ‘reserves’,  obliged and voluntary savings by commercial banks at the Reserve Banks, would be transferred nationally to banks in need, overnight. Yet, the Board did not control it, neither did the Fed have a target rate to manipulate banking lending in the economy through the interest rate set on the reserves. Now, the Fed Funds Rate, set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) used in the overnight lending activities between banks and the Fed, effectively dictates the price (interest) of bank credit in the economy. This was never the idea.

    The Banking Act of 1935 ended the autonomy of the Reserve Banks, and the Board received the authority over open-market operations. The government-side of the Fed started to take over, which meant that the fears regarding the socialization of the economy started to materialize. Yet, there was one factor standing in between the socialization of the economy by the Fed, and the still-somewhat-free monetary system: The gold standard.

    The Gold Standard

    In a gold standard, which had been returned somewhat forcefully after the First World War, the stock of gold of a nation and its demand affects the availability of money and inflation. This meant that the Federal Reserve had only a limited control over money in circulation in the economy. It could not print it at will.

    In a gold standard, the flow of gold into a country through, e.g., international trade increases the gold reserves and thus the supply of money (credit) in the economy. To sterilize, the central bank can let the ratio of gold reserves to notes in circulation to increase or it can rise the interest rate to tighten the supply of short-term credit. Outflows of gold naturally has an opposite effect diminishing the amount of money in circulation, unless interest rates are lowered or ratio of gold reserves to notes lowered.

    In the 1920’s, the Fed let the share of gold reserves to notes rise effectively sterilizing all gold inflows from abroad. This was seen as the main factor keeping the consumer price inflation at bay. However, the flow of gold to the US and its sterilization also “exported” deflation to other countries, who were forced to cut back the supply of domestic credit due to falling gold reserves. So, while the money stock of the US was kept at bay by letting the share of gold reserves to rise this also meant that the interest rates were kept relatively low from around 1922 till 1928, which fed the speculation in the asset and real estate markets. The credit boom intensified peaking in 1925 and again in 1927. In the absence of signs of inflation, the Fed had little motives to rise short term interest rates even there were rather clear signs of a real estate and consumer booms. The 1920’s kept on “roaring”.

    Regardless of its flaws, the gold standard was a crucial element in the playbook of those, who tried stop the socialization of the economy by the Federal Reserve, because it restricted the creation of money by the central bank. This was removed in early 1970s by the dissolution of Bretton-Woods, unleashing the money printing and economy-manipulation ability of the Fed in its totality. We can also argue that, at that point, the government-side of the Fed totally took over.

    During the Spring of 2020, at the wake of the Corona-shock, we wittnessed the full socialization of the financial market of the U.S. Durign that Spring, the Fed backstopped U.S. Treasury markets, intervened in corporate commercial-paper and municipal bond markets and short-term money-markets. Alas, the socialization of the U.S. economy, feared by those who objected the creation of the Federal Reserve over 100 years ago was complete, and I fear that the Fed will not stop there. More on that later. Now, back to the 1920s.

    Feeding the speculation

    A change in the mindset of the Federal Reserve arrived in January 1928, when a consensus was reached that the era of easy money (cheap credit) should end. The Reserve Banks began to sell their government securities, diminishing the supply of money, and gradually raised the discount rate, which determines the interest rate banks are charged on their loans from the Fed, to five percent from 3.5 percent. The Fed was afraid that a sudden change in monetary policy and tighter credit conditions might be destabilizing for business and the asset markets and tried to gently deflate the bubble on Wall Street by making the bank borrowing for speculation gradually more expensive. However, the policy had unintended and major domestic and international consequences.

    A noticeable industry of non-bank lenders developed during the 1920’s, and higher rates made more funds available for stock market speculation from these non-bank sources. Stockbrokers’ loans were usually funded by the large balance sheets of corporations, which made them a viable option for investors as rates at money markets rose. For example, during 1929, Standard Oil of New Jersey contributed $69 million to call market per day, on average. As investors had looked overseas for funds, their sudden turn to domestic funds drew dollar liquidity from international markets. Although other foreign lenders stepped up to cover at least some of these flows, the withdrawal of dollar liquidity, e.g., drove Germany into a recession and the UK to the brink of a recession already before the crash in Wall Street. Moreover, as call rates for margin loans rose in the US, it became profitable for banks to borrow cheaply from the Fed and lend the money to speculators with a very good margin. During the last weeks of 1928, the call market rate rose to 12%, while the Fed funds rate was 5%. A window for a great arbitrage trading opened to all banks feeding the stock market frenzy. The prices of stocks increased three-fold between 1927 and August 1929.

    There was a one major innovation in the stock markets during the 1920’s that fed the speculation. Trading at the margin enabled the buyer of the stock to greatly increase his/her leverage. The idea of buying a security at the margin is that the security is left with the broker as a collateral for the loan used to buy the asset, while the investor pays only a small cash deposit (the margin). The invention of margin trading thus greatly amplified the speculation in the stock market. In the 1920’s, earnings were also generally much less than the interest of the margin lending. Therefore, the buyer on margin was betting mostly on the rise of the stock price in question. Notably, broker’s loans, which define the collateral used to buy assets at the margin, started to rise strongly in 1928. In the same year, credit growth accelerated clearly above its long-term trend. A convincing case can therefore be made that the speculative bubble in the stock market started only as late as 1928.

    Troubles emerge

    On December 4, 1928, President Coolidge noted in his state of the union address that:

    No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospects than that which appears at present time. In the domestic field there is tranquility and contentment […] and the highest record of years of prosperity.

    There definitely were reasons for joy. The US economy had grown by close to 40 percent from the dismal year of 1921. The Federal Reserve index of industrial production had almost doubled (it did double when reaching its peak in June 1929). Wages had not risen so much, but prices were stable. Business earnings rose rapidly. There, of course, were also some problems. Most notably, the rich were getting richer much faster than the poor were able to escape from their impoverished state. Income inequality grew rapidly basically all though the 1920’s.

    The first half of 1929 was marked with increasing market volatility and some close calls. The stock market kept on rising and the economic boom continued, but the Fed was becoming ever more nervous about the speculation and the flow of funds from corporations and individuals to feed it. The Board of the Fed did not want to address the issue directly, but it also kept on pondering how to respond. In early February 1929, the Federal Reserve Board issued two statements, from which the first was aimed to individual Federal Reserve banks and the latter for the general public, with one clear message: the Federal Reserve facilities were not to be used to aid the growth in speculation. At almost exactly the same time, the Bank of England raised its bank rate from 4.5 to 5.5%. Stock markets dropped, but soon recovered.

    In March 1929, the Federal Reserve Board was meeting constantly in Washington. Because no statements were given from the meetings, it started to make investors nervous. On March 25, the selling in the highly over-valued stock market began. Banks also began to curb their loans to the call market and the rate of brokers’ loans rose strongly. On March 26, it looked like a selling panic could form, but one banker, Charles E. Mitchell, acted to stem the flow. He stated that his bank, the National City, would loan money as necessary to prevent a market liquidation. His bank also borrowed from the New York Fed and thus did what the Board of the Fed had explicitly warned against. Money rates eased and markets rallied. Charles E. Mitchell had single-handedly saved the stock market, and while he faced some grilling from the Senate there were no legal or other actions against him. There was a sense of relief, which was short-lived.

    During the latter stages of the boom, it was a common belief that earning and dividends would continue to grow rapidly because of systematic application of science to industry, development of modern management technologies and business mergers. These were, in practice, the same ones that historians have used to explain the ‘Roaring Twenties’, and which have been used many times after the 1920’s to explain booms. As always, during the boom, they seem totally valid arguments. Like many times after the 1920’s, high stock prices and high price-earnings ratios were also a consequence of expected rapid growth in earnings.

    So, while dark clouds gathered, the twenties kept on roaring, until suddenly they did not.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 20:05

  • Harley-Davidson Hits Brakes On Woke Activism Amid Boycotts & Bud Light Treatment At Sturgis
    Harley-Davidson Hits Brakes On Woke Activism Amid Boycotts & Bud Light Treatment At Sturgis

    Commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck’s strategy to expose all the insane woke activism within mega-corporations with large conservative customer bases logged another win today. This comes on the heels of his successful campaign to pressure Tractor Supply into scrapping its diversity, equity, and inclusion program and forcing John Deere to scale back its DEI policies. 

    Nearly a month after Starbuck launched the anti-woke crusade against iconic motorcycle brand Harley-Davidson in an X post titled “It’s time to expose Harley Davidson,” Harley issued a press release explaining earlier today, “We are saddened by the negativity on social media over the last few weeks, designed to divide the Harley-Davidson community.” 

    In response to mounting social media backlash and boycotts at the 84th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally earlier this month, Harley succumbed to Starbuck’s pressure by eliminating DEI functions at the company and woke spending goals. This is a victory for Harley riders, as the company now pledges to focus its sponsorships on motorcycling, first responders, active military, and veterans. Also, it said there would be no more woke training for employees.

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    Some X users suggested that the boycott at the 84th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota earlier this month was a wake-up call for management. The event is the largest motorcycle rally in the world. As Starbuck pointed earlier this month, the Harley tent at Sturgis received the ‘Bud Light treatment’. 

    Add Harley to the list. 

    Not all X users were satisfied with Starbuck’s win. They said until the CEO and other leftist activists in management are fired, these folks are just going to rebrand wokeism. 

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    Which major American brand will Starbuck target next?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 19:40

  • 1,307 Days
    1,307 Days

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    One thousand, three hundred and seven. That’s how many days Kamala Harris has been Vice President of the United States, effective this Monday.

    Now let’s do a thought experiment. Put aside the fact that Harris was arbitrarily made the Democratic nominee without ever receiving a delegate or winning a primary.

    And put aside the fact that, after usurping power via an in-party coup, she has continued as its candidate for nearly a month without giving an unscripted press conference or taking questions.

    Let’s focus on the fact that this candidate, who has been part and parcel of the well-being of the state of the nation for the better part of four years, is not only completely blind to the damage her current administration’s policies have caused but is publicly calling them out. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s proposing policy solutions that are going to make the problems created by her policies worse.

    Last week, taking a break from reading the same thing from a teleprompter every day, somebody on Harris’s strategy team thought it would be a good idea to begin trashing the economy of the country over the last three years.

    The problems are well known: the country has been suffering from ridiculous inflation, and prices are through the roof, placing a burden on many low- and middle-class families.

    Image

    Chart: Zero Hedge

    “We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed, but our supply chains have now improved and prices are still too high,” she said on Friday. “A loaf of bread costs 50% more today than it did before the pandemic. Ground beef is up almost 50%.”

    But the alarm is coming from inside the house.

    “Under the Biden-Harris administration, grocery prices have shot up 21%, part of an inflation surge that has raised overall costs by about 19% and soured many Americans on the economy, even as unemployment fell to historic lows. Wages have also risen sharply since the pandemic, and have outpaced prices for more than a year. Still, surveys find Americans continue to struggle with higher costs,” ABC wrote last week.

    The same report makes it clear that grocery prices are now only rising in-line with pre-pandemic rates of change: “Grocery prices are still painfully high compared to four years ago, but they increased just 1.1% in July compared with a year earlier, according to the most recent inflation report. That is in line with pre-pandemic increases.”

    In other words, the price gouging boogeyman doesn’t seem to exist.

    The stunning thing is Kamala Harris is now campaigning on being able to fix these problems when her administration oversaw them to begin with. I mean, I knew a lot of the Democratic Party base was essentially the voting equivalent of trained circus seals and that they are going to vote for whatever candidate the state stuffs down their throat as the solution to racism and climate change anyway, but this is far more egregious.

    When CNN is running headlines like this and you’re a Democrat, you know your policy has to really be horrific:

    Same with The Washington Post running opinion columns like this one:

    Think of the hubris necessary to run on a platform of fixing the policies of the last administration when you are the last administration.

    Source: WaPo

    Now, let’s take that destructive idiocy and square it: the proposed “solutions” Harris is coming up with are all extraordinarily inflationary. Harris has proposed cancelling medical debt, a $6,000 child tax credit for families within a newborn child, $25,000 in downpayment assistance for 400,000 first-generation home buyers and a $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers.

    In other words: “Hubba, hubba, hubba, money, money, money. Who do you trust?”

    In the world of unicorns and rainbows, this all sounds great. But back here in reality, where people know there are always consequences to actions, the country simply doesn’t have the money to pay for this crap. That means that the money for these proposals is going to have to be printed, and, as most of us know, expanding the money supply is the literal definition of inflation.

    Putting aside the moral hazard that these policies would create—namely, that giving everybody a $25,000 credit to buy a house guarantees the price of housing rises by $25,000 per house because the seller now knows that you’re $25,000 richer—the result is going to be more inflation.

    And at the same time Harris proposes slamming the inflation accelerator down to the floor, she’s turning around and blaming the problem that the government is creating—inflation—on grocery stores and “price gouging.”

    As a result, she has proposed price controls on food, a policy you would be more likely to see in North Korea or communist Russia than in Los Angeles and New York. Price controls do nothing to solve the problem: they only would lead to food shortages, black markets, and grocery stores so burdened by regulation that would be forced to go out of business if they can’t raise their prices.

    🔥 50% OFF FOR LIFE: Using the coupon entitles you to 50% off an annual subscription to Fringe Finance for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber: Get 50% off forever

    Even a Mensa candidate like Harris should understand that grocery stores have some of the lowest margins of any business. They have hiked prices on items because the cost of producing those items has risen. Just because Harris doesn’t like the end result of shrinkflation and higher prices doesn’t make the idea of micromanaging a state-planned economy any more of a solution than it has been all the times it has failed throughout history.

    Harris has called her plan an “economic opportunity plan”, but the only thing that creates opportunity, lowers prices, and gives consumers more choice and a better bargain is free-market capitalism. Subsidizing houses with taxpayer money, worsening the problem that the welfare state has created by incentivizing having children, using taxpayer money and purchasing power to socialize other people’s fiscal irresponsibility and trying to exercise government control over the cost of rice and beans is the opposite of having a vibrant free-market economy that offers people opportunity.

    Instead, it is literally throwing a wet blanket of communism over what’s left of our country’s economy and implementing arguably the worst possible “solutions” to fix the problem of inflation that the country is grappling with. If these harebrained ideas take hold, the country will suffer from significantly more inflation than it has dealt with over the last three years. The result would make the stagflation that we are dealing with now a mainstay for many years to come and would also disincentivize the rest of the world from holding U.S. dollars and U.S. treasuries.

    And so there you have it: the party that constantly fearmongers and scares its base into thinking that not voting for them will result in authoritarian fascism is pushing an unelected candidate, selected by a handful of the country’s elites, eager to usher in an openly communist agenda that is all but guaranteed to destroy the fabric of our country.

    You can’t make this sh*t up.

    Now read:

    QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 19:15

  • Watch: Security Perimeter At DNC Breached By Protesters
    Watch: Security Perimeter At DNC Breached By Protesters

    Update (1907ET):

    The Democratic National Convention is in full swing.

    Reports from local media outlets and journalists on the ground reveal that protesters breached the first layer of the security perimeter on the north side of the United Center, just hours before President Biden’s scheduled speech this evening.

    Here’s more color on the security incident from Fox 32 Chicago: 

    Protesters broke through a portion of the security fence on West Washington Boulevard. Chicago cops could be seen running to confront the demonstrators. There was a brief standoff between the police and protesters.

    Officers donned riot gear as they faced off with the large crowd. Arrests were also made. A woman was seen being led away in handcuffs, while a man was carried away by several officers.

    After about 20 minutes, tensions calmed down and police could be seen reconstructing the broken fence. All protesters were moved out of the secured area.

    “First layer of fence outside DNC breached,” independent journalist Ford Fischer wrote on X. 

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    Fischer provided more footage of the tense situation. 

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    Other X citizen journalists are reporting from the incident area. Another user said, “The DNC Perimeter has been breached.” 

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    Here’s what others are reporting: 

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    Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,

    Starting Monday, Democrats will hold their long-anticipated national convention during which they’ll formally nominate their presidential candidate and outline to voters their vision for the future.

    The Democratic National Convention (DNC) will formally lock in the presidential and vice presidential nominees for both major parties.

    Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), were nominated at the Republican National Convention last month.

    Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, clinched enough delegates to win her party’s nomination at the beginning of August during a virtual roll vote that left little room for last minute dissenters.

    She’s expected to accept the nomination, along with her chosen running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in speeches delivered on the final two nights of the event.

    This is set to be a very different convention than voters expected at the beginning of the election cycle, when President Joe Biden led the ticket for Democrats.

    However, a pressure campaign forced Biden out of the candidacy after an underwhelming debate performance shock up the political landscape.

    Since Harris took over the ticket, Democrats have enjoyed a boost in polling. Still, the stakes are high for Harris and the Democrats, who will need to put on a united front after months of division within the party.

    Here’s what to expect during the second major party convention of the year.

    When and Where

    The DNC will be held from Monday, Aug. 19, to Thursday, Aug. 22, in Chicago.

    Democrats have a long history of holding their conventions in the windy city—this will be the 12th time since 1864 that the convention has been hosted there.

    The last DNC to be held in Chicago was in 1996, when President Bill Clinton was easily re-nominated by his party.

    The main event this year is being held at the United Center, a convention center that doubles as the home stadium for the Chicago Bulls basketball team and the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team.

    Around 50,000 attendees are expected, including the party’s approximately 5,000 delegates. Like most major political events, it won’t be open to the public.

    However, it will stream on a variety of platforms, according to the party.

    In addition to the normal media coverage of the event each night, voters will also be able to watch the convention online, courtesy of C-Span.

    The event will also be streamed in its entirety via Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube using the vertical style popularized by those apps.

    Additional delegate-only events that are not streamed to the public will be hosted at the nearby McCormick Center.

    Speakers

    The convention will feature speeches from an array of Democrat notables.

    Biden will be among the first speakers. He’s expected to call into the convention via video.

    As is tradition at these events, neither Walz nor Harris are expected to speak until the final two days: Walz is likely to speak on the second to last day of the convention, and Harris on the final night.

    Speakers are expected to appear according to this schedule:

    Aug. 19: 

    • President Joe Biden
    • Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
    • Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

    Aug. 20: 

    • Former President Barack Obama

    Aug. 21: 

    • Former President Bill Clinton
    • Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

    Aug. 22: 

    • Vice President Kamala Harris

    Time and Day TBD:

    • Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson
    • Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
    • Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)
    • Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.)

    Platform

    During the convention, Democrats will also formally adopt their party’s draft platform.

    Released in July, the draft platform mentions Trump dozens of times.

    It also details Democrats’ position on an array of issues.

    It reiterates Democrats’ demands for a federal codification of Roe v. Wade—unsurprising as abortion is one of Democrats’ strongest polling issues.

    Economically, there’s not much in the platform that’s especially new: it calls for the federal minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour by 2026, policies to increase the affordability of childcare and healthcare, and making the Child Tax Credit permanent.

    Additionally, the platform repeats Democrats’ long-held demands for higher taxation of very wealthy individuals and corporations.

    The draft platform also calls for securing the southern border while providing a “pathway to citizenship” for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country.

    However, this platform, released in early July, hasn’t been updated since Biden dropped out.

    Now, hours before the convention kicks off, it still lists Biden as the party’s candidate.

    As is usually the case at major party conventions, the platform will be discussed, debated, amended, and formally ratified during the convention.

    Protests

    While Democrats seek to project an image of unity, there’s one factor that’s outside of the party’s control: expected protests from interest groups on the left.

    Namely, protestors are expected to move full steam ahead with protests originally planned against Biden.

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    One protest, organized as the “March on the DNC 2024,” will feature a group of around 200 left wing-groups, and could potentially number into the tens of thousands—raising concerns about event security.

    Specifically, the protestors are demanding that the DNC and Harris change their stance on Israel, calling for the United States to “stand with Palestine” and “end U.S. aid to Israel,” along with a laundry list of other left-wing demands.

    The event already has the highest possible federal security classification.

    Security for the event will be handled by a coalition of local, state, and federal law enforcement, including the Secret Service.

    Despite the challenges, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and local police have maintained that the event will be secure.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 19:07

  • For A Democrat, The American Heartland's Normalcy Is A Terrifying Dystopia
    For A Democrat, The American Heartland’s Normalcy Is A Terrifying Dystopia

    Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

    The Civil War tore America apart and left 600,000 dead. Still, despite its ferocity, it had at its heart only one big issue: whether the Constitution’s promise of individual liberty overrode states’ rights to govern themselves. Otherwise, Americans were much the same: the Bible, hard work, heterosexuality, the nuclear family, anti-crime, etc.

    America today actually faces a more profound schism than it did then because we’ve become two entirely different people.

    An opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle really hammers the point home, as a regular columnist looks at a county fair in the Heartland and sees a dystopian world.

    Soleil Ho identifies herself a plural being who should be referred to as “they” and “them.” She is “an opinion columnist and cultural critic, focusing on gender, race, food policy and life in San Francisco.” She’s even made it to Joy Reid’s show for exposing the horror of parents who are opposed to the push to destroy their children’s biological reality with the lunacy of “transgenderism.”

    Image by AI.

    Ho recently took a trip to visit relatives in the American heartland (perhaps rural Illinois) and professed herself to be absolutely horrified by what she found there. The headline of Ho’s San Francisco Chronicle essay (and I don’t know whether Ho or the Chron came up with this headline) is “I took a trip to Trump country. It was more bleak than I could have imagined.”

    I opened the essay assuming that I’d read about the economic despair that decades of Democrat policies have visited on rural America: Shuttered factories and stores, homelessness, drug addiction, foreclosed homes, crime-ridden communities, illegal aliens sucking up public funds, etc.

    Instead, Ho described a bucolic county fair, complete with “rides, the charcoal-kissed meat skewers and the stall that churns out fried cheese curds, those little molten pebbles enrobed in crisp chambers of light-as-air batter,” along with happy people collecting “plenty of award ribbons for photography, cookies, crafts and giant garden-grown vegetables.”

    But for Ho, none of this mattered. Attending the fair with Democrat relatives trapped in a Heartland hellhole, the real evil lurked beneath this Arcadian surface. These happy people celebrating their lives and eating wonderful fair food are evil. Truly evil. Why? Because they support Trump:

    Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every T-shirt stall was draped with Trump flags: “I’m voting for the felon,” “F— Biden” and the relatively anodyne, “I’m With Trump.” While browsing the pet supply shop across from the local Republican Party’s stall, I saw GOP staff greeted with cheers and raised fists — echoing Donald Trump’s triumphant pose after the assassination attempt on him — by numerous fairgoers wearing red caps and “Ultra MAGA” shirts. “Boo, Kambala!” yelled a woman, laughing.

    In packed queues for roasted corn, I squeezed past parents balancing their children’s plastic lemonade cups in their arms with “Trump/Vance 2024” lawn signs tucked under their armpits. “Nice sign!” one blonde, elementary school-age girl shouted above the din, with her thumbs up at a woman holding one of them.

    Ho was also confronted with the terrible specter of men in floral Hawaiian shirts.

    You and I, staunch conservatives, may just think, “Ooh, I like Hawaiian shirts” or “Oh, that’s kind of tacky,” but the alert woke person knows better.

    Ho hears the dog whistle of the “boogaloo” movement, a seriously fringe and ineffective group that no conservatives care about.

    I suspect that while a scattering of Hawaiian shirts horrifies Ho, she’s copacetic about hundreds of masked Antifa members attacking people, fire-bombing federal buildings, and otherwise engaging in violent mayhem.

