• What If An Alien Probe Visited Earth?
  What If An Alien Probe Visited Earth?

  Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScioence.com,

  Popular media portrayals of extraterrestrials visiting Earth have tended to display the dramatic: giant spaceraft, killer robots, and nefarious aliens. A more realistic scenario is decidedly more mundane, but still undeniably world-shattering: a single, robotic probe, visiting Earth in orbit or landing as a rover.

  Back in 1998, Allen Tough, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and an expert in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) before his death in 2012, postulated that there might be alien civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy with the ability to send out hundreds of small, intelligent probes to explore space. His supposition was reasonable. Today, well-funded collaborations like Breakthrough Starshot here on Earth are now actively working toward such an endeavor.

  So what if Tough was right, and tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years ago, a far-off alien civilization dispatched dozens of robotic scouts out into the cosmos and one such rover eventually cruised its way to Earth?

  

  What should be humanity’s response?

  The first step, according to Tough, would be to confirm that the craft really isn’t from Earth, perhaps from a secretive government. A smart, skeptical team, ideally composed of scientists from various countries, would need to be recruited to examine the probe. If it’s on land, the rover should probably be quarantined at the area it touched down. If it’s in space, a robotic or a crewed mission would undoubtedly be required for an up-close look.

  Once the probe’s authenticity is confirmed, Tough stresses that the finding should be made public worldwide, with all collected data openly shared.

  What to do next depends upon the nature of the probe.

  According to SETI Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak, we’d want to find out if it’s broadcasting any radio signals out into space, and probably block them at least temporarily. Such signals, especially if they are unidirectional, would likely be attempts to communicate with the aliens who sent it. We might not want the probe revealing too much about humanity before we can ascertain its intent.

  If the probe’s intent is judged to be benign, or even friendly, we’d next want to try to communicate with it. If it’s plainly unintelligent, this could take some time. After unblocking its communications, we’d likely have Earth representatives attempt to share basic information, something like mathematical principles, gestures of friendship, or music. We’d then have to wait for the probe’s handlers to respond through it. If the craft traveled for a long time, this could take hundreds of years! Shostak isn’t sure humans would be able to wait that long – the desire to disassemble the probe and learn from it’s technological guts might be too great.

  But how would extraterrestrials feel if we took apart their probe? Shostak doesn’t think aliens would be too mad. After all, if genial Martians suddenly appeared and messed with Curiosity, NASA engineers would be ecstatic – nothing would increase the space agency’s budget more.

  It would be more interesting if the probe or rover was artificially intelligent, thus capable of communicating with humans directly. Tough believed that any alien probe sent expressly for long-distance exploration would likely be capable of learning from, and even communicating with, a race it encountered.

  “The probe has presumably already monitored our radio and television broadcasts, learned at least one of our languages, and learned about our culture and history,” he wrote.

  That certainly would be convenient and fascinating! While it’s hard to hypothesize on what exactly an intelligent alien probe might tell us, Tough has a good idea about how we should act around it: show respect, avoid violence, speak and act truthfully, and deal with it fairly and honestly.

  He also thought that any communication should be attempted with international scientific cooperation as well as openness to the public, aspirations perhaps as unlikely as an alien probe visiting Earth in the first place!

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 23:30

• Visualizing Silver's Uses Through The Ages
  Visualizing Silver’s Uses Through The Ages

  Silver is one of the most versatile metals on Earth, with a unique combination of uses both as a precious and industrial metal.

  Today, silver’s uses span many modern technologies, including solar panels, electric vehicles, and 5G devices. However, as Visual Capitalist notes, the uses of silver in currency, medicine, art, and jewelry have helped advance civilization, trade, and technology for thousands of years.

  The Uses of Silver Over Time

  The below infographic from Blackrock Silver takes us on a journey of silver’s uses through time, from the past to the future.

  

  3,000 BC – The Middle Ages

  The earliest accounts of silver can be traced to 3,000 BC in modern-day Turkey, where its mining spurred trade in the ancient Aegean and Mediterranean seas. Traders and merchants would use hacksilver—rough-cut pieces of silver—as a medium of exchange for goods and services.

  Around 1,200 BC, the Ancient Greeks began refining and minting silver coins from the rich deposits found in the mines of Laurion just outside Athens. By 100 BC, modern-day Spain became the center of silver mining for the Roman Empire while silver bullion traveled along the Asian spice trade routes. By the late 1400s, Spain brought its affinity for silver to the New World where it uncovered the largest deposits of silver in history in the dusty hills of Bolivia.

  Besides the uses of silver in commerce, people also recognized silver’s ability to fight bacteria. For instance, wine and food containers were often made out of silver to prevent spoilage. In addition, during breakouts of the Bubonic plague in medieval and renaissance Europe, people ate and drank with silver utensils to protect themselves from disease.

  The 1800s – 2000s

  New medicinal uses of silver came to light in the 19th and 20th centuries. Surgeons stitched post-operative wounds with silver sutures to reduce inflammation. In the early 1900s, doctors prescribed silver nitrate eyedrops to prevent conjunctivitis in newborn babies. Furthermore, in the 1960s, NASA developed a water purifier that dispensed silver ions to kill bacteria and purify water on its spacecraft.

  The Industrial Revolution drove the onset of silver’s industrial applications. Thanks to its high light sensitivity and reflectivity, it became a key ingredient in photographic films, windows, and mirrors. Even today, skyscraper windows are often coated with silver to reflect sunlight and keep interior spaces cool.

  The 2000s – Present

  The uses of silver have come a long way since hacksilver and utensils, evolving with time and technology.

  Silver is the most electrically conductive metal, making it a natural choice for electronic devices. Almost every electronic device with a switch or button contains silver, from smartphones to electric vehicles. Solar panels also utilize silver as a conductive layer in photovoltaic cells to transport and store electricity efficiently.

  In addition, it has several medicinal applications that range from treating burn wounds and ulcers to eliminating bacteria in air conditioning systems and clothes.

  Silver for the Future

  Silver has always been useful to industries and technologies due to its unique properties, from its antibacterial nature to high electrical conductivity. Today, silver is critical for the next generation of renewable energy technologies.

  For every age, silver proves its value.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 23:00

• Meet Jigsaw: Google's Intelligence Agency
  Meet Jigsaw: Google’s Intelligence Agency

  Via PrivacyToGo.co,

  It’s no secret that Google regularly collaborates with intelligence agencies.

  They are a known NSA subcontractor. They launched Google Earth using a CIA spy satellite network. Their executive suite’s revolving door with DARPA is well known.

  In the wake of the January 6th Capitol event, the FBI used Google location data to pwn attendants with nothing more than a valid Gmail address and smartphone login:

  A stark reminder that carrying a tracking device with a Google login, even with the SIM card removed, can mean the difference between freedom and an orange jump suit in the Great Reset era.

  But Google also operates its own internal intelligence agency – complete with foreign regime change operations that are now being applied domestically.

  And they’ve been doing so without repercussion for over a decade.

  

  From Google Ideas to Google Regime Change

  In 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt created Google Ideas. In typical Silicon Valley newspeak, Ideas was marketed as a “think/do tank to research issues at the intersection of technology and geopolitics.“

  Astute readers know this “think/do” formula well – entities like the Council on Foreign Relations or World Economic Forum draft policy papers (think) and three-letter agencies carry them out (do).

  And again, in typical Silicon Valley fashion, Google wanted to streamline this process – bring everything in-house and remake the world in their own image.

  To head up Google Ideas, Schmidt tapped a man named Jared Cohen.

  

  He couldn’t have selected a better goon for the job – as a card-carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Rhodes Scholar, Cohen is a textbook Globalist spook. The State Department doubtlessly approved of his sordid credentials, as both Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton enrolled Cohen to knock over foreign governments they disapproved of.

  Google Ideas’ role in the 2014 Ukraine regime change operation is well-documented. And before that, their part in overthrowing Mubarak in Egypt was unveiled by way of the Stratfor leaks.

  More recently, the role of Google Ideas in the attempted overthrow of Assad in Syria went public thanks to the oft-cited Hillary Clinton email leaks:

  Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from.

  Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition.

  Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria. I’ve attached a few visuals that show what the tool will look like. Please keep this very close hold and let me know if there is anything eke you think we need to account for or think about before we launch. We believe this can have an important impact.

  -Jared Cohen to State Dept. Officials, July 25, 2012

  With all this mounting evidence, surely Google Ideas was decommissioned. Surely Jared Cohen was swiftly ousted from his position at one of America’s premier Big Tech darlings for crimes against humanity, right?

  Of course not!

  Why scrap all that hard work when you can just rebrand and shift your regime change operations to domestic targets?

  Google Jigsaw – USA Psyop Edition

  Google Ideas was renamed Google Jigsaw in 2015 after years of bad press and controversy – this time with an eye on performing psychological operations in the United States.

  But all that experience data mining and overthrowing Middle Eastern nations wasn’t just thrown out. Rather, Jigsaw repurposed its internal psychological operations program (code-named Operation Abdullah) to instead target “right-wing conspiracy theorists,” as revealed by privacy researcher Rob Braxman.

  Using a technique known as the redirect method, Jigsaw attempts to populate outbound links to dissuade potential thought-criminals from looking at wrongthink.

  Make no mistake – the redirect method is about more than manipulation of search engine results. It’s one thing to manipulate the content of searches based on query strings, but to target the psychology of the searcher themselves requires an accurate psychological profile of the person doing the searching.

  And Google has psych profiles in spades thanks to centralized Google logins: To Android phones, to Gmail accounts, to adjunct services like YouTube, even to children via Google Classroom.

  You don’t even need to use Google’s search engine to populate them with weaponized data. In fact, search alone provides far fewer avenues for offensive metadata usage than a cell phone.

  We would implore readers to take a look at Jigsaw’s site. It’s a study in how to use front-end design to creep out your visitor, as a snippet of JavaScript code ensures your cursor is tracked in a spotlight throughout your visit:

  

  Jigsaw’s front-end design team has a clear message for you: There’s nowhere to hide.

  The site also uses another bit of intelligence tradecraft known as “transferrence” – it’s a simple psychological tactic of shifting blame from yourself to your target.

  The four subheaders on Jigsaw’s homepage, Disinformation, Censorship, Toxicity, and Violent Extremism demonstrate this tactic at work.

  • There is no greater source of media disinformation than MSM and the information served up by Google search engines.

  • Big Tech are at the forefront of destroying free speech through heavy-handed censorship, Google among them.

  • Psychological manipulation tactics used by the social justice crowd doubtlessly instill toxicity in those subjected to them.

  • And Google’s well-documented history of participating in bloody regime change as described in this article are textbook cases of violent extremism.

  Yet Jigsaw markets itself as combating these societal ails. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, just as Google’s former company tag-line of “Don’t Be Evil” was a similar reversal of reality.

  And yes, regime change aficionado Jared Cohen is still the CEO of Google Jigsaw. In fact, Jigsaw, LLC was overtly brought back in-house as of October 2020.

  In Closing

  As we’ve described in previous articles, vast swaths of the State-controlled Panopticon are currently being outsourced to Big Tech companies.

  Call this phenomenon a public-private partnership. Call it the Great Reset. Call it Agenda 2030, or Agenda 21, or “stakeholder capitalism,” or any of the other euphemisms dreamt up by these hapless would-be oligarchs to sell neofeudal Technocracy to the public.

  Making intelligence services pseudo-independent from the State is simply a mandatory prerequisite for fully globalizing them.

  Furthermore, as the Biden administration seeks to reclassify half of the country as domestic extremists, it’s no secret that companies like Google, with their vast data weaponization programs, will play a key role in identifying Public Enemy #1:

  You.

  There is no “silver bullet” solution to this problem. Nearly all consumer electronics can be exploited at very low levels. Even the Internet itself is a longstanding military intelligence operation.

  But this doesn’t mean any action short of becoming a Luddite is meaningless!

  If data is the new oil, it’s time to shut off your well:

  • Abstain from using Google Mail, Docs, or Search where possible.

  • Seek out alternative social media and content creation platforms.

  • If your smartphone requires heavy dependence on Apple or Google for logins or closed-source apps, consider privacy-respecting alternatives.

  • Familiarize yourself with common data harvesting tactics and take action where you can.

  While a full list of meaningful action is beyond the purview of this post (or any single blog entry for that matter), the important takeaway here is this:

  We cannot opt out of mass government surveillance. But we knowingly consent to most forms of “privatized” intelligence gathering.

  Take the first step and revoke your consent.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 22:30

• Air Force Releases New B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber Rendering
  Air Force Releases New B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber Rendering

  The B-21 Raider – the US Air Force’s secretive, next-generation, long-range stealth bomber, was featured in a new artist rendering graphic for a new fact sheet. This is the third official rendering of the B-21, as there are no images of the stealth bomber. 

  The new rendering shows a previously unseen cockpit windscreen configuration as the bomber takes off from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. We noted several years ago that the bomber would be tested at Edwards AFB. 

  

  Testing is expected to occur in May 2022 where actual images of the plane may be released before or during its maiden flight. The 420th Flight Test Squadron will plan, test, analyze and report on all flights on the new bomber. 

  The B-21 is the most advanced bomber to date, with complex nuclear long-range missions built into its airframe. It may even be able to carry hypersonic weapons. 

  “Nuclear modernization is a top priority for the Department of Defense and the Air Force, and B-21 is key to that plan,” Randall Walden, Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office director, said in a Tuesday press release.

  Senior Air Force officials have testified before Congress that the service is in desperate need of ordering the new stealth bombers that would increase its competitiveness globally. 

  The service plans to replace the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit bombers with the B-21. 

  “The built-in feature of open systems architecture on the B-21 makes the bomber effective as the threat environment evolves. This aircraft design approach sets the nation on the right path to ensuring America’s enduring airpower capability,” the press release continued. 

  The service’s current plan is to purchase at least 100 B-21s. There is no timeline on when the first B-21 would enter deployment. 

  Simultaneously, China has unveiled renderings of its next-generation Xian H-20 strategic bomber. As the US-China relationship continues to sour and a new “Cold War” is underway, both countries are racing to deploy their next-gen stealth bomber. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 22:00

• China: Fragile Giant
  China: Fragile Giant

  Authored by Jim Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

  I’ve made many visits to China over the past thirty years and have been careful to move beyond Beijing (the political capital) and Shanghai (the financial capital) on these trips.

  My visits have included Chongqing, Wuhan (the origin of the coronavirus outbreak), Xian, Nanjing, new construction sites to visit “ghost cities,” and trips to the agrarian countryside.

  My trips included meetings with government and Communist Party officials and numerous conversations with everyday Chinese people.

  These trips have been supplemented by reading an extensive number of books on the history, culture and politics of China from 3,000 BC to the present. This background gives me a much broader perspective on current developments in China.

  In short, my experience with China goes well beyond media outlets and talking heads.

   

  An objective analysis of China must begin with its enormous strengths. China has the third-largest territory in the world, with the world’s largest population (although soon to be overtaken by India).

  China also has the fifth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, with over 280 nuclear warheads. This is about the same as the U.K. and France but well behind Russia (6,490) and the U.S. (6,450). China is the largest gold producer in the world at about 500 metric tonnes per year.

  Its economy is the second-largest economy in the world — behind only the U.S. China’s foreign exchange reserves (including gold) are the largest in the world.

  By these diverse measures of population, territory, military strength and economic output, China is clearly a global super-power and the dominant presence in East Asia. Yet, these blockbuster statistics hide as much as they reveal.

  China’s per capita income is under $12,000 per person compared to per capita income of about $64,000 in the United States. Put differently, the U.S. is only 38% richer than China on a gross basis, but it is 500% richer than China on a per capita basis (of course the massive economic fallout from the coronavirus will have an impact).

  China’s military is growing stronger and more sophisticated, but it still falls short against the U.S. military when it comes to aircraft carriers, nuclear warheads, submarines, fighter aircraft and strategic bombers.

  Most importantly, at under $12,000 per capita GDP, China is stuck squarely in the “middle income trap” as defined by development economists.

  The path from low income (about $5,000 per capita) to middle-income (about $10,000 per capita) is fairly straightforward and mostly involves reduced corruption, direct foreign investment and migration from the countryside to cities to pursue assembly-style jobs.

  The path from middle-income to high-income (about $20,000 per capita) is much more difficult and involves creation and deployment of high-technology and manufacture of high-value-added goods.

  Among developing economies (excluding oil producers), only Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea have successfully made this transition since World War II. All other developing economies in Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the Middle East including giants such as Brazil and Turkey remain stuck in the middle-income ranks.

  China remains reliant on assembly-style jobs and has shown no promise of breaking into the high-income ranks.

  

  To escape the middle income trap requires more than cheap labor and infrastructure investment. It requires applied technology to produce high-value added products. This explains why China has been so focused on stealing U.S. intellectual property.

  China has not shown much capacity for developing high technology on its own, but it has been quite effective at stealing such technology from trading partners and applying it through its own system of state-owned enterprises and “national champions” such as Huawei in the telecommunications sector.

  But the U.S. and other countries are cracking down on China’s technology theft and China cannot generate the needed technology through its own R&D.

  In short, and despite enormous annual growth in the past twenty years, China remains fundamentally a poor country with limited ability to improve the well-being of its citizens much beyond what has already been achieved. And that has serious implications for China’s leadership…

  China’s economy is not just about providing jobs, goods and services. It is about regime survival for a Chinese Communist Party that faces an existential crisis if it fails to deliver.

  It’s an illegitimate regime that will remain in power only so long as it provides jobs and a rising living standard for the Chinese people. The overriding imperative of the Chinese leadership is to avoid societal unrest.

  If China’s job machine seizes, as parts of it did during the coronavirus outbreak, Beijing fears that popular unrest could emerge on a potentially scale much greater than the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. This is an existential threat to Communist power.

  President Xi Jinping could quickly lose what the Chinese call, “The Mandate of Heaven.”

  That’s a term that describes the intangible goodwill and popular support needed by emperors to rule China for the past 3,000 years.

  If The Mandate of Heaven is lost, a ruler can fall quickly. Even before the crisis, China has had serious structural economic problems that are finally catching up with it.

  China is so heavily indebted that it’s at the point where more debt does not produce growth. Adding additional debt today slows the economy and calls into question China’s ability to service its existing debt.

  China also confronts an insolvent banking system and a real estate bubble. Up to half of China’s investment is a complete waste. It does produce jobs and utilize inputs like cement, steel, copper and glass. But the finished product, whether a city, train station or sports arena, is often a white elephant that will remain unused. The Chinese landscape is littered with “ghost cities” that have resulted from China’s wasted investment and flawed development model.

  Essentially, China is on the horns of a dilemma with no good way out. China has driven growth with excessive credit, wasted infrastructure investment and Ponzi schemes.

  The Chinese leadership knows this, but they had to keep the growth machine in high gear to create jobs for millions of migrants coming from the countryside to the city and to maintain jobs for the millions more already in the cities.

  The two ways to get rid of debt are deflation (which results in write-offs, bankruptcies and unemployment) or inflation (which results in theft of purchasing power, similar to a tax increase).

  Both alternatives are unacceptable to the Communists because they lack the political legitimacy to endure either unemployment or inflation. Either policy would cause social unrest and unleash revolutionary potential.

  China also has serious demographic challenges that will limit future growth…

  In 1980, China instituted a one-child policy in an effort to control population growth. But the 1980 announcement was really a matter of formalizing an existing policy. The Chinese have a cultural preference for boys over girls. So, when the one-child policy was implemented, the Chinese used pre-natal tests to determine sex and then aborted the girls.

  At a more crude level, families kept buckets of water next to birthing beds so that if a girl was born she could be drowned immediately. It is estimated that between 20 million to 30 million baby girls were killed this way, resulting in an equivalent surplus of men over women.

  These excess men will never find wives in China. Since women can be selective about husbands, it follows that the 30 million excess men will be the least talented and poorest in Chinese society. This cohort is highly prone to antisocial behavior, including alcohol and drug abuse and violence.

  The demographic time bomb is now detonating. The missing children from thirty or forty years ago are the missing prime age workers of today. The Chinese economy grew strongly from 1995 to 2010, mainly because of a rural-to-urban migration and the rise of assembly-style manufacturing jobs.

  Now the migration is over, the assembly-style jobs are moving to Vietnam and India, and China’s lack of high-value-added technology has left it stuck in the slow-growth middle-income trap. China might have overcome this through the sheer weight of low-wage workers, but they don’t exist.

  China will lose over 100 million workers in the next ten years due to aging, retirement and the absence of working-age replacements. China is now trying to undo the demographic damage with a new “three-child policy.”

  But, it’s too late. Demographic disasters take thirty years or more to create and they can take thirty years or more to cure. For the next thirty years, China’s worker shortage will be a drain on growth.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 21:30

• Unfavorable Opinions About China Have Reached Historic Highs
  Unfavorable Opinions About China Have Reached Historic Highs

  As China celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of its Communist Party last week, the Pew Research Center released a new report showing that unfavorable views of Beijing have reached historic highs in 17 advanced economies.

  As Statista’s Niall McCarty notes, in most places, large majorities of the public also agreed that China is not respecting the personal freedoms of its people.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Views of China are broadly negative across most of the world’s advanced economies including approximately three-quarters of respondents in Japan, Sweden, Australia, South Korea and the United States. While overall views did not change significantly in most countries, they did rise in Austria, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom as a result of bilateral tensions and the feeling that the pandemic was badly handled.

  Eight-in-ten or more respondents said that the Chinese government does not respect the personal freedoms of its people and that view is at record highs in nearly every market surveyed. In a further sign of negativity to towards Beijing, Pew found that few countries have confidence in Xi Jinping doing the right thing regarding world affairs while there is a widespread preference for closer economic ties with the U.S. rather than China.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 21:00

• Dershowitz: Trump Lawsuit Against Twitter "Will Shake Things Up Considerably"
  Dershowitz: Trump Lawsuit Against Twitter “Will Shake Things Up Considerably”

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz on Wednesday said that President Donald Trump’s class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Google, and Twitter are “very, very important” for the future of free speech in the United States, arguing that the Big Tech firms have special exemptions from the government and aren’t just any ordinary private companies.

  

  The former president, during a news conference in New Jersey, announced several lawsuits were being filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida. They’re asking a judge to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ alleged shadowbanning, censoring, blacklisting, and canceling of people. Trump is also seeking punitive damages.

  Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus, told Newsmax that recent actions taken by the social media giants are “inconsistent with the spirit of free speech that underlies our First Amendment.” According to him, the lawsuit “will shake things up considerably, though I can’t predict in the end how it will come up.”

  Trump’s suit, he continued, is “a complicated case because, as the president pointed out, and as [lawyer] Pam Bondi pointed out, the others pointed out, these are not just ordinary private companies—they have special exemption … and therefore they partake of some kind of government action, and the courts will have to parse this issue.”

  Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other platforms, under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, are generally protected from liability for the content that users post.

  The law allows social media companies to also moderate their platforms by removing posts that violate their terms and conditions as long as they’re acting in “good faith.”

  Bondi on Wednesday suggested that Section 230 is currently outdated because it was drafted in the mid-1990s with the intention to protect children from harmful content online. The way in which Big Tech firms currently use the law as a shield, she argued, oversteps what it originally intended to do.

  

  Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., on July 7, 2021. (Seth Wenig/AP Photo)

  Twitter, Facebook, and Google-owned YouTube suspended Trump’s accounts in January, claiming that the former president incited violence on Jan. 6 and said he violated the companies’ terms and conditions regarding allegations about election fraud.

  “What we don’t want is the government telling private companies what they can say and what they can do,” Dershowitz said.

  “That would be wrong, but we don’t want these crazy, public, enormous, monopolistic companies to be restricting our free speech. The current situation is unacceptable, and this lawsuit, I think, will shake things up considerably, though I can’t predict in the end how it will come up.”

  Dershowitz further noted that private firms should be able to regulate content on their sites—a common argument that has been deployed against Trump and others who have been suspended.

  But he said the “argument on the other side is they’re not really private, and the courts are going to have to resolve that.”

  “There is some precedent on that, there’s a case called Marsh v Alabama, where a company town, a town-owned by a company, forbade free speech and the Supreme Court said, ‘no, although it’s owned by a company it partakes of the public and therefore the First Amendment applies,’” Dershowitz said.

  He added: “Clearly what’s happening here is prior restraint. That is, they’re telling the former president of the United States, ‘we don’t want you on our platforms, no matter what you say, we’re going to restrain you.’ So, the issue is not so much prior restraint. I think everybody will acknowledge this is prior restraint. It’s whether or not the prior restraint is subject to the First Amendment or [Trump] himself has a First Amendment right. That’s what’s so complicated about this, that’s why I call this the new censorship. The old censorship involved pure government. McCarthyism. Congress. Today we have these companies that are the new censors.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 20:30

• China Tightens Grip On Tech Companies With Crackdown On Foreign IPOs
  China Tightens Grip On Tech Companies With Crackdown On Foreign IPOs

  China’s unprecedented crackdown on its burgeoning (for now) tech industry just won’t stop and overnight, China’s Cyberspace Administration of China – the same entity responsible for the crackdown on Didi – proposed new rules that would require nearly all companies seeking to list in foreign countries to undergo a cybersecurity review, a move that would significantly tighten oversight over its internet giants.

  Confirming our thoughts from last week, namely that “with 34 Pending Filings, China Sends A Message: No More US IPOs“, tech platform companies that possess the personal data of at least 1 million users will have to apply for approval from the Cybersecurity Review Office, a group backed by 12 powerful Chinese ministries, if they plan an IPO in a foreign market according to a draft of the updated version of Beijing’s Measures for Cybersecurity Review published on Saturday, which is open for feedback until July 25.

  While the draft does not specify if it exempts or covers Hong Kong – the world’s favorite IPO destination in seven of the past 12 years – the city is usually not considered a “foreign” market under Chinese regulations, and especially now following the its quasi-annexation by China.

  According to the SCMP, the threshold was set at 1 million – a low bar a country where almost 1 billion people go online actively – apparently to conform with Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of the United States, which requires approvals by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for deals that involve the personal data of 1 million or more US individuals.

  Coming in the aftermath of a series of aggressive crackdowns by the cyberspace regulator on China’s dominant ride-hailing service Didi-Chuxing, the new rules will transform the regulatory landscape for Chinese tech firms wanting to raise funds from foreign markets.

  Didi, which raised US$4.4 billion in a June 30 stock sale in New York, angered Chinese regulators – especially the CAC – because of the way that it forced its way to the listing, with SCMP sources describing the company’s insistence to list as akin to a “deliberate act of deceit”.

  As Bloomberg notes, the move is “one of the most concrete steps taken yet to restrain the ability of technology firms to raise capital in the U.S. through a so-called Variable Interest Entity model that the likes of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Baidu Inc.and Didi Global Inc. have adopted. Regulators are also considering requiring VIEs like Alibaba that have already gone public to seek approval for additional share offerings in the offshore market, people with knowledge of the matter have said.”

  The crackdown is also meant to send a clear signal to the US: according to You Yunting, senior partner at Shanghai Debund Law Firm, the draft is mainly aimed at listings in the US. 