    To Ho, the county fair represents everything evil in America:

    My family, mostly Democrats or otherwise apolitical, are pragmatic about politics: This is their home. They quietly listen to the daily political rants and ravings about crime, immigrants and “transes” from MAGA colleagues, neighbors and friends, hoping for any opportunity to pivot to the weather.

    There’s the divide. The evil Americans think that crime should be punished, immigrants should arrive legally, and that embracing the mental illness of body dysphoria should be discouraged, not encouraged. Ho also boasts that, in the Utopia of San Francisco, she need not fear wearing a “Notorious RBG” shirt, forgetting that conservatives in that Utopia risk physical assault, vandalism, and job loss for daring to voice their political opinions. By contrast, Ho could have worn her “Notorious RBG” shirt to that fair without worry. Republicans believe in free speech.

    For Ho, her nightmare in the dystopia of the heartland culminated with the crowd at the rodeo singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The horror was too much for her. “I’d had enough. I stayed seated, head in my hands, and waited for the bulls to come charging out of their pens.”

    It took America four years and 600,000 lives to resolve the one question of individual liberty versus state’s rights, a battle that conveniently divided itself along geographic lines. How is our country ever to resolve the fact that we have living cheek by jowl two entirely different cultures, each with values antithetical to the other, all vying for the same political control?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 18:25

  • Where DNCs And RNCs Have Taken Place
    Where DNCs And RNCs Have Taken Place

    When the Democratic Party picked the city of Milwaukee as the location for its 2020 National Convention, it chose a Midwestern city other than Chicago for the first time in more than 100 years.

    The Republican Party apparently hasn’t forgotten how Democrats invaded their National Convention turf four years ago. The 2024 RNC took place in Wisconsin’s most populous city as the Midwest is expected to once more play a key role in November’s presidential election.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, with the the Democratic National Convention kicking off in Chicago today, Democrats have reverted to familiar Midwestern territory.

    Infographic: Where DNCs and RNCs Have Taken Place | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Republican have branched out much more within the region, visiting Kansas City and Cleveland multiple times (including in 2016) as well as St. Paul (in 2008) and Detroit once.

    Both Democrats and Republicans have also favored New York City as well as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for their conventions and neither party has branched out to the West Coast more than a couple of times.

    But while Democrats have also added East Coast locations Boston and Atlantic City to their roster over the years, Republicans have been more active in the South, visiting Dallas, Tampa and New Orleans. Both parties have held their annual events in Miami, Houston and Charlotte, North Carolina.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 18:00

  • Forty Centuries Of Failure: Price Controls, Debasement, & Tyranny
    Forty Centuries Of Failure: Price Controls, Debasement, & Tyranny

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    It hasn’t worked once, so why would a politician go all-in on price controls now?

    August 15th was the anniversary of the infamous “Nixon Shock”, when excessive spending and trade deficits had governments on the ropes, as prices climbed relentlessly, inflation soared into the double digits, while economic growth stalled.

    In 1971 of that year, Nixon “temporarily” suspended convertibility of the US dollar for gold (still in effect), while simultaneously proclaiming a 90-day freeze on all wages and prices across the United States.

    The stagflationary 70’s also saw Trudeau the 1st enact “The Anti-Inflation Act of 1975”, with his infamous “6 and 5” measures (a 6% cap on wage increases with a 5% cap on prices was supposed to put 1% back into the pocket of the peasants).

    None of this worked, and as the lumpenpublic were mulched by higher prices and growing government, gold served as a barometer to it all – soaring from $35/oz at the time of the Nixon Shock to $850/oz in 1980 (that all-time high still won’t be exceeded in inflation adjusted terms until gold cracks about $2,580).

    It took Paul Volcker  to get inflation under control with double-digit interest rates – (when the news came that he had been elevated from President of the New York Fed under Gerald Ford to Chairman by Jimmy Carter, Volcker’s wife burst into tears).

    Today, 50 years later with a monetary regime that makes the 70’s look austere, double-digit interest rates are simply not an option – we’ve just seen a 5-sigma event nearly blow up the global monetary system from the BoJ nudging interest rates from the zero bound to 25bps.

    With an unprecedented levels of monetary expansion and debt levels somewhere beyond nosebleed elevations, policy-makers and central bankers are trapped.

    This is why we’re seeing a resurgence in popular rhetoric around the idea of price controls – everywhere from Jagmeet Singh here in Canada, who blames grocery store CEOs for inflation, to Dem nominee and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris, channeling him with promises of food price controls as part of her election campaign.

    Price Controls Invariably Presage Decline (& Tyranny)

    The definitive chronicle of price controls throughout recorded history comes to us by way of Robert L. Schuettinger and Eammon F. Butler’s “Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls” – or “How Not to Fight Inflation“.

    I could not for the life of me find my hard copy, but during the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, The Mises Institute saw the value in republishing it…

    “By special arrangement with the authors, the Mises Institute is thrilled to bring back this popular guide to ridiculous economic policy from the ancient world to modern times. This outstanding history illustrates the utter futility of fighting the market process through legislation. It always uses despotic measures to yield socially catastrophic results.”

    It starts as far back as Urakagina of Lagash, a King of Sumeria in around 2350BC who came to power and overturned wage and price controls held in place by an unnamed line of despotic predecessors:

    “[he]began his rule by ending the burdens of excessive government regulations over the economy, including controls on wages and prices…
    An historian of this period tells us that from Urakagina,

    ‘we have one of the most precious and revealing documents in the history of man and his perennial and unrelenting struggle for freedom from tyranny and oppression.’

    This document records a sweeping reform of a whole series of prevalent abuses, most of which could be traced to a ubiquitous and obnoxious bureaucracy …it is in this document that we find the word ‘freedom’ used for the first time in man’s recorded history; the word is ‘amargi’.“

    It is somewhat telling to find that the word “freedom” was seemingly coined to describe the end of price controls.

    The Code of Hammurabi of ancient Babylon is often cited as one of the earliest legal codes, thought to be the first to enshrine the presumption of innocence, but it also contained detailed tables of price controls on everything from goods to services – like the hiring of a wagon (“forty qa of corn per diem”) to the wages of a field laborer (“eight gur of corn per annum”).

    According to Schuettinger and Butler, historical records show that Hammurabi’s price controls dampened trade and economic activity for both Hammurabi and his successors, citing W. F Leemans, who found that:

    Prominent and wealthy tamkaru (merchants) were no longer found in Hammurabi’s reign. Moreover, only a few tamkaru are known from Hammurabi’s time and afterwards . . . all . . . evidently minor tradesmen and money-lenders.

    Concluding:

    “it appears that the very people who were supposed to benefit from the Hammurabi wage and price restrictions were driven out of the market by those and other statutes.”

    Finding that:

    “There was a remarkable change in the fortunes of the people of Nippur and Isin and the other ancient towns which he ruled, which came in the middle of Rim-Sin’s reign [Hammurbi’s predecessor – whose policies he extended] . The beginning of the economic decline corresponds exactly with a series of “reforms” inaugurated by him.

    For the first of many times throughout this piece, I will ask the reader to “hold that thought”.

    We can fast forward to ancient Greece where Athens, a city state “perpetually short on grain” sought to control the prices at which it was sold in order to keep them “just”. At one point, under a measure that was supposed to be temporary (sound familiar?), state appointed corn buyers called “Sitonai” were mobilized to set the pricing.

    Predictably, the problem got worse, and there were calls to make the measures permanent.  One politician, Lysian of Athens wanted to put grain dealers who broke the code to death.

    The book is exhaustive in its examinations, covering China, India, the Medieval age, even modern times (Canada and the US in the seventies) – but ancient Rome warrants a deeper look – particularly the road to Emperor Diocletian’s Edict of 301AD.

    “Under the tribune Caius Gracchus the Lex Sempronia Frumentaria was adopted which allowed every Roman citizen the right to buy a certain amount of wheat at an official price much lower than the market price.

    In 58 B.C. this law was “improved” to allow every citizen free wheat. The result, of course, came as a surprise to the government.

    Most of the farmers remaining in the countryside simply left to live in Rome without working.

    If that wasn’t enough:

    Slaves were freed by their masters so that they, as Roman citizens, could be supported by the state.

    (There is a modern day analog here with open borders and the illegal immigration crisis – where we could be looking at mass migrations as being, at least partially, incentivized by governments of weakening economies trying to jettison dependents and potential rebels – offloading them to countries dumb enough to think they’re acting enlightened by taking them on and supporting them).

    By 45BC, Julius Caesar found that roughly a third of the citizenry was living on “free food” from the government.

    He managed to reduce this number by about half, but it soon rose again; throughout the centuries of the empire Rome was to be perpetually plagued with this problem of artificially low prices for grain, which caused economic dislocations of all sorts.

    Succeeding emperors resorted to the ancient version of “Quantitative Easing” – currency debasement:

    In order to attempt to deal with their increasing economic problems, the emperors gradually began to devalue the currency. Nero (A.D. 54–68) began with small devaluations and matters became worse under Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–80) when the weights of coins were reduced. “These manipulations were the probable cause of a rise in prices,” according to Levy. The Emperor Commodus (A.D.)

    By Diocletian’s time in the 4th century it reached truly hyper-inflationary levels when measured in other provincial currencies:

    Egypt was the province of the Empire most affected, but her experience was reflected in lesser degrees throughout the Roman world. During the fourth century, the value of the gold solidus changed from 4,000 to 180 million Egyptian drachmai.

    Diocletian’s Dilemma

    Gresham’s Law states that “bad money drives out the good” – it means that rapidly devaluing or debased currencies are traded for anything other than themselves (which drives prices denominated in that currency up) – while “sound” currencies, like gold, or nowadays Bitcoin are hoarded – or at least more carefully spent.

    “[I]n the years before Diocletian, emperors were issuing tin-plated copper coins which were still called by the name ‘denarius.’ Gresham’s Law, of course, became operative; silver and gold coins were naturally hoarded and were no longer found in circulation.” 

    The result of iterative generations of government mismanagement and currency debasement was the hollowing out of the middle class:

    “The middle class was almost obliterated and the proletariat was quickly sinking to the level of serfdom. Intellectually the world had fallen into an apathy from which nothing would rouse it.”

    The same thing is happening today, but in Diocletian’s time, he saw what was happening and moved to impose some kind of order, first by issuing a new Denarious, that after centuries of declining silver content, openly contained none:

    Via Armstrong Economics

    …and then, moving to a system that attempted to replace money entirely (again, hold that thought):

    Since money was completely worthless, he devised a system of taxes based on payments in kind. This system had the effect, via the ascripti glebae [tenant serfs], of totally destroying the freedom of the lower classes—they became serfs and were bound to the soil to ensure that the taxes would be forthcoming. 

    But he had a dilemma:

    The principal reason for the official overvaluation of the currency, of course, was to provide the wherewithal to support the large army and massive bureaucracy—the equivalent of modern government.

    Diocletian’s choices were to continue to mint the increasingly worthless denarius or to cut “government expenditures” and thereby reduce the requirement for minting them.

    In modern terminology, he could either continue to “inflate” or he could begin the process of “deflating” the economy.

    Diocletian decided that deflation, reducing the costs of civil and military government, was impossible. On the other hand: To inflate would be equally disastrous in the long run. 

    Diocletian’s problem is the same one central banks and policy makers face today, all over the world:

    Source: IMF

    The world is awash in too much debt – with debt-to-GDP more than doubling from 100% to over 256% since the Nixon Shock. With interest rates being artificially suppressed for decades – austerity is off the table, for now — I’ve been writing for years how CBDCs and #Netzero are essentially setting the table for forced austerity.

    But we’re not there yet – retail CBDCs are a few years away from being ready but the global financial system is unravelling now (in the meantime, you can get on the waiting list for my CBDC Survival Guide, which is coming out this fall).

    How did Diocletian navigate the quagmire?

    The Solution: Inflate with Price Controls

    As Schuettinger and Butler recount,

    It was in this seemingly desperate circumstance that Diocletian determined to continue to inflate, but to do so in a way that would, he thought, prevent the inflation from occurring.

    He sought to do this by simultaneously fixing the prices of goods and services and suspending the freedom of people to decide what the official currency was worth. 

    Contrary to our own political leaders,  Diocletian wasn’t stupid (in fact, he may have been the most intelligent Roman Emperor after a long string of weak minded half-wits who were propped up by the military).

    He knew that the incentives would be against the productive class working, selling, and entrenpreneuring at a loss and he understood that Incentives Are Everything. In his case:

    “if farmers, merchants and craftsmen could not expect to receive what they considered to be a fair price for their goods they would not put them on the market at all, but would await a change in the law (or in the dynasty).”

    So Diocletian had to realign people’s incentives:

    “From such guilt also he too shall not be considered free, who, having goods necessary for food or usage, shall after this regulation have thought that they might be withdrawn from the market; since the penalty ought to be even heavier for him who causes need than for him who makes use of it contrary to the statutes.”

    The penalty was …death.

    Same for anyone who purchased goods or services at prices above the prescribed amount (no matter how hungry or desperately you needed something or how scarce that something was).

    As draconian as that sounds, it almost looks like more people were killed by deprivation and mob rule than were executed for violating price controls:

    There was much blood shed upon very slight and trifling accounts; and the people brought provisions no more to markets, since they could not get a reasonable price for them and this increased the dearth so much, that at last after many had died by it”

    The authors go on to cite Roland Kent:

    “In other words, the price limits set in the Edict were not observed by the traders, in spite of the death penalty provided in the statute for its violation; would-be purchasers, finding that the prices were above the legal limit, formed mobs and wrecked the offending traders’ establishments, incidentally killing the traders, though the goods were after all of but trifling value; hoarded their goods against the day when the restrictions should be removed, and the resulting scarcity of wares actually offered for sale caused an even greater increase in prices, so that what trading went on was at illegal prices, and therefore performed clandestinely.

    Within four years, the law was set aside, and Diocletian abdicated.

    Michael Rostovtzeff, another leading Roman historian, remarked:

    “Diocletian shared the pernicious belief of the ancient world in the omnipotence of the state, a belief which many modern theorists continue to share with him and with it.”

    Here We Are Again

    Since the unprecedented monetary stimulus during Covid, we are now beginning to see exactly how trapped we are – with politicians taking victory laps for 2.9% inflation (hedonically adjusted and perpetually revised) – nobody is really remarking that the official targeted inflation rate is in the process of being hiked by half from 2% to 3% target.

    The Fed is getting ready to cut interest rates, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the ECB are already cutting and as I told readers in the latest issue of The Bitcoin Capitalist, the Bank of Japan just showed the world that they can’t raise:

    On Tuesday, August 6th, the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance held an emergency meeting, and the next day announced “no more rate hikes” until the global financial system could handle it.

    Which will be never.

    For the first 50 years of the post-Bretton Woods era, since the Nixon Shock, monetary debasement has been mostly under-the-radar and after the stagflationary 70’s, had been largely confined to asset inflation.

    This was thanks to a massive bond super-cycle that saw the cost-of-capital come down for 50 years, igniting an asset bubble on the other side of the ledger:

    Consumer inflation never really started hitting hard until the aftermath of Covid, and the central banks took to hiking rates to try and get it back under control (my suspicion was always that what they really wanted to do was reload as high as possible so they could cut, once again):

    Again, from this month’s TBC (see end of this post for a trial deal):

    We’ve been saying since the Fed originally started hiking, that they would do so until something broke.

    In March of 2023, something broke – with Silicon Valley Bank and the regional banking crisis; it was quickly papered over with FDIC backstops on all deposits, while the Fed abandoned their balance sheet reductions and quickly reinflated the money supply.

    Everything since then has been a theatrical, slow-motion pivot.

    Now, after this Bank of Japan miscalculation, something really broke – and the world now sees how the BoJ is trapped, the rest of the central banks are paused or already cutting, right when the global liquidity cycle is starting to turn back up.

    Via RBC Global Asset Management

    (Also – M2 is also beginning to rise again)

    Price Controls Are The ‘Hail Mary’ Play of a Bankrupt System

    All the usual tricks which got us this far, money printing, interest rate suppression, ballooning debt have finally run out of runway because they are now resulting in. consumer price inflation.

    This is 100% the fault of bad political leadership and central bank policy but that will never be admitted.

    Instead, politicians will resort ad hominem attacks on the productive class, and absurd accusations that it is the fault of investors and entrepreneurs, who must navigate the risks of monetary debasement, for causing it.

    Hence, we have Kamala Harris seemingly anchoring her political campaign on “ending price gouging” once she’s in office.

    She seems to be channeling Canada’s own champagne socialist, Jagmeet Singh, the Rolex wearing, Versace sporting millionaire  who routinely demonizes CEOs – particularly those of grocery store chains, for causing inflation:

    Corporate greed in our country has reached a breaking point after decades of Liberal and Conservative governments that have rewritten the rules to favour the ultra-rich.

    Now, every bill you pay makes CEOs richer.

    It’s wrong.

    I’ll change the rules to help you, not CEO profits. 

    (What’s ironic in both cases, is Harris is promising to do something upon being elected, although she’s the incumbent Vice President since 2020, while Jagmeet Singh is the one person in Canada, who is single-handedly propping the Trudeau government in power with a coalition government that he could end at any time).

    The Lure of Technocracy For Price Controls

    After one looks at the historical record – 4,000 years of endless failures, in price controls, communism and every permutation of centrally planned economies, there has to be a reason politicians are still reaching for it as a solution to problems they have caused and why a small – but vocal and influential, segment of the public cheerleads this as a net benefit for society.

    The secret sauce of “it’s different this time” is technology – particularly Big Tech, big platforms, Total Information Awareness and surveillance. Central planners think it is now technically feasible to run all the calculations and tracking in real time that would enable unrestrained monetary stimulus while keeping a lid on negative externalities like inflation.

    Politicians like Kamala Harris and Jagmeet Singh are just farming public sentiment created by their own policy failures, but there are very serious people – mostly unelected technocrats of a particular globalist mindset, who think we have the means, motive and opportunity to create a kind of “fully automated luxury communism”.

    One of my go-to clips for illustrating the mindset is J Michael Evans at a WEF meeting talking about coming personal carbon trackers:

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

    I’ll lay out the quote again here:

    “We are developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual – carbon – footprint – tracker. Stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet, but it’s something we’re working on”.

    The stage is set, when politicians tell you they want to be able to control prices, believe them – but what the public must understand is that price controls means spending controls.

    The politicians will tell you that it’s all about putting “greedy CEOs” in their place.

    What they won’t tell you is that price controls also means is telling  you what you can or cannot eat, how you use energy – whether you’ll be permitted to travel, or make any other kind of economic decision or make any kind of value exchange that you used to take for granted.

    In a world of price controls, that’s over.

    Throughout history, price controls have always brought about serfdom and tyranny because that is the only way to override individual incentives. In today’s highly wired world that would mean total technocratic feudalism.

    The most vivid example we have today is Venezuela – where price controls were so effective, the rabble had to break into public zoos to eat the animals.

    *  *  *

    Sign up for the Bombthrower Mailing List and get The CBDC Survival Guide when it drops this fall (you’ll also get a copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto while you wait).  Follow me on Twitter, or Nostr. You should also try The Bitcoin Capitalist for one month here ».

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 17:40

  • Local Cop, Not Secret Service, Shot Trump Rally Shooter First
    Local Cop, Not Secret Service, Shot Trump Rally Shooter First

    The first shot to hit Thomas Crooks, the man who sprayed eight shots at a Butler, Pennsylvania Trump rally on July 13 – hitting Trump in the ear and killing an attendee – came from a local SWAT operator who was about 100 yards away from the building on which Crooks was positioned, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said in a preliminary investigative report.

    Law enforcement agents at the site of a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

    When the SWAT officer saw Crooks moving around the rooftop, he quickly left his post and sprinted towards the man, “running to a clear shot position directly into the line of fire while Crooks was firing,” said Higgins.

    “He stopped Crooks and importantly, I believe the shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR,” Higgins added later, citing eyewitness testimony.

    Shooting the buffer tube may have disabled Crooks’ rifle.

    The next shot which killed Crooks came from a US Secret Service counter-sniper, according to Higgins.

    As the Epoch Times notes further, Higgins, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives task force, traveled to Butler County to recreate how Crooks climbed onto the roof and assess what happened.

    He said he was assisted in the investigation by local officials, including the Butler County Emergency Services Unit tactical team commander and a top official with the Butler County District Attorney’s office.

    Higgins said that among the theories he probed was whether there was another shooter on top of a water tower overlooking the fairgrounds.

    “There are videos on the internet showing a dark figure or a shadow on the water tower on J13. If there had been someone on that tower on J13, it would have to have been some top-shelf operator way beyond anything I’ve ever actually seen,” Higgins wrote. “Regular SWAT operators or snipers would not have the skills and gear to quickly overcome the first 25 feet of no ladder and then climb the remaining 75 feet to the catwalk, and then climb the quite intimidating and precarious dome vent access ladder.”

    Higgins said he did not think it was possible for a second shooter to have been on top of the tower and that he did not see any evidence supporting the theory. He also stated that all 10 shots heard that day were accounted for, with eight coming from Crooks, one from a local SWAT officer, and one from the Secret Service.

    Higgins said he plans on climbing to the top of the tower in the future as he continues to investigate the shooting.

    “As I have said, every question will be answered, every theory explored, and every doubt erased. The American people deserve the full truth on the attempted assassination of President Trump,” Higgins said in a statement. “Our investigative efforts are moving forward in good faith. The release of my preliminary investigative report is reflective of my desire to deliver transparency and reassurance to the American people.”

    Higgins sent his findings to Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), the chairman of the House task force.
    The task force was created to issue subpoenas and take other steps to look into the shooting. It was given a deadline of Dec. 13 to produce a final report.

    Kelly and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), the top Democrat on the committee, recently asked top federal officials, including U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for documents and information related to the attempted assassination. Lawmakers have not yet disclosed what information they’ve received.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 17:20

  • Carry Trade Trap: The Real Reason Why The Fed Has Waited So Long To Cut Rates
    Carry Trade Trap: The Real Reason Why The Fed Has Waited So Long To Cut Rates

    Authored by Brandon Smith, via Alt-Market.us,

    In 2022 there was considerable debate among alternative economists what the Federal Reserve was likely to do in the face of rising stagflation. There were people who argued that the Fed would capitulate to stock market demands, stop raising interest rates and return to QE. These analysts operated on the assumption that the central bank WANTS to save the US economy from substantial deflationary crisis and that they will happily print money forever in order to delay such an event.

    Some of us, however, understand that the Fed is not loyal to the US economy, nor is it necessarily interested in self preservation as an institution. In 2022 in my article ‘It’s A Fact That Needs Repeating: The Federal Reserve Is A Suicide Bomber’ I predicted:

    “This leads us to the final question – What happens next? That’s easy to answer: The fed continues to hike rates well into next year and will not reverse course or capitulate and return to stimulus. The dovish predictions were wrong. The people that said the Fed would not raise rates were wrong. The people that said the Fed would never remove support from stock markets were wrong. This process is ongoing and the effects will grow as the months pass, but those that were hoping for a manic return to the days of bailouts and QE are going to be deeply disappointed.”

    This prediction proved correct. I noted at the time that the Fed is not following its own program, it’s following a global program coordinated by the IMF and BIS. In order to understand why the Fed does the things it does, one must accept that they don’t care about the current world order. They care about facilitating a new world order.

    Of course, part of that agenda requires that the central bankers never receive blame for their role in any economic crisis.  They have no problem blowing up the system as long as there’s a convenient scapegoat.  They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.

    I usually don’t put much energy into tracking stocks because I see them as a side show. Equities are primarily built on delusions, false hopes and unchecked fiat and the bubble will pop when those delusions are inevitably dashed by reality. Stock markets are not a leading indicator; they are a trailing indicator and they crash long after numerous other alarms have been triggered. That said, every once in a while the smoke and mirrors lift and you can get a glimpse of what is really happening behind the scenes.

    The central bank has removed the primary backstop supporting US and European markets – The low interest rates that were feeding cheap money into corporate buybacks. Despite endless spin and false data from the Biden Administration the deflationary side of the crisis is starting to rear its ugly head.

    A weaker-than-expected jobs report last week has fueled concerns about a potential economic recession and calls for an interest rate cut. Employers hired 114,000 workers last month, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021.  It’s only going to get worse from now on and I wouldn’t be surprised to see an unemployment avalanche in 2025.

    Keep in mind that BLS jobs data has been rigged by the Biden White House for years; the majority of jobs “created” during Biden’s term are low wage part-time jobs and most have been going to illegal immigrants, not to American citizens. The same illegal immigrants that Biden has allowed into the country through open border and amnesty policies.

    This trend is only going accelerate by winter. Why? Because the effects of the high interest rates are taking hold. It happens slow at first, then all at once. But how have stocks remained so high during this time period? A recent market shock may help us to understand…

    As noted, the August stock slump has been partly driven by weaker-than-expected U.S. economic data at the end of last week. The readings led investors to worry that the Federal Reserve may be behind the curve in cutting interest rates to fend off a recession. But why does the Fed continue to keep rates high if this is the case?

    There are two reasons.

    First, as I have mentioned over and over since 2018, the end of QE and the raising of interest rates is a Catch-22; a trap.  Not for the Fed, but for the US economy.  Our financial system has become so addicted to cheap money from the central bank that it can barely function without it. We are seeing the addict begin to crash. Covid stimulus held up the system for another few years, but now that hit of sweet helicopter money is fading and the high is over.

    At the same time we’re being crushed with a stagflationary hydraulic press. Prices continue to climb on most necessities and the cumulative inflation is around 30% (officially) on average since 2021. Compare grocery receipts from 2020 to today, though, and you’ll find a 30% to 100% increase in prices on most necessary goods and services.

    The establishment (and the DNC) has been operating on the narrative that inflation has been defeated. The Fed knows that this is a lie. The moment they cut rates inflation will spike again and the illusion will be exposed. There’s FAR too many dollars floating around chasing too few goods.  For those that believe a rate cut is in the works to support the Kamala Harris campaign, I would suggest such a move might actually hurt her chances (whatever those chances may be) because her entire economic platform requires doubling down on the “success” of Bidenomics.  If CPI spikes again in October then her campaign is sunk.

    Of course, over 54% of mainstream economists and investors polled now expect a rate cut next month and some Fed officials have mentioned the possibility.  I remain doubtful, but it will certainly make the election cycle even more interesting if they do.

    The second issue is what appears to be a “carry trade trap.”

    Carry trades refer to operations in which investors borrow in a currency with low interest rates, such as the Japanese yen, and reinvest the proceeds in higher-yielding assets elsewhere (the US). The strategy is a considerable driver of US stock markets and has kept stocks alive despite the Fed’s removal of QE.

    This month’s stock plunge was triggered by fears that the Bank of Japan might hike interest rates, coupled with expectations that the Fed will cut rates in the near term due to the recession threat. This would kill the carry trade that has kept stocks going. To prevent a destructive carry trade unwind the Fed would have to coordinate with the BOJ and introduce a new stimulus program to soften the blow. But as I mentioned above, if the Fed returns to QE inflation will skyrocket yet again.

    The public will demand an explanation as to how it’s possible for there to be deflation in markets and jobs and inflation in prices all at the same time?  The Fed won’t have answers for them.  It’s a Catch-22 on top of a Catch-22.

    I believe there is no way out of this situation and that central banks deliberately maneuvered the US into this predicament. The only thing left for them to do is pull the plug when the timing is most advantageous. After the elections makes the most sense, especially if conservatives come out on top and there is a red sweep in 2025.

    Then, the whole mess can be wrapped up and thrown in their laps.

    One thing the events of this month prove is that the system is so unstable that even a hint of a change in the status quo could mean disaster. Don’t assume that banks will keep trying to kick the can down the road; they’re operating on a timeline that serves the interests of the global establishment, not the American public.

    *  *  *

    Our economy is on a decades-long path to total collapse. And no election can completely stop what is coming! Which is why protecting your 401(k) or IRA is more critical than ever. With a physical gold IRA, you get an easy and tax-deferred way to safeguard your wealth with tangible assets. To learn more, click here to get your FREE info kit on Gold IRAs from Birch Gold Group.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 17:00

  • Blinken Praises Netanyahu's Acceptance Of Gaza Truce Deal That Doesn't Exist
    Blinken Praises Netanyahu’s Acceptance Of Gaza Truce Deal That Doesn’t Exist

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in Tel Aviv in what both called “a very good and important meeting.” Blinken touted that Netanyahu has accepted latest US proposal on a Gaza ceasefire deal, and now he’s urging that Hamas “must do the same”. 

    Netanyahu in the meeting aftermath said that he appreciates “the understanding the US showed toward our vital security interests, amid our joint efforts to bring about the releases of our hostages.”

    “I want to emphasize,” Netanyahu said, “efforts to release the maximum number of living hostages — in the first stage of the deal.” Blinken in a presser proclaimed that he’s in the region “to bring across the finish line” a ceasefire deal. He earlier warned this may be a “last chance” to secure a deal.

    But the reality is that this is Blinken’s ninth visit to Israel since the war began after the Hamas terror attack of Oct.7, and each and every trip has been filled with statements of the voicing a US “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security and simultaneous declarations that a truce as at the ‘goal line’. 

    And yet the same blame-game always quickly ensues following such empty declarations, over the question of who is to blame for ultimately blowing supposedly ever-so close to the goal line deal – though realistically it doesn’t seem there is a viable deal on the table at all. 

    AFP via Getty Images

    All of this makes it hard to gauge the degree to which Blinken’s visit is just another empty exercise in Biden admin PR. 

    The geopolitical analysis blog Moon of Alabama points out the following:

    Axios claims that Hamas rejects a ceasefire deal with Israel:

    Hamas rejects new U.S. proposal for Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal

    The opener:

    Hamas on Sunday rejected an updated U.S. proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, blaming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for moving the goalposts and the U.S. for indulging him.

    Seven paragraphs later we learn:

    Zoom in: More specifically, Hamas objects to the fact that the proposal doesn’t include a permanent ceasefire or comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

    Moon of Alabama concludes, “There is no ceasefire deal,” and questions: “How then could Hamas reject a ceasefire deal?”

    Instead, this is what it really seems all about: projecting optics back home to Democratic voters who can yet again try to paint this meaningless trip as a “win” for Biden/Harris ahead of November…

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

    And Blinken’s own words reflect something which appears merely in abstract, ephemeral form and not yet actually agreed to or a working option in any firm way…

    “There is a deep sense of urgency for getting this done,” said  Blinken. He described that this is “the best way to make sure the conflict doesn’t spread, that we don’t see escalation, that we can actually defuse some of the pressure points that we see throughout the region, and then open prospects for trying to build more enduring peace and security for everyone throughout the Middle East.”

    On the recent build-up of Pentagon assets in the region, Blinken claimed that Washington does “not to provoke aggression” but rather it’s all about deterrence, and “also to make clear that if it does, we are fully prepared to defend Israel.” 

    Meanwhile, Blinken on the ground in Tel Aviv, Al Jazeera is reporting that IDF strikes across Gaza have expanded and are relentless…

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

    According to the latest AJ newswire headline: Senior Hamas Official says they agreed to proposal made by Biden and the US administration failed to convince Netanyahu of it, Al Jazeera reports.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/19/2024 – 16:40

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Aug 19

Today’s News 19th August 2024

  • Judge Napolitano: When Presidents Kill
    Judge Napolitano: When Presidents Kill

    Authored by Andrew P. Napolitano

    Sometime before he withdrew from the presidential race, President Joe Biden secretly reaffirmed his own self-willed and self-created authority to kill persons in other countries, so long as the CIA and its military counterparts have “near certainty” that the target of the homicide is a member of a terrorist organization. That standard was concocted by the George W. Bush administration in 2002.

    There is no “near certainty” standard in the law, as the phrase is oxymoronic and defies a rational definition – like “nearly pregnant.” Just as one is either pregnant or not, one is either certain or not. There is no “near” there.

    The White House lit in red, white and blue in July, via Flickr

    Yet, the creation of this standard underscores the lamentable absence of the rule of law in government today. The Biden administration and its three immediate predecessors have all deployed drones to kill persons who were not engaged in acts of violence at the time of their killing, irrespective of the near certainty of their membership in any organizations.

    “Terrorist” cannot be a standard for extrajudicial murder because it is subjective. To King George III, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were terrorists. To the poor folks in Libya and Syria, to the popularly elected governments toppled by CIA-inspired violence in Iran in 1953 and in Ukraine in 2014, to the innocents tortured by the CIA at black sites around the world, the CIA is a terrorist organization.

    The presidential use of drones to kill persons overseas began in 2002 with Bush-ordered targeted killings. It continued under President Barack Obama – who even killed Americans overseas. The rules for killing were made up by each president. They were relaxed under President Donald Trump, who gave CIA senior personnel and military commanders the authority to kill without his express approval for each killing. Trump’s folks infamously murdered an Iranian general and his companions on their way to lunch with Iraqi generals to negotiate peace between the two countries.

    The Biden administration quietly took back the Trump grants of authority so that today only the president can authorize targeted killing. Yet, there is no moral, constitutional or legal authority for these killings. But presidents of both political parties do it anyway.

    The laws of war – a phrase itself that is oxymoronic – which are generally codified in the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter, all of which were spearheaded, written and ratified by the United States, mandate essentially that lawful wars can only be defensive and must be proportional to the threat posed or the harm already caused. Stated differently, treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory restrain the president from killing persons in other countries with which the U.S. is not lawfully at war.

    Under the Constitution, treaties sit alongside the Constitution itself as the supreme law of the land. The last four occupants of the White House have ignored this when it comes to secret killings. Each has claimed publicly or secretly that the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, or its cousin, the AUMF of 2002, somehow provide congressional authorizations for presidents to kill whomever they please – and somehow Congress can lawfully authorize these killings.

    Yet the AUMF of 2001 purported to authorize Bush to hunt down and kill the folks whom he failed to see coming on 9/11 (those would be his friends, the Saudis), and whom he reasonably found caused 9/11. The AUMF of 2002 authorized Bush to invade Iraq in pursuit of the weapons of mass destruction that he was told by experts inside and outside the CIA Saddam Hussein did not possess. Both AUMFs no longer have a valid purpose today, yet they remain the law.

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

    The Constitution authorizes Congress to declare war against foreign countries, not random killings of persons. Neither of the AUMFs was or is a valid declaration of war, which the Constitution requires as a predicate for all extrajudicial presidential killings. A declaration of war defines the target and sets the end. It is not open-ended as the last four presidents have claimed with respect to these two Bush-era statutes.

    If the presidents are right, and the AUMFs authorize them to kill whomever they wish – including Americans – then they are not presidents answerable to the law and the Constitution, but kings who can kill on a whim without transparency or legal consequence.

    The whole purpose of confining the war-making power to Congress and the war-waging power to the president was to keep those powers separate. History is littered with examples of tyrants using the powers of the state to kill for no moral purpose. American presidents have given themselves the power to kill. It is the functional equivalent to a loaded gun in a drawer of the president’s desk.

    Abraham Lincoln was the first head of state in world history to target civilians militarily and the first to engage in the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians of his own country. Franklin D. Roosevelt slaughtered thousands of innocent helpless German civilians at the end of World War II by carpet-bombing German cities, rather than targeting the German military. Harry Truman slaughtered many thousands of Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    All these murders were met with popular approval, as the targets had been demonized by the machinery of government – just like the “terrorists” Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden have killed.

    But demonization of human targets and popular approval of their murders cannot turn an immoral act into a moral one. An act is moral when it is consistent with the Natural Law. According to the Declaration of Independence, under the Natural Law, all persons are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The right to live is the foremost natural right and the great divine gift to all persons – not just Americans.

    No person may morally be targeted for death by government for any reason unless it is presently necessary to stop that person from actively killing an innocent. In the cases cited above, the presidential killings were done to terrify political opponents, as the civilian targets were helpless. And the killers were lauded as heroes.

    Today, American troops are on the ground in Ukraine showing Ukrainian forces how to use American weapons to kill Russian troops and in Israel showing the IDF how to kill civilians in Gaza. This was done by secret presidential orders that have never been publicly acknowledged. Russian troops and Gazan civilians pose no threat whatsoever to life, liberty or property in America.

    Why do American presidents kill? Because they can get away with it.

    * * *

    Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the US Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 23:20

  • Youth Unemployment High In South Asia
    Youth Unemployment High In South Asia

    Youth unemployment is being cited as one of the core drivers of the unrest in Bangladesh, which led to weeks of protests and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stepping down from office.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, based on ILO data, labor force unemployment for people aged 15-24 years in Bangladesh stood at 15.7 percent in 2023, above the world average for youth unemployment of 13.8 percent and the low and middle income average of 14.1 percent.

    Infographic: Youth Unemployment High in South Asia | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Youth unemployment is a regional issue, with India having hit a similar level in 2023, while Nepal and Sri Lanka’s rates last year were worse, both surpassing the 20-percent mark.

    Of this selection of countries, Pakistan fared better in 2023 at around 9.7 percent.

    According to a report by the Japan Times, the latest figures indicate that in 2024, roughly 40 percent of Bangladeshi youth are not in education, employment or training, including those no longer looking for work or registered unemployed.

    The authors write that stagnant job growth in the private sector as well as a cooling economy has made public sector jobs more attractive. Protests started weeks ago over a quota for such civil service jobs which reserved 30 percent of government roles to relatives of veterans of the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

    While all of the countries’ unemployment rates have fallen from a pandemic-induced peak, they have in all five cases risen in the past decade.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 22:45

  • Is Recalibrating Advanced Placement Exams Defining Deviancy Down?
    Is Recalibrating Advanced Placement Exams Defining Deviancy Down?

    Authored by Bruno V. Manno via RealClearEducation,

    There is nothing abnormal about deviance. This is a lesson I learned growing up during the 1950s and early 1960s in an Italian American neighborhood called Collinwood on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. While the neighborhood had plenty of conformity, there was also sufficient forbearance for enough deviance to make life interesting and educational.

    Years later in the early to mid-1970s, I found myself a Ph.D. student in a seminar on the works of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. I was pleasantly surprised that the lesson I learned growing up was one of Durkheim’s important sociological insights into our common life.

    Durkheim showed that deviance performs at least four important functions in society. It affirms our cultural values and norms; clarifies our moral boundaries; brings us together; and encourages social change by challenging our views. Moreover, our neighborhood was a good example of what’s called the Durkheim Constant: there is a limit to the amount of deviant behavior that a community will tolerate since deviant behavior causes conflict.  

    Many years later in 1993, I read a now-famous essay by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York titled Defining Deviancy Down who based his article on Durkheim’s insight into deviance. Moynihan wrote mostly about crime in America: “We have been redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard.”

    Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Chester E. Finn, Jr., suggests that today’s controversy about the recalibration of the College Board’s Advanced Placement exam scores is an educational example of Moynihan’s essay about our human predisposition to define deviancy down.

    The Advanced Placement Controversy

    The College Board Advanced Placement program is often described as the gold standard for high school academic excellence. High school students take college-level courses and exams in 39 subjects from Biology to Music Theory. Tests are typically composed of multiple-choice and essay questions and scored on a scale of 1–5. Depending on the college, students who earn at least a 3 can earn college credit, “place out” of certain college course requirements, or have AP scores transfer directly to credit hours.

    In 2022, the College Board revised the expert panel scoring process for AP exams because student success rates in some AP subjects were well under the 60% to 80% success rate of other subjects. That lower success rate produced a significant disconnect in these subject areas between AP scores and college grades. The College Board claimed that this revised scoring process would get all AP exams to that 60% to 80% success rate and better align all AP exam scores to equivalent college grades.   

    While the College Board did inform the AP community at its conferences about this change, there was no formal public announcement made about the undertaking. The Board has now gone public and released a public update on the scoring process. They describe two reasons for taking this action, which they dubbed evidence-based standard setting.

    First, new digital data collection technologies make it possible to collect and analyze large amounts of data. Second, these technologies allow them to create a new digital library of courses—the AP Classroom—linking each AP course’s units, topics, learning objectives, and skills to exam questions that produce granular student performance data that allow for more accurate exam scoring. Here is a description of what they did:  

    …from 2022-2024, researchers applied evidence-based standard setting (EBSS) processes to determine appropriate performance standards for students in a range of AP courses. This methodology collects input from hundreds of experts and then assembles fine-grained student performance data for analysis by subject-matter experts.

    This process produced a significant increase in average student scores in several AP exams, primarily in humanities subjects. For example, the EBSS process increased the success rate for AP English Literature from 43.9% in 2021 to 77.9% in 2022. The individual student score levels in English Literature increased, going from 12% to 27% earning a 4, and from fewer than 5% to 16% earning a 5. The overall effect on 9 AP exams over the last three years is that a 3 or better score was achieved by approximately a half million more students.

    The Reaction

    Liam Knox, writing in Inside Higher Ed, documents reports that many AP stakeholders support the new approach. On the other hand, not everyone is pleased. These views are summarized in articles with headlines like “Grade Inflation Sends AP Test Scores Soaring” and “Are AP Exams Getting Easier?”

    John Moscatello is a leading questioner of this recalibration process. He is the founder of Macro Learning company and works with school districts creating AP programs. He writes that the AP program “…is undergoing a radical transformation” and that the recalibration process has created “runaway [grade] inflation.”

    He and other critics point out that while there may be sound academic research to support this change in how exams are scored, the effort has lacked public transparency leaving many AP teachers and supporters confused.

    But there are other not-so-sound issues to consider beyond the lack of public transparency. For example, the number of students taking the AP has grown by leaps and bounds, creating a large revenue source for the College Board. Dana Goldstein writing in the New York Times reports that the AP program generated almost $500 million in 2022 revenue for the College Board, calculating that around 20% of that comes from federal, state, and local public dollars. Additionally, some states offer bonuses and salary increases to teachers when their students get a 3 or higher on an AP exam. “Higher scores are good for business” on multiple levels, Moscatello writes.

    A Way Forward

    “We are getting used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us,” writes Moynihan in the essay I reference at the beginning of this piece. He then goes on to reflect that societies and organizations under stress seek ways of killing their pain.

    Maybe we have reached Durkheim’s constant, the proverbial limit to the amount of deviant behavior that a community will tolerate. Or there may be legitimate reasons for the College Board’s new AP scoring approach.

    But it seems common sense that what we need is a lot more transparency on the part of the College Board. That might go a long way to assuring AP program supporters that this new approach is not just a way of defining deviancy down to kill the pain brought on by various forces putting the organization under stress.

    Time will tell.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 22:10

  • American Airlines Stuns By Halting All Israel Flights Until April 2025
    American Airlines Stuns By Halting All Israel Flights Until April 2025

    Within the last month, nearly all major Western and international airlines have announced suspensions and cancelations of their service to both Tel Aviv and Beirut. This also as foreign nationals have scrambled to get out of both countries, given ongoing fears of the outbreak of bigger regional war involving Iran and Hezbollah attacking Israel.

    While American Airlines was among the many carriers announcing temporary pauses in service, it has just issued a surprising lengthy extension to this suspension in flights. On Friday, the Fort Worth-based company announced it doesn’t plan to resume flights to Tel Aviv until April 2025.

    This is a longer cancelation than any other airline, including in all of Europe, so far as a result of the Gaza war and related fears of regional escalation and spillover.

    “American Airlines has suspended operations to and from Tel Aviv through March 29, 2025,” a spokesperson said in a fresh statement to Newsmax.

    “To provide additional flexibility, we will extend our travel alert allowing customers whose travel plans are impacted by this adjustment to rebook without a fee or cancel and receive a refund.”

    “We will continue to work closely with our partner airlines to assist customers traveling between Israel and European cities with service to the U.S.,” the statement continued.

    The latter part of the statement suggests that once AA-partner British Airways (BA) resumes service to Tel Aviv, tickets can be booked for the Europe part of a flight utilizing BA partner service.

    Newsmax wrote of the outlet Israel Hayom:

    The outlet said that it contacted the American Airlines reservation center and tried to book a flight in December. However, it reported that a representative was “surprised” to discover there were no American Airlines flights in its system and that it was not possible to book flights this winter.

    So it seems that despite recent US declarations that a Gaza ceasefire is at the “eleventh hour” and near the “goal line” – major carriers like American Airlines remain deeply skeptical and foresee extended safety issues in terms of airspace over the region.

    Iran has yet to retaliate for the July 31st Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran; however, Israel is still on the alert, and believes such a reprisal attack could come in the form of a ballistic missile and drone launches at any moment. This is also what has put international commercial aviation on alert.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 21:35

  • RFK Jr. Refutes Report That He Approached Harris For Cabinet Position
    RFK Jr. Refutes Report That He Approached Harris For Cabinet Position

    Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. refuted a Washington Post report from earlier this week that said he would drop out of the race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in exchange for a cabinet position if she wins in November.

    During an Aug. 15 Latino Town Hall on TikTok, he told the moderators that the story is “fake news.”

    Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif., on June 12, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    “I didn’t ask for a cabinet position,” Kennedy said.

    “I want to meet with all candidates about dampening down the rhetoric and unifying our country.”

    Kennedy said candidates, including former President Donald Trump and Libertarian presidential nominee Chase Oliver, have met with him.

    “Kamala Harris said she doesn’t want to [meet],” he said.

    Kennedy has repeatedly said at campaign stops and in interviews with media outlets and on podcasts that he would always welcome conversations with opposing candidates, media outlets, and podcasters who do not share his views.

    He told The Epoch Times that many Democrats and Republicans acknowledge the division in America but then get mad “if you meet with Trump or Kamala Harris.” He said he is “willing to take the heat by working to build a bridge between both sides.”

    Kennedy, who is attempting to get on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, met with Trump last month in Milwaukee during the Republican National Convention. The Washington Post reported that Kennedy discussed dropping out of the race to back the former president and join his administration if he returns to the White House.

    Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waits to speak at a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 in Wayne, Mich., on Aug. 8, 2024. (Right) Republican Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a rally at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St Cloud, Minn., on July 27, 2024. (Andrew Harnik, Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

    The purpose of meeting with President Trump was to talk about the chronic disease epidemic and children’s health, Kennedy said. He denied that he would end his presidential bid and support the former president.

    Democrats and Republicans alike have expressed concern that Kennedy could take away votes from their respective presidential candidates.

    Earlier this year, the DNC hired Lis Smith, a veteran Democrat strategist who managed Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, to spearhead an aggressive communication plan to combat Kennedy, independent Cornel West, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

    In recent months, the DNC and Clear Choice, a super PAC aligned with Biden to counter third-party presidential candidates, have objected to Kennedy’s appearance on the ballot, making legal filings in multiple states.

    Last week, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that Kennedy falsely listed that he was a New York resident on his nominating petitions. As a result, he was removed from the state’s general election ballot, a decision Kennedy has appealed.

    The DNC has called Kennedy a “stalking horse” to “prop up” Trump. Kennedy, meanwhile, has accused the DNC of trying to win the election in courtrooms and keep voters from having another choice.