  “The Chinese government has been hoping to strengthen supervision of Chinese companies listed overseas for some time … but since the start of the China-US trade war, data has become a focus of the power play between the two sides,” You said. “Didi’s US listing was only the fuse that lit the supervision, but even without the Didi incident, the Chinese government would still have taken the initiative.”

  So far this year, 37 Chinese companies have listed in the U.S., surpassing last year’s count, and raised a combined $12.9 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

  “These rules will push more Chinese internet firms to list in Hong Kong instead of in another country, to bypass such a review,” said Feng Chucheng, a partner at research firm Plenum in Beijing. “The one million-user threshold is very low and would basically apply to every internet company aspiring for an IPO.”

  The draft regulations also cover data security risks involving foreign powers, with reviews assessing the risks of data being transferred abroad illegally, or being stolen, leaked and destroyed. Reviews will also consider the national security risks of critical information infrastructure: whether critical and personal data is being affected, controlled, or maliciously used by foreign governments after a foreign listing, according to the draft.

  The proposal did not say whether Chinese tech companies that have already filed to list in New York must go through the cybersecurity review. LinkDoc Technology, a company backed by Alibaba Group Holding’s Alibaba Health unit, and the Beijing-based Daojia are among the China-domiciled technology companies that have filed to raise funds in the US.

  The current regulations, issued in April and effective from June 2020, require that critical information infrastructure operators go through a cybersecurity review if they acquire network products or services that may threaten national security. Just days after the Didi IPO, the Cyber Security Review Office announced probes into Didi, truck-hailing apps Yunmanman and Huochebang, as well as a recruiting app operated by Boss Zhipin, all on national security grounds.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 20:00

• Escobar: Say Hello To The Diplo-Taliban
  Escobar: Say Hello To The Diplo-Taliban

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

  Deploying diplomatic skills refined from Doha to Moscow, the Taliban in 2021 has little to do with its 2001 incarnation…

  

  Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (center) and other members of the Taliban arrive to attend an international conference in Moscow on March 18, 2021. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / AFP

  A very important meeting took place in Moscow last week, virtually hush-hush. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, received Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s national security adviser.

  There were no substantial leaks.

  A bland statement pointed to the obvious:

  They “focused on the security situation in Afghanistan during the pullout of Western military contingencies and the escalation of the military-political situation in the northern part of the country.”

  The real story is way more nuanced. Mohib, representing embattled President Ashraf Ghani, did his best to convince Patrushev that the Kabul administration represents stability. It does not – as the subsequent Taliban advances proved.

  Patrushev knew Moscow could not offer any substantial measure of support to the current Kabul arrangement because doing so would burn bridges the Russians would need to cross in the process of engaging the Taliban. Patrushev knows that the continuation of Team Ghani is absolutely unacceptable to the Taliban – whatever the configuration of any future power-sharing agreement.

  So Patrushev, according to diplomatic sources, definitely was not impressed.

  This week we can all see why. A delegation from the Taliban political office went to Moscow essentially to discuss with the Russians the fast-evolving mini-chessboard in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban had been to Moscow four months earlier, along with the extended troika (Russia, US, China, Pakistan) to debate the new Afghan power equation.

  

  Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. Photo: AFP / Viktor Tolochko / Sputnik

  On this trip, they emphatically assured their interlocutors there’s no Taliban interest in invading any territory of their Central Asia neighbors.

  It’s not excessive, in view of how cleverly they’ve been playing their hand, to call the Taliban desert foxes. They know well what Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been repeating: Any turbulence coming from Afghanistan will be met with a direct response from the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

  In addition to stressing that the US withdrawal – actually, repositioning – represents the failure of its Afghan “mission,” Lavrov touched on the two really key points:

  • The Taliban is increasing its influence in the northern Afghanistan border areas; and

  • Kabul’s refusal to form a transitional government is “promoting a belligerent solution” to the drama. This implies Lavrov expects much more flexibility from both Kabul and the Taliban in the Sisyphean power-sharing task ahead.

  And then, relieving the tension, when asked by a Russian journalist if Moscow will send troops to Afghanistan, Lavrov reverted to Mr Cool: “The answer is obvious.”

  Shaheen speaks

  Mohammad Suhail Shaheen is the quite articulate spokesman for the Taliban political office. He’s adamant that “taking Afghanistan by military force is not our policy. Our policy is to find a political solution to the Afghan issue, which is continuing in Doha.” Bottom line: “We confirmed our commitment to a political solution here in Moscow once more.”

  That’s absolutely correct. The Taliban don’t want a bloodbath. They want to be embraced. As Shaheen has stressed, it would be easy to conquer major cities – but there would be blood. Meanwhile, the Taliban already control virtually the whole border with Tajikistan.

  

  New face of the Taliban: The insurgents’ spokesman Mohammad Suhail Shaheen speaks to media in Moscow on February 15, 2021. Photo: AFP / Elena Teslova / Anadolu Agency

  The 2021 Taliban have little in common with their 2001 pre-war on terror incarnation. The movement has evolved from a largely Ghilzai Pashtun rural guerrilla insurgency to a more inter-ethnic arrangement, incorporating Tajiks, Uzbeks and even Shi’ite Hazaras – a group that was mercilessly persecuted during the 1996-2001 years of Taliban power.

  Reliable figures are extremely hard to come by, but 30% of the Taliban today may be non-Pashtuns. One of the top commanders is ethnically Tajik – and that explains the lightning-flash “soft” blitzkrieg in northern Afghanistan across Tajik territory.

  I visited a lot of these geologically spectacular places in the early 2000s. The inhabitants, all cousins, speaking Dari, are now turning over their villages and towns to Tajik Taliban as a matter of trust. Very few – if any – Pashtuns from Kandahar or Jalalabad are involved. That illustrates the absolute failure of the central government in Kabul.

  Those who do not join the Taliban simply desert – as did the Kabul forces manning the checkpoint close to the bridge over the Pyanj river, off the Pamir highway; they escaped without a fight to Tajik territory, actually riding the Pamir highway. The Taliban hoisted their flag in this crucial intersection without firing a shot.

  The Afghan National Army’s chief, General Wali Mohammad Ahmadza, fresh into his role by appointment from Ghani, is keeping a brave face: ANA’s priority is to protect the main cities (so far, so good, because the Taliban are not attacking them); border crossings (that’s not going so well), and highways (mixed results so far).

  This interview with Suhail Shaheen is quite enlightening – as he feels compelled to stress that “we don’t have access to media” and laments the “baseless” barrage of “propaganda launched against us,” which implies that Western media should admit the Taliban have changed.

  Shaheen points out that “it’s not possible to take 150 districts in just six weeks by fighting,” which connects to the fact that the security forces “do not trust the Kabul administration.” In all districts that have been conquered, he swears, “ the forces came to the Taliban voluntarily.”

  

  A smoke plume rises from houses amid an ongoing fight between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters in the western city of Qala-i- Naw, the capital of Badghis province, on July 7. The Taliban launched its first major assault on a provincial capital since the US military began its final drawdown of troops from the country. Photo: AFP

  Shaheen makes a statement that could have come straight from Ronald Reagan in the mid-1980s: The “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan are the real freedom fighters.” That may be the object of endless debate across the lands of Islam.

  But one fact is indisputable: The Taliban are sticking by the agreement they signed with the Americans on February 29, 2020. And that implies a total American exit: “If they don’t abide by their commitments, we have a clear right of retaliation.”

  Thinking ahead to “when an Islamic government is in place,” Shaheen insists there will be “good relations” with every nation, and embassies and consulates will not be targeted.

  The Taliban “goal is clear: to end the occupation.” And that brings us to the tricky gambit of Turkish troops “protecting” Kabul airport. Shaheen is crystal clear. “No NATO forces – that means continuation of occupation,” he proclaims. “When we have an independent Islamic country, then we will sign any agreement with Turkey that is mutually beneficial.”

  Shaheen is involved in the ongoing, very complicated negotiations in Doha, so he cannot allow himself to commit the Taliban to any future power-sharing agreement. What he does say, even though “progress is slow” in Doha, is that, contrary to what was previously reported by media in Qatar, the Taliban will not present a formal written proposal to Kabul by the end of the month, The talks will continue.

  Going hybrid?

  Whatever the “Mission Accomplished” non-denial denials emanating from the White House, a few things are already clear on the Eurasia front.

  The Russians, for one thing, are already engaging the Taliban, in detail, and may soon strike their name off their terror list.

  The Chinese, for another, are assured that if the Taliban commit Afghanistan to join the Belt and Road Initiative, connecting via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, ISIS-Khorasan will not then be permitted to go on overdrive in Afghanistan bolstered by Uyghur jihadis currently in Idlib.

  

  American soldiers retrieve their duffel bags after they returned home from a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan on December 10, 2020, at Fort Drum, New York. Photo: AFP / John Moore / Getty Images

  And nothing is off the table for Washington when it comes to derailing BRI.

  Crucial silos scattered across the deep state must be already at work replacing a forever war in Afghanistan with hybrid war, Syria-style.

  Lavrov is very much aware of Kabul power brokers who would not say “no” to a new hybrid war arrangement. But the Taliban for their part have been very effective – preventing assorted Afghan factions from supporting Team Ghani.

  As for the Central Asian “stans,” not a single one of them wants any forever wars or hybrid wars down the road.

  Fasten your seat belts: It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 19:30

• 25K Applicants In First Week After Indiana Offers Free Gun Carry Licenses
  25K Applicants In First Week After Indiana Offers Free Gun Carry Licenses

  At the beginning of July, Indiana exempted all fees for a lifetime license to carry a handgun. The response was so overwhelming that in the first 24 hours, more than 7,000 people successfully applied for the free license. In the seven days following the new law taking effect on July 1, more than 25,000 people had signed up for the license, according to Bearing Arms. 

  A lifetime permit originally cost $125, but now it’s free of charge and overwhelming the state as they struggle to process thousands of applications. 

  “As expected, we’ve had an influx of applications on our website. We’re asking folks that want to apply for that to be patient,” said Indiana State Police (ISP) public information officer Sgt. John Perrine.

  

  ISP warned due to the high volume of applications, there may be delays in accessing the firearms portal. 

   “We’re sorry, due to a high number of current applicants, we must limit the number of individuals applying at one time. Please try again later,” ISP said. 

  Because of the expected demand for free licenses, state police say it could take months to process all the new license paperwork. 

  However, there are some hidden fees – when Indiana legislators removed the state fees on the permit, they didn’t remove fees for background checks or fingerprinting.  

  Whether or not lawmakers take the next step and abolish carry licenses is still an open question.

  Readers may recall a massive surge in Second Amendment sanctuaries at the state, county, and local levels are sweeping across the country. Lamestream media fails to report that 61% of US counties now protect gun rights. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 19:00

• Activism Uncensored: Colombia In Chaos
  Activism Uncensored: Colombia In Chaos

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

  Any American correspondent working abroad will tell you: coverage of in-country upheavals are dictated by the nature of the government’s relationship to the United States. If they’re technically allies, protests tend to be portrayed as illegitimate. Hence the dilemma in Colombia, as depicted in this episode of Activism Uncensored.

  Colombia for some time now has been considered America’s key strategic ally in South America — “think of it as similar to Israel in the Middle East,” says correspondent Maranie R. Staab, above. Colombia is the top recipient in the region of American aid, collecting $800 million in 2020 alone, being central to multiple American objectives, from drug interdiction to opposition to the left-wing government of Nicolas Maduro. The State Department last year issued a fact sheet explaining the relationship:

  Colombia is a key U.S. partner in ongoing efforts to help Venezuela in its return to democracy and economic prosperity. Colombia’s leadership has been essential in coordinating regional support for Interim President Juan Guaidó, as well as condemning Maduro’s misrule and adopting policies to isolate his regime…

  The usual “Democracy Promotion” script involves the U.S. backing this or that politician with money, weapons, and sometimes even military manpower, turning a blind eye to corruption or other excesses connected to that politician, then ultimately being forced to double down on the money and weapons when anti-American protest movements rise in response.

  This isn’t exactly that situation, but close: a government in America’s good graces largely thanks to its role as a launching pad for the dubious effort to install Guaidó in Venezuela, under pressure from a frustrated and impoverished population reacting in this case to a proposed tax hike on basic goods.

  Foreign news outlets like Al Jazeera have openly described the Colombian protests as a “class war,” while groups like Amnesty International have tried to bring attention to the fact that the Colombian police suspected in the disappearances of some of the protesters may be armed with American weapons. Outlets like the Washington Post, meanwhile, have used more neutral language in describing “anti-government protests,” almost describing the Duque administration as a bystander to the chaos:

  The White House has taken notice. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki urged authorities last month to “continue to work to locate all missing persons as quickly as possible.” The government of President Iván Duque has said it’s doing all it can.

  The Colombian attorney general’s office says it received 572 reports of people “not located…”

  In most cases, the office told The Post, the reports “correspond to the normal dynamics of people who voluntarily left their family circle…”

  The footage gathered by Staab, Ford Fischer, and News2Share above shows a different picture: the Colombian protests as a serious foreign policy dilemma for the Biden administration, which finds itself caught between its strategic sponsorship of the Colombian government and pressure to respond to wide-scale accusations of human rights violations.

  When the U.S. doesn’t have a clear horse to back in these standoffs, coverage tends to be muted. Here we at least get a long look at the scene on the ground, where over 1,000 have been injured and at least 50 have been killed.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 18:30

• Will The Pandemic PTSD Ever End: Maui's Mayor Asks For "Fewer Tourists" As Tourists Arrive En Masse
  Will The Pandemic PTSD Ever End: Maui’s Mayor Asks For “Fewer Tourists” As Tourists Arrive En Masse

  Proving that the PTSD from the pandemic is going to offer up likely several decades more of total fear porn, Maui’s mayor is pleading to airlines: “Please don’t bring so many people to our island.”

  For a year, Hawaii, which derives much of its revenue from tourism, was shut down to everyone but locals. Now, it seems the once-prominent issue of “over-tourism”, often cited by locals as a complaint of living on the island, is back in full force. Except this time, when the tourists showed back up, the island is scurrying to make up a shortage of hospitality workers, U.S. News and World Report said. The islands restaurants are struggling to keep up, the report says. 

  Mayor Michael Victorino recently said: “We don’t have the authority to say stop, but we are asking the powers to be to help us.”

  Victorino has blamed the airport: “It’s the airlift that really drives all of this. Without airlift, people don’t come.”

  Hawaiian Airlines spokesman Alex Da Silva responded by saying that while the company is conscious of the regulations and requests, it is visitors that drive the state’s economy.

  

  The island still has “some of the nation’s most stringent coronavirus public health restrictions”, according to the report. It is also the only state that hasn’t fully reopened, mostly due to its remote location and limited hospital capacity. The islanders also have on their mind “the memory of diseases that wiped out 80% of the Native Hawaiian population in the century after Europeans arrived”, U.S. News and World Report writes. 

  The state’s governor doesn’t plan on lifting all restrictions until 70% of the state is vaccinated. As of right now, 58% of the state was vaccinated. 

  The state has become a destination, meanwhile, as travel restrictions from other states start to loosen. It’s also a great destination for those that are looking to fly overseas, but can’t yet due to Covid restrictions. 

  215,148 visitors came to the island in May compared to just 1,054 during the same month last year, the report notes. That number stood at 251,665 in May of 2019. Travelers still must quarantine upon their arrival.  

  Jack Starr, who manages Kimo’s in Lahaina, said: “We’re under more pressure than we’ve been in pre-COVID, that’s for damn sure.” Restaurants have still been operating at 50% capacity and will be allowed to fill 75% of their seats later this week. Starr says that the distancing requirements and employee shortage are making life difficult for restaurant owners. 

  “Are you kidding me? You got to take that down to 3 feet, and we might have something going here,” he told U.S. News.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 18:00

• The Blind Leading The Clueless
  The Blind Leading The Clueless

  Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

  Most of us watch television. In part, we seek to be entertained, but, additionally, we often seek to be enlightened as to “what’s going on.” In a difficult era like the present one, in which some of the most prominent countries are experiencing the onset of an economic crisis, virtual cartoon characters are competing as choices in political contests, governments are becoming increasingly rapacious and a police state is developing rapidly, it’s not surprising if the average person questions, “What on earth are they thinking?”

  Well, there’s no shortage of media exposure to answer that question. Today, there are a multitude of channels offering 24/7 “news,” from which we may hope to glean some insight as to what the leaders of the world are thinking. Yet, in spite of the endless folderol being offered, the leadership vision remains about as clear as mud.

  They don’t want war, but are invading more countries than ever before in history. Political hopefuls are vague at best regarding their proposed platforms for action, yet they attack each other as though they’re reporters for the tabloids. Governments continually speak of their wish to lighten the load on the common man, whilst heaping laws, regulations, fines and taxes on him like never before, and whilst heaping billions in tax dollars on their cronies in the financial industry. They claim to seek greater security for all, but instead, create an endless stream of agencies that have the authority to ignore basic rights and behave more like Mafia shakedown operators than law enforcers. Governments claim to be pursuing a sounder economy, but have created an unprecedented level of debt, that promises to crush the economies of several of the world’s most prominent countries in the very near future.

  And so, many people look to the media, seeking answers. Typically a news programme will feature a “panel of experts,” who will debate the latest issues. They rarely reach a conclusion, but do succeed in creating a general impression that one political party is out to destroy the country and that the other (which they represent) is out to save it.

  

  (Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard, interviews Janet Yellen.)

  In addition to the panels, the media go straight to the source on frequent occasions, interviewing political and financial leaders. The list of questions is invariably prepared well in advance and the interviewee is never caught off guard. His handlers have prepared his answers for him and, on every occasion, a full plate of predictable reheated rhetoric is served up to the viewer for his consumption.

  In these repartees, the interviewer is intended to appear congenial yet probing, yet the questions asked are invariably bland enough for the interviewee to either dismiss them or provide an easy retort. The interviewee is intended to appear as though he is informing the public of policies and procedures that, whilst too complicated for the viewer to fully grasp, are well in hand and will provide solutions in the not-too-distant future. Be patient.

  The fact that these solutions never seem to arrive seems to be less relevant than the fact that a new solution is underway. In this manner, the viewer, no matter how badly his life is being affected, continues to sit tight and be hopeful, for, surely, better days are just around the corner.

  Incredibly, the average viewer seems to be able to consume endless quantities of this propaganda, year after year, and never say to himself, “Something’s radically wrong here.”

  If he were to actually turn off the television for a week or so, stand back, and assess the propaganda as a whole, he might conclude that, in fact, the media acts at the behest of the economic and political leaders, to propagate their message. The “debates” and “pressing questions” are limp at best and never lead to any significant change or improvement. Nor are they intended to. They are pacifiers only.

  Worse, the leaders themselves continue to not only fail the public, but to steadily morph the governmental, economic and social systems in a direction that will lead inevitably to a bad end.

  It is true, of course, that the citizens of these leading nations are becoming increasingly cynical about their leaders and their own futures, but their reaction to the pablum, after having a good grumble, tends to be to “hope the next administration will be better.” This is very foolhardy indeed. (Once the apple is thoroughly rotten, expect to see only worms inhabiting it.)

  But those who sense that they’re being shafted need to vent somehow. And, for this we have political parties. Whether our country has Democrats and Republicans, Tories and Labour, or any other such groupings, those who are elected are under no illusion that they exist to serve those who elected them; they exist to serve the major donors who pay for the elections. And the major donors contribute to both parties, in order to ensure that their objectives are carried out by the candidates who are successful, regardless of their party. The overall plan will continue, full steam, regardless of who’s in office.

  But the parties do provide the electorate with targets at which to aim their rubber-tipped arrows. Regardless of which party is in power, liberal voters will complain that not enough is being done for their causes and conservative voters will do the same.

  Will one win out over the other eventually? Unquestionably not. The system is designed to remain as is – with endless bickering encouraged, but no actual progress planned.

  The most prominent countries in the world are on the cusp of a major economic crisis. With it will come political and social crises and, most certainly, war. The television viewer, if he accepts this at all, will say, “Well, that will teach them. Then they’ll have to admit that our side was right.”

  Unfortunately, no. After the inevitable economic crashes, after years of pointless warfare, after increased totalitarianism at home, there will be an eventual end to the strife. When the dust begins to settle, the average person will turn on his television, hoping to see that some answers have been reached.

  Instead, what he’ll witness, if he turns on a liberal station, will be pundits stating that, if only there had been more QE and more entitlements, it might have all worked out, but that, instead, there was disaster, as a result of the conservatives.

  Likewise, the pundits on the conservative station will expound that all the suffering could have been avoided if the entitlements had been kept in check and the bombs could have been dropped on the enemy earlier. Both liberals and conservatives will return to their corners to dress their wounds and prepare for the next round of polarization against each other.

  So, who is it that we blame for mankind’s debacles? Surely, we were tricked by the leaders – the politicians, central bankers, leaders of major industries, etc. Or was it the media that did such a sterling job of packaging up the propaganda that we were unable to see the forest for the trees?

  It will matter little, because nothing will be learned and we shall begin the game anew. But if it’s a genuine solution we’re after, yes, that is possible. But that solution depends upon whether we’re prepared to cease to allow the media to provide our reasoning for us.

  We must be prepared to study our leaders’ actions, to be prepared to be contrarian and, most importantly, to question everything. If not, we ourselves are amongst the blind and the clueless and we can expect an endless cycle of the same dog and pony show.

  *  *  *

  All you can hope to do is to save yourself from the consequences of all this stupidity. The coming financial collapse is going to be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we saw in 2008 and 2009. That’s exactly why New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video. Click here to watch it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 17:30

• Every State's Least-Favorite State
  Every State’s Least-Favorite State

  That’s a lot of ‘hate’ for California…

  

  Source: @Mattsurelee

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 17:00

• Rand Paul Says He Will Introduce Bill To Scrap Mask Mandate "Farce" On Planes
  Rand Paul Says He Will Introduce Bill To Scrap Mask Mandate “Farce” On Planes

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Senator Rand Paul declared Thursday that he intends to introduce legislation that would scrap mask mandates, specifically on planes, calling the practice a ‘farce’.

  

  Paul noted that he intends to seek a repeal of Joe Biden’s executive order mandating masks on public transit.

  Paul tweeted that he will seek “immediate repeal of the mask mandate on planes” when the Senate reconvenes next week, adding, “let people travel in peace!”

  When the Senate returns to session, I will be introducing an immediate repeal of the mask mandate on planes. Enough! Time to stop this farce and let people travel in peace!

  — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 8, 2021

  The Transportation Security Administration has decided to continue its mask mandate at least into September, with fines for those who fail to comply.

  According to reports, the FAA has handed out fines to unruly travelers totaling $682,000 this year alone.

  Paul has consistently railed against the mask mandate, previously calling it a strategy of government “fear mongering,” “security theater,” and calling for Biden to burn his mask on live TV.

  Last week, Paul made an assertive case for natural immunity and the misinformation on the matter that is coming from the government in indiscriminately pushing vaccinations:

  The Senator also made his feelings clear this week regarding Biden’s door to door vaccination “strike forces”.

  No.

  The gov’t doesn’t decide who gets vaccinated. You do.

  Do not submit to the fearmongers. https://t.co/NDCRUE3wCV

  — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 7, 2021

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 16:30

• Goldman: Here's Why The Shorts Will Have To Cover This Week
  Goldman: Here’s Why The Shorts Will Have To Cover This Week

  Last weekend, before the S&P broke out into a series of new all time highs despite Thursday’s “harrowing” 1% dip, we shared Goldman’s observations on why the market was entering the best 2-week seasonal period of the year. Since then, the SPX has hit new all time highs 3 out of the past 5 trading days, and on 9 out of the last 11 even as sentiment substantially declined this week in global equities. For context, on Thursday we observed that the TICK Index logged one of the largest (top 4) selling pressure on the open on record.

  

  For those asking what was behind Thursday’s wobble, we mentioned previously listed the reason for the selloff, none of which were new. The general feeling was that equities needed to catch down to other asset classes.

  But, as Goldman flow trader Scott Rubner correctly predicted on Friday, when he said that “I think local shorts will need to cover this am” only to see a new all time high in the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq, the selling is pretty much over “as long dealer gamma muted a larger potential drawdown.” Another reason why Goldman expects stocks to keep rising: JPM kicks off the defacto new buyback window on Tuesday.

  With that in mind, here is a mini thread from Rubner on “where we came from” and where we are going next.

  1. GS Wedge: Since January 2019, Money Markets have seen +$1.707 Trillion inflows and Global Bonds have seen +$1.629 Trillion inflows, while Global Equities just +$154 Billion worth of inflows. GS wedge stands at $3.2 Trillion ~ aka the defensive buffer.

  

  2. Cash on the sidelines is waiting for a dip and bought the Thursday dip.

  

  3. 1H 2021 actually logged the 2nd largest money market inflows on record. 1H 2020 was the largest.

  

  4. The cash pile from 2021 has not been reduced.

  

  5. 1H 2021 Bond inflows seem significant? On pace for best year in a decade.

  

  

  6. Q1 2021 saw the 3rd largest quarterly inflow on record, Q2 2021 saw the 7th largest on record.

  

  7. Global Equity inflows are the biggest story of the year, but do not seem extreme at all when I zoom out.

  

  Goldman’s bottom Line: “We are still in the best two week period of the year, equity inflows are large, 401k are going back into stocks at a record pace. I think local shorts will need to cover.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 16:00

• Galloway: FinTech Is As Under-Hyped As Space Is Overhyped
  Galloway: FinTech Is As Under-Hyped As Space Is Overhyped

  Authored by Scott Galloway via No Mercy / No Malice blog,

  Bank

  My north star(s) for philosophy, management, and politics are Star Wars, The Sopranos, and Game of Thrones, respectively. The Iron Bank (GoT) is a metaphor for today’s financial institutions, if present-day banks didn’t need bailouts or to invent fake accounts to juice compensation. Regardless, it was well known throughout Braavos that The Iron Bank will have its due. If you failed to repay, they’d fund your enemies. So today’s Iron Bankers are the venture capitalists funding (any) incumbents’ enemies. If this makes VCs sound interesting/cool, don’t trust your instincts.

  Lately, I’ve spent a decent amount of time on the phone with my bank in an attempt to get a home equity line, as I want to load up on Dogecoin. (Note: kidding.) (Note: mostly.) If Opendoor and Zillow can use algorithms and Google Maps to get an offer on my house in 24 hours, why does it take my bank — which underwrote the original mortgage — so much longer?

  How ripe a sector is for disruption is a function of several factors. One (relatively) easy proxy is the delta between price increases and inflation, and if the innovation in the sector justifies the delta. Think of the $200 cable bill, or a $5.6 million 60-second Super Bowl spot, as canaries in the ad-supported media coal mine.

  Another, easier (and more fun) indicator of ripeness is the eighties test. Put yourself smack dab in the center of the store/product/service, close your eyes, spin around three times, open your eyes, and ask if you’d know within 5 seconds that you were not in 1985. Theaters, grocery stores, gas stations, dry cleaners, university classes, doctor’s offices, and banks still feel as if you could run into Ally Sheedy or The Bangles.