    Regarding the report that Kennedy sought a meeting with Harris, Matt Corridoni, a DNC spokesman.said, “No one has any intention of negotiating with a MAGA-funded fringe candidate who has sought out a job with Donald Trump in exchange for an endorsement.”

    2024 presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks with his vice presidential pick Nicole Shanahan in Oakland, Calif., on March 26, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    David Carlucci, a former Democratic New York state senator who is now a Democratic strategist, told The Epoch Times that Kennedy’s attempt to reach out to Harris “speaks to the issue that many voters already know: Kamala Harris will be elected as our next president.”

    Kennedy’s actions during his campaign have “repeatedly shown that his judgment is not suitable for the presidency or any other leadership role in government,” he said.

    Stefanie Spear, Kennedy’s press secretary, told The Epoch Times in a statement that “Mr. Kennedy is willing to meet with leaders of both parties to discuss the possibility of a unity government” and has done so since he entered the presidential race.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 21:00

  • The Most Dangerous Question Of 2024 – What If Kamala Harris Isn't An Idiot?
    The Most Dangerous Question Of 2024 – What If Kamala Harris Isn’t An Idiot?

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

    On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, after a coup against their former standard-bearer Joe Biden, we face a very disturbing question.

    What if Kamala Harris isn’t the idiot the media has made her out to be?

    Harris was clearly chosen for this role. She’s been groomed for it for nearly two decades. She isn’t the best of a list of bad choices. The Democrats drove the good choices from the party and blocked others becoming a part of it.

    There were no Democratic primaries, folks.

    She was placed as Biden’s Vice-President to have the inside track on this gig when they decided Joe finally had to be dragged from the stage.

    The coup was penciled in on the Gantt Chart at Evil Corp. Central for the weekend of July 13th.

    In 2020, Harris voters roundly rejected her for President, getting zero delegates before being roasted by Tulsi Gabbard.

    She dropped out despite being the darling of the media and the donor class. Going into those primaries, she was the establishment’s pick.

    Once she failed they moved to Plan B: rig the game for Biden.

    They said, “We’ll install a mushroom so corrupt we can make him do whatever we want Joe just wants his money and his ice cream.”

    So you force Harris onto Joe. Or the other way around… never mind she’s too old for him.

    Meanwhile Harris waited. She let Joe take the heat. She said little, did less and then is installed, tabula rasa, into a campaign just days after a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump to steal even that thunder.

    We were never allowed to discuss her culpability, along with the cabinet, as to how Biden could have been running the country for the past three years without them invoking the 25th amendment out of pity for the man if nothing else.

    Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot Democrats don’t have emotions other than hate and envy.

    She was installed as the candidate to front-run an insurgency at this week’s convention by Hillary Clinton and her merry band of Neocons. Don’t expect them to take this sitting down, there are likely to be some sparks this week in Chicago, even if they don’t turn into a bonfire.

    So, that leads me to ask my question, not because I think Harris is some latent IQ160 or anything. I asked my question because this is a woman who faced zero real voters and is one vote-rigging operation away from the presidency.

    So, maybe she’s a genius when measuring her political intelligence.

    What if we’ve all been led down the primrose path of stooping to Trump’s level coming up with cute memes about her vast collection of knee pads or her inappropriate laughter at tragedy?

    What if that is exactly the means to lull us all into thinking there’s no way anyone will vote for this woman?

    And if this was any normal (a nebulous term these days at best) election, I would agree with you. But, for 90% of the fifty elections the US is going to hold for its president, who you vote for doesn’t matter.

    This is, as always, a five state race.

    All that matters is printing/counting the right number of votes in those five states and the rest is just a Benny Hill skit.

    Harris chose uber-commie and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate to what, exactly? Shore up the only state that voted for Walter Mondale in 1984? Really?

    No, it was to do a few things:

    1. Signal that they didn’t need Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to win there.

    2. Continue Obama’s antipathy towards Israel. They don’t need “The Jews” anymore.

    3. Put the Quarter-Black HR Nanny in charge of the cucked White Guy.

    After that, all you have to do is use AI and special effects to make fake crowds supporting fake polls and faker ads to sell everyone on the idea that this woman is what Americans want to rule them over this…

    The sad part is that too many people still think this is all just part of the game. But it isn’t. It’s nothing more than the same playbook run in 2020 to create just enough plausible deniability that Harris can win this election before they steal it and dare us to do one damn thing about it.

    Or did you miss how upset the French and British are at their recent outcomes?

    So, Kamala cackles her way through scripted interviews. She and Walz dance around bringing “joy!” to the world. But when you actually get her talking about policy, about what she believes in, the cackling stops, the fangs come out, it’s just communism all the way down.

    I was asked by Sputnik News to comment on her announced economic plan. In short, it’s the same warmed-over ‘Eat the Rich,’ politics of envy the Democrats have used for decades to set the table for a class war where the soon-to-be permanent underclass is used to finish off destroying the middle class so that they both can live in squalor and be thankful for whatever thin gruel is left over.

    Those that don’t like it can go die in a meat grinder overseas somewhere else. Hey, at least it’s ‘3 hots and a cot’ right? Or is her ascension to the throne the moment when everyone gets just uncomfortable enough for the wolf to come out in a few million of us?

    No, I don’t think Harris is at all stupid. And I think we’d all do well to put away the memes and get serious about making sure that we make this a November 5th to her not to remember.

    Sputnik’s Questions and my full answers:

    1) Harris presented something that she called an “opportunity economy”. How different do you expect this to be from “Bidenomics”?

    Not much, to be honest. Democrats are looking to rebrand the same agenda they had during both Obama’s two terms and “Biden’s” one term. It’s all an extension of the original plan, which is to nationalize all the important sectors of the economy – housing, health care, energy, transportation – that the Federal Government didn’t already control, e.g. communication and defense.

    This strategy is simply to break the private economy — dislocate trillions of investment capital, displace millions of workers, disrupt supply chains – and then create new “opportunities” for those most harmed by these policies, the lowest strata of wage earners young people, by giving them handouts. This is classic ‘divide and rule’ politics engaged in by the oligarch class to set the lower class, in their terminology the ‘proletariat,’ against the middle class, the “bourgeoisie.’

    Nothing new here. Typical “Break your legs and hand you a crutch” politics.

    2) How are the measures that Harris’ economic plan includes going to be paid for?

    Debt at first and the hoped for transition to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) after the debt passes the point of sustainability, where they just print money and tax your earnings at whatever rate they need to in order to maintain power, via programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

    3) Harris promised to push forward a federal government law against price gouging as a solution to Americans’ frustration with the high cost of living. What effect would a law like this have on prices? How would a small business react to such a law?

    The Democrats have been prepping this talking point for more than a year by sending out Elizabeth Warren to complain about corporations gouging us on food prices. But if you look at retailer, especially supermarket, corporate profits you’ll see their costs rising with our costs. The average bottom line margin for a supermarket chain is around 2%. If Harris and Warren think this is “Price Gouging” then they have no idea what the term means.

    Real costs of production will rise. Prices will rise. The government will then use a flat fining structure to punish the bad guys.

    Because of this small businesses will go under. Larger firms can always absorb the cost of new regulations better than smaller businesses. They are the primary target because they are the engine of economic growth. Harris is nothing new, just another in a long line of doctrinaire communists promoted via anti-democratic processes to serve an overclass desperate to hold onto power as their old system of wealth extraction reaches its terminal stage.

    4) How do you assess the possibility that a federal law against price gouging might backfire and trigger shortages?

    All price floors and price ceilings lead to shortages, never surpluses. This is literally first semester macro-economics. Harris and her handlers know this. In fact, they are counting on creating shortages. It’s part of the strategy in the end to destroy the country they lead.

    This is not stupidity or incompetence. It is policy.

    5) Harris promised to address housing affordability by issuing $25K support for first-time house byers. How would you expect such a measure to affect the housing market?

    It can’t stop the deflation of housing prices, it will only further dislocate the market by keeping prices up and suckering people who can’t afford a home into thinking they can. What needs to happen is sincere price corrections which reallocate scarce capital back to generating jobs that create wealth rather than subsidizing the things you buy once you have wealth.

    Starter homes now cost $180-200 per square foot to build in the US. At those prices, there are no new affordable homes. The tiny home industry in the US is booming. People are trying to right size their debt with their income. And are now coping with the insanity by telling themselves they can raise a family in 500 sq.ft. They can’t.

    So, again, what’s the goal? It’s not to put people in new homes. It’s to put people in smaller homes and/or choose to live in a rented space whose cost is subsidized by the government in the medium-term to nudge them towards the preferred outcome… living in cities with no food security, no real security, and constant/total surveillance.

    6) How realistic do you find Harris’ promise to build 3 million new houses?

    We can build any number of houses. The US has more than enough productive capacity to build 3 million houses. That’s not the right question. The right question is should we build any new houses, and for what price?

    It’s a talking point. A pathetic attempt to buy young voters who are increasingly looking at them and thinking they are crazy people.

    7) How successful do you expect Harris to be in distancing herself from the criticisms and negative effects that the Biden/Harris administration’s policies had on the US economy in recent years? How would you describe her target audience and why would this tactic work for it?

    She won’t be. You can’t run as the “reform candidate” when you are the incumbent. And nothing she has proposed is functionally any different than what was done previously while she was in office. Her target audience for this is the wholly unsophisticated young voter who is entering a broken workforce and economic landscape today and seeing nothing but a lack of real opportunities. They are hoping for a new round of “Obama Youth” to marshal into an effective fighting force for “Hope and Change.”

    What they are doing is purposefully increasing the possibility of full-blown civil war.

    8) How should we expect Harris’ economic plan to increase the US national debt?

    Exponentially. Again, that is the goal. They will use ruinous fiscal policy to run out the clock on Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve who are telling them that if they want their Communist revolution they will pay for it at 5.5% or higher. All of these ‘subsidy’ programs –food, housing, etc.—are meant to extend the current pricing regime until after the end of Powell’s term in 2026 and then close the loop, bringing the Fed back into the fold.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you hate Communism

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 19:50

  • Lebanon Plunged Into Darkness As Last Operational Power Plant Runs Out Of Fuel
    Lebanon Plunged Into Darkness As Last Operational Power Plant Runs Out Of Fuel

    The entirety of the Lebanese capital and the whole nation has been plunged into darkness amid a crippling power outage which has been in effect since midday Saturday.

    That’s when the state power provider Electricité du Liban (EDL) announced in a statement that “the last operational unit at the Zahrani power plant was forced to shut down completely, due to the complete depletion of the plant’s fuel oil reserves, resulting in a total power outage across all Lebanese territories.”

    The official statement identified that the shutdown affects “essential facilities such as the airport, port, water pumps, sewage systems and prisons.”

    The situation could grow dangerous for the citizenry given that even wastewater treatment facilities and drinking water pumping stations have been impacted, resulting in the South Lebanon Water Establishment to issue a statement “urging citizens to conserve water as much as possible due to the expected reduction in water supply.”

    Separate regional reports say that the government anticipated the depletion of fuel, and prepared for electricity generators to temporarily supply power to Beirut Airport for two days. 

    The General Director of Beirut Airport expressed hope that it can still be operational until additional fuel arrives, while caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayad indicated a timeline of 24-48 hours for the resumption of regular power operations across the capital.

    Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Energy Minister Walid Fayyaz is seeking to assure the public that new gas shipments from Egypt will soon arrive at Lebanese ports to resupply the fuel required for power plants. Algeria too has in a fresh statement said it is ready to send emergency fuel assistance.

    While Lebanon’s economic and electricity and resource woes have been exacerbated by the de facto state of war between Hezbollah and Israel in the southern border, the reality is the country has already suffered energy shortages and rolling blackouts for at least the last two years following the banking and currency crisis.

    Neighboring Syria too has also had regular blackouts and periods where the water is turned off going back years. The whole region came under severe wartime economic strain going back to the height of the Syrian proxy war, and the full impact on smaller Lebanon is now being felt full force. But is also a story of severe mismanagement by the Central Bank of Lebanon, also amid long-running and historic corruption and elite cronyism.

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

    Some Western analysts have blamed Hezbollah for stealing and diverting fuel and electricity from Beirut airport, and for holding the country’s resources hostage, but the economic woes are a much bigger force which have been felt for a long time before the current conflict with Israel.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 19:15

  • IDF Expands Gaza Operations As Blinken Arrives For 9th Visit To Israel
    IDF Expands Gaza Operations As Blinken Arrives For 9th Visit To Israel

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has landed in Israel on Sunday for his ninth visit since Oct.7 as part of an ongoing effort to achieve ceasefire in Gaza, and to gain the release of the hostages.

    He’s expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at 11 a.m. tomorrow (local time), alongside which there will be meetings with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Foreign Minister Israel Katz and President Isaac Herzog.

    The Biden administration has constantly claimed to be “at the goal line” of achieving a truce deal, a refrain heard for months, but with still nothing official to show.

    Via RTE

    Both warring sides have blamed the other. Hamas has long insisted on a full Israeli military withdrawal as a condition for releasing the hostages.

    But Netanyahu has countered that he will not order troops out of Gaza until Hamas as an organization is destroyed and fully eradicated. Some of his own generals, however, have argued that this will be impossible and an protracted, or even endless insurgency will result.

    The latest words of Netanyahu reveal he won’t budge despite international and US pressure: 

    Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel is sticking to its demands in ongoing hostage talks, positions that he says are in line with the proposal laid out by the White House in May.

    “We are conducting very complex negotiations,” he says, “while on the other side stands a murderous, uninhibited, and obstinate terrorist organization.”

    “But I want to emphasize,” the premier continues, “we are conducting negotiations [“give-and-take” in Hebrew], and not give-and-give. There are areas where we can show flexibility, and there are area where we can’t show flexibility — and we are standing firm on them. We know quite well how to distinguish between the two.”

    For whatever ‘optimism’ comes out of Doha, and for whatever ‘carrots’ the US hopes to use to entice both sides to at least agree to a pause in fighting, Blinken’s ninth trip appears yet another diplomatic exercise in futility.

    The US still hasn’t hesitated to approve gargantuan defense packages for Israel of late. So in the end Tel Aviv clearly has little to fear from White House ‘pressure’. 

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

    At the same time US progressives and also conservative anti-war activists have long pointed out that the White House’s condemnation of the unfolding humanitarian disaster, which US-supplied bombs are having an outsized role in, is all for show and mere public relations damage control.

    And likely that’s what Blinken’s latest trip to the region is all about. There will be much high-ideal rhetoric and little substance. And the war and escalation will continue. Meanwhile a Times of Israel Sunday top headline reads: IDF expanding operations in southern, central Gaza… even as Blinken is in country.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 18:05

  • Vast Stretches Of America Are So Depressed That They Look Like Something Out Of A Horror Movie
    Vast Stretches Of America Are So Depressed That They Look Like Something Out Of A Horror Movie

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    The wealthy are doing just fine at the moment, but they don’t seem to understand that much of the country is deeply hurting right now.  59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is currently experiencing a recession, and that is because most of them are personally experiencing economic pain.  Literally just about everything is substantially more expensive in 2024, more major layoffs are being announced with each passing day, and thousands of businesses are going bankrupt.  We haven’t seen a tsunami of economic suffering like this in a long time.

    If you live in a wealthy area in a good part of the country, you may wonder what all of the fuss is about.

    If you and everyone around you is still doing well, life may still seem quite good.

    But the truth is that there are vast stretches of this country that are so depressed that they literally look like something out of a horror movie.

    There are many communities that are so plagued by poverty, drugs, homelessness, violence and theft that it seems like there is no possible way that things could ever turn around.

    A man named Drew Binksy recently visited one of the poorest parts of West Virginia, and he discovered that most of the people there are living in poverty…

    ‘Most of [the residents] live below the poverty line and life expectancy is well below the national average.

    ‘Many families rely on Government assistance just to get by and there’s limited access to healthcare.’

    Today, tens of millions of Americans are heavily dependent on the checks that they get from the government each month.

    In areas where most people have lost hope of ever finding a better life, drug addiction often runs rampant, and that is precisely what Binksy witnessed…

    He also notes that ‘crystal meth and Fentanyl addictions run wild’ in the state, while many people are ‘living so isolated, they have their own dialect.’

    The content creator starts his journey in Bluefield and as he wanders through the once prosperous manufacturing city, he says it feels like he has stepped into ‘a forgotten world.’

    He continues: ‘Empty streets and closed shops stretch as far as the eye can see. It’s like life just stopped.’

    This is where the entire country is heading.

    Just a few days ago, I wrote about the “retail apocalypse” that is rapidly spreading across America.

    Thousands upon thousands of stores are closing, and most of those abandoned stores will not be filled any time soon.

    But at least they will make convenient locations for drug addicts to gather.

    According to one woman that Binksy interviewed, 30 percent of the people in her community are into illegal drugs…

    One woman in the store tells the camera crew: ‘We’re the poorest county in the United States or we were.

    ‘About 30 per cent of our community are dopers, druggies… more than 30 per cent!’

    The same conditions are being repeated in rural community after rural community all over America.

    Sadly, the standard of living in our rural communities is going to continue to go down because the cost of living just keeps going up…

    The cost of frozen noncarbonated juices and drinks has risen by 19.2 percent from July 2023 – the most of any grocery item.

    Eggs, meanwhile, have increased by 19.1 percent in price, and frankfurters are now 9.7 percent more expensive.

    The cost of bacon, beef roasts, pork chops and butter have also risen notably in the last year.

    In terms of non-food items, car insurance is the biggest riser in the last year – with an 18.6 percent price hike.

    We have already reached a stage where a large portion of the population cannot even afford the basics.

    As I shared yesterday, I was absolutely shocked to learn that 39 percent of Americans have been forced to skip meals so that they will have enough money to make their housing payments…

    39% of Americans say they’ve skipped meals to make housing payments, per Clever Real Estate survey.

    And among millennials, that figure rose to 44%. Among Baby Boomers, it was 20%.

    It is no wonder why so many voters are so deeply frustrated with the current state of the economy.

    This is our country now, and the outlook for the future is not positive at all.

    In fact, it appears that very alarming changes are starting to happen in the employment market as large companies lay off large numbers of workers…

    Another domino falls for recession as job creation turns negative for small businesses, which employ nearly half of all Americans.

    In the past year, payrolls for companies with under 50 employees plunged by nearly 100,000, while job trends were flat for midsized businesses up to 500 employees.

    The only bright spot was big businesses—which might be changing, given recent layoff announcements, including 2,500 at Chrysler, 4,000 at Cisco, 12,000 at Dell, and 15,000 at Intel. Paramount and the left-wing Axios both cut 10% to 15% of their workforce.

    20 years ago, most American families were clearly thriving.

    Today, most American families are clearly struggling.

    This change occurred so gradually that most people didn’t even realize what was happening.

    The gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is now larger than ever, and our major cities are teeming with millions of highly desperate people.

    This story is not going to end well, but most of you already knew that.

    When people feel like they have nothing left to lose, it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge.

    Unfortunately, it appears that the next few months represent a major tipping point, and it won’t be too long before all of the frustration that has been building up in this country starts to boil over.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 17:30

  • Could Democrats Make Kamala Harris President Before Election?
    Could Democrats Make Kamala Harris President Before Election?

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    An opinion piece in The Hill posits that Democrats could spring the ultimate October surprise by making Kamala Harris president before the election in November.

    Douglas MacKinnon notes that “This is already the most surreal presidential election of our lifetimes,” and that it could get even more bizarre.

    He adds, “I wrote several times in this space over the last two years that I never believed Biden would be the nominee, and I was proven right. I also honestly believe Trump will pull away from Harris come September and October.”

    “So, what then? How would the Democrats and the Harris campaign react to that?” MacKinnon wonders.

    He suggests that “At some point, might it become politically expedient to the Democrats to elevate Harris to the presidency for the remainder of the campaign?” adding “Is anything off the table in this weird election cycle? I don’t think so.”

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    As is well documented, Democrats could invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office. But at this point, it would be clearly a political move. Biden has not been running anything for three years anyway.

    MacKinnon suggests the 25th may not even be needed, noting that Biden could even enter the Democratic National Convention and say “I’ve had it. I’m done. I am resigning from my office and going back to Delaware.”

    It’s a bit far fetched, but who knows with the state of this election cycle.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 16:20

  • Chechen Warlord Shows Off Cybertruck With Heavy Machine Gun Turret
    Chechen Warlord Shows Off Cybertruck With Heavy Machine Gun Turret

    Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on Telegram on Saturday, “We received a Tesla cybertruck from the respected Elon Musk.”

    Kadyrov’s claim that he received a Cyberbeast from Elon Musk or Tesla was not independently confirmed. Given that the US State Department has sanctioned Kadyrov over numerous human rights violations, the warlord more than likely bought the vehicle off the black market or through a third party.

    Video uploaded on Telegram shows the warlord parading the Cyberbeast with a heavy machine gun mounted in the rear bed around Chechnya, a republic within the Russian Federation.

    Kadyrov said, “I express my sincere gratitude to Elon Musk! This is, of course, the strongest genius of our time and a specialist. Great man! Well, the cybertruck turned out to be a powerful project. Undoubtedly one of the best cars in the world! I literally fell in love with this car.” 

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    “Based on such excellent characteristics, the cybertruck will soon be sent to the North-East Military District zone, where it will be in demand under appropriate conditions. I am sure this “beast” will bring a lot of benefits to our soldiers,” he said.

    If the translation is accurate, the Cybertruck could soon be battle-tested on the modern battlefield in Eastern Europe. However, the stainless steel exoskeleton, which can withstand impact from a 9 mm handgun, would need to be upgraded with heavy armor to withstand rifle rounds and IEDs. 

    On Friday, we were the first to reveal Archimedes Defense and Unplugged Performance’s UP.FIT’s new bolt-on ‘ultimate defense upgrade‘ for the Tesla Cybetruck to protect against “14.5mm heavy machine gun rounds” and “IED/mine protection” for military and defense operations. 

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    Without additional steel and ceramic armor plating to stop heavy machine gun rounds and a ‘V-hull’ to protect the battery pack, plus a turbine generator in the rear to provide constant charging, Kadyrov’s claim the Cybertruck will be sent to the battlefield is just a stunt. After all, a Ukranian kamikaze drone would easily penetrate the glass roof.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 15:45

  • Catalysts And What Type Of Landing
    Catalysts And What Type Of Landing

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    Catalysts and What Type Of Landing?

    AI came back with a vengeance as equal weighted and small cap indices lagged.

    Inflation seems to be under control (by recent standards), which helped markets. We were a bit surprised how strongly the market reacted to PPI, as it is generally a tier 2 piece of data, and we seem to continue to underestimate how many people are very concerned about a rebound in inflation (we are not).

    But the big story seems to have been that we are back to a “soft” or “no” landing. Better than expected retail sales seemed to pave the way for many to wipe out the “recession” risk narrative. Retail sales and jobless claims (not anything I would hang my hat on) helped reverse all the fears about the economy.

    In some ways, we saw less evidence of froth as some of the larger, tech-focused ETFs didn’t see a surge of inflows. Offsetting that, at least a little, is the successful launch of MSTX. Anything that has $16 million in AUM in two days seems pretty decent, since all it does is leverage MSTR’s daily returns. I need to dig out an “April Fools’ Day” note I did on ETFs – as dark comedy becomes reality. Evidence that quantitative funds were loading back up on stocks as they retook various technical levels made sense. Somewhat more difficult to digest was chatter that people were piling back into the “yen carry trade” based on the BOJ’s “promises” not to mess with the currency during times of volatility.

    One thing we continue to witness that makes us very cautious on position size is the lack of liquidity in both directions. Moves in both directions seem amplified relative to the data or catalyst for the move. Yes, everything felt great most days last week, but I put very little faith in the idea that we’ve developed a “strong base” of support here.

    Let’s look at the potential catalysts.

    Catalysts – The Fed

    We get Jackson Hole this week. Back during the financial crisis, this event provided a great forum for Bernanke and others to lay out policy shifts (sometimes radical policy shifts). Don’t expect much this time around. The topic is “Reassessing the Effectiveness and Transmission of Monetary Policy.” While we could glean some information about future Fed decisions, they will likely try to avoid that and focus on how they will behave in some more distant future. Personally, I think QE should be categorized as a “nuclear option” and only used when absolutely necessary, and on the smallest possible scale, for the shortest period of time, but that is unlikely to occur.

    The Fed minutes might tell us how close they were to cutting in July (we think they should have), but again, that seems largely priced in now.

    With the market pricing in cuts at a pace only marginally faster than our base case, I’m not expecting a lot of movement in bonds or stocks based on the Fed this week.

    Catalysts – Earnings

    NVDA isn’t until August 28th. Other earnings will matter. The AI front is important, and it was incredibly important that Walmart highlighted how important AI had been in driving their performance in a recent earnings release. The one thing we’ve been looking for is “AI Success” stories. Not from the companies that benefit from AI adoption, but from AI users. That note fit the bill and more notes like that will convince us that valuations might not have gotten ahead of themselves in the space. The other thing we will all be looking for is anything that points to the direction of the economy and the consumer.

    Catalysts – The U.S. Election

    My head already hurts thinking about this election. Presumably, we will get a bit more policy information during this week’s DNC in Chicago and a likely additional bump in the polls (as is typical). Then I think – and I had to recheck the math a few times – more than 10 weeks of campaigning remain. I’m not sure how many more twists, plot turns, and truly “unprecedented” things will happen between now and the election, but I think we will get some more shocks.

    I remain wedded to the view that as the campaign heats up and policies get announced, we will realize that large annual budget deficits are on the horizon regardless of who wins. The amount of debt that needs to be issued, with a “cavalier” attitude towards debt creation, is going to continue to grow. The Fed will control the front end, but I expect the market will respond by re-installing some element of term premium.

    Catalysts – Geopolitical Risk

    For the first time in weeks, we are decreasing the near-term geopolitical risk, for two key reasons.

    • The consensus view is that when Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of rockets, missiles, and drones, it was merely “for show” as it was well-telegraphed and failed to damage Israel. Several members of the Geopolitical Intelligence Group pointed out that the attack was too large and too well-coordinated to be “merely” a show. That it wasn’t a coincidence that after the failed attack, Iran seemed to reduce sales to Russia (forcing the Russians to turn to North Korea) so that Iran could rebuild their stockpiles. One reason why Iran may not have retaliated since Israel killed the political leader of Hamas in Tehran, is that they haven’t figured out a better strategy and are too worried about another failed attempt (while at the same time, they are worried about being too successful and prompting Israel to attack Iran’s facilities).
    • Political uncertainty in the U.S. seemed to have created an opportunity to “test” us. Now, from a variety of conversations, there might be a willingness to see how this plays out. The chance that the new administration will be easier to work with than the current administration, from their perspective, might have them wait.

    The big caveat to that is how will Russia respond to Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory. For many, you could see this as an event bringing both sides to the negotiating table. On the other hand, Russia may view this as a reason to up the ante on their offensives in Ukraine.

    Catalysts – The Economy

    Talk about burying the lede. Normally we start with the most important piece and work our way down. But today we wanted to address the other potential catalysts briefly, before digging into the main event – the direction of the economy!

    Advance retail sales popped nicely, but the control group, while still “ok,” declined. In general, these numbers had been tracking each other reasonably well in terms of direction and it looks like last month’s deviation was just corrected. Not a big knock-on retail sales, but at least a question mark.

    “Amazon Prime Day” was July 16th and 17th. That event has become so big that it has spurred all sorts of price competition in and around it. So “goods were for sale” this past month – which the American consumer loves! How much demand was pulled forward by the sales? Many economists who predict these data points had discussed the possibility of upside surprises due to the sales. While encouraging, I would take this uptick in sales with some caution, as it likely indicated that demand was pulled forward to buy items on sale, rather than truly strong consumer spending.

    From Zerohedge, we get this chart of revisions.

    Revisions for the past year have been consistently to the downside, and to a non-trivial amount. No guarantee that this one was also overstated, but it is worth paying some attention to.

    This fits a running theme: that for whatever reason, initial readings on jobs and sales seem to overstate what actually occurred as the officials have more time to collect data.

    The other “intriguing” part of the report was that auto sales were a big contributor.

    That is possible, as U.S. Auto Sales Total Annualized SAAR popped from 15.3mm to 15.8mm between June and July.

    I could not find an ETF for U.S. or global automakers. I found a European centric one and did a simple calc for a U.S. proxy. Again, the charts tell more of a mixed story.

    The stocks, which should capture the future expectations, have rebounded of late (positive) but are still well below where we were at the start of July (not positive).

    The Manheim Used Auto Index, one of my “favorites” since the start of COVID, did see a small uptick in values in July, but it was not the first month with an uptick in what has been a pretty steady decline from the “I cannot find a vehicle anywhere” peak as we reopened from COVID. While not a “perfect substitute” for new car prices, it probably doesn’t help the price of new cars when used ones are more readily available.

    We’ve also seen inventory-to-sales ratios creep higher. Still below pre-COVID levels, but it is nearing those levels, and heading in a direction that is not great for pricing power on the part of dealers.

    Then we get to the nitty gritty of the consumer. There are a variety of “auto delinquency” indices on Bloomberg. We chose this one, but they all tell a similar story – delinquencies are rising. They are nearing or above “normal” levels. What we don’t know (or at least I don’t know) is how many loans were issued based on high residual values when the used car market was en fuego, hence exposing the lender to some potential losses as the used car market has softened since the peak.

    As credit card delinquencies are also rising (depending on which measure you use, back above pre-COVID levels), we can see that the amount of revolving debt for the consumer has expanded well above the trend line. While consumers are still willing and/or able to borrow – we see no problems. But we’ve seen credit stabilize and even dip in some months lately. That could be a function of some consumers putting the brakes on themselves (they know their own job prospects, etc.) or it could be lenders tightening. In any case, not sure how supportive this chart is for consumer consumption going forward!

    Yes, bank deposits remain high and money market funds continue to set new records, but as the economy continues to bifurcate into the “haves” and “have nots,” not sure how useful the “money on the sidelines” argument is. Those with money are fully gorged, and those without are losing access to what they need.

    Yes, the economy is largely driven by what people in the middle do, but my concern is that (and we see some of this in which retailers are doing well versus those that are doing less well) much of the middle class it close to tapping out (or just willing to spend on bargains).

    We won’t have much clarity on the economy until the first week of September when the jobs reports start hitting, but I am leaning towards investors getting concerned about recession risk.

    Bottom Line

    Far from out of the woods on the economy and markets. Stocks staged an impressive rally last week.

    • Lack of liquidity helped push markets further on data than they might have moved otherwise.
    • We never saw panic – a touch of fear, but not panic. And while not back to full froth, it seems clear that we are back in greed mode.

    It would be great to see a resilient economy, and that any indications of slowing were an anomaly. Over the coming days and weeks, I think retail sales and a couple of initial jobless claims reports will be exposed as the anomalies.

    I fail to see how the election campaigns give any comfort to buyers of longer-dated Treasuries. Yes, the Fed helps. Yes, lower inflation helps. Yes, a potential slowdown helps, but as every politician seems to create policies that are variations of “vote or donation buying,” I am not sure bond investors can be as comfortable as they currently are.

    Clearly I’m still in some sort of the “bumpy” landing crowd, and this week’s data did little to dissuade me from that. The most bullish information that I’m trying to work into my analysis is the actual praise of AI by a user, which we had not seen enough of, and this could turn the tide.

    There are many potential catalysts, but at this point, anything that drives us one way or the other on the “type of landing” to expect will be extra important to markets.

    Good luck, and for those trying to take some vacation time, hopefully this week plays out calmly. But I suspect volatility and dramatic moves will be the norm again this week across markets.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 15:10

  •  "Wet Winter Whirlwind": Farmers' Almanac Releases New Winter Forecast For US 
     “Wet Winter Whirlwind”: Farmers’ Almanac Releases New Winter Forecast For US 

    It’s that time of year again—while many visit the beach and or mountains before the school season kicks off in just a few weeks, others are already beginning to prepare for the upcoming winter season, with new forecasts from the Farmers’ Almanac. 

    The 208th edition of the Farmers’ Almanac is titled “Wet Winter Whirlwind” and revealed, “There will be a lot of precipitation and storms”—all dependent on location.  

    Winter Temperatures – How Cold?

    The Almanac is predicting a deep chill to settle over the Northern Plains and Great Lakes regions for much of the winter season. But don’t think the South is off the hook. Southern areas can still expect some frigid blasts from Old Man Winter, even if the temperatures are slightly more moderate overall. Cold snaps are forecast to hit during the final week of January into early February, with the Northern Plains potentially seeing the most extreme cold.

    Snow?

    The Northeast is in the bullseye for a barrage of storms this winter, with the Farmers’ Almanac calling for above-normal amounts of winter precipitation. Ski-lovers will enjoy nice powder days. Snow will likely be more plentiful in the interior and mountainous regions of New England and the Northeast, while those near the coast can expect more sleet and rain. And if you live in the Pacific Northwest, Great Lakes, or Southeast, get ready for a wet, white, and slushy season.

    On the flip side, the Southwest and South Central States are looking at a drier winter with below-normal precipitation.

    Here is the Farmers’ Almanac’s forecast map for the upcoming 2024-25 winter season across the Lower 48.

    Farmers’ Almanac Editor Sandi Duncan told USA TODAY, “It definitely looks more wet than white in many areas,” adding, “Obviously, depending on where you live, there might be more white than wet, but we’re focusing in on the wet winter ahead.”

    The weather prediction formula that Farmers’ Almanac uses revolves around a climate pattern known as La Niña, likely to emerge in September-November. 

    Remember that the emergence of La Nina can impact weather conditions across the Lower 48 this coming winter season.

    Duncan said, “The coldest temperatures look like they’re going to be over the North Central States into the Great Lakes area.” 

    She noted that much of the country can expect a wet Thanksgiving holiday, “except for way out in the Southwest,” and even said Christmas “looks wet rather than white for most areas.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 14:35

  • WHO Raises Outbreak Alarm As Once Eradicated Polio Returns To Gaza
    WHO Raises Outbreak Alarm As Once Eradicated Polio Returns To Gaza

    Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

    Following over a month of warnings, Gaza recorded its first case of polio since the highly contagious virus was eradicated there 25 years ago, prompting a Friday call by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for a temporary truce to enable a vaccination drive in the embattled strip.

    The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that an 10-month-old infant in the central city of Deir al-Balah “who has not received any polio vaccine dose” has tested positive for the virus, which often causes paralysis and can be fatal. The ministry said the baby is one of “a number of children” who have presented with symptoms consistent with polio in recent days.

    Via AFP

    “The continued brutal Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has caused a health disaster as witnessed by international organizations,” the ministry added, citing “the lack of basic hygiene needs, the lack of sanitation services, the accumulation of waste on the streets and around the shelters of the displaced, and the lack of safe drinking water” as factors that “have created a conducive environment for outbreaks.”

    Responding to the news, Guterres implored Israeli and Palestinian forces to lay down their arms so that U.N. humanitarian aid workers can launch a campaign to vaccinate half a million Gazan children.

    “I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign,” he told reporters at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

    “Let’s be clear: The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian cease-fire,” Guterres stressed. “But in any case, a polio pause is a must.”

    The U.N. World Health Organization and other groups sounded the alarm after poliovirus type 2 was found in Gaza wastewater last month. The discovery prompted the Israel Defense Forces to offer polio vaccines to its soldiers taking part in the invasion of the coastal enclave. Earlier this month, the Gaza Health Ministry declared the entire strip a “polio epidemic zone.”

    Guterres said Friday that Gaza’s health, water, and sanitation systems “have been decimated” by Israeli attacks, which have destroyed or damaged most hospitals and primary care facilities and created fertile ground for the spread of disease.

    As Leslie Roberts wrote recently for Science:

    The poliovirus is transmitted through the “fecal-oral” route—by contact with the feces of an infected child or consumption of water or food contaminated by fecal matter. The conditions in which the 1.9 million displaced Gazans are living—crammed into unhygienic camps with little access to clean water and sanitation and untreated sewage flowing openly between tents—create an ideal environment for the virus to thrive.

    Since the war began in October 2023, 70% of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza have been significantly damaged, and about 340,000 tons of solid waste have accumulated in or near populated areas, according to an estimate from the U.N. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Cluster. In June, Oxfam estimated there is just one toilet for every 4,130 people in Al-Mawasi, a supposed “safe zone” west of Khan Younis that recently came under Israeli attack.

    In addition to polio, Israel’s assault on Gaza and its disruption of medical supplies have fueled the spread of other preventable diseases including measles and hepatitis A.

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    “We know how an effective polio vaccination campaign must be administered,” Guterres said. “Given the wholesale devastation in Gaza, at least 95% vaccination coverage will be needed during each round of the two-round campaign to prevent polio’s spread and reduce its emergence.”

    The Gaza Health Ministry said that it has been working with the U.N. and other international organizations “over the past weeks on developing an integrated comprehensive plan for the implementation of an expanded polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip,” and that it will “carry out a vaccination campaign in the next few days targeting children under the age of 10.”

    Children, who make up around half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people, have been particularly hard-hit by Israel’s 316-day Gaza onslaught. More than 16,000 of the at least 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs and bullets are minors. The “complete siege” of Gaza—which has been entered as evidence in the International Court of Justice genocide trial against Israel—has disrupted the entry of food, medicine, and other vital supplies, fueling a famine that has killed dozens of Palestinian children.

    The Gaza Health Ministry said 1.1 million doses of a two-dose, orally administered type 2 polio vaccine have been provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund, with another 400,000 doses on the way. UNICEF said it “is coordinating delivery efforts and the cold chain equipment needed for storage.”

    Medical teams from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—which is the largest healthcare provider in Gaza, even as Israeli forces have killed around 200 of its workers—said they are ready to administer the polio vaccines and assist in their distribution.

    The Gaza Health Ministry renewed its “appeal to the international community and the international health organizations to speed up intervention to immediately stop the barbaric Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, work to prepare the ground conditions in order to rescue what can be salvaged, and provide immediate healthcare services to… our people.”

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    The agency also made an “urgent appeal” for “the necessity of immediate action to rebuild safe drinking water and sanitation systems, dispose of medical and solid waste, work on importing fuel to pump clean fresh water, and allow unconditional entry of medical supplies, medicines, and special materials used for personal hygiene.”

    Guterres underscored the need to “defeat a vicious virus that, left unchecked, would have a disastrous effect not only for Palestinian children in Gaza, but also in neighboring countries and the region.”

    “Polio does not care about dividing lines, and polio does not wait,” he said. “Polio goes beyond politics. It transcends all divisions. And so it is our shared obligation to come together. To mobilize—not to fight people, but to fight polio.” However, he stressed, “it is impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign with war raging all over.”

    “A successful polio vaccination campaign needs safety,” Guterres added. “Safety for health workers to do their jobs. Safety for children and families to get to the health facilities. And safety for those health facilities to be protected from bombardment.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 14:00

  • Belarus Says Ukraine Amassing Troops At Border; Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant Suffers Drone Attack
    Belarus Says Ukraine Amassing Troops At Border; Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant Suffers Drone Attack

    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has warned Sunday that Ukraine is also amassing troops on Belarus’ border amid the ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. Lukashenko alleged that Kiev has positioned more than 120,000 soldiers along its border with Belarus and this is being deemed an act of ‘aggression’ by military authorities. But it is curious where Ukraine got the manpower for this, if accurate.

    State-run BelTA quoted Lukashenko as saying, “Seeing their aggressive policy, we have introduced there and placed in certain points – in case of war, they would be defense – our military along the entire border.”

    West Asia News Agency/Reuters

    Thus he made it clear that Belarusian forces could counter-attack into Ukraine if Minsk observes any Ukrainian incursion on its sovereign territory.

    These extreme border tensions are nothing new, given Belarus has long been a logistics hub and staging ground for Russia’s Ukraine operations; however, the whole Kursk shock cross-border operation has certainly upped the ante.

    While these constitute serious threats from Lukashenko, it is as yet unclear how many regular army troops have been sent to bolster the state security services’ some 12,000 border guards already typically deployed.

    Meanwhile, Russia has launched another ballistic missile attack on Kiev in retaliation for the Kursk invasion. This one was an early morning Sunday assault, with the Kyiv City Military Administration stating on Telegram: “This is the third ballistic missile attack on the capital in August with a clear interval of six days between each attack.” Drones were also sent, with Ukraine’s military saying it intercepted all of them.

    Also, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued new warnings and concerns over the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which since early in the war has been occupied by Russian troops and authorities. The IAEA warned the safety of the complex is “deteriorating” following a nearby weekend drone strike. The IAEA further—

    …warned on Saturday of an escalation in the security dangers at the plant, reporting “intense” military activity over the past week in the area, including very close to the plant.

    …IAEA experts on site reported that the damage “seemed to have been caused by a drone equipped with an explosive payload”, affecting the road between the plant’s two main gates.

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    It seems the Ukrainians are attempting to stage a provocation in a desperate act following accusations from President Zelensky last week that the Russians set fire to the plant.

    Fighting inside Kursk is still intense, with Ukraine forces have destroyed a second key bridge, which strongly suggests they plan to seek to hold territory for significantly longer. The Associated Press details on Sunday:

    Ukraine has destroyed a key bridge in Russia’s Kursk region and struck a second one nearby, less than two weeks into its stunning cross-border incursion, disrupting Russian supply routes and possibly signaling that its troops are planning to dig in.

    Russia’s pro-Kremlin military bloggers have acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge, which spanned the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo, will impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces repelling Ukraine’s incursion, although Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges in the area. Ukraine’s air force chief, Lt. Mykola Oleshchuk, on Friday released a video of a Ukrainian airstrike that split the bridge in two.

    Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops hit a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and the Russian regional governor, Alexei Smirnov.

    Still, Russian defense ministry statements continue to try and paint a positive picture, with a top ranking Commander Major General Apty Alaudinov telling TASS on Sunday “Our situation is completely under control.”

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    “The enemy is trying to break through into our territory around the clock. All these attempts end with the elimination of the enemy and the burning of the equipment. That is why we are destroying the enemy’s reserves,” he told TASS.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 13:25

  • The Curious Story Of Taylor Lorenz … And Belated Concerns Of The Washington Post
    The Curious Story Of Taylor Lorenz … And Belated Concerns Of The Washington Post

    Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

    There is a rather curious controversy brewing over one of the Washington Post’s most controversial writers, Taylor Lorenz. The “tech columnist” for the Post has drawn continual criticism over public meltdowns and alleged doxxing. However, the Post seemed to value her notoriety…until she posted a picture of President Joe Biden with “war criminal” on it. Lorenz appeared to suggest that others added those words before various mainstream media outlets contradicted her account. She is now denying that she denied it was her words and the Post is investigating. What is most curious, however, is what it takes for the Post to investigate alleged false claims by its columnists.

    Lorenz posted the image during the White House Creator Economy Conference with the President. Many on the left have characterized Biden as a “war criminal” for his stance on Gaza.

    Mainstream media outlets reported the posting by a prominent Post columnist in echoing the criticism of Biden.

    Lorenz then responded by seemingly denying that she posted the words, chiding others on X that “[y]ou people will fall for any dumbass edit someone makes.”

    Many outlets then covered the story that Lorenz was denying the post. However, that produced a torrent of skepticism from even liberal outlets. For example, NPR ran a story that verified that the photo and “war criminal” caption were real:

    NPR has obtained a screengrab of Lorenz’s actual post, which contained that caption. … Four people with direct knowledge of the private Instagram story confirmed its authenticity to NPR. They spoke to NPR on condition they not be identified due to the professional sensitivity of the situation for Lorenz.

    After the NPR and other stories questioned her account, Lorenz publicly issued her denial of the earlier denial. She tweeted that “I literally never ‘denied it was real.’” She added “Yeah that’s saying they’re falling for (charitable view) something that’s an obvious meme reference by taking it seriously. Please don’t put words in my mouth[.]”

    So now, the Post is looking into it.

    For some of us, the controversy only adds to the uncertainty over the current standards at the Post. For example, there is apparently no problem in a White House Post reporter supporting government censorship of Donald Trump as an “America issue.”

    Likewise, the Post has publicly stood with reporters who have repeatedly published false claims and conspiracy theories. Take Philip Bump, who had a meltdown in an interview when confronted over past false claims. After I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims, the Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that they stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including false columns on the Lafayette Park protests, Hunter Biden laptop and other stories.  That was long after other media debunked the claims, but the Post stood by the false reporting.

    There was no announced or apparent investigation into those claims, or similar alleged false or misleading claims by political or legal columnists. Many of those past controversies involved false claims directed against former president Donald Trump.

    The future of Taylor Lorenz is hardly a weighty question for American journalism. However, the lack of consistency on these issues is a matter of concern, particularly as the Post tries to come to grips with falling readership and revenue.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 12:50

  • "Make It Great Like '68": Chicago Businesses Board Up As Protesters Threaten To Shut Down DNC 
    “Make It Great Like ’68”: Chicago Businesses Board Up As Protesters Threaten To Shut Down DNC 

    Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to descend near the Democratic National Convention in downtown Chicago in the coming days. Local media reports that shops have already boarded up doors and windows with plywood ahead of what could be a chaotic week. 

    Crews with Chicago Board Up Services told WGN-TV that at least a dozen shops around the West Loop, downtown, and Daley Plaza have been completely boarded up. They expect additional businesses to do the same. 

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    Scott Schapiro, the owner of Syd Jerome, a menswear shop at 20 N. Clark St., told NBC Chicago that he is no stranger to smash-and-grab and looting in the metro area and decided to take extra precautions, such as boarding up doors and windows ahead of the convention – where thousands of protesters are expected.

    “You get that phone call in the middle of the night and your heart jumps out of your chest,” Schapiro told the local media outlet.

    He continued, “We want to sleep a little more soundly at night, and this gives us a little security, and we hope that there isn’t any incident obviously, but in the event there is, we want to have maximum protection.” 

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    Protest organizers told NBC News that 20,000 demonstrators from several states will take over downtown streets in an approved protest area near the Democratic National Convention. 

    “The 264 protest groups that have said they will participate are primarily focused on Palestinian rights, ending the war in Gaza and reducing US aid to Israel,” NBC said, adding, “Others represent a patchwork of left-leaning causes: climate activists, socialists, anti-racist organizations, queer and trans rights groups.” 

    Mayor Brandon Johnson informed business owners and residents last week that the metro area is well prepared for social unrest. He reiterated that Chicago’s police force has worked with the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies. 

    Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker brushed off fears that next week’s Democratic National Convention could erupt into the same kind of violence experienced during the 1968 convention.

    Other local media outlets predict a much larger crowd size, upwards of 100,000 pro-Palestinian protesters.

    One protest organization, Behind Enemy Lines, has called for “Make it Great like ’68,” referring to the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention. 