  It’s hard to imagine an industry more ripe for disruption than the business of money.

  Let’s start with this: Twenty-five percent of U.S. households are either unbanked or underbanked. Half of the nation’s unbanked households say they don’t have enough money to meet the minimum balance requirements. Thirty-four percent say bank fees are too high. And, if you’re trying to get a mortgage, you’d better hope the house isn’t cheap.

  

  Inequity is a breeding ground for disruption, leaving underserved markets for insurgents to seize and launch an attack on incumbents from below. We have good reason to believe that’s happening in banking.

  

  Insurgents

  A herd of unicorns is at the stable door, looking to trample Wells Fargo and Chase. Fintech is responsible for roughly one in five (17%) of the world’s unicorns, more than any other sector. In addition, there are already several megalodons worth more than financial institutions that have spent generations building (mis)trust.

  

  How did this happen? The fintechs are zeroing in on everything big banks aren’t.

  Example #1: Innovation. Over the past five years, PayPal has issued 26x more patents than Goldman Sachs.

  

  Example #2: Cost-cutting. “Neobanks” offer the basic services of a bank, with one less expensive and cumbersome feature: the branch. A traditional bank branch needs $50 million in deposits to generate an adequate return. Yet nearly half (48%) of branches in the U.S. are below that threshold. Neobanks don’t have that problem, and there are now at least 177 of them. Founders frame these offerings as more progressive, less corporate. Dave, a new banking app, offers a Founding Story on its website (illustrated with cartoon bears) about three friends “fed up” with their banking experience, often incurring $38 overdraft fees. Fed up no longer: Dave provides free overdraft protection and has 10 million customers.

  Example #3: Less inequity. NYU Professor of Finance Sabrina Howell’s research found fintech lenders gave 18% of PPP loans to Black-owned businesses, while small to medium-sized banks provided just 2%. Among all loans to Black-owned firms, Professor Howell found 54% were from fintech startups. Racial discrimination is the most likely explanation, as lenders faced zero credit risk.

  Example #4: Serving the underserved. Unequal access to banking is a global botheration. Almost a third of the world’s adults, 1.7 billion, are unbanked. In Argentina, Colombia, Nigeria, and other countries, more than 50% of adults are unbanked.

  

  But innovation is already on the horizon: Take Argentine fintech Ualá, whose CEO Pierpaolo Barbieri I spoke with on the Pod last week. In just 4 years, more than 3 million people have opened an account with his company — about 9% of the country — and over 25% of 18 to 25-year-olds now have a tarjeta Ualá (online wallet). Ualá recently launched in Mexico, where, as of 2017, only 2.6% of the poorest 40% had a credit card. This is more than an economic issue — it’s a societal issue, as financial inclusion bolsters the middle class and forms a solid base for democracy.

  Interest(ed)

  Chase savings accounts are offering, no joke, 0.01% interest. Wells Fargo? The same, though if you keep your investment portfolio with Wells, they’ll double that rate to 0.02%. Meanwhile, neobanks including Ally and Chime offer 0.5% — 50 times the competition.

  There is also blood in the water for fintech unicorns that have created a debit, vs. credit, generation: The buy-now-pay-later fintech Afterpay has more than 5 million U.S. customers — just two years after launching in the country. As of February, its competitor Affirm has 4.5 million customers.

  Unicorns are also coming for payments. The megasaurus in this space is PayPal, which has built the first global payments platform outside the credit card model and is second only to Visa in payment volume and revenue. Square’s Cash app is capturing share, and Apple Cash is also a player, as it’s … Apple.

  

  Square, Apple, and a host of other companies are taking the “partnership” approach, bolting new services onto the existing transaction infrastructure. Square’s little white box is a low-upfront-cost way for a small merchant to accept credit cards. It’s particularly interesting that Apple teamed up with Goldman Sachs instead of a traditional bank. Goldman is looking to get into the consumer space (see Marcus), and Apple is looking to get into the payments space — this alliance could be the unsullied fighting with air cover from dragons. It should make Wells and BofA anxious.

  The Big Four credit card system operators (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express) are still the dominant payment players, and they have deep moats. Their brands are global, their networks robust. Visa can handle 76,000 transactions per second in 160 currencies, and as of this week it had settled $1 billion in cryptocurrency transactions.

  Still, even the king of payments sees dead people. In 2020, Visa tried to buy Plaid for $5.3 billion. Plaid currently helps connect existing payments providers (i.e. banks) to finance software such as Quicken and Mint. But it plans to expand from that beachhead into offering a full-fledged payments system. Visa CEO Al Kelly initially described the deal as an “insurance policy” to neutralize a “threat to our important U.S. debit business.” In an encouraging sign that American antitrust authorities are stirring, the Department of Justice filed suit to block the merger, and Visa walked.

  Beyond Banking

  Fintech is also coming for investing with online trading apps (Robinhood, Webull, Public, and several of the neobanks) and through the crypto side door (Coinbase, Gemini, Binance). Insurance is under threat from companies like Lemonade (home), Ladder (life), and Root (auto).

  In sum, fintech is likely as underhyped as space is overhyped. Why? The ROI on your professional efforts and investing are inversely proportional to how sexy the industry/investment is, and fintech is … boring. Except for the immense opportunity and value creation — for multiple stakeholders. “Half the world is unbanked, but we need to colonize Mars,” said no rational investor ever.

  Re investing in fintech: What has, and will always be, a good rap? The guy/gal who owns the bank.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 15:00

• The Millennials Who Swore Off Cars Pre-COVID Are Now Buying Them
  The Millennials Who Swore Off Cars Pre-COVID Are Now Buying Them

  The auto market is so hot, post-pandemic, that many of those who once wrote off car ownership are coming around to the idea of buying a vehicle.

  It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of car ownership disappearing was being discussed: younger generations moving to the cities, combined with ridesharing companies like Uber, were prompting questions of whether or not car ownership would be permanently impaired. 

  But as the world recovers from Covid, used car prices are skyrocketing (as we have documented), public transit route inquiries have “plunged” and a recent EY survey showed that 32% of non-car owners were intending to get a car in the next six months, Bloomberg reported this week. 

  

  Of those who responded to the survey, about half were millennials. 

  “If it weren’t for the pandemic, I wouldn’t have thought about getting a car. I would have thought it a hassle,” 32 year old Georgios Basdanis told Bloomberg. 

  Prior to the pandemic Basdanis lived in an apartment complex in London with a no-car policy. With the London Tube the best option to get around town, there was nary a problem for intra-city travel. But after Covid hit, public transit became a faux pas and being able to drive himself “seemed much safer.”

  

  While he is now vaccinated and will likely be back on the Tube more often, he said about his car: “It’s certainly a useful thing to have, for out of hours work or just driving to the gym on a weekend. Also trips. I can just jump in the car and go to the countryside for a day.”

  His sentiments are being shared by many other millennials, despite the fact that there was a serious pre-covid push (both for environmental reasons and space issues in major cities) to limit vehicles.

  

  Eric Zayer, a partner in Bain & Co’s automotive and mobility practice in Munich, told Bloomberg: “There will be a strong push of cities trying to limit and reduce the number of cars. They have made huge investments in public transport, and they need to be amortized. They will not give up on their mass transport systems.”

  The shift in attitude can also be seen in places like Japan, where 10 million people per day used to cram into Tokyo’s subway lines. Now, the article notes, interest in car ownership in rising. New licenses increased in 2020 for the first time in eight years, with most of the growth coming from people in their 20s and 30s. 

  

  Gypsy Byrne, a 19-year-old student in Melbourne, also shifted her views on car ownership: “You can’t trust public transport now. I got my driving instructor to start doing five-hour lessons instead of one because I just need my Ps [provisional license plates] to be able to get out and do things.”

  Michael Brisson, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in the U.S. argued that while ownership may be on the rise, total miles driven still hasn’t eclipsed previous highs. He concluded: “A resurgence of car ownership might be more of the story versus a resurgence of car usage. People may want the ability to travel and may be taking more short trips, but I can’t see anywhere that shows they are driving more miles.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 15:00

• Federal Government Paying $6.1 Million To Create Database For Capitol Riot Prosecutions
  Federal Government Paying $6.1 Million To Create Database For Capitol Riot Prosecutions

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  The Department of Justice has committed to paying over $6 million to a multinational firm to create a database to host the reams of data prosecutors are gathering in cases against accused participants of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

  

  Deloitte Financial Advisory Services, LLP was contracted in late May to help develop the database and the government has started transferring a large volume of materials, including tens of thousands of records from the U.S. Capitol Police, prosecutors said in a court filing this week.

  “Following the Capitol Breach, the United States recognized that due to the nature and volume of materials being collected, the government would require the use of an outside contractor who could provide litigation technology support services to include highly technical and specialized data and document processing and review capabilities,” prosecutors wrote in the filing, which was submitted in a case against several accused Capitol rioters.

  The government will work with Deloitte to process, review, and produce material related to the breach, using various tools to redact certain personal information.

  Prosecutors expect the database to be available for use in the near future.

  “Once it is, the government will begin systematically reviewing materials for potentially discoverable information, tagging when possible (e.g., video by a location or type of conduct, tips by a type of allegation), and redacting when necessary,” prosecutors wrote.

  Deloitte did not return a request for comment.

  The firm, which was listed as having a Virginia address, was awarded $6.1 million by the Department of Justice for “automated litigation support services,” according to a database holding government contracts.

  That figure could swell to $25.9 million, according to the database listing, which was reviewed by The Epoch Times.

  The start date of the contract was June 1. The current end date is May 31, 2022. A potential end date was listed as May 31, 2027.

  The existence of the database was first reported by Politico.

  Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) on Friday said the development signaled that U.S. prosecutors are focused only on prosecuting cases related to the breach.

  “The DOJ is going to spend $6.1 million on a January 6 database. Where is the ANTIFA database? Where is the BLM database? It’s as if the DOJ has given up on all investigations other than January 6,” she wrote on Twitter.

  Antifa is a far-left, anarcho-communist network that has perpetrated violence across the United States, primarily in the Pacific Northwest. BLM refers to Black Lives Matter, a movement that alleges minorities are systematically treated unjustly by law enforcement, among other claims. DOJ stands for the Department of Justice, which did not return a request for comment.

  

  Protesters are seen inside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

  More than 535 people have been charged as of July 6 with crimes related to the breach, including 165 for assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees, according to the DOJ.

  FBI agents are still seeking assistance identifying another 300 or so persons accused of participating in the tumult on Jan. 6.

  The Federal Public Defender’s Office (FPD), meanwhile, is also mulling putting in place multiple databases to help with the defense of accused riot participants, prosecutors also said.

  “Given the volume of information that may be discoverable, FPD is carefully examining options for accepting materials. We understand that FPD is considering contracting with a vendor to establish databases that can be used to receive and perform technical searches upon discoverable materials. The government’s discovery team is in the process of identifying the scope and size of materials that may be turned over to FPD with as much detail as possible, so that FPD can obtain accurate quotes from potential database vendors,” they wrote in the new filing.

  “It is hoped that this database will be used by FPD offices nationwide that are working on Capitol Breach cases and counsel that are appointed under the Criminal Justice Act. We believe that a database will be the most organized and economical way of ensuring that all counsel can obtain access to, and conduct meaningful searches upon, relevant voluminous materials, e.g., thousands of hours of body worn camera and Capitol CCTV footage, and tens of thousands of documents, including the results of thousands of searches of Stored Communications Act accounts and devices,” they added.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/10/2021 – 14:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• The Weaponization Of January 6
  The Weaponization Of January 6

  Authored by Jeff Crouere via AmericanThinker.com,

  After the disputed 2020 election with questionable results in numerous states, millions of President Trump supporters were enraged. There were election challenges and protests across the country. 

  The major protest on January 6 in Washington D.C. was the culmination of weeks of rallies across the country. Although estimates vary widely, the January 6 rally featuring President Trump, attracted at least 500,000 supporters. 

  The overwhelming majority of the participants heeded President Trump’s plea to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Some participants marched to the U.S. Capitol and about 900 people entered the building. 

  Research from the staff of U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) shows that approximately 40% of those who entered the U.S. Capitol were allowed into the building by the police. Among the rest, those who committed vandalism or assault should be prosecuted. The others may have entered the building illegally, but their actions do not rise to the level of terrorism. 

  It has not stopped some far-left activists masquerading as analysts from claiming that the events of January 6 were worse than 9/11, the day that the country was attacked by Islamic terrorists, which resulted in the deaths of 2,977 innocent people. According to Steve Schmidt, co-founder of the disgraced Lincoln Project, “The 1/6 attack for the future of the country is a profoundly more dangerous event than the 9/11 attacks, and in the end, the 1/6 attacks are likely to kill a lot more Americans than were killed in the 9/11 attacks.”

  

  This claim is beyond ludicrous for the 9/11 attack prompted a U.S. military response and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that claimed the lives of over 7,000 brave members of the United States military, 8,000 contractors and an untold number of innocent citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

  In contrast, five people died on January 6, including four of natural causes. The only person to be killed on that fateful day was Ashlii Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter, who was unarmed. She was killed by a U.S. Capitol Police officer who has been allowed to remain anonymous. 

  To compare January 6 to a day that led to so many thousands of deaths and serious injuries is an insult to the victims of 9/11. It is minimizing that horrific day and comparing it to an intrusion in the U.S. Capitol that was improper and unwise, but not anywhere close to a jihadist attack.  

  Another hyperbolic “analysis” was spewed by MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd, who claimed that January 6 was “worse” than 9/11. He said, “To me, though there was less loss of life….  Jan.6 was worse than 9/11 because it’s continued to rip our country apart and give permission for people to pursue autocratic means.”

  The insanity of these comparisons is truly astounding, but it is happening with regularity in the leftwing media.

  Here is what the analysts refuse to acknowledge:

  Trump supporters are not terrorists or threats to America. Almost all of them have a deep and abiding love for America and are extremely patriotic. 

  They hate what happened to President Trump and the injustices that he suffered from the Deep State and the media and his many political enemies. They also have legitimate questions about how the 2020 elections were handled in numerous states. 

  Democrats are claiming that this political passion is a threat against the country.

  It is why Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has kept National Guard troops and barriers around the U.S. Capitol for so many months. The impression of these actions is that Trump supporters are dangerous. 

  Democrats will continue to use the events of January 6 as a political weapon to distract from the horrible record of the Biden administration. After the first six months of the Biden administration, the country is in total disarray. 

  The breakdown at the border has been both shocking and predictable as President Joe Biden discarded every successful policy of the Trump administration. With a staggering total of 180,000 border apprehensions per month and untold numbers of illegal immigrants evading capture, this crisis shows no signs of ending any time soon. 

  Under Biden, inflation has returned with a vengeance as prices for back-to-school items, lumber, gasoline, and certain groceries are skyrocketing. Schools are beset with toxic teachers espousing critical race theory. Crime is becoming much worse in the major urban areas of the country, all run by Democrats. 

  The foreign policy of President Biden is no better. While President Trump negotiated historic peace deals, Biden has been unable to stop violent conflicts in the Middle East from erupting. His administration has shown incredible weakness in dealings with China, Russia, and Iran. While tensions exacerbate, our military is sadly going woke and being purged of conservatives.

  There is no area that the Biden administration can point to as a success. While the President likes to brag about job gains, the employment numbers were predicted by economists as the nation continues to recover from last year’s COVID-19 shutdown. 

  While President Biden constantly pushes vaccinations for Americans, he failed to reach his targets for July 4th.  Now the administration is proposing a ludicrous and dangerous policy of going door to door to push vaccines on Americans who have refused the shot. 

  With so many problems, the Democrats need to divert the attention of Americans with more hysteria about Donald Trump and the protests of January 6. The media helped the Democrats by continuing to keep the story alive; however, it is almost never reported that some of the protesters were Antifa infiltrators and FBI informants. 

  Although the exact number of imposters is not known, the FBI is keeping close tabs on all the Trump supporters who entered the U.S. Capitol. The FBI has been on a crusade to arrest every protester who entered the U.S. Capitol on that day. While a few protesters destroyed property or attacked police officers, the vast majority were non-violent. At this point, approximately 500 people have been arrested. Some of them remain in prison in horrific conditions. 

  Interestingly, the same level of prosecutorial zeal is not being displayed toward the rioters who rampaged across the country in the summer of 2020. Why are Trump rally goers being treated more harshly than rioters who burned down buildings? 

  On the day of the protests, Americans were distracted from the congressional debate on the 2020 election. Today, the events of January 6 are being used by Democrats to avoid discussion of the Biden record. 

  As a result of the January 6 protests, President Trump was impeached again and removed from social media. Clearly, the January 6 narrative is serving a useful purpose for Democrats, and they are not likely to abandon it any time soon. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 23:40

• "Micro-Studio" Listed In Vancouver Is A Bathroom With Bed
  "Micro-Studio" Listed In Vancouver Is A Bathroom With Bed

  Vancouver’s housing market is one of the least affordable in North America. A recent Craigslist ad for a “micro-studio” illustrated that as a bed was placed in the bathroom and listed for $680 per month. 

  

  Local news website “Vancouver Is Awesome,” says the micro-studio is located in the west end of town and boasted in the listing that it’s the “ideal” space for a single person looking to live downtown at an affordable price, “who does not need much space.” 

  

  The space, all 160 sq. ft of it, is located on Barclay and Bute Streets for $680 per month. The city of Vancouver defines a micro-dwelling at a minimum of 250 sq. ft. 

  

  The listing was recently removed from Craigslist, possibly because it violated Vancouver micro-dwellings guidelines that specify bathrooms must be separated from the central unit. 

  

  After a year of plunging rental prices because of the virus pandemic, the Canadian rental market is quickly recovering. Prices are still the highest across Canada and all of North America. 

  With normalcy returning to Vancouver, low-interest rates via the Bank of Canada sparked a speculative bubble in real estate that is further detached from fundamentals than ever before.

  Investors and anyone else are locked in fierce bidding wars, sending prices to astronomical levels. The housing bubble continues to fuel higher rent prices making the metro area one of the most unaffordable areas to live and this may explain why someone listed a bathroom with a bed for $650 per month. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 23:20

• In Many Cities In America, The Criminals Are Starting To Gain Firm Control Of The Streets
  In Many Cities In America, The Criminals Are Starting To Gain Firm Control Of The Streets

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  Every week the horrendous crime wave that is sweeping across America seems to get even worse.  In some of our largest cities, looting, murder and violence are becoming a way of life, and authorities seem powerless to do anything about it.  Is this what we can expect life in the United States to look like moving forward?  All over the globe, people are watching us, and they are stunned by what they have been witnessing.  Criminals are wildly out of control, and many of our largest cities are being transformed into extremely violent war zones.

  

  For example, just check out what happened in Oakland over the weekend.  According to Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, his officers were completely overwhelmed by “the level of violence and gunfire”…

  The Fourth of July reeled into “12 hours of non-stop chaos” Sunday night with several victims wounded by celebratory gunfire, a homicide and a massive sideshow marred by gunfire. The night culminated at the sideshow, where more than 200 participants pelted police officers with debris and flashed them with hand-held lasers.

  Embattled Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong told reporters that the level of violence and gunfire overwhelmed his officers.

  Next door, the shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco has evolved into systematic looting.

  Sadly, no retailer is immune.  Even though Neiman Marcus has enthusiastically embraced a whole host of “woke” causes, criminals ruthlessly looted one of their stores in San Francisco on Monday…

  Looters were captured on video Monday ransacking a Neiman Marcus in San Francisco as thefts continue to plague businesses in the area.

  At least nine suspects smashed display cases, snatched handbags, and jetted out of the building before law enforcement arrived to the scene at about 6 p.m., according to footage. The suspects were seen running out of the store with their hands full of merchandise before entering an apparent getaway car that sped off down a busy intersection.

  If you have not seen footage of the looters yet, you can watch it right here.  This happened in broad daylight, and it is hard to believe that such scenes are actually happening in the United States of America.

  At this point, the looting has gotten so bad that some major retailers are taking drastic actions…

  Walgreens shuttered 17 of its stores in the San Francisco area in the past five years, and the company said thefts in the area are four times more likely than anywhere else in the country as executives budgeted 35 times more for security personnel to guard the chains.

  Target executives in the city also decided to limit business hours in response to an uptick in larceny.

  But unless they completely close up shop, the looting is going to continue.

  Criminals in California have learned that if they keep the value of the merchandise they steal at each store to under $950, they won’t be charged with a felony even if they are caught. 

  So now we are witnessing a wave of retail theft that is unlike anything we have ever seen before…

  SF Police Lt. Tracy McCray pinned the blame on DA Chesa Boudin (whose parents were part of the radical and violent Weather Underground, and left two police officers dead during a botched heist). According to McCray, Boudin’s “criminals first agenda” is responsible for the uptick in crime.

  “What happened in that Walgreens has been going on in the city for quite a while,” McCray said in June. “I’m used to it. I mean, we could have a greatest hits compilation of people just walking in and cleaning out the store shelves and security guards, the people who work there, just standing by helplessly because they can’t do anything.”

  Up in Portland, the street violence just continues to get even worse.

  Earlier today, I was saddened to learn that a very generous man that had put up a pop-up swimming pool for the homeless during the heat wave had been viciously stabbed to death…

  A man whose ingenious pop-up swimming pool kept the homeless cool during the recent heat wave was fatally stabbed in the same spot just one day later, according to Portland police.

  Officers identified Tyson L. Morlock as the man who was found stabbed in the inner eastside Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood at Division Street and Southeast Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard around 3:37 a.m. on Thursday, July 1.

  He tried to make Portland a better place, and now he is dead.

  Of course so many people are being murdered these days that it is extremely difficult to keep up with all of the carnage.

  In Chicago, this holiday weekend was the most violent weekend that we have seen in 2021 so far, and that is really saying something…

  Every July 4th weekend police in Chicago brace for an uptick in violence – even more than is usual when typical weekends average about 40 shootings – and this holiday weekend was no different, easily registering as the deadliest and most violent this year given the total death count. New York City has also been witnessing a steady uptick in seemingly random shootings and violence, including brazen acts committed in broad daylight in heavily trafficked areas, such as the recent Times Square wounding of a US Marine.

  On Monday the Chicago Sun-Times has tallied 92 people shot over the long July 4th weekend, with 16 killed. The Sun-Times database shows the numbers killed to be a weekend high for all of 2021 so far.

  There are certain areas of Chicago that are essentially “no go zones” at this point, but of course the same thing could be said about the worst parts of many other major U.S. cities.

  As I discussed the other day, it is being reported that murder rates in our largest cities were up by an average of 30 percent in 2020, and as of a few weeks ago they were up another 24 percent so far in 2021.

  Ordinary citizens are begging our leaders to “do something” about this enormous wave of violence, but at this point nothing seems to be working.

  If things are this bad now while the U.S. economy is in “recovery mode”, how bad will conditions get when the next severe downturn comes along?

  It is heartbreaking to watch our society come apart at the seams all around us, and I have a feeling that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 23:00

• Chinese Scientists Want To Use Rockets To Deflect 'Armageddon' Asteroids
  Chinese Scientists Want To Use Rockets To Deflect 'Armageddon' Asteroids

  Scientists at China’s National Space Science Centre (NSSC) want to send more than 20 rockets into outer space and simultaneously use their kinetic impact to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid, according to Reuters. 

  NSSC used computer simulations with 23 Long March 5 rockets (each weighing 900 tons) to simultaneously hit and deflect an asteroid dubbed Bennu, a class of rocks that is as wide as the Empire State Building.  

  

  Researchers have studied one Bennu, a 78 billion kilogram rock that will come within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth around the year 2271, or about 150 years from now. 

  The idea is more or less science fiction, sort of like the American film “Armageddon,” when a group of oil rig drillers was sent into outer space by NASA to land on an Earth-bound asteroid, drill a hole, place a nuclear bomb, and save the human race from extinction. 

  Something more realistic is NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) program that will attempt to alter the path of two minor asteroids using robotic spacecraft sometime later this year or early 2022. The US space agency wants to examine how the kinetic energy from crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid will change the object’s trajectory. 

  Some scientists have suggested breaking up asteroids with nuclear weapons, but significant risks are involved, such as the object breaking into smaller pieces and still hitting Earth. Using a rocket or spacecraft’s kinetic impact could be a much safer method. 

  “The proposal of keeping the upper stage of the launch rocket to a guiding spacecraft, making one large ‘kinetic impactor’ to deflect an asteroid, is a rather nice concept,” said Professor Alan Fitzsimmons from the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast.

  “By increasing the mass hitting the asteroid, simple physics should ensure a much greater effect,” Fitzsimmons told Reuters. However, he added that such a mission’s actual operation must be reviewed in much greater detail.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 22:40

• What If The Next Major Cyberattack Targeted The Internet?
  What If The Next Major Cyberattack Targeted The Internet?

  Authored by Brandon Smith avia Birch Gold Group,

  Over the past few months I have been writing analysis on a planned crisis war game organized by the World Economic Forum called “Cyberpolygon.” The event will be held this week on July 9th, and it’s allegedly designed to simulate a massive cyberattack that somehow disrupts the global supply chain, or at the very least disrupts the supply chain of multiple large economies.

  Why am I so interested in this war game? Well, many of my readers will recall that the last major simulation the WEF and the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation held was Event 201, a global pandemic exercise which portrayed a coronavirus outbreak spread by animal carriers to humans killing millions of people while forcing the shutdown of multiple first-world economies. Event 201 was scheduled for October 2019 – two months later the exact pandemic scenario they simulated happened in real life, save a few minor details.

  Klaus Schwab, the head of the WEF, was very quick to exploit the COVID-19 outbreak as a rationale for the “Great Reset” agenda: A socialist reconstruction of the world’s financial system and political structure that globalists have been clamoring for since at least 2014. Truly, the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic were the same people that simulated the outbreak only months beforehand during Event 201.

  So, of course many people are beginning to wonder if lightning will strike twice for the globalists at the WEF. Will there be a large scale cyberattack that brings down the international supply chain within the next few months? Will there be another miraculous coincidence that destabilizes the world’s trade systems and creates social strife?

  

  Cyber-terrorism is already disrupting the economy

  There have already been a few disturbing near-crisis cyberattacks in the past month.

  The Colonial Pipeline attack as well as the JBS meat packing attack both had the potential to cause severe supply chain disruptions. The pipeline attack in particular could have created a panic environment had it continued for any longer than a week. Imagine if there was no gasoline to fuel the freight trucks that transport the majority of goods and raw materials across the US for half a month or more? It would be a nightmare, as a majority of Americans have no preparedness supplies and are stocked with no more than a week’s worth of necessities.

  That said, I have been considering the adaptability of western supply chains to a cyber event and I’m not so sure another pipeline attack or a similar sabotage would actually harm us for very long. If the goal of the attackers was to create maximum damage, then another target would have to be found. I have been pondering this question for a while now, and it finally dawned on me that the supply chain does not need to be attacked directly in order to break it.

  The Fastly outage and Cyberpolygon

  Recently when Klaus Schwab commented on the coming Cyberpolygon simulation, he stated that the next cyberattack would be like a “cyber pandemic” far worse in destructive scale when compared to covid. I realized that the next crisis may not need to involve resource manufacturers or suppliers; rather, what if the next cyberattack was on the internet itself?

  Let me explain – In June of this year there was an internet outage event that led to large swaths of the web going dark, including a number of mainstream news sites, Amazon, eBay, Twitch, Reddit and a host of government websites went down. All this happened when content delivery network (CDN) company Fastly experienced a bug. Although Amazon had its website back online within 20 minutes, the brief outage cost the company over $5.5 million in sales (and that’s just one website!).

  Fastly identified and fixed the problem within two hours, and continues to claim the outage had nothing to do with a cyberattack. However, it did reveal a huge vulnerability for the internet (what von Clausewitz would’ve called a schwerpunkt). A large portion of the web is dependent on only three CDN companies, including Fastly.

  Here is what concerns me: If there was a cyberattack on such weak points in the web, and the attack involved a malicious worm or other highly infectious weapon, then Klaus Schwab could very well get his “cyber pandemic.”

  The internet plays a much bigger role in daily life than you might think.

  Payment networks, supply chains, distribution and communication

  Consider for a moment the vast array of economic functions that are now tied directly to the internet, including the supply chain, retailers, information services and even the stock market. If vital pillars of the web were crippled for weeks on end, an economy already weakened by a year of covid lockdowns might not recover.

  So what does the internet power? Professor Matthew Zook of the University of Kentucky has a list:

  • Communications (“Ham operators would be kings!”)

  • Banking and finance, including the stock market (“The gold bugs would be feeling very smug…”)

  • Transportation, traffic lights, airlines, some railways and ports (“The entire logistics industry would be in shambles.”)

  • Utilities: electrical grids and water (“I think sewer systems would still work…”)

  The internet really is everywhere.

  For a high-level overview of the consequences of a total internet failure, Professor Mark Graham at Oxford Internet Institute offers this summary:

  If the entire internet was shut down, we would witness an almost immediate global economic collapse. The internet is the nervous system of contemporary globalization. Explicitly digital interactions [like] core banking and payment networks, and so on. But then, even parts of the economy that initially seem relatively disconnected would begin to grind to a halt because of the fact that all contemporary societies rely on long-distance supply chains, and long-distance supply chains rely on the internet. [emphasis added]

  “Almost immediate global economic collapse.” That’s frightening.

  That part about long-distance supply chains might not sound so important, until you consider that most people live in cities. Most food is not produced in cities. Supply chains get a lot more important when you’re hungry.

  Professor Graham continues, “if there are two things that are guaranteed to cause chaos in the contemporary economy, it is an inability for food to be distributed and an inability for people to access money and the banking network.”

  Sit with that for a moment. If you had no food and no money, what would you do?

  Cui bono?

  Consider who would benefit from this scenario and how they would benefit. Just as covid was used as an excuse to quarantine the public from economic participation, and businesses that were deemed “non-essential” were locked down, a cyber pandemic could also be used as a means to forcefully isolate parts of the web that governments do not like.

  Alternative news sites like mine could simply be deemed a potential “cyber infection hazard” and shut down while controlled and agreeable mainstream news sites continue to spread propaganda.

  The biggest failing of the Great Reset agenda has been that the alternative media exists. We have been effectively countering disinformation about the necessity of the lockdowns. We have also helped to expose the Wuhan lab debate.

  The globalists will have to shut us up somehow, and it seems like a cyberattack on the key mechanics of the web might be the trick they need. Or at the very least, they would be grateful for any further “coincidences” that cause their critics to suffer and go silent.

  Chance favors the prepared

  I suggest that readers watch out for the possibility of a global internet collapse, and prepare accordingly. I imagine any people disenfranchised by internet exclusion would have to turn to alternative technologies such as HF ham radio, digital packet modems and ham based internet systems like AMPRnet or Winlink. As a General Class ham I can say that these are probably our best options for a future in which the internet is no longer available or safe for communications.

  Possibly ham internet networks could be adapted for transactions, matching buyers and sellers, and could fill in at some level for broken supply chains.

  I also would be wary of relying on cryptocurrency systems during an internet-wide cyberattack. Physical commodities like gold and silver coins would be essential as universal currencies in a world where digital trade is either highly unstable or highly restricted according to your politics or a refusal to comply with various mandates.

  Maybe nothing will happen in the next few months. Maybe the WEF’s Event 201 was a fluke. Maybe Cyberpolygon will come and go without much fanfare and the warnings of this article will be treated like “doom and gloom” or “chicken little” paranoia.

  Maybe not.

  What I do know is that there has been a considerable uptick in the scale of cyberattacks and disruptions just in the past month, and I know that there are certain people out there that would find great benefit in another global crisis so close to the covid pandemic.

  Imaging waking up one day and discovering that your internet access is completely cut off and the only sources you can go to for information are CNN or MSNBC. Imagine how a frozen internet would undermine thousands of retailers and freight networks. The effect would be almost the same as if someone deliberately shut down the electrical grid or hobbled multiple gas pipelines. It’s a possibility we should consider.

  *  *  *

  With global tensions spiking, thousands of Americans are moving their IRA or 401(k) into an IRA backed by physical gold. Now, thanks to a little-known IRS Tax Law, you can too. Learn how with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals how physical precious metals can protect your savings, and how to open a Gold IRA. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 22:20

• Western States Brace For Record Heat Wave This Weekend
  Western States Brace For Record Heat Wave This Weekend

  We outlined Tuesday that multiple heat waves would plague the Western half of the US. The first round struck early in the week and lasted through mid-week, and the second is just beginning. 

  The worst of the second wave is expected to affect upwards of 28 million people from California to Washington State. 

  Excessive heat warnings have already been posted for California, Nevada, western Arizona, and western Utah. Watches have also been posted for interior portions of Oregon and southern Idaho.

  Large swaths of the West could experience temperatures 20 or more degrees above average. Below is a temperature anomalies forecast showing the heat dome could last through mid-next week

  

  “Extreme heat will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses,” the National Weather Service in Hanford, Califonia, warned. “Confidence is very high for a dangerous heat wave to persist through Monday and maybe into Tuesday.”

  The sweltering heat could reach double digits in some areas. 

  In Hanford itself, temperatures could hit 110 degrees Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Records in Hanford date to 1899, and show that highs of 110 degrees or greater have occurred on four or more consecutive days on only five occasions. That makes the duration and magnitude of the episode a once in roughly 20-year event.

  Sacramento is looking at a five-day stretch with highs in the triple digits, including a forecast 110 degrees Saturday. Redding is likely to hit 113 degrees Friday, 115 on Saturday and 113 on Sunday. Highs Monday may be a slightly less inhospitable 110 degrees. The city has never recorded more than three consecutive days at 113 degrees or greater.

  Modesto, Calif., will see highs around 108 degrees both weekend days.

  Potentially more concerning will be the overnight lows, which won’t be very low at all — temperatures may dip only into the upper 70s or lower 80s in some spots. On Saturday night, Modesto is projected to fall only to 80 degrees before temperatures skyrocket again in the morning. In fact, most of the Central Valley will not fall beneath 80 degrees during the overnight period on Saturday.

  Central Valley locations “will be extremely warm overnight, where high minimum temp records may be achieved as well,” wrote the Weather Service in Sacramento. Warm overnight lows are especially dangerous for anyone without air conditioning because they make it difficult for the body to enter its natural cooling phase.

  It’s not just central California that will be experiencing saunalike warmth. Salt Lake City could be near 100 degrees each day through Monday. Las Vegas will be scorched by heat that’s extreme even for the Nevada desert, with highs in the 110s likely through Tuesday. Both weekend days could peak near 117 degrees. In Las Vegas, a hint of monsoonal moisture sneaking in from the southwest could help hold overnight lows in the 90s. 

  A few other long-standing records could topple, like in the Yosemite Valley of California, which is forecast to hit 110 degrees both weekend days. It’s been 106 years since that last occurred.

  Saturday’s predicted high of 130 degrees would match the Earth’s highest reliably measured temperature since at least 1931. (Death Valley also reached 130 last August.) On Sunday and Monday, it’s forecast to hit 129 and 127. – The Washington Post

  The good news is that positive temperature anomalies should decrease across the Western half of the US by the middle of next week and hopefully return the region to average temperatures. 

  Meanwhile, heat wave after heat wave in the West is causing concern about a ferocious wildfire season, power prices spiking, rolling blackouts, crop losses, water shortages, grasshopper plague, among other things. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 22:00

• Snyder: 5 Specific Reasons Why You Should Stockpile Food Right Now
  Snyder: 5 Specific Reasons Why You Should Stockpile Food Right Now

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  For decades, Americans have not needed to be concerned about food prices.  Yes, prices would always go up by a little bit each year, but in general we have been extremely blessed for a very long time.  Our supermarkets have always been packed with food, and we could always count on the fact that prices would be about the same a month or two down the road.  Unfortunately, things are now changing, and not in a good way.  A massive wave of inflation has hit agricultural commodities, and food producers have felt forced to pass those cost increases along to consumers.  Unfortunately, many experts are anticipating that the price hikes that we are currently witnessing are just the beginning.

  

  So even though food prices have already become quite painful, they are never going to be any lower than they are at this moment.

  Looking forward, there are several factors that are likely to combine to cause food inflation to accelerate even more in the months ahead.  The following are 5 specific reasons why you should stockpile food right now…

  #1 Supermarkets are feverishly stockpiling food, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that they are doing this in anticipation of “the highest price increases in recent memory”…

  Supermarkets are stocking up on everything from sugar to frozen meat before they get more pricey, girding for what some executives anticipate will be some of the highest price increases in recent memory.

  This only makes good business sense.  If you can get inventory now for significantly less than you will be able to get it for later, that will help your bottom line.

  The Wall Street Journal is admitting that all of this stockpiling “is driving shortages of some staples”, but it is expected that these shortages will just be temporary.

  I can’t remember a time when we have seen anything quite like this.  At this point, some companies are purchasing up to 25 percent more food than normal…

  David Smith, CEO of the US’s largest wholesaler Associated Wholesale Grocers, told the Wall Street Journal they have been buying 15 to 20 percent more goods – particularly packaged foods with long shelf lives.

  ‘We’re buying a lot of everything. Our inventories are up significantly over the same period last year,’ said Smith.

  At SpartanNash in Michigan, the retailer has bought up around 20 to 25 percent more than normal including frozen meat.

  #2 The U.S. government is going to continue recklessly spending money, and the Federal Reserve is going to keep pumping more giant mountains of fresh cash into the financial system.

  The Biden administration doesn’t seem to have an “off button”, and neither does the Fed.  The U.S. national debt is moving up toward the 29 trillion dollar mark very rapidly, and the Fed’s balance sheet has more than doubled over the past year.

  Unless there is some sort of a dramatic reversal, and I don’t see why there would be, this continual flow of new money will continue to push food prices even higher.

  #3 Gas prices keep surging, and this is making it more expensive to transport food around the country.

  According to the AAA Gas Price Index, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is up 56 percent from what it was last May…

  Transport costs are also rising with gas prices rising 56 percent in May from a year ago.

  On Friday, the AAA Gas Price Index pegged the national average gas price at $3.086, up from $2.171 one year ago.

  #4 The endless “megadrought” in the western states just continues to intensify.

  If you look at the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, it is a horror show.  We haven’t seen anything like this since the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s, and water levels are dropping dangerously low.

  For example, the water level in Great Salt Lake is expected to hit the lowest level in 170 years this summer…

  The lake’s levels are expected to hit a 170-year low this year. It comes as the drought has the U.S. West bracing for a brutal wildfire season and coping with already low reservoirs. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, has begged people to cut back on lawn watering and “pray for rain.”

  For the Great Salt Lake, though, it is only the latest challenge. People for years have been diverting water from rivers that flow into the lake to water crops and supply homes. Because the lake is shallow — about 35 feet (11 meters) at its deepest point — less water quickly translates to receding shorelines.

  Because there is not enough water, many farmers are having to dramatically reduce the amount of crops that they are growing.

  Small farmer Mindy Perkovich is only growing produce on one of her seven acres at this point, and she openly admits that she doesn’t know if she will even have enough water for that…

  Perkovich typically grows things like turnips, squash and tomatoes for the local market on seven acres. This season, though, she’s had to cut her crops down to less than a single acre.

  “We don’t know if we’re gonna have water to keep that alive,” she says. “Financially, I can’t really even express how dramatic it’s changed in the last couple years, water-wise, because without water, we can’t grow crops without crops, we have nothing to sell to our consumers.”

  Agricultural production in the western states will be lower than originally anticipated this year, and that will also put upward pressure on food prices in the coming months.

  #5 On top of everything else, an enormous plague of grasshoppers is now causing massive headaches for farmers in our western states.

  As I discussed on Sunday, the extremely hot and extremely dry conditions are perfect for grasshoppers, and they have been multiplying like crazy.

  In some areas, the swarms are so thick that “it can appear the earth is moving”, and there are times when the swarms are so large that they are actually appearing on radar.

  Seven states are being hit particularly hard, and the federal government is going to begin a large scale spraying campaign.  The spraying may reduce the plague, but all of the experts agree that it will not stop it.

  Grasshoppers will continue to eat our crops on a massive scale for many months to come, and this is another factor that will be driving up food prices.

  So, to summarize, the outlook for the months ahead is rather bleak.

  A number of factors are going to combine to push prices significantly higher, and so if you can afford to stock up you should be doing so.

  Our leaders continue to insist that this bout of inflation is just “transitory”, and you can believe them if you like.

  But the truth is that high inflation is here to stay, and what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 21:40

• FBI Agent Sues For Sexual Harassment After Co-Worker Texts Her A Photo Of A "Rainbow Colored Sex Toy"
  FBI Agent Sues For Sexual Harassment After Co-Worker Texts Her A Photo Of A "Rainbow Colored Sex Toy"

  An FBI agent in Las Vegas has filed a lawsuit that she was subjected to “repeated sexual harassment” at the Bureau’s office, including harassment from a supervior who allegedly once texted her a photo of a rainbow-colored sex toy. 

  The lawsuit, reported on by the NY Post, was filed last week by FBI Supervisory Special Agent Karen Veltri. Veltri said she was retaliated against for reporting the ongoing sexual abuse to several regulatory agencies. 

  Veltri reported the harassment to FBI Director Christopher Wray via email, the suit notes, after being subjected to it beginning in November 2019, when she transferred from Newark and Washington to Las Vegas. 

  The agent claimed that her boss, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Francis Cucinotta, also “tried to have a sexual relationship” with her and made “several inappropriate comments”. 

  “I’m sure you know all about the bases, but I’m talking about ground balls,” Cucinotta once texted her, allegedly making a nod toward a sexual innuendo. Cucinotta also once allegedly told her she should wear her hair down more often after she did so one day at the office.

  

  Veltri complained to Supervisory Special Agent Robert Bennett about the harassment, the suit says. Instead of helping, she claims Bennett also subjected her to harassment. 

  “On November 20, 2020, Bennett sent Plaintiff in a text message on her bureau-issued cell phone, a photograph with a rainbow-colored dildo between his legs,” the lawsuit said, before writing “My Dick pic!!!!!” underneath the photo. 

  Bennett also allegedly sent her another message days later saying he was looking for “Bieber dick pics”. He also texted her about his alcohol abuse and weapons he owned, the suit alleges. 

  “I’m out hanging with my buddy Chris had a good time at the Super Bowl party but I’m obviously f–king drunk so I won’t be in til noon or one,” he once texted Veltri. “I just don’t wanna bulls–t you I’m drunk as f–k and I need til noon or one to sober up to show up so handle s–t for me.”

  Despite Veltri reporting the harassment to the bureau’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she said no action was taken. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 21:20

• "Remarkable Decision" – Court Rules Air Force Is More At Fault For Mass Shooting Than The Shooter
  "Remarkable Decision" – Court Rules Air Force Is More At Fault For Mass Shooting Than The Shooter

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  There was a remarkable decision by a Texas federal judge this week when U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez for the Western District of Texas ruled that the Air Force was legally at fault for the 2017 mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas by Devin Patrick Kelley. 

  The Air Force failed to enter a prior offense into the federal background check database to bar him from purchasing a firearm.

  The liability alone is notable but Rodriguez found the Air Force more at fault that Kelley for the killing of 26 people and wounding of 22 others in the massacre at the First Baptist Church.

  

  Judge Rodriguez found that Kelley was 40 percent responsible for the shooting while the U.S. government was 60 percent responsible.

  The failure to enter the data allowed Kelley to make four separate firearm purchases in preparation for his attack. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) showed Kelley as eligible to buy such firearms despite his 2012 conviction by a general court martial of domestic assault on his wife and child. That should have made him ineligible.

  The court ruled that

  “The trial conclusively established that no other individual — not even Kelley’s own parents or partners — knew as much as the United States about the violence that Devin Kelley had threatened to commit and was capable of committing. Moreover, the evidence shows that — had the Government done its job and properly reported Kelley’s information into the background check system — it is more likely than not that Kelley would have been deterred from carrying out the Church shooting.”

  The ruling of liability is a major victory for those who want tougher gun enforcement.

  Such a judgment against a federal agency is exceptionally rare.

  The division of responsibility however seems inversive to logic.  To say that the Air Force is more responsible than a mass murderer is bizarre.  It reminds me of the case of Alisa Prueitt, 43, who killed another driver in 2013 in a drunk-driving case.  Prueitt had been sent home by her employer, Southlake-based Senior Living Properties, for showing up intoxicated. The family sued both Prueitt and the company. A jury then awarded $16.7 million to the family of Sam Graham, including $5 million in punitive damages, in a wrongful-death lawsuit. However, it found Pruiett only 35 percent responsible while finding Southlake-based Senior Living Properties 65 percent responsible.

  This was likely a clerical error with tragic results. It is not clear that Kelley would not have succeeded in acquiring weapons regardless of the error. However, there is clearly fault and a nexus present in this case to the fatalities. The failures of the Air Force were documented in an Inspector General report. Yet, it is otherworldly to suggest that the Air Force is more responsible for these deaths than the murderer himself. The ruling makes Kelley look more like a mere accomplice to an Air Force murder spree.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 21:00

• "Biggest Demand Ever" – Americans Spend Big Money On Backyard Pools 
  "Biggest Demand Ever" – Americans Spend Big Money On Backyard Pools 

  The virus pandemic forced millions of Americans to work remotely. In return, those with economic mobility ditched city life for rural areas. Once they arrived at their new home in suburbs and or rural communities, many could not go on vacation due to the pandemic. As a result, these new homeowners and existing ones opted to install swimming pools in their backyard.

  Pool and spa companies across the country are experiencing unprecedented demand with massive backlogs of orders to build backyard swimming pools. 

  “This is the biggest demand we’ve ever seen for our products in recent memory,” Randy Budd, owner of Budd’s Pools & Spas in Woodbury, New Jersey, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

  

  Budd warned the “industry experiencing unprecedented shortage in every component almost of what we sell and build while the demand is there.”

  NYPost reports “new focus on suburban living” has increased the demand for pools in the tri-state area, but due to skyrocketing commodity prices, labor shortages, and cost of materials, average pool costs have surged. 

  Glen Baisley, the marketing director of Neave Group Outdoor Solutions, whose work includes construcing pools in the Hudson Valley and Fairfield County in Connecticut, told NYPost that the average pool cost is $85k this year versus $60k to $65k in 2019. 

  Across the Northeast, mainly in suburbs and rural towns, pool companies are experiencing months and months of backlogs for orders. Some pool companies are even reporting a couple of years of backlogs due to impressive demand. 

  Anthony & Sylvan Pools in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has huge waiting list of customers requesting a backyard pool. Tom Casey, Anthony & Sylvan’s vice president of sales, told The Inquirer that “hundreds” of people are waiting for a pool to be built. 

  “It’s a very personal thing for folks for why they find themselves in the market,” Casey said. “The COVID restrictions have thrust a bunch of people into that space where they weren’t there before. … People still don’t feel quite confident in taking some of those vacations and are still inquiring in great numbers about backyard swimming pools.”

  CNBC reports retailers and distributors such as Leslie’s and Pool Corp. are capitalizing on the rapidly increasing pool supply market as the backyard pool industry has become a big moneymaker. 

  COVID has transformed the way people work, travel, and enjoy luxuries – all of these things are now revolving around the home in the suburbs. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 20:40

• Biden Inc.: Hunter, Joe, & The Mexican Oligarchs
  Biden Inc.: Hunter, Joe, & The Mexican Oligarchs

  Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClearPolitics.com,

  The indictment of the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer has received a lot of press, and properly so. But while the media has been focused on the former president, they have ignored another corruption story involving the sitting president and his family.

  Like so much news that has been buried, the latest comes from Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop.

  You know, the one the Bidens and their allies in Congress and the media suggested was a “Russian plant” and disinformation campaign, before that cynical claim was demolished by the director of national intelligence.

  

  The latest buried story involves some photographs, taken in Joe Biden’s office in 2014. They include the then-vice president, his son Hunter, and Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico (and once the richest in the world), plus some of Slim’s associates.

  Why are the pictures newsworthy? Not because some U.S. officials met with some rich foreign businessmen. That happens all the time. Their real significance is that the vice president met with these guys and included his son at the same time Hunter was working on lucrative business deals with the same people. That looks like self-dealing by the Biden family, despite Joe’s repeated insistence that he knew nothing about his son’s business.

  Hunter had other meetings with Carlos Slim and associates in Mexico. Those came after he flew there with his father on Air Force Two, just as he had flown to similar business meetings in China. When you arrive on Air Force Two, when your father is the second-highest official in the U.S. government, and when you bring your business associates to meet him, you are sending a clear signal to potential partners around the world: “I’m incredibly well connected and, if you do business with me, I can open the biggest and best doors in the U.S. government for you.”

  Since Hunter has no other marketable skills, opening those doors is the only thing you are paying him for. In country after country, the oligarchs Hunter was wooing had the good fortune to meet with the vice president, meetings that Hunter apparently arranged. Some were held in the host countries, some on the White House grounds.

  When you have connections like this in Chicago, you whisper, “I know a guy.” Hunter virtually shouts it. He knows a guy: the “Big Guy,” as one of his secret notes describes his father. That note laid out how the lucre from another deal would be divided, with the “Big Guy” as a silent partner. A partner in that deal, Tony Bobulinski, has publicly stated that all the partners knew the “Big Guy” (or BG) was Joe Biden.

  It seems that Joe Biden was the key to all Hunter’s business deals.

  What’s wrong with the picture?

  Aside from the unseemly grifting and the dubious denials from the White House that Joe Biden had even the slightest inkling about these deals, there are two things:

  The first problem, which should be obvious by now, is that the Biden family has gotten rich from plying all these political connections. Actually, they have only one connection: Joe Biden. His prodigal son has no appreciable skills and raises more red flags than a Beijing parade. His one job is monetizing his father’s power and influence.

  Hunter is not alone. Joe’s two brothers, Jim and Frank, have been credibly accused of doing the same thing. Politico termed it “Biden Inc.” and laid out the seamy connections in an extensive 2019 investigation. “Over his decades in office,” Politico reported, “‘Middle-Class Joe’s family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.”

  Not that the most influential newspapers in the country will tell their readers anything about this. Carlos Slim is the largest investor in the New York Times, so maybe its editors have a vested interest in ignoring the stench. What’s the Washington Post’s excuse? The story about Hunter’s deals in Mexico, like the previous ones about Biden family corruption, is missing from its news pages. To paraphrase their self-serving mottos: The story dies in darkness, unfit to print. To read it, you’ll need to check out the New York Post and Britain’s Daily Mail. This suppression of legitimate news is a scandal in its own right.

  Monetizing political connections is standard practice in Washington, where politicians and senior bureaucrats move seamlessly from their government positions to K Street lobbying. Gone are the days when retired members of Congress or presidential aides returned home after stints in government. Too much money is floating around the Swamp for the taking. Both parties have their “insider” wings of lobbyists, lawyers, and think tanks, much to the disgust of populists, left and right. In that sense, the Bidens’ influence peddling is just standard practice, conducted on a far smaller scale than the Clintons’ industrial-strength operation.

  But that’s not the only problem raised by Joe and Hunter’s photos with Carlos Slim. The photos deal yet another body blow to President Biden’s customary tale that he knows absolutely nothing, zero, zip, nada about his son’s business dealings. The more often Joe is seen meeting with Hunter’s business contacts, the less plausible the president’s “I know nothing” story sounds. As the Daily Mail put it in its headline:

  EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden entertained Hunter’s Mexican billionaire business associates in the vice president’s office in 2014 and even flew with his son to Mexico City on Air Force 2 so Hunter could attend meetings over a ‘flippin gigantic’ deal

  The Mail reached the obvious conclusion: “The revelations, laid bare in photos and emails on Hunter’s abandoned laptop, suggest Joe’s claim that he never spoke about business with Hunter was false.”

  Biden White House aides have yet to explain these photos and emails. Why should they bother when journalists are not pushing for answers? The apathetic press is behaving just like it did during the 2020 campaign, when it rarely questioned Biden about his family’s deals in Ukraine and China. When the New York Post did report on them, the social media giants blocked the story. Too toxic for their users to see before the election. It’s almost like they had a favorite candidate and controlled the information flow as an in-kind contribution.

  Despite Joe’s “see no evil, hear no evil” denials, he took Hunter with him on multiple official trips and kept meeting his son’s business associates at his request. Not once or twice, but repeatedly. These business meetings yielded big payoffs for Hunter, including a huge investment from a Chinese state bank that Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan couldn’t snag. Yet Hunter Biden reeled it in, despite having no investment experience.

  To believe Joe’s denials, we have to believe Hunter never even mentioned his enormous success in China on a 20-plus-hour return flight with his Dad. Ask yourself this: “If your child just landed a multimillion-dollar profit on one of your business trips, and if you spent the next day flying home with him, do you think he would never mention it?”

  Although President Biden seldom speaks to the press unscripted, when a pointed question does crop up (a rarity), he spews anger at the questioner, says how proud he is of Hunter, and orders an ice cream cone. The reporters dutifully ask, “What flavor?”

  Hunter’s private correspondence tells a story far different from the White House version. Those emails describe his family’s crucial importance for his influence peddling. As Yahoo News’ Mairead McArdle reported:

  In leaked emails from 2014, [Hunter] Biden appears to try to leverage his influence with his father, then-vice president Joe Biden, who was heavily involved in U.S. policy on Ukraine, referring to the elder Biden as “my guy.”

  He also attracted criticism for entering into a consulting contract with China’s largest private energy company that initially earned Hunter Biden $10 million a year “for introductions alone,” according to leaked emails.