    “We’re not calling for violence or planning on anything illegal, but we think that there’s ways for people to protest that do go beyond business as usual,” the group spokesperson said, who asked not to be named and quoted by WBEZ Chicago. 

    The media outlet explained, “Behind Enemy Lines has opened a temporary office on Chicago’s Northwest Side, decorated with posters bearing slogans such as “Stop Killer Kamala” and “Fight Back for Gaza!”” 

    Any outbreak of civil disobedience could ignite a wave of bad press for VP Harris and the Democrats.

    VP Harris is already coming off a week of terrible headlines after debuting her first economic policies, including communist-style price controls.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 12:15

  • The Super-Wealthy Have A Problem
    The Super-Wealthy Have A Problem

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    The less self-congratulatory camp of the super-wealthy understand the pressure cooker of inequality and unfairness is going to blow unless they relinquish some of their unearned gains generated by Fed policies.

    The cultural consensus holds that the super-wealthy always manage to come out ahead in any spot of bother. Due to their grip on the levers of financial and political power, whatever lays waste to the bottom 90% of the populace is either 1) an opportunity to increase their wealth or 2) a minor bump in the road to ever-expanding wealth.

    History offers an abundance of examples. A favorite of mine is the guest books of the French chateaus owned by the super-wealthy, which logged visits from the Usual Suspects (political and financial bigshots) until 1940, when the names of Nazi bigshots began filling the ledgers, and then in 1945, the visitor list reverted to the Usual Suspects: a seamless transition from one set of political overlords to the next that the chateau owners rode without difficulty.

    But there are counter-examples as well. Consider the family estate of famed architect I.M. Pei in Suzhou, China. I visited the impressive Pei residence, which is now a government-owned property open to the public. The Pei family was wealthy enough to be comfortably in the top tier of Chinese society. Life was good for China’s elite, right up to 1949. These elites did not glide though the revolution intact; their wealth was confiscated.

    They were replaced with a new elite, who now holds vast troves of wealth secreted away in the West, and just as I.M. Pei attended prestigious American Ivy League universities, so too do the sons and daughters of China’s party elites, under assumed names, of course, to allow them a private experience outside the limelight.

    So the super-wealthy don’t always skate through tumultuous times, emerging richer than ever. We all understand how vast wealth inequality influences the political and social responses to crises. What is less well understood is the role of fairness in the social and political realms: if the inequality is understood to be the result of extremes of unfairness, the public mood darkens considerably, as humans are innately sensitive to unfairness.

    The porousness of the border between the wealthy and the poor matters greatly in assessing fairness. If the financial-social membrane between the two classes is relatively porous, enabling the most ambitious and brightest of the poor to enter the ranks of the wealthy (or the ranks of the the top 10% who serve them), then the society maintains a minimum level of fairness that alleviates the pressure to overthrow the regime.

    The remedial actions of the state also matter greatly. If the government acts decisively to raise estate taxes, taxes on unearned (i.e. rentier) income and on the higher reaches of earned income, and devotes some minimal attention to the basic needs of the bottom 90%, these policies also alleviate the pressure to overthrow the regime.

    The book The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century addresses these dynamics in admirable detail.

    In other words, extremes of wealth/power inequality set the stage, but the closing act is decided by our responses to soaring inequality. If the response is PR artifice, i.e. the rich keep getting richer as the suffering of the bottom 90% increases, regime change starts looking like the only solution available.

    If, on the other hand, policy makers and the public push back against the dominance of the super-wealthy, then the status quo can avoid fragmentation and dissolution.

    The super-wealthy play a key role in this choice of response, and this fragments the elites into warring camps, a dynamic I’ve addressed many times over the years, including in my chart of some of the overlapping crises that will demand more than duct-tape responses:

    The backdrop is the policies that have handed the super-wealthy immense gains in wealth and power via policy-driven asset appreciation and the gradual diminishment of the purchasing power of wages. Over the past 45 years, the value of earnings has declined $149 trillion to the benefit of unearned gains reaped by the already-wealthy:

    This chart shows how wealth inequality has risen from the late 1970s, and how it was rocket-boosted by the Federal Reserve’s “wealth effect” policies of quantitative easing (QE):

    The bottom 80% own a mere fraction of the wealth owned by the top 1% and top 10%

    While the wealthy cling to the self-serving narcissistic view that since we’re doing fine, everyone’s doing fine, the reality is the bottom 80% are awakening to the reality that they’re not doing fine, a divide that will only widen as recession tightens its grip on the throats of the bottom 80%:

    This is the vision of the “our wealth is rightly all ours” camp of the super-wealthy: the rest of us will own nothing and we’ll be gloriously happy. Uh, sure. Since we’re so happy, why don’t we switch places?

    The less self-congratulatory camp of the super-wealthy understand the pressure cooker of inequality and unfairness is going to blow unless they relinquish some of their unearned gains generated by Fed policies. While they naturally intend on keeping the vast majority of their gains, they realize the dividends of limitless greed might just be the overthrow of the regime they control to serve their own interests.

    The rest of us play a part, too, of course, and our choice boils down to this: “And you want me to join this?”

    The super-wealthy have a problem: if they refuse to release the pressure building in a grossly unfair, rigged system that’s enriched them beyond measure, then the pendulum may swing to the other extreme and they’ll be visiting their former estates as tourists in a few years.

    But if they agree to relinquish some part of their gains, they fear the tides of history may erode their sand castles. Aiya, what a dilemma.

    *  *  *

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

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 11:40

  • Disney Fights 'Wrongful Death' Lawsuit Claiming Plaintiff Waived Rights When He Signed Up For A Disney+ Trial
    Disney Fights ‘Wrongful Death’ Lawsuit Claiming Plaintiff Waived Rights When He Signed Up For A Disney+ Trial

    This might be the most stone cold lawyer trick we’ve seen in a while and remember: we deal with the financial world on a daily basis, so that’s saying something.

    Disney is fighting a wrongful death lawsuit by claiming the complainant agreed to arbitration when he signed up for a one month trial of Disney+ streaming services, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

    The suit was brought by Jeffrey Piccolo, the husband of Kanokporn Tangsuan, a 42 year old doctor who allegedly had a “fatal allergic reaction” to food at an Irish Pub in Disney Springs last October. 

    In a motion to the court, Disney’s lawyers argued that he had “agreed to settle any lawsuits against Disney out of court through the arbitration process when he signed up for a one-month trial of Disney+ in 2019”.

    They wrote: “The Terms of Use, which were provided with the Subscriber Agreement, include a binding arbitration clause.”

    The motion continued: “The first page of the Subscriber Agreement states, in all capital letters, that ‘any dispute between You and Us, Except for Small Claims, is subject to a class action waiver and must be resolved by individual binding arbitration’.”

    Disney points out that Piccolo also agreed to arbitration when he signed up on their website and app before visiting the theme park.

    The report says Piccolo’s attorney fired back: “The notion that terms agreed to by a consumer when creating a Disney+ free trial account would forever bar that consumer’s right to a jury trial in any dispute with any Disney affiliate or subsidiary, is so outrageously unreasonable and unfair as to shock the judicial conscience, and this court should not enforce such an agreement.”

    Disney commented that its “deeply saddened” by the suit and said: “We are merely defending ourselves against the plaintiff’s attorney’s attempt to include us in their lawsuit against the restaurant.”

    Disney argued in its May 31 filing that whether Piccolo reviewed the service terms is irrelevant, noting the arbitration provision covers “all disputes,” including those involving Disney or its affiliates.

    The Reporter notes that Raglan Road, the Irish pub at Disney Springs where Tangsuan dined, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

    Piccolo’s February lawsuit claims that despite repeated warnings about Tangsuan’s severe nut and dairy allergies, the restaurant served her food that was not properly flagged as allergen-free. Tangsuan later died from anaphylaxis, with a medical examiner confirming the presence of dairy and nuts in her system.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/18/2024 – 11:05

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Aug 18

Today’s News 18th August 2024

  • New York Times' 'Distorted' Coverage Of CCP Abuses Likely Cost Lives, Report Says
    New York Times’ ‘Distorted’ Coverage Of CCP Abuses Likely Cost Lives, Report Says

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

    At critical moments over the past 25 years, the New York Times has aided the interests of a power faction within the Chinese Communist Party responsible for atrocities against practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong.

    On top of implicating itself ethically, the paper has also, as a result, distorted its China coverage and misled its readers, as revealed by an analysis of The New York Times’ China coverage as well as interviews with half a dozen experts on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politics and geopolitics.

    Due to the paper’s disproportionate influence on policy, its skewed coverage has likely led to a loss of life and treasure that is difficult to quantify, some experts said.

    The New York Times has for decades positioned itself as a global newspaper, insisting on a necessity of access to China, according to former staffers. That meant convincing the communist regime that the paper’s presence would benefit it.

    The paper has never explained what price it has paid for access to the country.

    “There’s always the issue of, if you want to be a global newspaper, what do you have to do to keep China happy and stay in business there?” Tom Kuntz, a former editor at the paper, told The Epoch Times.

    “There’s always been tensions, and I know they’ve, like a lot of companies, tried to maintain access to China.”

    Bradley Thayer, a former senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, expert on strategic assessment of China, and a contributor to The Epoch Times, was more blunt.

    “If they don’t cover the regime the way the regime wants to be covered, they’re going to be blackballed. They’re not going to be able to return,” he told The Epoch Times.

    “So all of these individuals have a vested interest, if you will, in toeing the Party line.”

    Covering Chinese politics, The New York Times has ascribed sincerity where deception is expected and glossed over where it should have dug deeper, all in a pattern of affinity with the interests of a CCP clique aligned with former Party leader Jiang Zemin, multiple experts affirmed.

    Jiang’s influence has waned since 2012, when incoming CCP leader Xi Jinping exhibited an unexpected dexterity in eliminating his opponents. Only a minority of Jiang’s acolytes have maintained influence since his death in 2022. Despite the shift in power, however, The New York Times has maintained the pro-Jiang pattern.

    The New York Times did not respond to a detailed list of emailed questions for this article.

    Privileged Position

    The paper developed a special connection with Jiang in 2001, when its then-publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and several editors and reporters were granted a rare audience with the dictator.

    The paper ran a flattering interview headlined “In Jiang’s Words: ‘I Hope the Western World Can Understand China Better.’”

    Within days, the CCP unblocked access to The New York Times’ website in China.

    A month later, the CCP unblocked several other Western news sites, including those of The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the BBC. The sites were blocked again within a week.

    The New York Times, on the other hand, remained accessible. Users then reported that content on the site was being blocked selectively, giving the paper a chance to benefit from access to the Chinese market to the degree that it kept within bounds acceptable to the CCP.

    The interview came at a sensitive time for Jiang. He had only a little more than a year left before he was supposed to hand over Party control to Hu Jintao, fulfilling the succession line stipulated by Deng Xiaoping, his predecessor.

    But things weren’t going well for Jiang. His persecution of the spiritual practice Falun Gong, a political campaign that was supposed to whip the Party and the nation into conformity under his control, was failing to reach its goals. Even worse, foreign media, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, were taking apart the CCP’s anti-Falun Gong propaganda and highlighting accounts of wrongful detention and torture.

    The New York Times, by contrast, appeared most helpful to Jiang’s campaign. By the time of the 2001 interview, the paper ran several dozen articles on Falun Gong, almost all of them profusely parroting the propaganda portraying the practice as a “cult” or a “sect.”

    Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline consisting of slow-moving exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It was introduced to the public in China in 1992, and by the end of the decade, an estimated 70 million to 100 million people were practicing it.

    When in January 2001 CCP state media claimed that several people who set themselves on fire on Tiananmen Square in Beijing were Falun Gong practitioners, The Washington Post dispatched a reporter to fact-check the story. The New York Times, on the other hand, immediately took the CCP line as fact.

    If the paper employed its much-touted investigative acumen, it would have discovered, as others have, that the incident was staged. After the first man allegedly set himself alight in the middle of the square, four policemen somehow managed to obtain several fire extinguishers, rush to the scene, and put out the fire, all in less than one minute.

    Given the distances involved on the giant square, that wouldn’t have been physically possible—unless the officers already had the fire extinguishers ready and knew in advance where on the square they would be needed that day, several independent investigations concluded, pointing out dozens of other inconsistencies.

    Even without any investigation, the incident made little sense. The victims supposedly followed a belief that burning themselves alive would bring them to heaven. But Falun Gong includes no such belief. In fact, its literature treats suicide as killing a human life, which it explicitly prohibits.

    The New York Times didn’t even find it strange that since Falun Gong’s public introduction in 1992, of the tens of millions of people practicing it, none of them had publicly set themselves on fire until that day, and none had done so since.

    Even after The Washington Post investigation traced several of the alleged victims back to their hometown and found that none had ever been seen practicing Falun Gong, The New York Times continued to parrot the CCP’s propaganda.

    Jiang was apparently pleased with The New York Times, calling it during the 2001 interview “a very good paper.”

    Getting in Jiang’s good graces on the Falun Gong issue would have been particularly critical, as it struck at the heart of a core principle of CCP politics, several experts affirmed.

    Partners in Crime

    One of the bedrocks of the CCP’s internal politics is ensuring one’s own safety, particularly upon retirement. Cadres are well aware of the pitiful fate of many high-ranking comrades. Infamously, Liu Shaoqi, once No. 2 to the CCP’s first leader, Mao Zedong, was purged during the Cultural Revolution, arrested, and tortured to death.

    When Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, looked for somebody to helm the CCP after him in 1989, he picked Jiang Zemin, the Shanghai Party secretary who supported the CCP’s deployment of military to crush the 1989 student protests.

    “Because Jiang was implicated in the repression of the students, Deng could trust Jiang to be his successor. Jiang could not in the future use the massacre against Deng without implicating himself,” explained Matthew Little, a senior editor of The Epoch Times, in a 2012 analysis.

    The persecution of Falun Gong played much the same role for Jiang, who encouraged his cronies to build “political capital” by backing the campaign. Some did so with fervor, escalating the persecution to a point of unspeakable barbarity, particularly in encouraging torture to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith, The Epoch Times previously reported.

    These officials, tied by shared complicity in the atrocities, were at the core of Jiang’s power faction, sometimes called the “Shanghai gang.”

    In exchange for their support, Jiang let the gang abuse their offices and plunder state-owned assets, setting the tone for a nationwide culture of corruption.

    That culture served a dual purpose for Jiang. On one hand, it allowed him to buy supporters, especially in the 1990s, when he struggled to form a power base among CCP cadres, who generally saw him as incompetent, according to an unofficial biography of Jiang published by The Epoch Times.

    On the other hand, he could eliminate his rivals in the name of “anti-corruption.”

    But the sword of anti-corruption cuts both ways. As Xi later demonstrated, it could be applied selectively against the Jiang faction, too.

    The bond through culpability in the Falun Gong repression was more solid. The crimes became so extensive that none of the culprits would have risked their revelation, some China experts said.

    There was a problem, though: Jiang’s designated replacement, Hu Jintao, showed little enthusiasm for the Falun Gong campaign.

    “Jiang tried to push Hu to persecute Falun Gong and found he was quite reluctant,” said Li Linyi, a China commentator, expert on CCP internal politics, and Epoch Times contributor.

    “Their relationship started to deteriorate after that. Jiang just felt more and more concerned about Hu.”

    Just as the CCP under Deng redressed some victims of the Cultural Revolution, Hu could, at least theoretically, redress Falun Gong, blame Jiang, and purge his faction.

    (Left) Chinese police tackle and arrest Falun Gong adherents on Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Feb. 14, 2002. (Top Right) A man blocks a line of tanks heading east on Beijing’s Avenue of Eternal Peace during the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 5, 1989. (Bottom Right) A poster depicts how to deal with so-called “enemies of the people” during the Cultural Revolution, in Beijing in late 1966. (Frederic Brown/AFP via Getty Images, Jeff Widener/AP Photo, Jean Vincent/AFP via Getty Images)

    In reality, this was unlikely to happen, Li said.

    “There was a huge price for redressing the Cultural Revolution,” he said. “Not only did some top CCP leaders get purged, but the CCP admitted they made a big mistake. That is not good for them in order to hold power in China in the long term. The CCP is still criticized for what they did during the Cultural Revolution.”

    CCP leaders would only backtrack on Falun Gong as a last resort, if they felt it would save the regime, he said.

    That didn’t mean, however, that Hu and his supporters couldn’t use the Falun Gong issue to endanger Jiang and his faction in other ways. Indeed, there’s evidence that they have.

    “All [Jiang’s] policies could have continued to be carried out by Hu Jintao, except this one. … The only thing Jiang Zemin worried about was the policy of persecuting Falun Gong,” said Heng He, a veteran China commentator with NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times.

    Jiang was thus extremely motivated to constrain Hu and prop up his own image, several experts confirmed.

    The New York Times proved helpful in this pursuit.

    Shoring Up a Dictator’s Legacy

    By 2002, The New York Times was in pro-Jiang mode. Parroting the Party propaganda, the paper declared that Falun Gong had been successfully “crushed.”

    Citing CCP sources, it suggested that Falun Gong was already passé and that it only ever had 2 million practitioners. It went as far as claiming that the figure cited by Falun Gong sources, 70 million, was baseless.

    Yet a few years earlier, before the persecution began, multiple Western and Chinese media, including The Associated Press and The New York Times, provided figures of 70 million or 100 million, generally attributing them to estimates by the Chinese State Sports Administration, which had the best insight due to a massive survey of Falun Gong practitioners it conducted in the late 1990s.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 23:20

  • Here's Why The US Is Playing Dumb About Ukraine's Plans To Invade Kursk
    Here’s Why The US Is Playing Dumb About Ukraine’s Plans To Invade Kursk

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that the US didn’t know about Ukraine’s plans to invade Russia’s Kursk Region, but that’s unbelievable since there’s no way that its intelligence services didn’t even catch a hint of it, not to mention likely participate in the preparations.

    Putin even reaffirmed during a meeting on Monday with high-ranking government officials about this crisis that Ukraine is the West’s proxy for waging war on Russia. Here are the five reasons why the US is still playing dumb:

    1. Maintain Plausible Deniability For Escalation Control

    Admitting complicity in Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s universally recognized territory would make the US a direct participant in these unprecedented hostilities and thus place enormous pressure upon Moscow to respond against it and/or other NATO countries like Poland. The US doesn’t want that to happen, ergo why it also forced Ukraine to call off its reportedly planned assassination of Putin last month as explained here, so dishonestly denying knowledge of its proxy’s plans is par for the course and not unexpected.

    2. Avoid Embarrassment & Responsibility Once Ukraine Fails

    It’s unlikely that Ukraine will be able to indefinitely hold the territory that it captured inside of Russia so it’s a question of when and not if it fails. Accordingly, the US wants to avoid the embarrassment associated with that once it happens and also reduce the chances that Russia feels pressured to respond against it and/or other NATO countries as written above. The US is basically letting Ukraine hold the bag after everything inevitably fails apart so that Russia’s full fury is directly solely against its proxy.  

    3. Propagate David-vs.-Goliath Optics For Boosting Morale

    By pretending to be caught off guard by what just happened, the US is lending false credence to the optics that the latest phase of the already decade-long Ukrainian Conflict that began almost two and a half years ago is a modern-day David vs. Goliath story. This is meant to boost morale inside of Ukraine amidst its drastic slump caused by the ramping up of forcible conscription there and increase support among the Western public for continuing to fund this proxy war in the face of growing fatigue.

    4. Keep Up The Charade Of A “Gentlemen’s Agreement” Gone Bad

    RT’s Sergey Poletaev introduced an intriguing theory into the global information ecosystem earlier this week when he wrote that “The relative calm along the 1,000-kilometer border for two and a half years likely wasn’t coincidental. We can suggest there were agreements between Moscow and Washington, specifically with the administration of US President Joe Biden.” If there’s any truth to that, then lying about not being aware of Kiev’s plans could be an attempt by the US to try to hoodwink Putin yet again.

    5. Troll Russia After It Previously Denied Supporting Donbass

    Russia always denied militarily supporting Donbass throughout the eight years between “EuroMaidan” and the special operation, but the US insisted that this was a lie and that Russia had “invaded” Ukraine, albeit at a limited scale. Whatever the truth may be, playing dumb about its support for Ukraine’s indisputable invasion of Russia is also an attempt to troll Russia for denying the dubious claim that it “invaded” Donbass before 2022.  

    There’s no truth to the US’ denial that it knew nothing about Ukraine’s plans to invade Russia, but claiming otherwise advances its escalation control and soft power interests.

    Those who play along with this are insulting the intelligence of their targeted audience, some of whom might feel pressured not to call them out though due to fear of being aggressively harassed online and “canceled”.

    All objective observers know the truth, especially those in the Global South, which is all that matters for Russia.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 22:45

  • Sen. Scott Urges Commerce Department To Investigate Chinese-Owned Temu
    Sen. Scott Urges Commerce Department To Investigate Chinese-Owned Temu

    Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is calling on the Commerce Department to open an investigation into the business practices of Chinese budget online retailer Temu.

    In a letter dated Aug. 14 to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Scott warned that the fast-growing Temu represents “a new challenge” to efforts to ensure fair trade practices in the United States.

    Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks during a press conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on July 11, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    “To protect our nation’s economic interests and the well-being of our citizens, I believe it is imperative that we address this issue promptly,” Scott wrote.

    Temu’s platform, which began in the United States in September 2022, is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, which also operates the Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo. In January, the research firm Marketplace Pulse estimated that more than 100,000 China-based sellers were operating on Temu.

    Scott identified five areas of concern surrounding Temu—product safety and quality, labor practices, unfair competition, data privacy, and counterfeit goods—as reasons why the Commerce Department must take action against the shopping platform.

    The Florida senator warned that products sold on Temu “are not subject to the rigorous safety tests and inspections that other competitor products made elsewhere around the world undergo.”

    “There are concerns that Temu may be a conduit for counterfeit products,” he added.

    South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported on Aug. 14 that toxic substances were found on women’s accessories, such as hats and sandals, being sold on three Chinese online platforms, including Temu, citing the South Korean city government of Seoul.

    “There are reports of unsafe working conditions, labor abuses, and human rights violations associated with [the] production of products for Temu,” Scott wrote. “We need to ensure that the products sold on Temu are not manufactured using forced labor or other unethical practices that violate international labor standards.”

    In June last year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) published a report warning consumers that “there is an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labor.”

    “Temu does not have any system to ensure compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA),” the report reads.

    The law bans imports from China’s far-western region of Xinjiang—where the Chinese regime has been accused of committing genocide against Uyghurs—unless companies can prove products weren’t produced with forced labor.

    Scott also questioned Temu’s ability to sell products at lower prices than U.S. retailers, suggesting that it could result from “unfair trade practices or the exploitation of loopholes in our import regulations.”

    In February, Scott and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) sent a letter to President Joe Biden, asking his administration to end the “de minimus” trade rule because it’s a loophole that “unfairly benefits foreign companies and overseas e-commerce platforms such as Temu.” Under the rule, imports under $800 in valuation can enter the United States without paying duties and taxes and with little or no customs inspection.

    “De minimis shipments, now numbering 3 million a day, are at an elevated risk of violating UFLPA, containing counterfeit goods, exacerbating the fentanyl crisis, or posing a serious health danger to consumers,” the two senators wrote in their letter.

    Scott pointed out in his Aug. 14 letter that data security should be another concern.