  The White House press team dismisses all this evidence and depicts Joe Biden as if he were Sgt. Schultz, the clueless comedy foil on the old TV sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes.” Schultz was responsible for guarding some prisoners but never seemed to know they were constantly plotting escapes and other mischief. When Schultz’s boss asked about it, the good Sergeant always insisted, “I see nothing! I hear nothing! I know nothing!”

  Here’s a free tip for the president and his press office: Sgt. Schultz’s defense is not a good motto for you. You can’t be clueless and competent at the same time. It’s not a good look for the White House press corps, either, even though it is a sadly accurate one when their favorite party is in power.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 20:20

• 90s Rapper Reboots 'Back That Azz Up' For Sex-Themed Vaccine Anthem
  90s Rapper Reboots 'Back That Azz Up' For Sex-Themed Vaccine Anthem

  90s rapper Juvenile has brought his 1999 hit “Back That Azz Up” back from the dead – this time with a vaccine-themed parody encouraging fans to get the jab.

  The gist of the new song, Vax That Thang Up, is that if you get vaccinated you’re sure to get laid.

  

  

  While we can’t offer a full translation (we tried), the song makes clear that those with pent-up sexual frustrations will be able to go buck wild on internet dating apps once they’ve received the vaccine.

  “I know you can’t stand it. No holdin’ hands chick. But when we get the shot, we gon’ be romantic. Girl, you can be the queen, at the quarantine. We could meet up at the spot and we could do the thing.

  “I love it when you hold me, eggplant emoji, you could be the young hot thang I’ll be the old G.” -Mannie Fresh

  There’s a lot going on in this video…

  

  

  

  

  In the third verse, Mia X tells the ladies “If you wanna smash some dude named Scott, go go – go get the shot.”

  

  

  Watch the video below:

  With just under 2 million views in three days, people seem to be sharply divided (notwithstanding any YouTube ‘adjustments’ which may have been made).

  

  Hopefully all the post-jab sex won’t kick off any cardiac incidents among those most at risk from heart disease.

  And of course, the original:

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 20:00

• Buchanan: Is Afghanistan A Failed Mission?
  Buchanan: Is Afghanistan A Failed Mission?

  Authored by Pat Buchanan,

  As in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973, the year our prisoners of war came home, America did not lose a major battle in Afghanistan.

  Yet we did not win the war. South Vietnam was lost.

  And contrary to the message awaiting President George W. Bush when he landed on the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which was flaunting the banner “Mission Accomplished,” America did not accomplish its mission.

  President Joe Biden said as much Thursday, when he responded to a reporter’s question, “The mission has not failed — yet.”

  As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 impends, and with it our final exit from the Afghan war, the Taliban are overrunning districts at will, and Afghan troops are avoiding battle in what many see as a lost cause.

  Monday, 1,000 Afghan soldiers fled into Tajikistan rather than face advancing Taliban forces.

  Why did we not succeed? And what does our failure there portend?

  

  We failed, first, because our initial mission, once accomplished, was altered and enlarged to where it became unattainable.

  We went into Afghanistan in 2001 to deliver retribution to the al-Qaida terrorists of Osama bin Laden who perpetrated the 9/11 massacre and to overthrow the Taliban regime that had provided them sanctuary.

  This we could and did do. We succeeded.

  That mission was indeed accomplished by May 2003, when Bush landed on the Lincoln, as Biden said yesterday:

  “We went for two reasons. One, to bring Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell … The second reason was to eliminate al-Qaida’s capacity to deal with more attacks on the United States from that territory. We accomplished both of those objectives. Period.”

  But by June 2003, Bush and his neocon advisers had expanded their horizons. A global crusade for democracy was now the great new mission. We were going to remake the country. We were going to build a new nation, along Western lines, out of a fundamentalist Muslim country in Central Asia with a long and proud history of fighting and expelling foreign invaders.

  Some knew this and said so. For, in the eight years of the Reagan era, with our military aid funneled through Pakistan, Afghan mujahideen had driven out the mighty Soviet Union that had invaded in 1979.

  By 2003, we had moved on to Iraq, where we had stormed in and ousted Saddam Hussein. Brutal dictator though he was, Saddam had not attacked us, did not want war with us, and had offered to bring inspectors in to roam around his country to prove he did not have the weapons of mass destruction we said he was planning to use against us.

  We were also going to remake Iraq into a model democracy, this one in the heart of the Arab world.

  What was clear in a few years was that the U.S. military could knock over hostile regimes and rout their regular armed forces. But we could not eradicate a resistance that had time on its side, plus tradition, tribalism, nationalism and an abiding faith that martyrdom and paradise awaited those who died in the cause.

  As Napoleon said, “In war, the moral is to the physical as ten to one.”

  The Taliban were willing to fight as long as necessary to expel us and topple the regime we had helped to impose in their place. But we were growing increasingly reluctant to invest the blood and treasure for as long as necessary to impose our will upon what is, after all, their country, not ours.

  Truth be told, Afghanistan was never a vital interest of the United States but has always been the most priceless possession of the Afghan people. But how the Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara of Afghanistan rule themselves, 8,000 miles away, is not our business.

  There never was a vital U.S. interest in Afghanistan worth a war of the cost in blood, treasure and time that we have just fought.

  Because any collapse of the Afghan government would occur on Biden’s watch, and be traceable to his April decision for a pullout of U.S. forces by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, what happens there this summer and fall will now become his to explain and defend.

  For certain, we are going to read and hear of more defeats for the Afghan forces we trained, of the surrender of districts and provincial capitals, of atrocities against those who sided with us, and of horrors against those who embraced our “Western values.”

  Many who cast their lot with us are going to pay with their lives, as will their families. And the enemies of the United States are likely to be energized by what they perceive, not wrongly, as a strategic defeat of the USA.

  We did it to ourselves.

  Hubris was our failing, as it often is of great powers, the mindset exhibited by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright when she declared: “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 19:40

• Japan "Digging Its Own Grave" & Its "Survival" On The Line: China Warns Over Taiwan Stance
  Japan "Digging Its Own Grave" & Its "Survival" On The Line: China Warns Over Taiwan Stance

  China’s English language state-run Communist party mouthpiece Global Times has responded to the earlier surprising words of Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso, who for the first time said Japan and the US should defend Taiwan together, given that any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would trigger Japan’s Self-Defense Forces’ ability for collective self-defense.

  Nikkei Asia had cited the deputy PM on Tuesday: “If China invades Taiwan, Tokyo may interpret the move as a ‘threat to Japan’s survival’ and deploy the Self-Defense Forces to exercise collective self-defense,” Aso stated. The expected denunciation from Beijing says Tokyo has “gone too far” and “stretched its hands too long.”

  Global Times asserted in its ultra-inflammatory headline: “Japan will dig its own grave if it crosses red line of Taiwan question” and in the article invoked historical atrocities part of Japan’s WWII-era “colonial ideology” to assert  “Japan needs to remember that its survival depends on whether Japan understands its situation correctly – not on how China is prepared to resolve the Taiwan question.”

  

  At the moment Japan is locked in its own direct standoff with China over the uninhabited Senkaku Islands, recently giving its coast guard looser rules of engagement in dealing with Chinese fishing vessels, believed used of China to attempt a quiet de facto takeover of the disputed territory. Recall that in the very first phone call early this year between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Japan’s Defense Minister, the Biden administration had reaffirmed a previously agreed upon US commitment to defending Japanese sovereignty over the Senkakus.

  The GT op-ed references the contested islands issue as the reason why there’s a growing hawkish, and somewhat unprecedented outlook (given its post-world war pacifist constitution) coming from Tokyo:

  For the hawks in Japan, especially the extreme right wings, they are actually focused on two issues, one is the Diaoyu Islands, and the other is the island of Taiwan. If Taiwan secedes from China, China’s overall comprehensive strength will be greatly weakened. Japan does not want to see a strong China nearby. So it is more in Japan’s practical interest, especially of certain politicians, to separate the island from China.

  The author, Hong Kong-based pro-China military commentator Song Zhongping followed with stating the obvious that “Japan does not dare to confront China alone” given it’s weak military status and lack of independent combat capability… hence Aso this week urging for greater US-Japan military cooperation, which has also lately been demonstrated in joint military drills. “If Japan involves itself in the Taiwan question militarily, it will be Japan digging its own grave…Japan itself is powerless against the Chinese military,” GT wrote.

  How to make friends and influence people. https://t.co/PDleK1DqiK

  — Vic B’Stard (@VicBStard) July 8, 2021

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

  …leading to this ultimate conclusion and specific threat: However, if Japan cooperates with the US to carry out military actions against China, especially over the island of Taiwan or Diaoyu Islands, Beijing will view the move as engaging in a military conflict with China. In this sense, Japan will become the target of China’s military strike. This will endanger Japan’s survival.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 19:20

• Federal Government Does Not Have Database Of Who Has Received COVID-19 Vaccine: White House
  Federal Government Does Not Have Database Of Who Has Received COVID-19 Vaccine: White House

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The White House’s effort that involves people going door-to-door to try to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates does not rely on a database, the Biden administration’s press secretary said Thursday.

  “The federal government does not have a database of who has been vaccinated. That is not our role,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington.

  “We don’t maintain a database along those lines. And we have no plans to.”

  

  White House officials, as well as President Joe Biden, said Tuesday that a key focus in the coming weeks was knocking on doors to deliver information about COVID-19 vaccines to Americans.

  “We need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftentimes, door to door—literally knocking on doors—to get help to the remaining people,” or those who have not received a vaccine, Biden said in remarks from the White House.

  The plan triggered staunch pushback from Republicans, with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich warning the administration against using medical records to ascertain which Americans have not gotten a jab.

  Missouri Gov. Mike Parson added on Thursday that he informed the state’s health department “to let the federal government know that sending government employees or agents door-to-door to compel vaccination would NOT be an effective OR a welcome strategy in Missouri!”

  Psaki told reporters in Washington that the effort will utilize data on where vaccination rates are lagging and that the messengers are not government employees.

  “These are grassroots voices across the country. They are not members of the government. They are not federal government employees. They are volunteers. They are clergy. They are trusted voices, and communities who are playing this role in door knocking,” she said. “So in our view, this is is a way to engage and empower local activists, trusted members of the community.”

  “The best people to talk about vaccinations with those who have questions are local trusted messengers. Doctors, faith leaders, community leaders. As part of our efforts, trusted messengers may go door to door,” White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeffrey Zients said in a separate, virtual briefing.

  The comments came on the same day a top administration official, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, argued on television that the federal government has the right to know who has been vaccinated and who has not.

  The door-to-door knocking actually started way back in April, White House officials are saying. A network called the Community Corps was launched then by the Department of Health and Human Services. The announcement did not detail volunteers going to door-to-door, but said the corps would be provided with public health information and resources so they could “help get friends, family, and followers vaccinated.”

  A volunteer listing told prospective applicants that they would get “fact sheets on vaccine safety, tips on how to talk with friends and family about the importance of vaccination, and hints for planning and attending community events.”

  A smattering of local news stories later detailed how some volunteers were knocking on doors to promote vaccination. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told volunteers on a phone call last month that he’d heard from students who were knocking on doors, CNN reported. And the Biden administration said in a fact sheet in early June that the administration would mobilize people to make calls and texts to those in areas with low vaccination rates, as well as going door to door to try to get Americans to visit nearby clinics to get a jab.

  

  Still, the remarks this week, especially Biden’s, set off a firestorm after appearing to some to be a new program.

  “President Biden wants to send people to knock on your door to bully you into taking an ‘optional’ vaccine. Anyone who wants a vaccine is able to get one. Leave everyone else alone! Americans don’t need the federal government telling them how to live,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) wrote on Twitter.

  “The Biden Administration wants to knock on your door to see if you’re vaccinated. What’s next? Knocking on your door to see if you own a gun?” added Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

  Approximately 47 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, with another 7.5 percent getting at least one dose as of July 7, according to federal data. The two most widely used vaccines in the United States require two doses.

  Experts differ on what percentage of the population needs protection to reach herd immunity, especially given the variants that keep emerging. Some point to a growing body of evidence showing those who have had COVID-19 and recovered enjoy a level of immunity similar to that provided by a vaccine.

  Door knockers will merely present people with details on vaccines but will not try to compel them to get a shot, White House officials have said.

  “I will say the thing that is a bit frustrating to us is that when people are critical of these tactics, it’s really a disservice to the country and to the doctors, faith leaders, community leaders, and others who are working to get people vaccinated,”  Psaki said. “This is about saving lives and ending this pandemic.”

  Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber

  Follow Zachary on Parler: @zackstieber

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 19:00

• "Choose Another Living": Cantor CEO Howard Lutnick Slams Junior Bankers Complaining About Long Hours
  "Choose Another Living": Cantor CEO Howard Lutnick Slams Junior Bankers Complaining About Long Hours

  Cantor Fitzgerald’s CEO, Howard Lutnick, is pushing back on junior bankers that think they have life too tough.

  Lutnick said that junior bankers complaining about long hours and stressful demands should “rethink their career choice”, according to a new Bloomberg article.

  Lutnick’s comments follow 13 junior bankers at Goldman Sachs complaining about their workload earlier this year in a slide deck that was released to the public. They claimed to be working 100 hour weeks and experiencing declining physical and mental health.

  The public scrutiny caused other banks to offer bonuses and rewards to retain their younger talent (and, more importantly, stave off a PR crisis). 

  But when interviewed on Bloomberg Thursday, Lutnick broke from the crowd, stating: “Young bankers who decide they’re working too hard — choose another living is my view. These are hard jobs.”

  

  He continued: “There is a path to becoming an investment banker that requires an enormous amount of work including late nights and weekends. Clients want their deals finished under tight deadlines. You should know that going in.”

  Lutnick also broke from the majority by stating he wanted his key employees back at their desks. The pandemic, combined with complaints from junior bankers, had led to some banks relaxing rules on working from home. 

  “That is our model. Front-office people are going to be working from the office and that will be a competitive advantage for the firm. Back-office staff, such as technical support, compliance and legal, can be more flexible.”

  Cantor’s employees have been in the office since last summer and were given a June 1 deadline to come back to the office. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 18:40

• Michigan Attorney General, Police To Probe People Who Made Election Fraud Claims
  Michigan Attorney General, Police To Probe People Who Made Election Fraud Claims

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Michigan’s attorney general, with assistance from police officers, will investigate people who claimed election fraud happened during the 2020 contest.

  

  A spokeswoman for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told news outlets on July 8 that the Democrat will probe people who allegedly made false claims, with help from Michigan State Police.

  The spokeswoman said Nessel decided to launch the probes on a request from Republicans in the Michigan Senate.

  A Republican-controlled Senate panel last month issued a report saying it “found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election.”

  A portion of the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee report focused on Antrim County, where the county clerk falsely reported on the morning after Election Night that Democrat Joe Biden had beat former President Donald Trump by thousands of votes. The senators said their review backed the position of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Antrim County officials, which is that the false reporting was due to human error and was ultimately rectified.

  The committee recommended that Nessel “consider investigating those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.”

  “The Committee finds those promoting Antrim County as the prime evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election place all other statements and actions they make in a position of zero credibility,” it said.

  Benson said her office looked forward to partnering with Nessel “on this critical investigation into the real fraud that took place in 2020: efforts to deceive Michigan citizens about their vote with misleading, false statements about the accuracy & integrity of our elections.”

  Attorney Matthew DePerno and his client, William Bailey, have raised money for a case brought against the county that alleged Dominion Voting Systems machines used in the county “were shown to miscount votes” cast for Trump, counting them for Biden. The case was dismissed in mid-May.

  Dominion has denied the allegations, including details in a forensic report from a firm hired by DePerno that alleged Dominion’s machines and software were “purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”

  

  “There were no software ‘glitches’ that ‘switched’ votes in Antrim County or anywhere else,” Dominion responded at the time. “The errors identified in Antrim County were isolated human errors not involving Dominion.”

  DePerno didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

  Patrick Colbeck, a former Michigan senator, has a website where he hosts content he says back his election fraud claims. Users must pay a monthly fee to see some of the content.

  Colbeck recently started a petition to censure McBroom and the other Republican senators who signed onto the report and denounced what he described as legislators’ “attempt to marginalize those exposing election fraud.”

  In a lengthy post on his site, Colbeck said the panel’s report “consistently repeats the flawed assertion that the integrity of the election can be demonstrated simply by running ballots through the tabulator.”

  “The Committee appears to be operating under an extremely unique definition of ‘election fraud’ that dismissed any evidence of fraud if it did not add up to the 154,188 votes promoted as the margin of victory for Joe Biden. This failure of reasoning dismisses the cumulative effect of breaches in the chain of custody and violations of existing statute,” he said.

  Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber

  Follow Zachary on Parler: @zackstieber

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 18:20

• White House Outlaws Arrest Of Pregnant And Postpartum Illegal Immigrants
  White House Outlaws Arrest Of Pregnant And Postpartum Illegal Immigrants

  President Biden is pushing a new immigration policy directive that will hamper the ability of ICE and the American border patrol to detain and deport undocumented migrants: he’s ordering new restrictions barring the arrest or detention of any undocumented migrants who are pregnant, or gave birth during the past year.

  

  How ICE agents are supposed to know whether a woman (or a man, since the Biden Administration’s language, is gender-neutral, acknowledging that “trans men” can also give birth) has recently given birth, or not, isn’t explained in the NYT report. Apparently, the number of pregnant undocumented migrants held in American detention rose sharply under President Trump after the White House reversed a policy from the Obama Administration that helped to limit detention of pregnant women.

  The Obama policy was memorably put in place to prevent ICE from discriminating against pregnant undocumented women looking to give birth in the US, ensuring that their child would become a US citizen. The practice, once known as having an “anchor baby” (until progressives deemed this phrase “racist”), is relatively common. ICE has apparently arrested 4K pregnant migrants since 2016, although right now the Biden Administration says there are fewer than 20 such detainees in custody.

  Like all of Biden’s other immigration policies since taking office, the order not to detain pregnant women will be implemented via executive order.

  The problem with forging policy by executive fiat is that the next administration can easily undo whatever Biden did, using the same executive authority.

  “Any change in presidential administration can materially change people’s lives, especially immigrants and folks who are kind of trying to navigate their way through the immigration system,” said Breanne J. Palmer, a lawyer with UndocuBlack Network, which advocates for current and formerly undocumented Black people in the United States. “People who endure detention when they’re pregnant or nursing, you know, they really have very little recourse,” Ms. Palmer said.

  The NYT notes that the policy could aggravate some conservatives who supported President Trump’s proposal to eliminate birthright citizenship. The issue also gained traction after a young Honduran mother gave birth to a stillborn child in US detention.

  Supporters applauded Biden for going further than President Obama to limit detention of pregnant women. But they insisted there is more work to do, adding that detention of any woman accompanied by a minor should be outlawed. This would make it illegal for ICE and the border patrol to enforce immigration law when confronted with families of migrants (though, to be sure, the majority of undocumented migrants are men looking for work).

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 18:00

• Get Ready For The 100-Dollar Cheeseburger
  Get Ready For The 100-Dollar Cheeseburger

  Authored by Jazz Shaw via HotAir.com,

  I suppose we can simply flag this story as the latest entry in our series on how the pandemic has changed America and what the “new normal” looks like.

  

  And we’re once again looking at issues involving the restaurant industry, arguably among the hardest hit during the lockdowns. Out in Chicago, diners are encountering some new policies put in place by restaurants after the city began to reopen, and eateries in other areas are quickly following suit. “Mandatory minimum” bills are now becoming a regular feature.

  If you show up at some high-end restaurants and are seated, your bill begins with a $100 charge before you even order. And that’s not for the table, either. It’s 100 bucks per person. And then there are the “reservation deposits” that we’ll get to in a moment. (CBS Chicago)

  When Howard Tolsky went online to book a dinner at Steak 48, at 615 N. Wabash Ave. near the Mag Mile, he immediately started losing his appetite for any experience there.

  “It’s a shame,” Tolsky said.

  It was all because there was a $100 minimum for himself, his wife, his and mother-in-law – each, per person.

  “I figured, well, we’re not going to spend $300,” Tolsky said. “We might spend $250. But I don’t want to spend $300 dollars on a meal that costs $250.”

  I suppose we should hear from the restaurant owner first and find out why these minimum bill policies are remaining in place even after the establishment is fully reopened. Their statement reads,

  “Like many in our industry, we had to make some updates to our policies. The $100 per person minimum will remain in effect to provide the ability to be successful as a steakhouse designed for the full sit-down experience and support our restaurant’s operations and staff.”

  As I alluded to above, other Chicago restaurants are demanding some sort of insurance against cancellations. At another eatery called Maple & Ash, when you call or go online to make a reservation, you’ll be asked for your credit card number and charged a non-refundable $100 per person deposit. If your plans change and you want to cancel or simply don’t show up, they keep the money. Maybe it’s just me, but that sort of policy would probably make me less likely to make a reservation and either take my chances by showing up without one or simply going to a less popular place to eat.

  I suppose the owner of Steak 48 and the other restaurants doing this can set their own policies as they wish and let the dining public vote with their wallets. But the first question that comes to mind is how they managed to turn a profit before the pandemic without minimum bills and reservation deposits, but now they can’t. During the government-mandated shutdowns and partial reopenings, I could understand it. It’s a very competitive industry and when you can’t fill all of your tables and don’t know how many workers will show up on any given day, you need some sort of security. But if we’re returning to “normal” now, this seems like an odd and likely unpopular policy to make permanent.

  My wife and I admittedly don’t live in or near one of the bigger cities, so restaurant prices tend to be a bit lower than you’ll find in Chicago or New York City. But still, when we go out to one of the nicer steak houses in the area, it’s not unknown for us to run up a bill in the range of $100 each. (That depends if we order wine, an appetizer, dessert, etc.) And we tend to be generous tippers. But what if one of the people in your party is in the mood for something light and just orders a salad or some appetizers and a cup of coffee? What if they just want a cheeseburger? I would imagine that getting handed a bill for $100 for that is going to generate a lot of resentment, not to mention negatively impacting the tip that the wait staff receives. And if your eatery wants to hit me with a $100 “deposit” as soon as I ask about a reservation, I’ll probably start eating elsewhere.

  If this is part of the “new normal,” I don’t think it’s going to go over very well. But the free market should handle this issue as well. If the restaurants not having such policies in place have lines of customers forming around the block and the ones charging these fees are sitting mostly empty, the problem will correct itself soon enough.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• US Navy Calls Black Sea Drills "Essential" As Russia Threatens Military Response
  US Navy Calls Black Sea Drills “Essential” As Russia Threatens Military Response

  One might hope that after the dramatic close call June 23rd events on the Black Sea which saw a Russian patrol ship fire warning shots to deter a UK warship which came near Crimea – all of which was reportedly monitored by an overhead US reconnaissance plane (as Putin has alleged) – “cooler heads” would prevail and that the West would seek de-escalation in the waters. 

  But this is hoping way too much as instead the US Navy is calling expansive military drills on Russia’s doorstep “essential” in deterring Russian “aggression”. The words were issued by Commander Daniel Marzluff of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet at a moment the large multi-nation Sea Breeze 2021 exercises are ongoing, which Moscow has deemed a serious “provocation”. 

  

  This year’s Sea Breeze drills are led by the US and Ukraine with military hardware made up from over 30 participant nations crowding the region in and around the Black Sea. This has prompted Russia to hold its own drills in the southwest part of the country.

  Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov also this week issued further warning to foreign vessels and military aircraft to not get too close to Russian territory:

  “They would be better off leaving their provocations aside next time and staying away from that area because they will get clocked in the nose,” Ryabkov said.

  Commander Marzluff’s strong words, however, suggested anything but ‘de-escalation’ and avoidance of hostilities with Russia:

  Commander Daniel Marzluff, the U.S. Sixth Fleet’s Black Sea Region Engagement Lead, told Newsweek Tuesday that the Sea Breeze drills as “essential” in deterring Russian aggression and asserting U.S. and NATO backing for Ukraine, which remains at war with Moscow-backed separatists in the east of the country.

  “This is clearly the most effective way to bring a unified front to this kind of rogue action,” Marzluff told Newsweek from the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, referring to the ongoing exercises.

  CBS News’ Holly Williams embarked on the USS ROSS, which is taking part in the Sea Breeze naval exercises in the Black Sea with NATO partners and allies. They set sail to see how the U.S. is helping ensure the Black Sea is open to all. pic.twitter.com/YwSOtzBMES

  — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 4, 2021

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

  The US commander further called regional allies like Ukraine the US military’s “greatest strategic advantage” in confronting Russia. He described additionally: 

  “Here in the Black Sea, we have three NATO allies that are poised and ready to respond to any type of Russian aggression.”

  This reference includes Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey – while Ukraine has of late been increasingly vocal on wanting a path to full NATO membership, which Russia has declared a ‘red line’ that would certainly trigger major conflict.

  And yet Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has continued pushing for greater Washington intervention in the region, just this week in a press conference alongside Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda urging greater ‘help’ from the United States toward ending the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 02:45

• The Visegrad Nations Have Nailed Their Complaints To The EU's Door
  The Visegrad Nations Have Nailed Their Complaints To The EU’s Door

  Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The Visegrad nations in the center of Europe are challenging the orthodoxy of the EU elite and throughout history direct challenges to enforced dogmas spark a lot of chaos, change, and empower others to stand against the status quo.

  Right before the Protestant Revolution in Europe many significant players doubted the necessity of Rome and had some qualms about certain dogma, but they dared not speak heresy, at least not publicly. When Martin Luther nailed his list of complaints to that church door it instantly shifted the Overton Window just enough to make yesterday’s unspeakable blasphemy, become a possible option with many lethal consequences. Luther’s heresy (or bravery depending on your religious views) opened the door for others to follow and led to the downfall of the Catholic Church in many nations, ending Western European Christian unity. It looks like history is yet again repeating itself as certain leaders are spreading a new heresy, openly and loudly against the sacred dogma of 21st century Europe.

  We have all heard about the famous Russian law that bans “homosexual propoganda”. This has been blasted by the mainstream media but it is very much an external problem from their standpoint. In the minds of today’s spineless and genderless European hipster serfdom Russia is a distant backwards realm locked eternally in the Dark Ages. The Western subconscious mind is held together by the glue of belief in its own inherent superiority. This makes the Russians eternally bad, but that bad is an “out-group” sort of bad.

  

  Image: Viktor Orban has chosen the path of most resistance in Europe or even perhaps career martyrdom.

  But now in the heartland of the EU itself, the Hungarians, under the full weight of Brussel’s bureaucratic yoke and decades of Hollywood influence, have passed a similar set of laws to those in Russia about banning LGBT propaganda. This is happening at home and in the heart of Europe by members of the in-group. At the very least the Hungarians under Orban are now spreading a heresy against the core values of the EU.

  Since the end of WWII Conservatives have utterly failed on all fronts to counter the changes to society that have happened. There has really only been a Liberal Agenda at high speed vs. a slower incremental Liberal Agenda that is slowed down by the human road bumps that are the modern Right. Rather than simply resisting the “inevitable” rise of gay marriage and adoption, Hungary is actually for the first time actively pushing in the opposite direction which could be that Martin Luther or Rosa Parks moment. The Silent Majority clearly sees that it is wrong to destroy the idea of gender and the family for the sake of the feelings of a tiny percent of the population and cradle-to-the-grave propaganda has failed to change this in the former Warsaw Pact nations. The absolute majority of humanity does not want to go to the back of the bus anymore for the ability of drag queens to dance upon the centuries of culture and struggle that got humanity to where it is today.

  Czech President Milos Zeman has come out vocally and openly to support the legislation made by his neighbors. While joyously smiling, he told CNN that if he were younger he would “get trains and busses full of heterosexuals to come to Prague in order to show how absurd it (LGBT) is”. That is a very blasphemous thing for an EU leader to say. Zeman, who has already been deemed a Russian agent by the Mainstream Media, perhaps simply feels he has nothing to lose as he nears the end of his life. It is easy to be bold at the end of the road.

  Of course the reaction from mainstream dogmatic EU officials has been shock and horror with calls coming to excommunicate Hungary. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte declared that because of this move by Orban, Hungary “has no place” in the European Union. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was a bit softer, saying “This Hungarian bill is a shame”. The EU bureaucracy has also called this law and similar Polish maneuvers to be “grotesque”.

  

  Image: The Visegrad Group has a much more “European” vision for the EU.

  The Hungarians passing some bill to ever so partially block LGBT, with the Poles trying shenanigans of their own with praise from an elderly Czech president may not sound that important, especially to those living in countries that have a more normal view on gender roles. However, we cannot ignore that for the Western elites LGBT is a core inarguable dogma. This is something that the EU takes dead serious and is a core element of their agenda.

  Every corporation, every embassy, every school and every advertisement over the last 10 years has become increasingly rainbow ridden. The LGBT movement is vastly louder in its promotion from the West than Capitalism or Democracy ever were during the Cold War. Gay parade promotion has become a symbols of Westernness and Globalism and are a real foreign policy objective for the USA/EU. The push is on and has been on for quite some time. As we have seen standing up against this movement in the west is essentially career suicide at the least. This article does not use the terms “heresy” and “blasphemy” to be cute, this is really the dynamic at play – a zealous and extreme hatred of the family and traditional gender roles that has zero tolerance of any thoughts or actions to the contrary.

  The Visegrad nations in the center of Europe are challenging the orthodoxy of the EU elite and throughout history direct challenges to enforced dogmas spark a lot of chaos, change, and empower others to stand against the status quo.

  The strategic consequences of the Visegrad nations’ moves against Euro Dogma.

  • The EU could simply wait this out. Hungary is the most uppity nation but they have no border with the Russians, meaning they simply cannot leave the union. They would be surrounded and starved out like a poorly defended Medieval castle. Generation upon generation of people are becoming more liberal and perhaps in another two generations Hungary will “grow up” to be as submissive and self-loathing as Germany.

  • There are no legal methods to expel Hungary from the EU. But there were not any in the Soviet Union either and look what happened there. Perhaps if you calmly remove the first domino the others will not fall. See Brexit, as a good example of controlled demolition. Even the most delusional human suits in Brussels have to see that everything to the east is full of barbarians and is Polish migrant labour really worth some future risks of a mass exodus? Perhaps it would be best for stability to just go back to exploiting Africa for cheap labour and cut the Slavs loose.

  • Poland (and to an extent the rest of the Visegrad Group) is traditionally terrified of Russia, thus given the choice of being cut loose from the EU or going “gay”, there is a strong chance that Warsaw would side with even the most Satanic and self-destructive EU model rather than bow to Moscow. Ironically the threat of being expelled could actually make these nations far more compliant.

  • As individual nations the Visegrad Group are nothing, as a block they are something, and their Traditionalist efforts need to be coordinated in order to be effective. The EU must keep them as divided as possible.

  • Any person who is not 100% for LGBT is the enemy in the West. The Mainstream Media will try to turn Orban and other Visegrad leaders into mini-Putins in Europe’s backyard that must be stopped because of freedom. The demonization for them is only just beginning.

  • Russia will somehow be blamed for this. Russia should plead guilty regardless of the truth of the accusation because it gives even more credibility to them as the “last true Christian nation”.

  • If the Visegrad Group were to become more or semi-independent then the Ukraine would be divided with the Russians within a few days’ time. All parties would agree that they want certain parts of that region to come back home. A Kiev trapped between “Visegradia” and Russia would be doomed to partitioning.

  • The weaker the West is, the better Russians can sleep in peace. Russia needs to expand its ideological influence deeper and deeper into the Visegrad nations on all fronts. The EU must find a new way to repackage their Liberal Agenda because out East, they are not buying it.

  • A system of apologetics/argumentation for traditional families in the XXI century will become more finalized soon and will be the greatest weapon for everyone on the “wrong” side of the Berlin Wall.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 02:00

• Biden Does Not Need A Domestic "Terrorism" Agenda Unless He Is About To Violate American Rights
  Biden Does Not Need A Domestic “Terrorism” Agenda Unless He Is About To Violate American Rights

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  The federal government is a kind of self perpetuating blob; a cannibalistic creature that must continue to feed on the public and the systems around it in order to survive, but it also must create reasons for its existence so that it may go on feeding uninterrupted. Now, don’t get me wrong – I realize that the apparatus in Washington DC is nothing more than a tool for the power elite to grow their scope of control as well as grow their wealth. That said, without a large federal government the establishment oligarchy would have no ability to project the force they need to compel the population to comply with their agenda.

  

  There are only two real mandates for the government, only two reasons for its existence in our republic: To secure America’s borders from invasion and to protect the freedoms of the citizenry. That’s it. It is not the job of the government to compel you to take an experimental and questionable covid vaccine over a virus that 99.7% of people will easily survive. It is not the job of the government to create artificial “social equity” by favoring one group or ethnicity over another. It is not the job of the government to spy on millions of Americans because they do not agree with the leftist ideology. It is not the job of government to make war on the very people it is mandated to protect.

  Yet, this is exactly what the government is doing today while its totalitarianism is disguised as “humanitarianism”. In other words, they are essentially arguing that they must make war on the people in order to protect the people from themselves.

  One of Joe Biden’s first actions upon entering the White House was to initiate a 100 day review of the government’s domestic terrorism policies, and I think this says a lot about what path his presidency is bound to follow. Yes, the media continually argues that the Capitol protest on Jan 6th was a vast conspiracy on the part of conservatives to “overthrow” the democratic process and commit insurrection. In fact, all it really amounted to was a large protest which was less violent than the majority of Black Lives Matter protests across the nation over the past year.

  The media also incessantly mentions the five deaths that occurred on the day of the protest while continuing to ignore the fact that NOT ONE of those deaths has been attributed to the direct actions of protesters, and at least three of the deaths were due to natural causes.

  Why does the mainstream media keep lying by omission? Because they have to keep the narrative alive that the capitol protest is a sign of some underlying conservative “evil” that must be contained or destroyed. We don’t really give them much to work with, so they have to create reasons out of thin air to convince people to hate us.

  Biden’s review of domestic terrorist policy was finally released last month and the propaganda has been building ever since.  It has now culminated in Big Tech conglomerates like Facebook calling for people to report family and friends that might be exhibiting “signs of extremism”.  The is the Soviet Cheka or the Est German Stasi all over again.  

  Two of the administration’s primary findings in their report included the assertion that domestic threats are “motivated by racism and white supremacy”, and that they are driven by anti-authority. For many this might sound like bizarro world.

  What the hell does racism have to do with the capitol protests or anything else that conservatives have been fighting for the past year?

  Biden is a white guy, after all, so protesting his entry into the White House is hardly race motivated. And, if you ask the majority of patriots why they are angry you will find that most of them have grown tired of the pandemic restrictions and medical tyranny, which they know will only continue to get worse under Biden. Is this viewpoint “anti-authority”, or just anti-authoritarianism?

  Keep in mind that these days almost anything can be labeled racist or extremist.  The interpretation is wide open and arbitrary.  This is how informant culture works.  Anyone can be a target for any reason and one is treated as guilty until proven innocent.

  Obviously Biden and his handlers are not concerned with what is ACTUALLY causing Americans to rebel by the millions. They already know that THEY are the real cause, along with their attempts to undermine American civil liberties. What this is really about is gaslighting.

  Yes, that classic strategy used by narcissists and psychopaths; the method an abuser uses to make his victims think they deserve the treatment they are getting. The establishment takes away your freedoms and abuses your rights, then if you react to defend yourself they call you a racist and a terrorist. It’s a tried and true maneuver.

  First, I would point out that the racism issue is irrelevant at its core. No one except crazed social justice warriors thinks that institutional racism is a legitimate issue in America in 2021. There’s no proof whatsoever to support the incoherent ramblings of critical race theorists. By extension, it’s also not illegal to be a bigot. In America, you are welcome to dislike any group of people you want and the government cannot punish you for it. There is no such thing as “hate speech”, there is only speech which some people hate.

  This is a strategy by leftists to create a weakness in the armor of free speech laws and grind them down. If they can regulate some speech, they can eventually regulate ALL speech. Biden is merely acting as a conduit for the critical race theory agenda, and he is attaching it to every single policy in the hopes that it will stick somewhere.

  Second, let’s all be honest and acknowledge who the real target of Biden’s domestic terrorism policies is: Conservatives in general. And, it’s not just because of the capitol protests.

  Here is my concern: Whenever psychopathic regimes are about to pursue an egregious action that will degrade freedoms and enrage the public, they have a tendency to preemptively demonize (and often disarm) the people they are about to abuse. To put it another way, Biden is obsessed with attacking conservatives as “racists” and “extremists” not because of what we have done (we haven’t done anything), but because of what we are ABOUT TO DO.

  And how does Biden know what we are going to do in the future? He knows because he is going to take actions that he and his handlers know will piss us off. Biden is clearly planning to enforce more policies which will directly violate the constitutional rights of Americans and he is preparing in advance for the fallout by making it appear as if conservatives and patriots are the aggressors.

  As I have noted in previous articles, this is the common mantra of the tyrants:

  “Those that disagree with me are wrong because I will never allow them to prove they are right. Those that defend themselves against my attacks are evil because if they fight back they might harm me. Those that demand the truth do not understand how important my lies are to the stability of the world I have built for them. Why would I engage in battle when I can get others to fight my battles for me? When people are free, it means they are free to criticize or ignore me, so I must take away their freedom, so that they are made to revere me and recognize my importance. Morals are relative and principles are for suckers. The ends justify the means, and the greater good of the greater number is paramount – And as long as I am the one that determines what the definition of the “greater good” is, then I am the one that controls everything else.”

  It is hard to say what Biden is about to do that requires so much preemptive demonization of liberty minded people. Forced vaccinations and vaccine passports are a hard line in the sand for the majority of conservatives, and we simply won’t allow such policies to remain. We will fight if we have to in order to stop them.

  Disenfranchisement of conservatives from the economy or from the internet is another line that we will not back away from. The leftist mob is already attempting to make it acceptable to “cancel” conservatives on social media simply for being conservative, and by extension they are also seeking to normalize the punishment of conservatives for their views by threatening them with joblessness. This sort of ideological cleansing of America is not going to end well. Eventually, yes, conservatives will go to war over this because if we don’t our values of freedom, individualism, voluntarism and meritocracy will be erased from the public square and there will be no meaningful future for generations not yet born.

  New gun control measures and gun bans are not going to fly, either. There is no chance that conservatives will comply with a Biden gun control plan, red flag gun laws, gun buybacks, etc. It’s not going to happen. Biden and the establishment knows this, so perhaps gun confiscation is next on the agenda?

  Finally, it is possible that the establishment will go for broke during the next crisis event and Biden will seek to implement martial law. It might be an economic crash or a crash of the dollar. It might be a major cyberattack (look up the World Economic Forum’s “Cyberpolygon” event happening this week). It might be a new “variant” of covid that they use as an excuse to bring back nationwide lockdowns. Whatever the case may be, any attempt at martial law by Biden will be met with immediate and explosive resistance from conservatives, and frankly, I doubt that the Biden Admin would survive the duration.

  So, yes, in a way Biden is right. The biggest threat to the system today is a domestic conflict, IF the system intends to attack the citizenry and their liberties. That said, the establishment is not sacrosanct, and when a government violates the rights of the people the people have a duty to overthrow it. We would only be “terrorists” in the eyes of the people who started the conflict to begin with.

  At this point we have to ask ourselves, “Who does the federal government actually represent when they do these things?” Do they represent us? Or do they represent special interests, such as globalists and career Marxists? Are they tearing away our freedoms at record pace for our benefit, or the benefit of people with malicious intentions? If they are acting in the interests of evil people, then isn’t rebellion inevitable? And who is to blame for that inevitable conflagration? Them, or us?

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 00:20

• Bill To Decriminalize Psychedelics In California Gains Momentum
  Bill To Decriminalize Psychedelics In California Gains Momentum

  Earlier this year, State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, unveiled a bill to decriminalize the personal possession of several psychedelic drugs, which has gained traction through the California State Assembly. 

  Senate Bill 519 would legalize psilocybin (magic mushrooms), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine, and mescaline, except for peyote, recently passed the State Senate on a 21-16 floor vote, according to Bay Area news KPIX5. 

  “This bill would make lawful the possession for personal use, as described, and the social sharing, as defined, of psilocybin, psilocyn, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine, mescaline, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), ketamine, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), by and with persons 21 years of age or older,” the bill wrote. 

  The bill’s journey through the California State Assembly comes as evidence shows psychedelics may hold the key to treating many debilitating disorders such as addiction, PTSD, and depression.

  

  “And I want to say there’s been a lot of deliberate misinformation about this bill,” Wiener said. “We need to be very ,very clear. This bill is not about children, this is about people 21 and older.”

  Wiener said support to legalize psychedelics, such as magic mushrooms, is to help military veterans who suffer from a wide variety of mental health issues, including PTSD and depression, and to “end the failed War on Drugs.”

  “The racist War on Drugs, which has fueled mass incarceration and torn apart communities, particularly communities of color, but not made us any safer, the War on Drugs needs to end,” the senator said. “People are using drugs right now, and we want them to be able to use drugs in a safe way where they’re not in the shadows, where they’re not stigmatized.”

  “I turned to psychedelics as a last-ditch effort to survive. And fortunately, it worked amazingly well,” Jesse Gould, a former Army Ranger. “I will say this unequivocally psychedelics have, and will, save veteran lives.”

  So what are psychedelics? 

  Psychedelics are psychoactive substances that can alter perception, mood, and cognitive processes. There are two broad classifications of psychedelics that relate to chemical structure.

  • Entheogenic Plants: Plants or fungi that produce chemical substances that can cause hallucinations
  • Synthetic Drugs: Drugs created in laboratory setting to mimic the effects of entheogenic plants

  Here are seven of the most common psychedelic substances explained:

  

  – Visual Capitalist’s Katie Jones

  Even though research has shown psychedelics work by binding to serotonin receptors in the brain, which produces psychoactive effects and alters the brain’s structure and potentially rewires or repair circuits, hence the healing powers, there are opponents to the bill. 

  “We are spending far too much time writing lazy policy that slaps a band-aid on drug use, as opposed to writing policies that aid in behavioral health issues, like nutrition, access to job resources, access to family care,” said Tak Allen, President of International Faith-Based Coalition and Congress of Racial Equality, who is opposed to SB519. 

  “I don’t need science to tell me that this is a stupid and dangerous piece of legislation,” said Nina Salarno Besselman, Crime Victims United of California. “SB519 is akin to fixing the problem of too many red lights out in our streets, by removing them altogether.”

  The ancient psychedelic industry (explained here & here) could be in the early stages of revival. Perhaps Western medicine could learn from Mother Nature instead of embracing synthetic chemicals to treat complex mental health issues that may not always work. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/09/2021 – 00:00

• Convicted Murderer Wins Election To Office In DC From Behind Bars
  Convicted Murderer Wins Election To Office In DC From Behind Bars

  Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

  A still-incarcerated convicted murderer made history in the nation’s capital when voters recently elected him to one of the District of Columbia’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, which advise the local government on neighborhood issues such as police protection, parking, zoning, liquor licenses, and trash collection.

  

  Joel Caston, 44, has been imprisoned for 26 years after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in the Aug. 14, 1994, ambush slaying of Rafiq Washington, 18.

  He is expected to be released from the D.C. Central Detention Facility either this or next year.

  Getting elected while behind bars is difficult, but not impossible.

  For example, Joseph D. Morrissey, originally a Democrat, was reelected as an independent candidate to the Virginia House of Delegates in January 2015 the month after he was sentenced to six months in jail on a misdemeanor charge for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Morrissey is now a member of the Virginia Senate and is once again a Democrat.

  In a campaign video, Caston said:

  “My platform will be used to restore the dignity of incarcerated people, that we will no longer be judged by our worst mistake and to establish equality for both the male and the female populations. I will be your biggest advocate to make sure your voice and your concerns are heard.”

  In a candidate questionnaire he completed, Caston wrote,

  “I have a proven track record of rehabilitation and striving for excellence which serves as an indication of the passion I will bring to my tenure as the ANC Commissioner.”

  A writer, Caston has taken for-credit courses through Georgetown University’s Prison Scholars Program, mentored young men in jail, practiced yoga, and edited a prisoner newspaper.

  He was elected June 15 to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) for Ward 7, becoming the first incarcerated person to be elected to public office in the District of Columbia.

  Each ward is divided into zones, and in Ward 7, each zone is identified with a letter from B through F. The 7F Commission is further divided into seven single-member districts, and Caston represents 7F07, which consists of the jail, the Harriet Tubman Women’s Shelter, and Park Kennedy, an apartment complex across the street from the jail in Southeast Washington. The position is unpaid. The term of office is two years.

  Caston bested four other candidates, all of whom reside in the jail with him, the community newspaper The Washington Informer reported.

  After Caston was elected, Tyrell M. Holcomb, the chairman of the 7F Commission, said, “Representation is an important part of equity and inclusion. I could not be more excited of a new colleague (a resident of the DC Jail) joining the 7F commission.”

  Ward 7 resident John Koufos, national director of reentry initiatives at Right on Crime, a project of the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation, told The Epoch Times that Caston will bring important perspectives to local government. Right on Crime promoted the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform measure that then-President Donald Trump signed into law.

  Koufos, who was previously profiled by The Epoch Times, is a convicted drunk driver who spent time in prison and lost his license to practice law but who is now dedicating his life to helping to reform the complex system that ex-cons face when reentering society.

  “As a D.C. resident raising a family in Ward 7, I think Joel’s unique experiences provide him with an unmatched insight into some of the reentry issues D.C. needs to grapple with. His election has nothing to do with the First Step Act, but people with criminal records have started to hold elected office (like Tarra Simmons, in the Washington state Senate),” Koufos said.

  Simmons, a Democrat previously jailed for theft and drug offenses, was elected to the Washington House of Representatives last year, becoming the first felon to be elected as a state lawmaker in the Evergreen State. She graduated from law school in 2017 but couldn’t sit for the state bar exam because Washington did not allow felons to take it. She challenged the rule in court and won. Simmons was sworn in as an attorney the next year.

  “Whenever people with criminal records can break barriers in a way that does not run counter to public safety principles, it is a good thing,” Koufos said.

  “Mr. Caston’s election will help show employers that people with criminal records can be valuable in leadership roles.

  “I do think that there are certain offices, especially in the states, where a person in prison would have difficulty executing the duties of the office. However, ANC is not one of those types of offices, and Mr. Caston’s election is a reflection of his desire to better himself and his community.”

  Caston couldn’t be reached for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 23:40

• Thousands Of Convicts Freed During Pandemic Will Soon Be Sent Back To Prison
  Thousands Of Convicts Freed During Pandemic Will Soon Be Sent Back To Prison

  Across the US, thousands of formerly incarcerated prisoners were released from prison (albeit with the understanding that their limited freedom would likely be temporary) as COVID swept through America’s prisons, sparking riots and unrest in some penitentiaries.

  

  Carr

  Now, there’s probably no other group in America that is more anxious to see the Delta variant spark another wave of official paranoia. Since they were freed by a provision of the Cares Act, the second stimulus package passed by President Trump and Congress last spring, the DoJ’s official interpretation of the law will eventually determine when (or if) they’re returned to prison to finish out their sentences.

  According to the guidance left in place by the Trump Administration – guidance that still stands – many of the inmates will return to prison when the pandemic is declared officially over.

  In a story about the dilemma facing the freed prisoners, Bloomberg cited as an example a former FBI agent serving a 15-year sentence after being convicted on bribery charges.

  The cafeteria at the federal prison camp in Fairton, N.J., is rarely the site of much celebration. But one afternoon in spring 2020, the room was buzzing. A provision of the pandemic-relief package passed by Congress had given some of the inmates the chance to leave prison early and serve time under home confinement.

  With dozens of prisoners gathered in the cafeteria, a Bureau of Prisons official read aloud a list of inmates who’d qualified for the new program. The names were greeted with high-fives and cheering. Among them was Robert Lustyik, an ex-F.B.I. agent who was about halfway through a 15-year sentence for bribery. “It was a feeling as if I had won the Heisman Trophy,” Lustyik says.

  A few weeks later, Lustyik, 59, moved back in with his wife and two children in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., next door to the cemetery where Washington Irving is buried. Over the past year, he’s started a personal-training business out of his garage and complied with all the rules of home confinement, wearing an ankle bracelet and checking in with prison officials every day.

  But as the pandemic approaches an end, the clock is ticking for Lustyik and thousands of other federal prisoners released under the Cares Act.

  The former agent, who is currently living at home with his wife and children, was “heartbroken” by the DoJ memo, and the prospect of returning to prison, potentially for years. When he left his last camp at Fairton, a prison counselor told him he was leaving for good. And despite Democrats’ reputation for being anti-police and soft on crime, the Biden Administration has so far refused to change the policy, despite lobbying from major prison advocacy groups.

  And he’s not alone: there are thousands of inmates convicted on non-violent crimes who will likely be returned to prison by the end of the year.

  “The waiting is horrible,” says Kevin Ring, the president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy group that has fought the Justice Department policy. “Some got home and immediately got a job and started going to school. Others really have focused on reconnecting with their families and, in a lot of cases, helping take care of families.”

  Over the past few months, the DoJ has been tight-lipped: “This will be an issue only after the pandemic is over,” a department spokeswoman said in a statement.

  Among many concerns, these former prisoners fear being sent back will trash the good will they have built up with friends and family.

  That stance has left people like Brian Carr wondering how long their freedom will last. Carr, 31, was given a seven-year sentence in late 2015 after he pleaded guilty to drug dealing. His whole life had felt like a series of accumulating setbacks, he says—until he found out last year that he could leave prison. When he called his mother to share the news, his hands were shaking with excitement. “I couldn’t even remember her number by heart, and I know her number by heart,” he says.

  Now living in Baltimore, Carr plans to enroll in technical school and eventually start a logistics company that transports cars to dealerships across the country. A return to prison would put all that on hold. He’d also have to figure out a way to break the news to his young children. “That’s going to be hard to explain,” Carr says. “They’re gonna feel like I did something wrong again, and I actually didn’t.”

  One potential issue is that many of these freed prisoners have found jobs. And with the labor shortage currently afflicting the American economy, they’re incarceration could leave employers in the lurch.

  For some of the prisoners released last year, it’s taken months to acclimate to living at home. Last December, Jackie Broussard welcomed back her daughter, Stephanie White, after she was released under the Cares Act. “She wouldn’t open a door, she wouldn’t open a refrigerator, she wouldn’t ask for anything; she wouldn’t really talk,” Broussard says.

  Since then, White, 32, has slowly adjusted to her new life, getting a job operating the forklift at a warehouse near her mother’s home in Fort Worth, Texas. But two and a half years remain on her sentence for a drug conviction. “I’m going to be terrified the day the federal government says the pandemic is over,” Broussard says.

  Still, most experts agree the Biden Administration likely won’t reverse the guidance. A lucky few may receive clemency from the president or governors since they’ve already been officially deemed “low risk.”

  “They’ve been vetted by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons as being low-risk, and most have already served a significant amount of time in prison,” says Shon Hopwood, a criminal justice expert at Georgetown University. “I don’t think anyone—DOJ included, and even the Bureau of Prisons—thinks that, as a matter of policy, it’s wise to send those people back.”

  Many prisoners have found an interesting loophole that they believe might help them stay out longer: they’re refusing to get vaccinated for COVID. The former FBI agent is one such prisoner: “I’m willing to sacrifice my own health” to stay out of prison, he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 23:20

• Naming The Capitol Police Officer Who Killed Unarmed Jan. 6 Rioter Ashli Babbitt
  Naming The Capitol Police Officer Who Killed Unarmed Jan. 6 Rioter Ashli Babbitt

  Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,

  

  At top, pistol drawn in the House chamber, a plainclothes black officer who fits the description of Michael L. Byrd.  His name was apparently divulged at a hearing as the cop who shot Ashli Babbitt.

  Most police departments — including Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police — are required to release an officer’s name within days of a fatal shooting. Not the U.S. Capitol Police, which is controlled by Congress and answers only to Congress. It can keep the public in the dark about the identity and investigation of an officer involved in a shooting indefinitely.

  Which is what happened with the Jan. 6 shooting of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester in the U.S. Capitol riot who was fatally wounded by a plainclothes police lieutenant as she attempted to breach a set of doors inside the building. 

  

  Video shot at the riot shows the Capitol officer in a hall outside the House chamber carefully advancing (at around 34:55), aiming … 

  

  … and then shooting, hitting Babbitt, above, as she tried to climb through a smashed window, Trump flag on her back. The fatal gunshot blew her backward.

  For the past six months, as Congress has proposed legislation to reform  police departments across the country, the Capitol Police has stiff-armed government watchdogs, journalists and even lawyers for Babbitt, who have sought the identity of the officer and additional details about the shooting. The USCP still refuses to release his name, in stark contrast to recent high-profile police shootings around the nation.

  In February, USCP issued a press release promising to “share additional information once the investigation is complete.” But Justice Department investigators closed their probe in April, clearing the officer of criminal wrongdoing in Babbitt’s death, which the medical examiner ruled a homicide. And last month, the D.C. Police — which shares jurisdiction with the Capitol Police and has led the investigation into Babbitt’s shooting — concluded its own internal review of the shooting without making any findings, according to spokeswoman Kristen Metzger.Still, USCP continues “stonewalling the public,” according to the head of the police union.

  “That’s my department’s attorneys for you,” United States Capitol Police Labor Committee Chairman Gus Papathanasiou told RealClearInvestigations. 

  “There is definitely a transparency issue. The department needs to answer those questions. They are stonewalling the public.”

  Withholding the name of the officer who fired the fatal shot — the only round fired by anyone during the four-hour siege — has bred speculation on the Internet and led to the mistaken identification of at least one officer. USCP Special Agent David Bailey was wrongly fingered as the shooter on social media and conservative news sites.

  After RCI called attention to the false rumor in an email to USCP, followed by a story on the issue, USCP’s communications chief officially knocked it down as “misinformation.” 