    “Given Temu’s Chinese ownership, we must investigate potential risks to American consumers’ data privacy and security,” Scott wrote. “Concerns regarding exploitation of Temu application users lead U.S.-based companies to announce warnings and ‘how-to’ guides on removing the Temu application from its application purchasing platform and user devices.”

    In China, there are different laws, including the National Intelligence Law, that can compel Chinese companies to hand over data collected within China and elsewhere to Beijing’s intelligence agencies.

    Scott asked the Commerce Department to “launch a comprehensive investigation” into Temu, work with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to assess potential risks, evaluate the need for new regulations, and submit a detailed report to Congress on its findings.

    The Florida senator also requested a meeting with Raimondo to discuss the issue.

    The Commerce Department and Temu officials didn’t respond by publication time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 22:10

  • Oakland Neighbors "Take Matters Into Their Own Hands" To Fight Reckless Driving Sideshows
    Oakland Neighbors “Take Matters Into Their Own Hands” To Fight Reckless Driving Sideshows

    Neighbors in Oakland have had enough with reckless driving and, since their years of complaints are going unnoticed, they’re banding together and doing something about it.

    Frustrated by years of reckless driving, Oakland homeowners took action by placing dirt- and rock-filled tires on busy streets.

    On Tuesday, city crews faced hecklers while removing the tires from East 21st Street, according to Fox KTVU.

    Odelson Souza said his 2 year old son was almost hit by a speeding car on the sidewalk, telling Fox: “Look, please help us. Who else we gonna call? Superman?”

    Three months ago, neighbors created makeshift roundabouts with reflective tape on 18th Avenue. On Tuesday, they illegally parked two cars to prevent city crews from dismantling one.

    Neighbor Lauren Blanchard said: “Well, we are protesting this. It feels crushing. We want the city to pay attention to our neighborhood.”

    One neighbor said: “They almost killed someone. There’s a school up there. Kids have been hit on this street. There are people whose cars have been crashed into and totaled.”

    He continued: “Enough of the performative, you know, making everyone feel better, renaming streets after dead rap artists. Do your [expletive] job.”

    “So disappointed with the city’s inability or unwillingness to respond to clear and present danger,” another neighbor, Wendy Jung, said.

    Sean Maher, Oakland’s Citywide Communications and Engagement Director responded: “We all want safer streets, but increasing the risk to the public by installing hazards is not the solution. The city will be promptly removing these unauthorized, dangerous installations.”

    The report says neighbors have committed to installing more barriers until the city acts.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 21:35

  • CIA Awards Qatari Intel Chief Top Medal For Cooperation With US
    CIA Awards Qatari Intel Chief Top Medal For Cooperation With US

    Via The Cradle

    In a ceremony earlier this week, CIA Director William Burns awarded the head of the Qatari State Security Agency the George Tenet medal for his work on strengthening intelligence cooperation between the US and Qatar, Axios reported Thursday. The two intelligence agencies especially during the decade-long proxy war to oust Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

    Both Burns and Al-Khulaifi have played important roles in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a potential ceasefire in Gaza and prisoner exchange.

    Image montage: The Cradle

    One reason for the award is Qatari efforts to release the remaining 111 Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza, one source with knowledge of the issue told Axios.

    Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons and detention camps, where recent reports suggest that torture and rape is common.

    Another source said Burns gave the award to his Qatari counterpart in “appreciation of his role in maintaining national and regional security, and the exceptional support he provided to the CIA in preserving the interests and security of the US and Qatar.”

    Another important reason for the award was the cooperation between the CIA and Qatari intelligence in counterterrorism and the ability of the Qatari State Security Agency to prevent and foil threats and attacks in West Asia, the source told Axios.

    Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Khulaifi was awarded the CIA’s George Tenet medal this week, via AJ Arabic

    Both the US and Qatar have long been known for their support of terrorist groups in the region.

    Starting in 2011, the US and Qatar worked closely with other regional states to support Al-Qaeda in Syria.

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    The Syrian branch of the terror group, the Nusra Front, led a jihadist insurgency against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad under the cover of US-sponsored anti-government protests.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 21:00

  • Kevin Plank's Race Farm Listed For $22 Million Amid Under Armour Troubles
    Kevin Plank’s Race Farm Listed For $22 Million Amid Under Armour Troubles

    Baltimore-based Under Amour has been undergoing a broad multi-year restructuring plan. Earlier this year, founder Kevin Plank returned to the helm, hoping to reverse the sales slump and boost profits.

    Given that UA shares have been a trainwreck since the company was accused of defrauding shareholders about revenue growth in a bid to beat Wall Street’s forecasts in 2017, Plank, the third largest shareholder, has seen his paper wealth evaporate. 

    In June, UA agreed to pay $434 million to settle the lawsuit that accused Plank of intentionally deceiving investors about the company’s financial health between Sept. 16, 2015, and Nov. 1, 2019. UA will use cash and a revolving credit facility to pay the settlement. 

    With UA in the dumps, about 21 miles north of the company’s headquarters in Baltimore City, situated in some of the best steeplechase country in the US, Plank’s 530-acre horse farm, called “Sagamore Farm,” was “briefly listed for $22 million,” according to local media Baltimore Banner. 

    Here’s more from the local media outlet: 

    The listing by the real estate firm Compass was publicly available online on Monday morning. Denie Dulin, the listing agent, said the Glyndon estate might be sold privately and declined to comment further.

    “It’s not publicly being marketed yet,” Dulin said.

    Plank bought Sagamore Farm from a developer in 2007 through an LLC. It’s unclear how much he paid. Property records do not disclose a sale price.

    In 2010, several years after Plank bought the race farm, he told the Baltimore Sun paper that he planned to win a ‘Triple Crown.’ 

    The real estate agent did not explain why Plank decided to sell the race farm. Plank has been locked in a zoning dispute with local conservation groups after he proposed building a whiskey distillery on the historic farm. The timing of the sale also comes amid UA restructuring efforts.

    Meanwhile, Plank, who previously supported former President Trump, hosted a closed-door fundraiser for far-left Democrats at Sagamore’s main house in mid-May.

    See Gov. Wes Moore clapping on the right side of the image. And no, this is not a deep fake. 

    The nearly two-decade partying at the Plank family’s ‘frat house’ at Sagamore is coming to an end—better start focusing on turning around the sinking UA ship.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 20:25

  • California Officials Ask Schools To Construct Housing For Teachers, Students
    California Officials Ask Schools To Construct Housing For Teachers, Students

    Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    California officials are pushing for school districts to convert available property into housing for teachers, school staff, and, in some cases, students.

    State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hosted a summit on Aug. 14 featuring state leaders to address what his office called the “critical need for affordable housing and workforce housing, and exploring strategies for accelerating access to homeownership for working and middle-class Californians,” according to a news release.

    The California Department of Education in Sacramento, Calif., on April 18, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Thurmond’s housing initiative, announced on July 30, was officially launched at the summit. The initiative’s objective is to use 75,000 acres of surplus land owned by school districts throughout the state to construct 2.3 million housing units.

    “California is facing a housing crisis—and it doesn’t have to be. … This initiative [is] all about: activating the resources and expertise that we all have within our great state, so we can make sure that our community members from all walks of life have access to the California Dream.”

    The superintendent previously announced financial incentives for districts that take necessary steps to build staff housing, and the California Department of Education has sponsored a workshop for education officials to learn about real estate development.

    Thurmond’s program is in accordance with the Teacher Housing Act of 2016, which permits school districts to seek out housing project funding sources, such as federal and state tax credits. Additional legislation, such as a 2022 law that became effective in January, provide added benefits.

    Schools could also use the $10 billion school facilities bond, known as Proposition 2, to construct teacher housing and fix classrooms and other buildings if it succeeds this fall.

    Some districts have already started working on housing for school employees. Among the properties owned by Los Angeles Unified are a 26-unit building set aside for low-income families and a 90-unit complex that just opened in April.

    A 135-unit building is set to debut this fall by San Francisco Unified. A 70-unit development has been held by Santa Clara Unified for almost 20 years.

    The San Mateo County Office of Education is working with a nonprofit dedicated to public-private housing to purchase an existing apartment complex for local teachers. The Marin County Office of Education collaborated with the state and the county to construct housing for educators on property held by the state, close to San Quentin Prison.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to the California Teachers Association for comment.

    This is just one of the changes taking place in California schools. The state introduced a number of new laws governing safety, health, and inclusivity for the upcoming school year.

    Among those laws is a recess requirement, which requires public schools to provide at least 30 minutes of recess on regular days and 15 minutes on shortened days to allow students time for physical activity.

    Another law prohibits school staff from disclosing a student’s gender identity, sexual orientation, or gender expression to parents without the student’s consent. Additionally, climate change education is now required in science curricula for grades 1–12.

    K–12 schools must integrate media literacy into their curricula, helping students critically evaluate media content to help them combat misinformation. Schools serving grades 7–12 must also educate students on the dangers of opioids, including fentanyl, and include this information in their safety plans.

    Another change affects suspension policies: Schools can no longer suspend students in grades K–12 for disruptions or defiance. Instead, school administrators must provide in-school interventions or support. Meanwhile, students are now allowed a full day per semester to attend religious events, up from the previous four-hour limit.

    The Associated Press and Sophie Li contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 19:50

  • Rogan And Quaid Ask: Who's Really Running The Country?
    Rogan And Quaid Ask: Who’s Really Running The Country?

    Joe Rogan and actor Dennis Quaid recently sat down for an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, where among other things – they questioned who’s actually running the country.

    “They’re emboldened by the fact they’re essentially running the country without a president for the last three years,” said Rogan, adding “Because he [Biden] is not there. And since he’s decided that he’s not going to run again, he’s gone. He’s vanished.”

    To which Quaid replied: “It makes [you wonder]. Who’s running it now?“

    Watch Via The Burning Platform,

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 19:15

  • Many Countries Turning To A "Stateless Currency"… Gold
    Many Countries Turning To A “Stateless Currency”… Gold

    Authored by Mike Maharrey via Money Metals,

    Many central banks are opting for a “stateless currency” – gold.

    That’s how a recent article published by Nikkei Asia put it, noting that “central banks are diversifying away from the dollar and yuan.”

    The article notes that the proportion of greenbacks in foreign reserves has dropped significantly from over 70 percent in the early 2000s to a historic low of around 58 percent today.

    Meanwhile, central banks are loading up on gold. Central banks globally added a net 483 tons of gold through the first six months of this year, 5 percent above the record of 460 tons in H1 2023.

    Last year, central bank gold buying fell a mere 45 tons short of 2022’s multi-decade record.

    Last year, central banks’ net gold purchases totaled 1,037 tons. It was the second straight year central banks added more than 1,000 tons to their total reserves.

    Central bank gold buying in 2023 built on the prior record year. Total central bank gold buying in 2022 came in at 1,136 tons. It was the highest level of net purchases on record dating back to 1950, including since the suspension of dollar convertibility into gold in 1971.

    A Stateless Currency 

    Why are so many countries turning to gold? 

    Because it is a stateless currency. In other words, gold isn’t controlled by any government. That means countries holding gold maintain a higher level of independence than those holding dollars or other government fiat currencies. 

    The U.S. has hastened de-dollarization by aggressively using the greenback as a foreign policy tool.

    The United States projects power around the world with its mighty military, but that’s not America’s only source of strength. It also uses the dollar to achieve foreign policy goals.

    The U.S. government utilizes a “carrot-stick” approach. It showers billions of dollars of foreign aid on its friends. But enemies can have access to their dollars cut off, as Russia recently learned.

    As the Nikkei Asia article pointed out, the U.S. and other Western countries aggressively sanctioned Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. America and her allies locked Russia out of the SWIFT financial system and froze around $300 billion in Russian central bank assets. The U.S. even threatened to sell frozen Russian assets and give the money to Ukraine.

    Other countries were paying attention. Nikkei Asia said U.S. policy persuaded emerging economies to “accumulate gold, and “the shift from currency holdings reflects global fragmentation.”

    This is a classic example of people responding to incentives.

    Think about it; if you recognize something makes you vulnerable, what do you do?

    You take steps to eliminate or at least minimize the vulnerability.

    So, if you’re worried that the U.S. and its allies might cut off your access to dollars, what would you do?

    Minimize your dependence on dollars.

    In other words, if you are concerned that the U.S. could pull the “dollar rug” out from under you, why not pull out from the dollar system first?

    As a stateless currency, gold is the perfect reserve asset. Its value is recognized around the world, it’s liquid, and most importantly, it exposes the owner to very little counterparty risk.

    What exactly is counterparty risk?

    In simple terms, it is the possibility that the party on the other side of a transaction might not fulfill its obligation or will change the terms of the deal.

    For instance, if I loan you $200, there is always a chance that you won’t pay me back. That possibility represents the counterparty risk that I’m taking on.

    When you own physical gold and store it safely at home, there isn’t another party involved. Nobody can default on gold. Its value will never go to zero. It remains liquid under virtually any market conditions. And gold will likely increase in value if there is a significant economic collapse because it is real money.

    This is precisely why so many countries are turning to this stateless currency and bringing their gold home.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 18:40

  • Zelensky Says Ukraine 'Strengthening' Positions Kursk, Boasts Of Many POWs Captured
    Zelensky Says Ukraine ‘Strengthening’ Positions Kursk, Boasts Of Many POWs Captured

    On Saturday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that his forces are “strengthening” their positions in Russia’s Kursk region. The invasion into Russian territory shocked the world and has left Kremlin officials shocked, with some expressing frustration that the border was apparently so poorly guarded.

    “As of this morning, we have replenished the exchange fund for our country,” Zelensky said, after his army reportedly captured hundreds of POWs since the Aug.6 invasion of the southern Russian oblast.

    Captured Russian troops, reportedly in Kursk. Source: SBU via Tsaplienko Telegram

    “I thank all the soldiers and commanders who are taking Russian soldiers prisoner and thus bringing the release of our soldiers and civilians held by Russia closer,” he added, according to official government social media channels.

    Zelensky acknowledged that the Russian side is responding with a fierce fight: “(There were) dozens of Russian assaults on our positions over the last day. But our soldiers and units are doing everything to destroy the occupier and repel the attacks,” he continued.

    Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrsky simultaneously “reported on the strengthening of the positions of our forces in the Kursk region and the expansion of stabilized territory” in a public statement.

    Kiev is also presenting that its forces are in better shape along the eastern front in the Donbass, after in prior days asserting that Russia was forced to remove some its front line fighting forces in order to defend Kursk and Belgorod. 

    In Ukraine’s Sumy, there are Saturday reports of a large blaze after a fresh Russian missile attack:

    A Russian missile sparked a blaze in the city of Sumy that injured two people and also damaged cars and nearby buildings, said Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. It said that the hit had involved an Iskander-K cruise missile and an aerial bomb.

    Ukraine’s air force also said it had shot down 14 Russian drones overnight, including over the Kyiv region.

    Likely Russia’s aerial assaults on other major cities, including the capital of Kiev, will only increase as a way of retaliation. 

    Harrowing videos of the fighting in Kursk reveal that the Ukrainians have already established trenches and physical defenses in the region, planning for an attempt to indefinitely occupy Russian territory…

    As for Zelensky’s claim of having captured large masses of Russian troops during the Kursk incursion, the AP observed, “On Friday, the AP visited a detention center in Ukraine, the location of which cannot be disclosed due to security restrictions. Dozens of POWs were seen, some of them walking with their hands tied behind their backs while a guard led them down a corridor. Some had rations of a thin soup with cabbage and onions.”

    Regardless of all the current pro-Kiev optimism, many analysts warn there are real limits and the likelihood Ukraine forces will soon be in worse shape than before due to this ultra-risky cross-border operation…

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    The Zelensky government has been touting that it plans to hold onto a “buffer zone” in Kursk, to prevent Russia from launching cross-border mortar and missile strike on Ukraine. The Kremlin’s retaliation is expected to grow big at some point soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 18:05

  • As US Coal Plants Shutter, A Renewed Focus On Nuclear Emerges
    As US Coal Plants Shutter, A Renewed Focus On Nuclear Emerges

    Authored by By Kevin Stocklin & Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As the United States continues its rush to shutter the nation’s remaining coal plants, energy analysts are debating what should fill the gap to meet the growing need for electricity. Increasingly, many are pointing to nuclear energy as the solution.

    According to the Department of Energy (DOE), nearly one-third of existing U.S. coal plants are scheduled to be shut down by 2035.

    This is happening as demand from data centers, electric vehicles, electric home heating, and other products are pushing ever more consumption onto the grid.

    A regulatory agency charged with assessing grid reliability stated that its key measures of electricity peak demand “are rising faster than at any time in the past five or more years.”

    The agency, North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), cited “clear evidence of growing resource adequacy concerns over the next 10 years” in its December 2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment.

    The rapid retirement of functional coal plants, which generated more than 16 percent of U.S. electricity production in 2023, is projected to leave large gaps in the country’s ability to meet projected demand for electricity, leaving most regions of North America at high or elevated risk of shortages and blackouts, according to the NERC .

    How can the U.S. electricity industry fill this ever-widening hole? The options on the table are wind, solar, natural gas, and nuclear energy—each with its advantages and shortcomings.

    Many who consider climate change to be an existential threat have pushed wind and solar energy as the best alternatives, arguing that they are the cheapest, cleanest option.

    The Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted in January that “wind and solar energy will lead growth in U.S. power generation for the next two years.”

    Critics say adding ever more wind and solar capacity could be paying more for less, as additional weather-dependent capacity falls short of producing electricity when consumers need it.

    “We built a heck of a lot of wind capacity in 2023 in the United States, but the actual amount of wind electricity produced went down, simply because you have wind droughts,” energy economist Dan Kish, senior vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), told The Epoch Times.

    “The windiest spots have been hit pretty hard with wind turbines, so now they’re going to places that are less prolific in terms of wind, and the result is you’re getting less wind per installed megawatt of wind power than you did before.”

    According to the EIA, while overall “renewable” energy production grew by 2 percent in 2023, largely because of increases in biofuels and solar energy, consumption of wind energy declined for the first time in 25 years.

    “Our entire grid has been built with the goal of moving power to people when they need it,” Kish said, but noted that, increasingly, this is shifting to providing electricity “whenever the wind blows or the sun shines.”

    U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Commissioner David Wright observes the process of dismantling reactor components, during a tour of the Unit 2 containment at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, in this file photo. (Southern California Edison/CC BY 2.0)

    Natural Gas Steps Up, Falls Down

    Wind and solar require expensive backup power generation, typically gas or batteries, to fill the gaps when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, driving up costs to consumers.

    Coal plants, while emitting more carbon dioxide (CO2), have provided an affordable, reliable, and flexible supply of “dispatchable” electricity, which can be ramped up or down to meet demand.

    To date, while installed wind and solar capacity have increased, natural gas has been the prime beneficiary of the transition away from coal—both as a supplier of base-load power and as a backup to wind and solar when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

    U.S. natural gas consumption reached a record 89.1 billion cubic feet per day in 2023 and has increased by an average of 4 percent per year since 2018, according to an April report by the EIA.

    The EIA reported that natural gas consumption set new records every month between March 2023 and November 2023, as coal-fired electric-generating capacity declined.

    “The combination of [artificial intelligence] and increased reliance on intermittent renewables means more natural gas—both because solar and wind can’t easily provide electricity with low harmonic distortions that delicate data center kit needs—but also because unreliable power sources infiltrate the grid, assuring 24×7 supply relies ever more on dispatchable, traditional energy, which is gas,” Simon Lack, founder and managing partner of SL Advisors LLC, told The Epoch Times.

    Unlike coal, however, gas is not stored onsite at power plants but rather delivered just in time via pipelines. During winter storm Uri in Texas, for example, freezing temperatures and electricity outages disrupted gas deliveries, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported, exacerbating the crisis that ended with widespread blackouts and the deaths of an estimated 246 people.

    While natural gas is abundant, affordable, and burns cleaner than coal, it doesn’t satisfy net-zero goals of “decarbonizing” energy and reducing global emissions by at least 43 percent by 2030, 60 percent by 2035, and reaching net-zero by 2050.

    Given that, nuclear energy is increasingly being touted as the ideal solution.

    Natural gas is flared off at a plant outside of the town of Cuero, Texas, on March 26, 2015. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that natural gas consumption set new records every month between March and November 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    A Nuclear Renaissance?

    The 54 U.S. nuclear plants and 93 U.S. nuclear reactors, located across 28 states, currently generate about 19 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the EIA.

    A nuclear plant’s capacity factor, which measures the amount of usable energy it produces as a percentage of the maximum it could potentially produce, is the highest of all power sources, averaging more than 92 percent, according to the DOE.

    By comparison, the capacity factors for wind and solar are the lowest of all major U.S. energy sources, at 35 percent and 25 percent, respectively.

    Nuclear power plants are designed to run 24 hours per day, seven days per week, making them ideal for reliable, base-load electricity.

    Energy economist Ryan Yonk, a director at the American Institute for Economic Research, said the safety of nuclear plants has improved with time, and although risk has not been completely eliminated, this leaves nuclear as the “no-carbon energy” of the future, provided that the industry can build plants that address risk concerns and regulatory concerns.

    “If you really care deeply about CO2 and view it as a substantial problem, we have an established technology that doesn’t produce CO2, that produces large amounts of low-cost energy at relatively low risk,” he said.

    The Biden administration appears to have also come around to that point of view, and the Inflation Reduction Act enacted by the administration offers a 30 percent federal investment tax credit for new nuclear projects.

    The White House announced in March that it was “signing on to last year’s multi-country declaration at COP28 to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050; developing new reactor designs; extending the service lives of existing nuclear reactors; and growing the momentum behind new deployments.”

    Among the government initiatives was $6 billion in new loans, grants, and tax credits for nuclear facilities to keep aging plants up and running and restart some that had been shut down. This included $1.5 billion in loan guarantees to Holtec Palisades, LLC, to bring the shuttered 800 MW Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert Township, Michigan, back online through 2050.

    “Alongside renewable power sources like wind and solar, a new generation of nuclear reactors is now capturing the attention of a wide range of stakeholders for nuclear energy’s ability to produce clean, reliable energy and meet the needs of a fast-growing economy,” a White House fact sheet reads.

    This comes on top of new legislation to streamline the approval process for nuclear plants, specifically the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act (ADVANCE Act) of 2023.

    The bill includes more staffing for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which would theoretically speed the licensing process, reduce fees for plant applicants, and update the NRC’s mission statement, stipulating that it will not “unnecessarily limit” the production of nuclear energy.

    The Turkey Point Nuclear Reactor Plant in Homestead, Fla., on May 18, 2017. Nuclear power plants are designed to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (Rhona Wise/AFP via Getty Images)

    Partnering With Nuclear Industry

    The DOE is also working to ease the conversion of existing coal plants to nuclear.

    According to the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, “we’ll need an additional 200 gigawatts of nuclear capacity to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and some of that could take place at or near retiring coal plants.”

    The agency stated that more than 300 existing and retired coal plants could be converted to nuclear energy, and this would increase the U.S. nuclear capacity by more than 250 gigawatts, nearly tripling its current capacity of 95 gigawatts.

    Borrowing land, plant, transmission connections and roads from existing coal plants could save up to 35 percent of construction costs for new nuclear plants, the DOE predicted.

    States that are considering replacing coal plants with nuclear include Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

    The DOE is also collaborating with private industry through an initiative called the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN), which provides government support to commercialize nuclear energy technologies and to “educate those new to nuclear on its benefits, applications and role in our clean future energy transition,” the organization’s website states.

    “By 2030, the U.S. nuclear industry will be equipped to lead the world in the deployment of innovative nuclear technologies to supply urgently needed abundant clean energy both domestically and globally,” GAIN reads.