  Now a new name has surfaced in the Babbitt imbroglio — Lt. Michael L. Byrd — and while USCP Communications Director Eva Malecki won’t confirm he is the shooter, in this case she isn’t denying it.

  In a little-noticed exchange, Byrd was cited by the acting House sergeant at arms during a brief discussion of the officer who shot Babbitt at a Feb. 25 House hearing.

  

  Lt. Byrd was investigated for leaving his department-issued Glock-22 firearm unattended in a Capitol restroom. A Glock-22 was used in the Babbitt shooting.

  Both C-SPAN and CNN removed his name from transcripts, but CQ Transcripts — which, according to its website, provides “the complete word from Capitol Hill; exactly as it was spoken” — recorded the Capitol official, Timothy Blodgett, referring to the cop as “Officer Byrd.” His name is clearly audible in the videotape of the hearing (see video embed further below).

  Byrd appears to match the description of the shooter, who video footage shows is an African American dressed that day in a business suit. Jewelry, including a beaded bracelet and lapel pin, also match up with photos of Byrd.

  In addition, Byrd’s resume lines up with what is known about the experience and position of the officer involved in the shooting – a veteran USCP officer who holds the rank of lieutenant and is the commander of the House Chamber Section of the Capitol Police.

  Following the shooting, Byrd’s Internet footprint was scrubbed, including his social media and personal photos.

  “Officer Byrd” is named in a videotape of House testimony (around 39:20).

  Phone calls and emails to Byrd, who lives in Maryland where he remains on paid administrative leave, went unanswered. His attorney would neither confirm nor deny that the 53-year-old Byrd is the shooter, and warned that disclosing his name poses a safety risk to the officer.

  The Babbitt family is frustrated USCP won’t release any information about the incident other than the terse and vaguely written statement it issued on Jan. 7:

  “[A] sworn USCP employee discharged their service weapon, striking an adult female.”

  Because Congress has exempted the USCP from Freedom of Information Act requests, the family is suing the D.C. Police “for documents that identify the officer who shot Babbitt … as well as notes and summaries of what the officer said regarding the shooting and the reasons he discharged his weapon.” (The D.C. Police has led the investigation into Babbitt’s shooting.) A hearing before a judge is scheduled for Sept. 3. Washington-based watchdog Judicial Watch also is suing for the records. 

  

  Aaron and Ashli Babbitt, from “Justice for Ashli Babbitt” on Twitter (@ForAshli.) Aaron Babbitt plans a wrongful-death lawsuit over her killing.

  “They sit back and they completely refuse to release the name of their own police officer that was involved in a shooting of an unarmed woman,” said Ashli Babbitt’s husband, Aaron.

   “It’s ridiculous, it’s absolutely ridiculous.” 

  Babbitt has hired a Maryland lawyer specializing in police-abuse cases who plans to file a wrongful-death lawsuit against USCP and the officer, seeking at least $10 million in damages.

  The attorney, Terry Roberts, said he has received no information from USCP about the case, even though he contacted the department’s general counsel in May. But he said an investigator in his office has positively identified the shooter from a “painstaking” analysis of photos and videos taken by journalists and witnesses inside the Capitol, as well as from tips from citizens and other information.

  He said a key witness is Taylor Hansen, a freelance journalist who films protests around the country and was outside the Speaker’s Lobby with Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, when she was shot. Hansen claims to have identified Byrd as the officer who opened fired on Babbitt, striking her in the lower left shoulder.

  “Hansen was present when Ashli was shot,” Roberts told RCI.

  “He has spoken with my investigator. He provided a reliable and accurate account of what he saw; he also made a video recording, which proved useful.”

  Roberts said he is not ready to name the officer as a defendant in the lawsuit until he meets federal regulations for filing personal-injury claims against government agencies and employees, which could take several more weeks. However, he told RCI, “He’s a guy who left his service revolver in a bathroom.”

  

  From “Justice for Ashli Babbitt” on Twitter. Slain in the U.S. Capitol at 35, she was an Air Force veteran.

  In February 2019, Lt. Byrd was investigated for leaving his department-issued Glock-22 firearm unattended in a restroom on the House side of the Capitol, even though the potent weapon, which fires .40-caliber rounds, has no manual safety to prevent unintended firing. Fortunately, the abandoned gun was discovered by another officer during a routine security sweep. A Glock-22 was used in the Babbitt shooting.

  Byrd addressed the blunder at a roll call the following morning, reportedly telling fellow officers that he would “be treated differently” because of his rank as a lieutenant.

  At the time, Malecki assured the press that “appropriate actions will be taken” against Byrd. Asked recently what disciplinary actions were administered, the USCP spokeswoman declined comment.

  Unlike other police forces, USCP does not have to disclose records on police misconduct.

  More than 700 complaints were lodged against Capitol Police officers between 2017 and 2019, but brass won’t say what the alleged violations were or how the department resolved them. They also won’t disclose how many complaints are in any individual officer’s file.

  While the USCP has an inspector general, he does not make reports public, unlike other agency watchdogs. His report on Jan. 6 remains secret.

  Critics say the 193-year-old agency is in dire need of reform. They point out that even the Secret Service complies with FOIA requests and releases reports and audits by its internal watchdog. The Capitol Police, in contrast, won’t even reveal how many sworn officers it has on hand.

  “Unlike the [D.C. Police] and the vast majority of local police forces, the USCP provides little public information about its activities,” complained Daniel Schuman, policy director of the D.C. watchdog group Demand Progress, in a recent letter to the heads of the congressional panels who have oversight authority over USCP.

  D.C. law requires police to identify the officer involved in a police shooting within five business days after an officer-involved death or serious use of force. Officials must publicly release the names and body-camera recordings of all officers involved in the death or use of force. The law does not cover the Capitol Police, however, even though D.C. Police work in conjunction with that agency on homicide cases and fatal traffic accidents.

  The Babbitt shooting has thrust this double standard into the national spotlight.

  Some lawmakers on the USCP oversight committees are clamoring for changes, starting with the immediate release of the name of the officer who shot Babbitt. They allege that Capitol Police are protecting an officer who killed an unarmed citizen from public scrutiny.

  “In many instances, when a law enforcement officer kills an individual for any reason, that officer’s name is publicly released. But not in the case of Ashli Babbitt,” said GOP Rep. Paul Gosar, who sits on the House Oversight Committee.

  “Instead, there is a determined effort to cover up the full circumstances of this homicide.”

  Mark Schamel, the Washington attorney defending the officer, warned that revealing his client’s name could put his life in jeopardy. He said the officer has received “credible” death threats and has gone into hiding. He would not provide further details about the type of threats or whether they have been reported to the FBI. Schamel also declined to say if authorities have provided the officer a protective security detail.

  Asked about any threats made against Byrd, USCP General Counsel Tad DiBiase told RCI in an email that “one of our officers has received death threats, threats to his family, and numerous vile, racist sentiments directed at the officer.” Without elaborating, he said “these threats are currently under active investigation by the USCP and the FBI.”

  The only publicly known threat made against the officer who shot Babbitt came from Garret Miller, who was arrested in Texas in part because of threats he made two weeks after participating in the Capitol riot. However, Miller circulated the wrong photos of the officer on Facebook, falsely identifying Officer Bailey, who is also African American. Miller remains in federal custody.

  The FBI and USCP declined to answer when asked if any threats have been directed against Lt. Byrd specifically.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 23:00

• Idaho Resort Town's Workers Live In "Trailers And Tents" As They Can't Afford Housing
  Idaho Resort Town’s Workers Live In “Trailers And Tents” As They Can’t Afford Housing

  The virus pandemic forced millions of Americans to work remotely. In return, those with economic mobility could ditch the city life for rural areas, such as upscale mountain towns. 

  A flood of people poured into small resort towns such as Ketchum, located in Blaine County, Idaho, has created a multi-pronged issue, such as affordable living and labor shortages. 

  Ketchum is a small community of 3,000 people nestled in the Rocky Mountains of central Idaho. The resort community is an outdoor enthusiast’s dream, with four seasons of fun. But ever since the pandemic struck, city-dwellers from around the country descended on the small town, able to work remotely but created a surge in housing prices and a boom in economic activity. 

  

  No one can deny economic booms are great, but logistically, Ketchum was in no shape or form to handle what came next.

  WSJ interviewed low-level workers in the town and found many of them could find jobs but could not afford homes or rentals. 

  Ethan McKee-Bakos worked two jobs in the mountain town and lived in his SUV in the nearby national park for two months because when home prices jumped in the area, so did rental rates. 

  “If you live in Ketchum, there’s no shortage of work. There’s just a shortage of where you can live,” said McKee-Bakos, who works at a local hospital and a bar. “This is the first time I’ve experienced any homelessness.”

  

  As we noted before (read: “Urban Flight During Pandemic Made Rent Less Affordable Across US”), Ketchum faces an affordable housing crisis as supply was gobbled up by out-of-towners trying to escape the pandemic and social-economic woes of major West Coast cities. The rapid demand for homes quickly priced out low-income workers not just from owning a home but also from renting one. 

  WSJ notes that “some workers live in trailers or tents” in Sawtooth National Forest, which is 40 miles away. The waiting list for affordable housing units for sale or rent in the surrounding county is years long. 

  Ketchum Mayor Neil Bradshaw has addressed the housing crisis affecting the working poor, the small town’s economic heartbeat because they are the ones that work at local shops. He even considered erecting a “temporarily” tent city in the town. 

  “Idaho is a beautiful place. People are willing to compromise low wages to live here. Well, now they don’t have a place to live,” said Bradshaw.

  Even though Blaine County didn’t make the National Association of Realtors list of the top ten vacation home counties, housing prices have still risen 20% in the past year, to around half a million dollars. As for apartments, rent for a two-bedroom unit is up 47% over the same period, to $2,525.

  Home and rent price shocks have terrible effects on locals who are being priced out of their own community. The median household income in the area is about $57,000, 2019 census numbers show.

  Even a city council member of Ketchum is having difficulty obtaining a permanent residence. Michael David, a city councilor, told WSJ he had been priced out of buying a home and can no longer afford rent after a rapid surge in prices. 

  Many of the town’s working-poor gathered in May in the town square to address the housing affordability crisis and for officials to embrace a new 56-unit housing project in the downtown region. 

  

  Krzysztof Gilarowski, a front-desk manager at the Limelight Hotel who planned the gathering, said the resort town could begin to lose its working-poor as they have nowhere to live. 

  “If you can’t attract people to work and live here, if guests can’t book a restaurant reservation because there’s not enough staff for the restaurant to open every night, people won’t see Ketchum as such an attractive destination either,” Gilarowski said.

  The mayor has proposed temporary housing measures, such as allowing RVs to park overnight in public areas or private land to address the housing crisis in the intermediate-term. 

  “I’m deeply concerned about the viability of our town if we don’t have the workforce to support our local businesses and entrepreneurs,” he said.

  If working-poor can’t find affordable living, this up-scale resort town may soon experience labor shortages. 

  Homes in the mountains and small resort towns have been hot commodities during the pandemic, as city dwellers wanted clean air and space. However, there’s one unintentional side effect of new money flooding these rural communities, that is, locals and the working-poor are being priced out of homeownership and or enting. 

  WSJ said, “Other resort towns across the West are facing similar problems.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 22:40

• Doug Casey On Why Most People Outsource Their Thinking To "The Experts"
  Doug Casey On Why Most People Outsource Their Thinking To “The Experts”

  Via InternationalMan.com,

  International Man: Thanks to the internet and modern technology, the average person can now access information on almost any topic with relative ease.

  But it seems people are doing less critical thinking than ever.

  Why do you think that is the case?

  Doug Casey: Technology is a double-edged sword when it comes to critical thinking. It’s paradoxical that something so associated with knowledge and research is often at odds with wisdom. I think that’s partly because today’s technology offers instant answers—no thought required. You can go to Google, and an answer is at your fingertips. It doesn’t require research or thought—the answer just appears. It subtly obviates the need for contemplation.

  Let’s first define what critical thinking is. I’d say it’s the process of questioning the validity of the assumptions and the accuracy of the data for everything. A critical thinker never assumes or takes anything for granted.

  We can’t always be sure what the quality of a googled answer is, but most people assume it’s honest and correct. However, considering the nature of the people who run Google, Wikipedia, and websites of that nature, I prefer to assume that the quality of many answers is low.

  In fact, the volume of data available through computer technology is so great that there’s a tendency to confuse all that quantity with quality. When the world, and the data stream, is moving very quickly, it seems you have less time to contemplate its meaning. You can get lost in it and lose perspective.

  It reminds me of a scene out of the original Rollerball movie from the 1970s with James Caan. Books no longer exist. All knowledge is contained in an all-powerful computer. The scientist in charge of the computer is talking to another character and says, “Yeah, for some reason, we’ve lost the 13th century,” and he kicks the machine. It’s the only source of what used to be in millions of books.

  We’re almost in a situation where everything comes from one source—basically Google—rather than researching books, getting answers from a dozen points of view, and thinking critically about their meaning. Sure, Google gives you many references. But how many others have been “cancelled?” How many considered politically incorrect are buried as deep as the 13th century in Rollerball?

  International Man: Whether it’s finance, economics, politics, and many other areas, it seems almost everywhere you look, people are looking to the so-called “experts” to tell them what they should think about a given topic.

  Where does this come from? How did most people come to trust the “experts”?

  Doug Casey: As the amount and complexity of data grows, it’s natural to want an expert to sort it out for you. But experts are known for knowing a lot about a little, not for having broad, integrated knowledge. People understandably look to them to make decisions for them. That’s foolish. Better that you go to a philosopher than a technician when the time comes to decide on something important. But philosophers are in short supply today, so people listen to celebrities.

  A celebrity is someone who’s famous for being well-known. People automatically assume that famous people must know something they don’t. The public doesn’t know much, but they know more about some celebrities than they do about their own friends, neighbors, and relatives. And that engenders trust. People trust a celebrity who endorses something he knows nothing about because they think they know him. It’s another consequence of mass media. The average person is much more likely to accept Google’s, or Wikipedia’s, or some celebrity’s opinion than to research something themselves. Critical thinking is hard work, and questioning authority doesn’t usually make you any friends.

  I see it in the newsletter business all the time. Somebody who’s glib and can present well can be transformed into an instant expert, even though he knows very little—as long as he’s good at presenting and gaining people’s confidence. We see that with the talking heads on TV as well. They’re really just actors who don’t know anything, but they’re good-looking, well-promoted, and have a nice social veneer, so people trust them.

  It makes no sense, and neither does the public’s obsession with credentials. Something like a third of Americans have a college degree—which today only means they’ve spent a lot of money to be indoctrinated over four years. It’s no guarantee of expertise—forget about wisdom or judgment. Over 13% of graduates have master’s degrees or PhDs. That doesn’t prove they’re critical thinkers.

  In most cases, those degrees prove little, other than the recipients think it’s a good idea to spend a lot of time and money for a credential. Credentials should be suspect; critical thinkers don’t assume they’re worth anything. They’re often a camouflage for mediocrity. In today’s world, their main value is to intimidate by making the public assume you know what you’re talking about. They trust the credential, the way they’ve come to trust Google or Wikipedia.

  People are comforted to believe that if they don’t know the answer, someone with a degree does. And they should be in charge. I suspect most higher degree holders think they should be in charge, too. It’s a bad tendency across the board.

  International Man: The COVID hysteria has only accelerated this trend.

  Throughout the pandemic, most people believed the “health experts” robotically and even attacked those who brought forth logical information and data which challenged the established narrative.

  What is your take?

  Doug Casey: The media and the Establishment have selected a set of credentialed health experts, promoted them, and told the public that they know what they’re talking about. Take Anthony Fauci—he has lots of credentials. Like everyone high up in government agencies, whether or not he was ever a competent scientist, you can be sure he’s a very competent political operator. And apparently quite wealthy, with positions in companies under his purview.

  In any event, he’s a life-long government employee. A professional bureaucrat, previously invisible but now elevated from nowhere to near-dictatorial control.

  

  Meanwhile, there are people that have written numerous peer-reviewed papers, done serious lab work, and are currently dealing with patients with boots on the ground whose views are cancelled because they disagree with Czar Fauci.

  The average person never hears about them, and when they do, they’re cancelled by the mass media. The perfect example of this is the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in countering the COVID virus—apart from the fact the supposed pandemic itself is greatly overrated.

  Anyone who’s “vaccine hesitant” or—God forbid—a COVID denier is painted as anti-science, a conspiracy theorist. My view is that there are legitimate reasons not to take any experimental vaccine. Especially when there’s a possibility the supposed cure is much more dangerous than the disease itself.

  I’ve met exactly one person who’s gotten symptomatic COVID. He was sick for two days with the flu and fully recovered. So where are all the dead bodies? The casualties have strictly been very old people, very sick people, or very fat people. Occasional anomalous young, healthy, slim people die from it—assuming it was the actual cause of death—just the way young, healthy people occasionally die from the ordinary flu. So, is it a conspiracy? I don’t know. I’m just confident this era will go down as one of the most stupid and embarrassing in world history.

  International Man: Politicians, bureaucrats, and the intelligence community are obvious members of the ruling class that seek power and control.

  Are the “health experts” new members of the political ruling class?

  Doug Casey: Sickness and fear of death get the public’s attention even more than sex and money. And, for what it’s worth, the public has been prepped for decades by loads of sci-fi books and movies featuring a virus wiping out most of humanity. And not without cause. In fact, the chances are overwhelming that biological warfare will be a major element in any future conflict with China.

  Telling people that they’re going to get sick and die, endangering their loved ones, is a powerful motivator to get them to do as they’re told. Still, COVID is 90% hysteria. If someone is old, obese, or sick, they might want to isolate themselves, but it’s insane to lock down the whole planet to unsuccessfully safeguard a few people in danger. And, it’s equally insane for everyone to take risky vaccines against a non-threat.

  Let the people who are worried risk getting the vaccine; although, there seems to be some serious question about how efficacious the vaccine itself is.

  International Man: Where do you think this will all lead, and what are the implications?

  Doug Casey: I’m afraid it’s all leading toward a many-tentacled police state.

  The people who run the State have control of the money supply, the economy, the education system, and the media. They’ve gotten control of the medical system. They’re replacing traditional religion, as well, with what amounts to new secular religions; that’s an interesting twist.

  Christianity is on its way out. It’s already a dead duck in Europe and is hanging on in the US only among the lower classes. The elite no longer believes in traditional religion. It’s being replaced by updated versions of Marxism, which was always a secular religion, even though it claimed to be “scientific”—like Greenism and Wokeism.

  The bad guys—by which I mean the statists and collectivists—have mounted a war on many fronts, and they’re succeeding mightily. They’ll use the Greater Depression to create a genuine police state—a kinder and gentler version of the old USSR, East Germany, but with a higher standard of living and more TV channels.

  The ruling class will blame the collapse of the economy on COVID. As the depression drags on, they’ll also blame it on global warming, not their stupid economic policies.

  COVID and the Global Warming scam are wonderful deus ex machina devices to allow the bad guys to dodge the blame for what’s coming.

  Marxism, statism, and collectivism will once more evade the blame for the consequences of their idiotic economic ideas and evil ethical notions. That’s largely because critical thinking has vanished from the West.

  *  *  *

  The 2020s will likely to be an increasingly volatile time. More governments are putting their money printing on overdrive. Negative interests are becoming the rule instead of the exception to it. One thing is for sure, there will be a great deal of change taking place in the years ahead. That’s precisely why legendary speculator Doug Casey and his team released an urgent new report titled Doug Casey’s Top 7 Predictions for the Raging 2020s.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 22:20

• COVID-19 Death Toll In California County Drops 22% After Revision
  COVID-19 Death Toll In California County Drops 22% After Revision

  The COVID-19 death toll in Santa Clara, California dropped by nearly a quarter after it ‘refined its approach’ to reporting the data, according to KPIX5.

  

  After a review of each COVID-19 fatality and eliminating deaths not directly caused by the virus – including those who tested positive at the time of death, but did not necessarily die from the disease, official COVID-19 deaths dropped from 2,201 to 1,696, or 22%.

  “It is important to go back and do this accounting to see if COVID was actually the cause of death,” said UCSF Prof. of Medicine and Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Monica Gandhi. “I think that transparent communication is an upside, I mean, in the sense that it’s true that if we did this across the nation, it would bring our death rate lower. A downside of that, could be that people will say, ‘Well, it wasn’t as serious as you said.'”

  The refined approach in Santa Clara County comes as county officials try to figure out the true impact of the virus on the community. Last month, Alameda County health leaders refined their approach to reporting COVID-19 deaths as well and also registered a drop in that county’s death toll by about a quarter.

  …

  Gandhi believes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may soon ask all counties to do the same as Alameda and Santa Clara Counties and that the nation could also see a drop in its COVID-19 death toll. -KPIX

  “In the midst of everything COVID people were sort of putting down that cause of death as COVID,” said Gandhi, who somehow believes that the lower numbers might encourage people to get vaccinated.

  “Because a lot of people have kind of said, ‘I’ve heard people are dying anyway of COVID what’s the point?’ and it is very important to say, ‘No, did they die of COVID or were they in the hospital for something else and they died of that?” she continued. “That helps people say, ‘Oh, the risk of breakthrough infection is so low I want to go ahead and get vaccinated.’ So I think it’s very good for vaccine hesitancy.”

  She lost us there.

  Meanwhile, neighboring Alameda county conducted a similar review of deaths in early June, and their death toll dropped by 411 to 1,223 fatalities, or 25%.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 22:00

• From Livestock To Bitcoin: "Legitimacy" & The Evolution Of Money
  From Livestock To Bitcoin: “Legitimacy” & The Evolution Of Money

  Authored by Michael Milano via The Mises Institute,

  Once a society embraces the division of labor, direct exchange becomes increasingly infeasible. Without money, specialization is constrained; without money, dreams of constructing an advanced society are merely a utopian pipe dream. At its core, money is the lubricant for human relations. It simultaneously solves many problems of cooperation while serving as the basis for economic calculation. As awareness of nonsovereign cryptocurrencies has risen dramatically, questions about the history of money have gained salience. How does money arise? From where does it derive its value?

  The following sections will expound upon the cumulative development of money, from livestock to bitcoin, by infusing the concept of legitimacy into Carl Menger’s theoretical framework as outlined in On the Origins of Money.

  

  Legitimacy

  According to ethereum cocreator Vitalik Buterin:

  Legitimacy is a pattern of higher-order acceptance. An outcome in some social context is legitimate if the people in that social context broadly accept and play their part in enacting that outcome, and each individual person does so because they expect everyone else to do the same.

  From Buterin’s perspective, legitimacy operates as a hidden force that guides coordinated behavior. Legitimacy manifests itself through numerous avenues. These include brute force, continuity, fairness, process, performance, and participation. In addition to serving as an intrinsic component of blockchain technology, the concept of legitimacy can be applied as a mediating variable to explain the evolution of money.

  From Protomoney to Store of Value

  Barter societies revolve around economic actors who exchange goods and services directly, without a monetary medium. The impracticality of direct exchange ultimately inhibits societal prosperity and economic progress. Livestock and other agriculture products arose as protomoney within barter societies as early as eleven thousand years ago. In 1200 BC, cowry shells filled the role of a primitive money. Bronze and copper coins did the same two hundred years later in China. Furs, teeth, and wampum were utilized in a similar manner by Native American tribes for centuries.

  An axiom within the marketplace is that not all goods possess the same saleability (i.e., the facility of disposing of said good at a convenient time, while it retains its purchasing power). Among modern foragers, ornamentation has been shown to be universal. The practice of collecting rare items, art, and jewelry remains prevalent worldwide today. Collectibles such as those aforementioned nonperishable commodities were not merely symbolic, however. They served a dual purpose, providing a way to transmit value through time and space, thus presenting individuals the ability to hoard value if desired. As Mises wrote in Human Action:

  But one must never forget that the characteristic feature of human society is purposeful cooperation; society is an outcome of human action, i.e., of a conscious aiming at the attainment of ends. (p. 145)

  A commodity’s transition into a store of value occurs spontaneously, driven by human action, without central planning. In terms of legitimacy, this shift is mainly facilitated through the avenue of participation. Paralleling an exhibition of “dollar voting,” members of barter economies actively participate in elevating the saleability of certain goods.

  From Store of Value to Medium of Exchange

  Over time, a commodity that achieves store-of-value status can evolve into a medium of exchange. A commodity that becomes a medium of exchange is able to procure any other good or service on the market. This monetary transition is aided by the legitimacy that coincides with the passage of time. If it’s generally accepted that a good has value at time T, through the phenomenon of continuity, one’s confidence grows that it will have value at time T + 1.

  To illustrate how legitimacy mediates the first two monetary transitions, imagine a village housing Alice, a potassium-deficient pig farmer, and Bob, a vegan with a banana tree. Without a third party, Alice is unable to strike a deal with her neighbor. As the village expands, more goods enter the scene, and a gold mine is discovered. Gold quickly becomes fashionable for ornamental purposes. In this scenario, it would behoove Alice and Bob to exchange their less saleable goods for those possessing higher saleability. All in the village are individually incentivized to recognize the rising saleability of gold, for doing so would provide a tremendous benefit. Aided by the legitimacy that accompanies participation, gold becomes a store of value. Gold’s portability, divisibility, durability, recognizability, and scarcity boosts the yellow metal’s legitimacy from a performance perspective. With the passage of time, gold’s saleability forms a reinforcing feedback loop wherein legitimacy is further established by continuity. At the end of the second phase, gold fulfills the role of a store of value and a medium of exchange within this village.

  Medium of Exchange to Unit of Account

  A commodity that transitions into a unit of account has reached a rarefied position. At this stage, all other goods in the market are priced in terms of said unit of account. Per Menger, “[M]oney has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution.” Governments in the past piggybacked on the medium-of-exchange status of precious metals and then established minting monopolies with the intention of instilling confidence in regard to the genuineness, weight, and fineness of the money supply. Through the stamping of coinage, governments were able to supply different denominations as well as more efficiently collect taxes. Regretfully, per Rothbard, “the emergence of money, while a boon to the human race, also opened a more subtle route for governmental expropriation of resources.”

  The state’s monopoly on the use of violence is an ever-present threat. Legitimacy by brute force allows governments to engage in seigniorage. It similarly gave the US government the power to abandon the gold standard in 1933. Today, the enforcement of legal tender laws by governments stifle competing currencies. The legitimacy that coincides with the ability to incarcerate people facilitates the reckless monetary policies employed by central banks worldwide.

  Bitcoin

  Since bitcoin’s (BTC) genesis block on January 3, 2009, we’ve been witnessing the evolution of a decentralized digital asset. While BTC has been on the receiving end of condemnations for failing to be useful as a medium of exchange, it’s imperative to recognize that this process takes time, just like it did ages ago with gold. Only recently has bitcoin transitioned from a protomoney into a store of value. If BTC becomes entrenched as a store of value, its volatility will decrease, and it will begin its transformation into a medium of exchange.