    Some analysts say it amounts to one government agency spending money to try to get another government agency out of the way.

    “We’ve got the NRC that can’t seem to issue a permit or give a thumbs up to a project, and to compensate for that, we’ve got the Department of Energy pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money into helping them get a permit,” Kish said.

    The U.S. fleet of nuclear plants is approaching retirement age, raising questions about how much longer existing plants can continue to operate. The average life of a nuclear power plant is about 40 years, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    As of April, the average age of U.S. commercial nuclear reactors was 42 years old. The oldest operating reactor is Nine Mile Point Unit 1 in New York state, which started operating in 1969.

    The U.S. nuclear construction industry, having been shunned for decades, appears now to be showing new signs of life.

    Based on its annual assessment at the end of 2023, the IAEA stated that, worldwide, it “now sees a quarter more nuclear energy capacity installed by 2050 than it did as recently as 2020, underscoring how a growing number of countries are looking to this clean and reliable energy source to address the challenges of energy security, climate change and economic development.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 17:30

  • X 'Immediately' Shuts Brazil Office After 'Darth Vader' Threatens Lawyer With 'Secret' Censorship Orders
    X ‘Immediately’ Shuts Brazil Office After ‘Darth Vader’ Threatens Lawyer With ‘Secret’ Censorship Orders

    Elon Musk on Saturday announced that effective immediately, X will be shuttering operations in Brazil due to what it called “censorship orders” from Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes (aka ‘Darth Vader’).

    According to the company, Moraes secretly threatened an X layer if he did not comply with legal orders to remove content from the platform.

    “Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions,” reads a Saturday post from X’s Global Government Affairs account. “Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process.”

    “As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately.”

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    Musk replied to the post, saying “Due to demands by “Justice” @Alexandre in Brazil that would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law, 𝕏 has no choice but to close our local operations in Brazil.

    “He is an utter disgrace to Justice,” Musk continued.

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    According to Musk, X remains available to the people of Brazil.

    Earlier this year, Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts while he investigated so-called “digital militias” accused of spreading fake news. Moraes also opened an inquiry into Musk after he said he would reactivate X accounts that the judge had ordered blocked.

    Musk has called Moraes’ orders “unconstitutional,” and called Moraes himself “Brazil’s Darth Vader.”

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    In an April post to X, Musk said that Moraes had “brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil,” and should “resign or be impeached.”

    De Moraes said that as part of his decision to open an inquiry, that “X shall refrain from disobeying any court order already issued, including performing any profile reactivation that has been blocked by this Supreme Court,” Reuters reported at the time.

    The justice said that Musk would face a fine that equates to approximately $20,000 each time an account is reactivated on X.

    For an overview:

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    The TWITTER FILES BRAZIL, reported by investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger, and colleagues David Ágape and Eli Vieira, reveal that “Brazil is engaged in a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice.”

    Sitting members of Brazil’s Congress and journalists were among those named by Brazil’s highest court for censoring, Mr. Shellenberger said of his findings, which he has shared on X.

    He named lower house members Carla Zambelli of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party and Marcel van Hattem of the NOVO party as targets of orders targeting posts the court deemed misinformation.

    According to the internal files Mr. Shellenberger shared, Twitter in Brazil was threatened with a $30,000 fine. The company had one hour to remove the Congress members’ posts or pay the court for noncompliance.

    The article reports that the justice had even been jailing individuals without trial for things posted on social media.

    According to Mr. Shellenberger, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes allegedly made demands to Twitter to allow access to its internal data, in violation of Twitter’s own policies on the handling of user data. –Epoch Times

    The “Twitter Files” also show that the justice “sought to weaponize Twitter’s content moderation policies against supporters of then-president @jairbolsonaro,” Mr. Shellenberger said—a similar trend to what the “Twitter files” revealed was happening to former President Donald Trump and conservative voices in the United States.

    The origin of the order to censor Brazilians’ posts was also revealed in the internal Twitter files, Mr. Shellenberger said.

    Brazilian Attorney General Jorge Messias backed de Moraes, saying in a post on X: “We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities.”

    As Shellenberger notes in response to today’s action:

    Global elites have made clear that they believe that freedom of speech on a single social media platform, and one that is far smaller than Facebook or Google, is intolerable. This desire for total control is the central characteristic of the totalitarianism that is presently emerging from elites at the corporate and political levels around the world.

    In addition to pushing censorship, these leaders and global elites are seeking to overturn liberal democracies and impose a radically different system of iliberal rule in the Western world. Rather than meritocracy and equal justice for all, elites are seeking to impose a Woke racialist hierarchy that gives preferential treatment to some groups and prejudicial treatment to other groups supposedly based on historic oppression.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 16:55

  • Secret Service Agent Abandoned Her Post To Breastfeed
    Secret Service Agent Abandoned Her Post To Breastfeed

    Authored by Robert Arvay via American Thinker,

    According to a news report, a Secret Service agent, assigned to protect President Trump, abandoned her post to breastfeed her infant.  

    Okay, enough with the jokes.  

    This is some kind of anti-feminist fabrication, or some falsehood designed to impugn DIE.

    What next?  Women are unreliable when they are menstruating?  Was it a “take your child to work” day?  Here, my baby, let us shield the president with our bodies.  It’s Mommy’s job.

    Oh, wait.  It’s not a joke.  

    The report is real.  Women in law enforcement, apparently, are allowed to take their infants into potential gunfights.

    The Secret Service will, no doubt, claim that the woman acted against regulations.  But at what point?  When she showed up at the Trump rally in North Caroline with her baby?  When she accepted the assignment?  When she holstered her pistol, hopefully on the first attempt?  Heck, she might even get a medal for dereliction of dedication to duty.

    What about the Service itself?  Is it normal policy to assign mothers of newborns to potentially violent, even deadly situations?  Did it not occur to the supervisors when she returned from maternity leave that, hey, she now has a baby?  What accommodations should be made?  Should we take her pistol?  Rifle?  Should she be at a desk job?  And above all, keep her away from gently sloping rooftops.

    Or should we revisit the entire idea that women in certain jobs can be hired and assigned without any reference to their sex?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 16:20

  • The Beginning Of The End? Germany To Ban All New Ukraine Military Aid
    The Beginning Of The End? Germany To Ban All New Ukraine Military Aid

    Three days ago, in the aftermath of the WSJ report seeking to radically shift the narrative over the Nordstream sabotage, where instead of the CIA being blamed for the explosion of the critical gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, unnamed “intelligence” sources forged on with a hilarious script according to which a top Ukraine general (operating initially under the instructions of Zelensky but then going rogue wen Z got “cold feet”) was responsible for coordinating the sabotage using a handful of rank amateurs who somehow managed to sneak to the bottom of the Baltic sea and conduct an unprecedented military operation, we said that – no matter the laughable veracity of the report – relations between Germany and Ukraine are “about to turn ugly”, and we asked why this story is coming out just now?

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    We didn’t have long to wait to get the answer: as German media reports, this U-turn in the narrative (which according to some meant that NATO should now unleash its full military power against…. Ukraine, which had single-handedly attacked German assets by blowing up the Nordstream) was meant to soften the blow from Germany’s decision to finally cut off Ukraine’s – and Zelensky’s – unprecedented grift.

    According to a Saturday report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the German government will stop new military aid to Ukraine as part of the ruling coalition’s plan to reduce spending. The report, which cited non-public documents and emails as well as discussions with unnamed sources, goes on to note that the moratorium on new assistance – which is already in effect – will affect new requests for funding, not previously approved aid,

    In a letter sent to the German defense ministry on Aug. 5, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said that future funding would no longer come from Germany’s federal budget but from proceeds from frozen Russian assets, according to the German newspaper. And since we already know that recent attempts to liquidate Russian assets crashed and burned over fears of escalating Russian retaliation, this effectively means no more aid for Ukraine.

    Berlin, which is Europe’s main supplier of military aid to Kyiv, had previously signaled a change in course on Ukraine last month, when the governing coalition of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals adopted a preliminary deal on a draft budget for 2025. The compromise detailed plans to slash future assistance to Ukraine by half to €4 billion to fulfill other spending priorities. And, it now appears, that even this token amount is about to be cut to zero.

    As we reported in June, the G7’s decision to extend a USD 50 billion loan to Ukraine, backed by immobilized Russian assets, was this summit’s most significant step forward. This loan structure reflects a typical compromise between the US and Europe. While the straightforward solution would involve seizing all of Russia’s frozen assets (estimated at USD 280 billion) to directly fund Ukraine’s war efforts, European countries – particularly France, Germany, and Belgium – aggressively shied away from this, viewing it as too aggressive and fearing Russian reciprocation. Instead, they opted for using the interest on matured assets, which amounts to only a few billion dollars per year. The first option would be a game changer, we said, “whereas the second option falls embarrassingly short.”

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    And now Ukraine will have to be satisfied with receiving whatever meager interest seized Russian funds generate.

    Meanwhile, the primary source of funding for Ukraine – the Biden family and various deep state operatives – is about to dry out, after Biden finally leaves the White House and quit politics forever in three months.

    Speaking after the Cabinet approved the draft budget in mid-July, Germany FinMin Lindner said Ukraine would have to rely more on funds from “European sources” as well as the frozen Russian assets. But it’s still unclear if, and when, that money will flow.

    According to Politico, contentions over Ukraine aid reportedly deepened the rifts in the ruling coalition in Berlin, already tattered by weeks of internal fights over a series of issues from the budget to welfare. Green leader and Economy Minister Robert Habeck said this week he plans to run for chancellor as the Greens’ candidate in the 2025 federal election, casting doubt on the survival of the governing alliance of which he is a member.

    “It’s quite obvious that this coalition has major problems finding common ground,” Habeck said regarding the recent disputes.

    “The ideas are falling apart.”

    Which is also why Zelensky will have no choice but to resort to ever-more-desperate and shocking provocations and diversions to keep the money flowing, as the alternative is complete devastation for Ukraine and its Western backers.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 15:45

  • Kamalanomics Blowback Begins As Food Prices Hit Record Highs
    Kamalanomics Blowback Begins As Food Prices Hit Record Highs

    “KamalaCosts” and “Kamalanomics” are trending on X on Friday afternoon as Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled her strategy to address the crushing economic environment faced by the working poor and middle class during her tenure as vice president in the Biden administration. 

    Recall that VP Harris was the biggest ‘Bidenomics’ cheerleader. 

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    It makes very little sense why VP Harris has recently admitted at campaign rallies there’s an ongoing inflation storm and affordability crisis, yet it appears she is throwing President Biden under the bus. However, she is second in command and trying to deflect accountability for nation-killing, out-of-control government spending that stoked the inflation storm.

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    Americans are beyond frustrated with inflation that the Biden-Harris administration has fueled over the past 3.5 years while VP Kamala Harris travels across the country, avoiding ‘unscripted’ press conferences and trying to convince voters at highly scripted campaign rallies that she’s not responsible.  

    After stealing former President Trump’s proposed ‘no tax on tips‘ plan, the geniuses behind VP Harris’ campaign thought it would be brilliant to introduce communist-style government price controls on grocery stores and food companies as their first major economic policy. The move was a complete disaster, and even the leftists at the Washington Post pointed out that it was a poor policy choice… 

    “If your opponent claims you’re a “communist,” maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.” 

    Investment analyst Lyn Alden pointed out on X that grocery stores like Kroger have “razor-thin profit margins.” So the whole ‘corporate price gouging’ narrative by Harris’ team is just ‘malarkey.’

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    Producers of food products have similar margins in the low double-digit range. 

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    House Republicans reminded folks on X today about the sour subject of Biden-Harris’ food price inflation crisis:

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    Others pointed out that ‘Kamalanomics’ is just an extension of ‘Bidenomics’ and focused on the massive food price surges.

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    Meanwhile, the latest data shows burger prices at the supermarket are at record highs. 

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    Urner Barry wholesale data shows egg prices are erupting again. 

    VP Harris had 3.5 years to save the middle class – yet she focused on wokeism and failed at her ‘Border Czar’ job. 

    Food prices have yet to come back down to Earth. 

    The latest US CPI Food Prices At-Home index is up 21% since Biden-Harris entered office, while wages for the working poor and middle class are only up 19.8%. 

    Food prices at home rose 6.5% during Trump’s term (+1.6% p.a.). During Biden’s term, food prices at home were up over 21% (+5.5% p.a.).

    “Inflation is experienced at the grocery store, but always manufactured by the government. It’s the same story every time. The politicians who create it by printing money, villainize and blame companies that have nothing to do with it — to distract from their reckless spending,” Cameron Winklevoss wrote on X. 

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    The angle the Trump campaign appears to be taking is to hammer VP Harris and Democrats for their mismanaging of the economy that has financially decimated the working poor and middle class.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 15:40

  • "I Mean It": Biden Endorses Violence, Tells Dems To "Beat The Hell Out Of" Republicans
    “I Mean It”: Biden Endorses Violence, Tells Dems To “Beat The Hell Out Of” Republicans

    Authored by Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov via HeadlineUSA.com,

    Joe Biden urged supporters on Aug. 15, 2024, to “beat the h*ll out of” Republicans in the 2024 election.

    The Daily Wire reported that the violent rhetoric came during Biden’s first public appearance with Kamala Harris since he dropped out of the 2024 race. Harris became the Democratic Party’s nominee to face off against Donald Trump.

    “Let me tell you what our Project 2025 is: beat the h*ll out of them,” Biden told the crowd during an event in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

    After the far-left audience cheered for violence, Biden doubled down by saying, “I mean it!”

    Conservatives on social media quickly criticized Biden and leftists who supported him.

    “Disgusting!” the Trump War Room account wrote in a post while also noting that Biden’s remark came just a month after the attempted assassination against Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.

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    “Is this a call to violence?” asked the Libs of TikTok account on Twitter, which is operated by Chaya Raichik and has over 3.3 million followers.

    Collin Rugg, who has an X account with 1.4 million followers, also responded to the violent rhetoric.

    “If Trump said this, it would be wall-to-wall coverage on MSNBC for the next three weeks,” he wrote, adding that the Washington Post “would be putting the ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ banner up.”

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    In June, Trump faced Biden in a debate hosted by CNN, and just weeks after the disastrous Biden performance, the leftist establishment removed him as a presidential candidate and replaced him with Harris.

    Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton are expected to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week. Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., are expected to accept their nominations and deliver remarks.

    Biden’s violent rhetoric was just another example of Democrats’ evil nature. It was also recently revealed that Nancy Pelosi issued death threats to pro-Trump Republicans as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 15:10

  • Ten Killed In Southern Lebanon In One Of The Deadliest Israeli Strikes Since Oct 7
    Ten Killed In Southern Lebanon In One Of The Deadliest Israeli Strikes Since Oct 7

    An overnight airstrike on southern Lebanon by Israel is being called one of the single deadliest attacks since the daily tit-for-tat exchange of fire began last October. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health announced the devastating attack killed at least ten people including “a woman and her two children” – and that five others were wounded, two critically. Some of the deceased were Syrian refugees.

    While Lebanon says that a residential building was hit, Israel’s military maintains that its air force struck a weapons warehouse run by Hezbollah about seven miles from the Israeli border, in Nabatiyeh.

    Structures destroyed by Israeli airstrike in Nabatiyeh, via AP.

    Al Jazeera says that some kind of factory building was struck in the attack, but that there was a residential floor with families and employees living there.

    “We are a well-known family in the area. We have no political affiliation and are not aligned to any political party. We are concerned only with our business and livelihood,” Hussein Tahmaz, the factory owner, told Al Jazeera. He rejected that Hezbollah used it for weapons storage.

    Hezbollah appeared to quickly retaliate, with Israel’s military conforming “approximately 55 projectiles” being fired into northern Israel on Saturday, resulting in no injuries.

    However, a separate attack resulted in a soldier being severely injured and another lightly wounded after a projectile from Lebanon struck 

    Meanwhile, international diplomats have been scrambling, talking to both sides in an effort to avoid all-out war, which still looms. For at least a month now, there has been a greater urgency of countries to get their foreign nationals out: 

    Many foreign nationals are gone, heeding the advice of their governments. Plenty of Lebanese have fled too. Others cannot tear themselves away – like the 30-year-old chef of a hip café (Beirut has too many of these to count). She is tattooed and candid but prefers not to be named.

    “Living in Beirut is like being in a toxic relationship you can’t escape,” she tells me.

    “I am emotionally attached. I have family abroad, and I could leave, but I don’t want to. We live day to day. And we joke about the situation.”

    In the next breath she admits business has suffered, and she has post-traumatic stress disorder. “It’s like a cold war for us,” she says. She is expecting a hotter one but hopes it will be short.

    Lebanon’s economy had already for the last couple years been in free-fall, with a severe banking crisis and runaway inflation, and with common Lebanese blocked from accessing their own savings by local banks.

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    Israel has warned that if all-out war breaks out it will send not just Hezbollah but all of Lebanon back to the “stone age”. Many Western carriers have for weeks suspended service to both Beirut and Tel Aviv, citing safety concerns.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 14:35

  • New Video Appears To Show DC Police Units Planting J6 Pipe Bomb
    New Video Appears To Show DC Police Units Planting J6 Pipe Bomb

    Via the Conservative Treehouse,

    One of the great mysteries about the January 6, 2021, events is the lack of curiosity by the FBI about who planted the pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC headquarters. Amid all of the available CCTV video and surveillance technology exploited by the justice department, their transparent unwillingness to identify the pipe bomber has always been a dog that did not bark.

    The Occam’s Razor explanation for why DC and federal law enforcement have been incurious, points to law enforcement actually planting the bombs.  New CCTV video seems to show exactly that.

    Shortly after 12:51pm a DC police SUV appears next to the park bench where the pipe bomb was discovered. [Video Below] A man with a bag exits the SUV, points to the bench, pulls up his right coat collar to obscure his face from the camera located across the street, then walks to the bench with the bag.  The “pipe bomb” device allegedly was found at 1:05 p.m. by a plainclothes officer from the Capitol Police.

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    Darren Beattie Reporting HERE – Julie Kelly Reporting HERE

    I am not going to repeat the reporting above, the timelines therein, or the granular details painstakingly outlined.  The research is solid, informative and accurate.  Instead, my focus is about “why” the pipe bombs were planted.

    Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy (House) along with Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence (Senate) did not want the January 6th certification of electors challenged. If you suspect the 85 million votes for Joe Biden might have been manufactured (mail-in ballots), then you understand the DC motive to avoid any electoral challenge that might have resulted in state level legislative inquiry and/or vote counting review.

    To avoid the challenge to the electoral certification process, a lengthy and very formal process where the Senate must separate from the House as each state is formally questioned/challenged and a debate/vote on each state’s set of electors takes place (minimum 2 hours each state), an EMERGENCY process triggered by the House Speaker (Pelosi) was needed. That’s where the pipe bombs come into play.

    We have previously detailed the motives HERE.

    The J6 pipe bombs were the insurance policy, in the event the feds (Ray Epps et al) couldn’t get the crowd to comply with the FBI provocations.

    In essence, if no one stormed the Capitol, the finding of the two pipe bombs would have then been the emergency needed to stop the electoral process, evacuate congress and trigger the emergency session.  Which explains why the FBI had/has no interest in the DC pipe bomb suspects.

    As it turned out, the DC crew (Pelosi et al) didn’t need the “pipe bomb emergency” because the manufactured riot (opening the doors to the Capitol building etc.) worked. The J6 emergency need was fulfilled by the “riot” within the Capitol building; the bomb narrative was not needed.

    Julie Kelly – […] Just as the first wave of protesters breached the building shortly after 2 p.m., congressional Republicans were poised to present evidence of rampant voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Ten incumbent and four newly-elected Republican senators planned to work with their House colleagues to demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate election “irregularities” in the 2020 election. Absent an audit, the group of senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states.

    The Hail Mary effort was doomed to fail; yet the American people would have heard hours of debate related to provable election fraud over the course of the day.

    And no one opposed the effort more than ex-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). 

    During a conference call on December 31, 2020, McConnell urged his Republican Senate colleagues to abandon plans to object to the certification, insisting his vote to certify the 2020 election results would be “the most consequential I have ever cast” in his 36-year Senate career.

    From the Senate floor on the afternoon of January 6, McConnell gave a dramatic speech warning of the dire consequences to the country should Republicans succeed in delaying the vote. He downplayed examples of voting fraud and even mocked the fact that Trump-appointed judges rejected election lawsuits. 

    “The voters, the courts, and the States have all spoken,” McConnell insisted. “If we overrule them, it would damage our Republic forever. If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.”

    Roughly six hours later, McConnell got his way. Cowed by the crowd of largely peaceful Americans allowed into the building by Capitol police, most Republican senators backed off the audit proposal. McConnell, echoing hyperbolic talking points about an “insurrection” seeded earlier in the day by Democratic lawmakers and the news media, gloated. “They tried to disrupt our democracy,” he declared on the Senate floor after Congress reconvened around 8 p.m. “This failed attempt to obstruct Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our Republic.”

    Congress officially certified the Electoral College results early the next day. (read more)

    That’s how the whole process happened.

    Everything around the J6 events was set up by a small group of Marxists within government who are intensely ideological and supported by systems of Law and Order they created, purposefully to control the outcomes of their manipulation.

    The group then used the J6 Committee to further the false narrative, manufacture additional false claims, control the information flow and present themselves as victims within an insurrection effort they manufactured out of whole cloth.

    The J6 Committee was to the J6 story, as Robert Mueller was to the Trump/Russia collusion story.   The system controls the outcomes, hides the activity, and engineers false narratives (lies).

    ~ Support CTH Here ~

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 14:00

  • Vance's Plane Makes Emergency Landing In Second Trump Campaign Incident
    Vance’s Plane Makes Emergency Landing In Second Trump Campaign Incident

    A charter plane carrying Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) made an emergency landing at a Wisconsin airport on Friday – the second mechanical issue to hit  a Trump campaign plane in a week.

    Vance’s plane, dubbed “Trump Force Two,” reported a mechanical issue and made an emergency landing in Milwaukee, according to Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk.

    “The pilot advised there was a malfunction with the door seal,” Van Kirk told several media outlets. “After declaring an emergency, Trump Force Two returned to Milwaukee. As soon as the issue was resolved, the plane returned to its originally planned flight path back to Cincinnati.”

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    Trump Force Two’s door seal issue was quickly resolved, and the plane continued on its intended path to Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Airporet, according to a Van Kirk.

    Vance was traveling with his wife, Usha, US Secret Service agents, journalists, and his dog Atlas.

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    The incident comes after Donald Trump’s plane was forced to make an emergency landing Aug. 9 in Billings, Montana – roughly 150 miles from its intended destination of Bozeman.

    As the Epoch Times notes further, Trump traveled to Montana for a rally in Bozeman on Aug. 9, where he sought to rally support for Republican candidate Tim Sheehy, who is seeking to unseat longtime Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.).

    Vance was in Wisconsin on Aug. 16 to give a speech at the Milwaukee Police Association’s headquarters, focusing on crime and law enforcement.

    Vance emphasized the need for supportive law enforcement policies and criticized the current leadership’s policies, in particular around border security while advocating for stronger border control measures.

    “The border policies that we have at the southern border, they make our communities less safe even as far north as Wisconsin,” Vance said. “It means Mexican drug cartels operating in our communities. It means people dying of fentanyl.”

    Fentanyl deaths regularly make up around 70 percent of all drug overdose deaths in the United States. According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 75,000 Americans died from overdosing on synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl, in 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/17/2024 – 13:25

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