  As a decentralized protocol, bitcoin has already earned legitimacy through participation and fairness. In the case of the latter, bitcoin has an open-source codebase, along with a transparent immutable ledger. Bitcoin’s participation legitimacy is evidenced by its liquidity, the size of its developer community, and its number of active addresses. With every passing year, confidence in bitcoin’s battle-tested peer-to-peer protocol grows and its brand awareness strengthens. If the Lindy effect is correct, bitcoin’s life expectancy increases proportionally with its current age. Thus, over time, BTC’s legitimacy will be further enhanced through the avenue of continuity if current trends continue.

  Participation, fairness, and continuity, are not enough alone, however. Bitcoin’s transition to a medium of exchange will require legitimacy by performance. This ultimately will depend on the implementation and adoption of scalability solutions (e.g., the Lightning Network). Transactions using layer-two solutions do not occur directly on the base layer (blockchain). If perfected, this technology would exponentially increase the number of transactions per second on the bitcoin network.

  The final stage in bitcoin’s evolution would necessitate a bitcoinization of our world. In this hypothetical future, large swathes of the population would transact in BTC, with no concerns for fiat exchange rates. For these individuals, the preference for sound money over inflationary fiat would be self-evident. Only time will tell if this revolutionary asset can overcome the higher-order acceptance afforded to the state by brute force legitimacy. Unrestricted currency competition opens up the possibility of bitcoin becoming a unit of account, and potentially a global reserve currency.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 21:40

• Baltimore City Police Bust "Ghost Gun" Manufacturing Operation
  Baltimore City Police Bust “Ghost Gun” Manufacturing Operation

  For months we’ve been documenting the rise of “Ghost Guns,” which are untraceable weapons that can be made from 80 percent lower kits or 3D printers, across the Baltimore Metropolitan Area. 

  On Wednesday, one likely source of these unserialized guns was uncovered during a raid of a Northwest Baltimore house by the Baltimore City Police Department (BCPD) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Agents found drugs and gun manufacturing equipment. 

  “Ghost guns are a fairly new but extremely dangerous phenomenon,” said Special Agent in Charge for HSI Baltimore James Mancuso

  Four people were arrested with “large quantities of narcotics, narcotics manufacturing materials, firearms and firearm manufacturing equipment,” according to local news WMAR. 

  

  “These dangerous firearms and drugs have no place in our city. The Baltimore Police Department and all of the partners that worked on this case are sending a strong message to those that wish to cause harm in our city, “We will find you and hold you responsible for the violence in our city,'” said BCPD Commissioner Michael Harrison.

  

  “This operation showcases what law enforcement agencies are capable of achieving when we work together. Criminals and those who refuse to obey the laws don’t stand a chance against a unified team of dedicated officers and agents working toward a common goal,” Mancuso said. “HSI will continue to partner with our law enforcement friends to keep our communities safe and bring those who violate that safety to justice.”

  In the last six months, ghost guns have flooded city streets, making these weapons untraceable if used in crimes.

  BCPD warned in February and June about the worsening situation in the metro area as these weapons are being used in violent crimes. The police department expects ghost gun seizures to hit a record this year. 

  Meanwhile, homicides are estimated to break above the 300-level for the six consecutive years as violent crime spirals out of control. 

  

  Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has blamed the surge in violent crimes on Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s halt on prosecuting minor traffic violations, prostitution, drug possession, and other minor offenses during the virus pandemic.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 21:20

• Watch: Earthquake Swarms Trigger Rockslides In Central California
  Watch: Earthquake Swarms Trigger Rockslides In Central California

  An earthquake rocked Central California, followed by dozens of aftershocks Thursday afternoon. Much of the shaking was recorded in Coleville (Mono County). 

  At 1549 local time, a magnitude 5.9 hit Coleville, approximately 150 miles east of Sacramento, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Shortly after, a swarm of more than two dozen quakes ranging from magnitude 1.0 to 4.6 hit Coleville and surrounding areas.

  

  During the shaking, people across Mono County took out their smartphones and filmed wild scenes of rockslides. 

  Twitter user “Brett Durrant” was traveling on “I395 near Coleville” when he noticed the earthquake started to “wiggle” the road. He uploaded stunning footage of massive rockslides. 

  Earthquake hit us on I395 near Coleville, CA! Boulders all over the road! #earthquake #California #roadtrip @ABC pic.twitter.com/ZoTxLnC6r8

  — Brett Durrant (@brettdurrant) July 9, 2021

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

  Durrant uploaded another video of huge boulders that slid onto the highway.

  pic.twitter.com/2dww9WU625

  — Brett Durrant (@brettdurrant) July 9, 2021

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

  Local news KCRA uploaded a video of another rockslide in Mono County. 

  Whoa! Check out this video of a rockslide in Mono County after several earthquakes were reported in Northern California.

  See more >> https://t.co/aCYGAf44Iz pic.twitter.com/nVGFS96HRo

  — kcranews (@kcranews) July 9, 2021

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

  It’s been reported USGS has upgraded the earthquake to a magnitude of 6.0. The agency is expected to hold a press conference following clusters of quakes. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 21:13

• Majority Of Former Hospitality Workers Refuse To Go Back To Their Old Jobs
  Majority Of Former Hospitality Workers Refuse To Go Back To Their Old Jobs

  While the end of pandemic unemployment benefits in September may finally put an end to the most dysfunctional US labor market in recent history, one where 14 million Americans still collect unemployment benefits yet where the number of job openings has soared to all time highs and is now equal to the number of unemployed workers…

  

  … which in turn is prompting the Fed to continue its $120 billion in monthly QE until such time as the Fed finds “significant progress” on the labor front and giving its a convenient smoke screen to perpetuate its unorthodox monetary policy for years, we wouldn’t be holding our breath for a quick normalization to the US jobs market, and here’s why: according to a survey from Joblist, an employment-search engine, more than half of US hospitality workers wouldn’t go back to their old jobs and over a third aren’t even considering reentering the industry, underscoring the hiring challenges for restaurants, bars and hotels.

  It gets scarier: in a page right out of some socialist “black mirror” episode, the survey of 13,000 job seekers found that no pay increase or incentive would make these workers return to their previous workplace. These former hospitality employees cited wanting – what else – higher pay, a less physically demanding workplace and better benefits. In other words, much more pay and much less work.

  

  Good luck with that.

  The results, according to Bloomberg, show the extent of the unpopularity of the industry as the economy reopens in fits and starts. Meanwhile, the soaring number of unfilled job openings in the country – most in the service sector – point to an inability to meet surging demand from consumers, threatening to slow the overall recovery.

  “The obvious implication is that if firms can’t expand as planned, the outlook for growth will be weaker,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, in a note to clients.

  Addressing this issue, Credit Suisse strategist Robert Griffths said that “probably the most telling part of [Tuesday’s] ISM services release (which fell short of expectations, and drove a fresh leg lower in yields) was the following quotation from one respondent: “Some locations cannot open for business or (have) limited hours, as we cannot staff the restaurant to meet consumer demand.” The number of people in work in the US is still 7.5m below its 2019 peak: you can always find workers, you just have to pay them enough. But for now, companies would rather cut output and stop operating than pay what is necessary to open up their businesses, perhaps because at the marginal wage required to open, they simply wouldn’t make any money.

  Griffiths opines that firms are betting, “probably correctly,” that the worker shortage is temporary and will end in September when the government’s emergency unemployment benefits run out. That’s creating a reluctance to pay more now. As a result, firms will either have to push up wages to satisfy demand, driving a potential inflationary spiral, or hold back on expectation that conditions will normalize, he says. Either outcome leads to an economic mess that persists well into next year at least.

  In any case, the drop in the ISM services index which Griffiths commented on, posted a sharp drop in June from a record print in May, largely due to an unexpected contraction in the employment measure as more people simply refuse to work.

  Separately, yesterday we showed that according to the DOL’s JOLTS report, job openings climbed to a record in May, indicating employers were struggling to fill spots. And while the number of people who voluntarily left their jobs declined, it remained among the highest on record at 3.6 million.

  

  Not surprisingly, the accommodation and food-service industry was among the sectors with the highest number of open positions, along with health care and education. Across the U.S., the leisure and hospitality industry is still down 2.2 million jobs from February, a big chunk of the roughly 6.7 million missing jobs across occupations. That’s despite businesses largely reopening and employers saying they’re desperate for workers.

  “Widespread signs of labor shortages are real and reflect longer-lasting factors,” Capital Economics senior U.S. economist Michael Pearce said in a research note. “While we are confident all three will ultimately be reversed, that could take many years.”

  And that’s why socialist policies like Universal Basic Income, which decimate the labor market and cripple business growth and hiring plans, yet which millions of Americans are now used to, are generally a very bad idea.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 21:00

• Fauci Defends Vaccines As Research Shows Antibodies Don't Protect Against Delta
  Fauci Defends Vaccines As Research Shows Antibodies Don’t Protect Against Delta

  As the world passes 4MM confirmed COVID cases, the NYT has just published new research published in the journal Nature calling into question the efficacy of US-made vaccines in offering protection against the Delta variant.

  

  Shortly before the research was released, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday defended American COVID vaccines, claiming that the jabs developed by Pfizer, Moderna and J&J are all effective against the Delta variant, a mutant strain that has become the obsession of public health officials who claim that it could ignite another wave of the pandemic. But what they don’t tell you is that epidemiologists believe COVID is now endemic in the human population, and that reaching “COVID zero” simply isn’t possible.

  At any rate, while the vaccine makers are salivating at the opportunity to produce lucrative booster shots offering protection against various variants, the new research previewed by the NYT and published in the journal Nature found that the Delta strain is able to bypass the antibodies produced by vaccination or prior infection.

  Delta, which was first identified in India, is believed to be roughly 60% more infectious than the alpha variant – the strain also known as the “Kent Strain”, or B.1.1.7, which was first identified by scientists in England. This week, as the number of new COVID cases climbed by double-digits from the prior week (while hospitalizations and deaths remained stagnant), Delta was declared the dominant variant found in the US.

  Almost as alarming, the researchers found that while Delta is able to effectively evade the antibody response, the Beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa, can do it even more easily.

  Here’s more from the NYT report on the research:

  The researchers looked at blood samples from 103 people who had been infected with the coronavirus. Delta was much less sensitive than Alpha to samples from unvaccinated people in this group, the study found.

  One dose of vaccine significantly boosted the sensitivity, suggesting that people who have recovered from Covid-19 still need to be vaccinated to fend off some variants.

  The team also analyzed samples from 59 people after they had received the first and second doses of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

  Blood samples from just 10 percent of people immunized with one dose of the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were able to neutralize the Delta and Beta variants in laboratory experiments. But a second dose boosted that number to 95 percent. There was no major difference in the levels of antibodies elicited by the two vaccines.

  “A single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca was either poorly or not at all efficient against Beta and Delta variants,” the researchers concluded. Data from Israel and Britain broadly support this finding, although those studies suggest that one dose of vaccine is still enough to prevent hospitalization or death from the virus.

  What’s more, the delta variant was also found to be resistant to antibody-based treatments, like “bamlanivimab”, the monoclonal antibody cocktail produced by Eli Lilly.

  Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci tells reporters that nine out of ten Americans who died from the virus were unvaccinated. Despite the growing number of vaccinated patients who are being infected and seriously sickened, insisted that the “science” shows the vaccines are extremely effective at preventing infection.

  The logic is confusing, but it goes something like this: Delta is scary, so get vaccinated…but vaccines don’t protect against Delta. It’s just the latest reminder that Dr. Fauci & company don’t care about “the science”. They’re here to protect the narrative and the reputation of the vaccines, or else risk undermining the White House.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 20:40

• Why Is A Fusion GPS Attorney Risking Sanctions?
  Why Is A Fusion GPS Attorney Risking Sanctions?

  Authored by TechnoFog via The Reactionary (emphasis ours)

  

  Fusion GPS attorneys have been accused of violating ethics rules in the case they’re defending against Alfa Bank. What do they want to keep hidden?

  Background

  In 2017, the owners of Alfa Bank (we’ll call them Alfa Bank for the purposes of this article) sued Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson for their publication of false statements accusing the bank of “bribery, extortion, and interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.”

  As a reminder, it was Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson who, along with others, created and spread bogus Trump/Russia dossiers to government officials and the media. This was then used to justify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance warrants on Carter Page to spy on Page and those associated with President Trump.

  We previously reported that Alfa Bank filed a motion to compel, asking the Court to require Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson to produce documents withheld as privileged. These documents included communications with Glenn Simpson and others concerning the false Alfa Bank allegations.

  

  Fusion/Simpson have fought the production of the documents, arguing that they are subject to the “attorney-client privilege” and otherwise privileged and not subject to production. We observed these are extremely weak arguments, as the dossiers were political research not subject to the protections afforded by attorney-client privilege. Alfa Bank argued the same to the Court:

  Latest Developments

  Things have taken a strange turn. Today, attorneys for Plaintiffs (Alfa Bank, et. al) informed the Court that Bill Taylor, an attorney for Fusion GPS, was contacting third parties to establish back-channel lines of communication to start settlement talks.

  I’ll let them explain:

  

  Specifically, it is alleged that this settlement overture was made by the Fusion GPS lawyer before discovery allowed each side a look at the other’s “internals.”

  

  As Alfa Bank makes clear, it is against the DC Court’s local rules, as well as the DC Rules of Professional Conduct, to establish such back-channel lines of communication.  

  

  Why this matters.

  This development is quite significant. During litigation, settlement offers are conveyed through the parties’ attorneys – not through back-channels. It seems that the Alfa Bank Plaintiffs are not willing to settle. By reaching out to the third party, the Fusion GPS attorney seems to be desperate to change their minds.

  This leaves us with a question: why would the Fusion GPS attorney violate the rules of conduct – and risk sanctions by the Court?

  We have a feeling that Fusion GPS (or its attorneys… or both) are feeling the heat. There are nearly 500 critically important documents that Fusion GPS has allegedly improperly kept from the other side.

  What will those documents show?

  May 2016 correspondence among Fusion GPS employees/principals, including Glenn Simpson, regarding their early work on Trump/Russia.

  Click here to read the rest, including dates and parties involved in various communications contained within the documents, along with TechnoFog’s takeaway.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 20:20

• Hong Kong Police Arrest Woman "Mourning" July 1 Attacker Who Stabbed A Police Officer Before Killing Himself
  Hong Kong Police Arrest Woman “Mourning” July 1 Attacker Who Stabbed A Police Officer Before Killing Himself

  A woman in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay shopping area was arrested on Wednesday after turning up to the area with flowers — and a box cutter – to “mourn” a week after the death of a man who stabbed a police officer in the back before taking his own life. 

  Days after the stabbing took place, six teens were also arrested in connection with a bomb plot in the area, which some activists have said was the result of Beijing’s “crackdown” in Hong Kong, according to the NY Times. 

  Police were “highly concerned” to find the box cutter, they said on their official Facebook page. “Police are now reviewing and updating the strategies employed in different districts, to specifically stop and search suspicious persons or vehicles, in order to prevent and combat crime,” they wrote. However, it’s possible that police tightening the reins further may only encourage more “activism” from pro-democracy protestors. 

  

  Hong Kong’s No 2 official on Wednesday spoke out against liberal commentators for defending people who laid flowers at the scene of the stabbing. Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu also walked up to the line of free speech by warning “academics and commentators that freedom of speech did not absolve them of social and moral responsibilities”, according to the South China Morning Post. 

  Lee continued: “There are people who tried to play down the adverse consequences and possible harm that the extreme acts could inflict. People, especially those with a legal background, must understand that what they say has an influence on society.”

  “Those who try to play down terrorism will be ‘sinners for 1,000 years’,” he said. 

  Pro-democracy activists have laid flowers at the scene since the July 1 attack, mourning the attacker, who some on social media are calling a “martyr”. 

  Legal scholar Johannes Chan Man-mun said “it was far-fetched for officials to suggest people were promoting terrorism simply by mourning someone’s death,” the report notes.

  

  Lee responded: “In Hong Kong, people can definitely comment on an incident. What I am saying is that people, especially public figures, must bear social responsibility. If they break the law, they need to bear legal responsibility, but their moral responsibility is more important. If they tone down the impact of extreme acts, and someone detonated a bomb that causes casualties, everyone knows who, to a certain extent … has helped terrorism grow.”

  “No unlawful act can be accepted in society. If you find excuses for terrorism … you are encouraging extremists to engage in such acts. We will try to govern the city well. But [in any society], some people will be dissatisfied about their government’s performance, and they must seek solutions through rational and legal means,” he concluded. 

  Activists continue to argue that the government has created “an environment in which lawful, peaceful protest is impossible — leaving residents desperate and, in some cases, radicalized,” the NY Times reported on Tuesday.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 20:00

• Inflation Bombshell: A Market-Based PCE House Rent Measure May Be Coming
  Inflation Bombshell: A Market-Based PCE House Rent Measure May Be Coming

  By Joe Carson, former chief economist at Alliance Bernstein

  The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is researching the shortcomings of the owner’s rent price index it gets from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consumer price index as it plans to change its source data for housing services in the GDP accounts. Shifting to a market-based measure of owners’ rents in the PCE inflation measure would be an inflation bombshell.

  Assuming everything else equal, a market-based measure of owners’ rents would permanently lift the PCE inflation, especially during expansions and the dwindling supply of homes for rent, and put an end to the Fed’s elusive chase for 2% inflation. The level of official rates would be markedly higher and sit above inflation rather than below. Could a simple change in the measurement of reported inflation end the decades-long bull market in bonds and equities?

  Owners Housing Costs

  In its May Survey of Current Business, BEA announced that it planned to include a new current dollar estimate for housing services as part of the annual update to the GDP accounts, using data from the American Community Survey. The article stated that the revisions would affect the current dollar estimates and would not affect the deflators for PCE housing services as they planned to continue to use the CPI rental equivalence measure.

  BEA has a dual responsibility, providing an accurate estimation, as best possible, of the nominal and real output values. So, I asked a senior official at BEA why they didn’t move away from the CPI measure of owners’ rent. Using an improper price deflator for owner-housing would over-state the real value of housing services during cyclical upturns and understate PCE inflation.

  The senior official responded, “We are currently in the process of researching possible shortcomings of the current rental equivalence price.” Saying they are investigating the issue does not mean a change is coming. But in the nearly two decades of researching and writing about how the CPI understates housing inflation, this is the first time a senior official from a government statistical agency (BEA or BLS) stated to me that they were looking into the issue. Progress?

  I shared with BEA the research that I presented in 2005 at a panel session, “Housing Costs in the CPI: What Are We Measuring?” at the National Association of Business Economists Annual Meeting in Chicago. The CPI rent index could be statistically explained with a high degree of accuracy by four factors; the vacancy rate in the rental market, the ratio of the vacancy rates in the rental and owners markets, construction cost inflation, and the change in house prices. Of the four, the vacancy rate is the most critical driver of the change in rents.

  Employing the same approach but replacing the vacancy rate of the rental market with that of the owner market help create an estimated implicit rent for owner-occupied housing. The estimated implicit rent index tracked the BLS series, but a significant divergence appeared when BLS stopped sampling the owners market in 1998. And during the housing cycle of the 2000s, the estimated implicit rent ran considerably faster than the official BLS series; in other words, the change in sampling led to an understatement of CPI and PCE inflation from what would have occurred had the change not been made.

  BLS, in its presentation, agreed “that the rental-vacancy rates influence rents, but that it is not clear how the owner-vacancy rate influences the cost of shelter services for owners.” Common sense would tell you that if the vacancy rate is essential in one market, it is equally significant in the other. And it is the relative shift in vacancy rates that drive different rent patterns. Suppose the vacancy rate is declining in the owner’s market while stagnant or rising in the tenant market. In that case, one will expect the rental rate in owner housing to be increasing relative to the tenant market. But for the past two decades, the CPI rent series shows the opposite tenant’s rents rise faster than owners even with higher vacancy rates.

  

  A market-based measure of owner-occupied rents would have zero effect on the economy. But there would be spillover effects on the economy and finance as policymakers respond to a permanently higher reported PCE inflation rate. That’s because the days of monetary policy trying to achieve a 2% inflation rate would be over and replaced by policymakers attempting to limit the cyclical uptick in inflation. The transition would not be seamless, and the payback in finance could be significant as higher reported inflation increases volatility and risks. Stay tuned.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 19:40

• Pfizer To Seek Authorization For "Booster" Dose To Protect Against Delta Variant
  Pfizer To Seek Authorization For “Booster” Dose To Protect Against Delta Variant

  Hours ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci emphatically defended the efficacy of the three American-made vaccines that have received emergency authorization for use by the FDA. His comments weren’t unprompted: reports out of Israel claiming the Pfizer jab is far less effective than advertised have shaken public confidence in the jabs, at a time where President Biden is about to send people knocking on doors to try and encourage more adults (and increasingly, children) to get vaccinated.

  

  It’s no secret that a handful of southern and western states are lagging the rest of the country in vaccine rollout. But not long after Dr. Fauci made his comments (which were picked up by all the major newswires) the NYT published a sneak peak at new research showing how the Delta variant bypasses the antibodies created by the vaccines, and prior infection with another strain of the virus.

  It’s just the latest example of how the authorities don’t care about the “science” so much as protecting the narrative that helps Big Pharma sell the most vaccines. And while the vast majority of  countries are still struggling with vaccination rates below 1% since they simply can’t get the supplies (while unused jabs are piling up across the US) – and Bill Gates doing everything he can to keep it that way – Pfizer and Moderna have apparently spotted an opportunity.

  Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced Thursday evening that they will seek authorization from the FDA for a third “booster” dose of their COVID vaccines that will offer increased protection against the Delta variant (despite the fact that both Pfizer and its rival Moderna repeatedly insisted that its vaccines are still effective against all known variants including Delta), the Hill reports.

  In a statement, the company referenced the data out of Israel, where government scientists have estimated the real efficacy of the vaccine vs. Delta is somewhere around 64%, while leaving particularly vulnerable patients at risk of severe illness and death. The booster dose would ideally be given within 6 to 12 months post-vaccination.

  “Based on the totality of the data they have to date, Pfizer and BioNTech believe that a third dose may be beneficial within 6 to 12 months following the second dose to maintain highest levels of protection,” the companies said.

  The company said it’s planning to start clinical trials for a reformulated vaccine that’s modified to specifically target the Delta variant. However, the company now believes that a booster dose might be a more effective strategy. The news strikes us as surprisingly aggressive, considering the FDA hasn’t even approved the first generation of vaccines yet (they were all granted emergency authorizations, and the FDA is still evaluating safety data, which is why we know the mRNA jabs cause rare side effects including heart inflammation in a small n umber of men).

  Ultimately, the CDC and FDA will decide whether to recommend a third dose. But they have a pretty strong track record of safeguarding the interests of the Big Pharma companies that produced the vaccines. So, why would they change course now?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 19:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Russia Expels Detained Consul As Estonia Calls Spy Charges A "Setup"
  Russia Expels Detained Consul As Estonia Calls Spy Charges A “Setup”

  Estonia’s St. Petersburg consul has now been given 48 hours to leave Russia following his Tuesday detention by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) over allegations he was “caught red-handed” receiving classified files from a Russian national.

  “On 7 July, Charge d’Affaires of the Estonian Embassy in Russia Ulla Uibo was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The Russian side expressed a strong protest in connection with the intelligence gathering activities by Estonian Consul to St. Petersburg Mart Lätte, which are incompatible with the diplomatic status of the Consul,” an official statement from the ministry read, with Russian media reporting that the top diplomat earlier identified as Mart Lätte has been ordered to leave the country.

  

  The FSB apprehended him Tuesday on charges of “receiving classified information from a Russian citizen.”

  The agency’s full statement had been forceful and insistent on his guilt:

  “The Russian Federal Security Service in St. Petersburg have detained Estonian diplomat — consul of the Consulate General of the Republic of Estonia in St. Petersburg Mart Lätte — caught red-handed while receiving classified materials from a Russian citizen,” the FSB’s Center for Public Relations (CPR) was cited in Russian news agency Interfax as saying.

  The incident appears a tit-for-tat style “answer” to recent allegations which have seen Russian diplomats and military attaches get kicked out of Europe for mirror image charges, and particularly from NATO member Estonia.

  Estonia is rejecting the allegations, instead slamming the ordeal as a “set-up” and “provocation” by Russian intelligence:

  Estonia’s Foreign Ministry said the detention was another example of Russia choosing confrontation with the European Union.

  …The Kremlin has expelled Estonian diplomats two times this year, both in retaliation for Estonia’s expulsion of Russian diplomats.

  #Estonia Calls #Russia‘s Detention Of Its Consul In St. Petersburg A ‘Setup’ https://t.co/93nrCW97px

  — Ville Kostian (@Kostian_V) July 6, 2021

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

  Additionally it comes after the FSB in April arrested Ukrainian consul Alexander Sosonyuk in St. Petersburg on very similar allegations of spying. Sosonyuk had been held and interviewed for hours at an FSB office before release. Upon his presence being declared by Russian authorities as “unwanted” he left the country.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 02:45

• Escobar: The Chinese Miracle, Revisited
  Escobar: The Chinese Miracle, Revisited

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

  Western exceptionalists may continue to throw a fit 24/7 ad infinitum: that will not change the course of history.

  

  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centennial takes place this week at the heart of an incandescent geopolitical equation.

  China, the emerging superpower, is back to the global prominence it enjoyed throughout centuries of recorded history, while the declining Hegemon is paralyzed by the “existential challenge” posed to its fleeting, unilateral dominance.

  A mindset of full spectrum confrontation already sketched in the 2017 U.S. National Security Review is sliding fast into fear, loathing and relentless Sinophobia.

  Add to it the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership graphically exposing the ultimate Mackinderian nightmare of Anglo-American elites jaded by “ruling the world” – for only two centuries at best.

  The Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping may have coined the ultimate formula for what many in the West defined as the Chinese miracle:

  “To seek truth from facts, not from dogmas, whether from East or West”.

  So this was never about divine intervention, but planning, hard work, and learning by trial and error.

  The recent session of the National People’s Congress provides a stark example. Not only it approved a new Five-Year Plan, but in fact a full road map for China’s development up to 2035: three plans in one.

  What the whole world saw, in practice, was the manifest efficiency of the Chinese governance system, capable of designing and implementing extremely complex geoeconomic strategies after plenty of local and regional debate on a vast range of policy initiatives.

  Compare it to the endless bickering and gridlock in Western liberal democracies, which are incapable of planning for the next quarter, not to mention fifteen years.

  The best and the brightest in China actually do their Deng; they couldn’t care less about the politicizing of governance systems. What matters is what they define as a very effective system to make SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) development plans, and put them in practice.

  The 85% popular vote

  At the start of 2021, before the onset of the Year of the Metal Ox, President Xi Jinping emphasized that  “favorable social conditions” should be in place for the CCP centennial celebrations.

  Oblivious to waves of demonization coming from the West, for Chinese public opinion what matters is whether the CCP delivered. And deliver it did (over 85% popular approval). China controlled Covid-19 in record time; economic growth is back; poverty alleviation was achieved; and the civilization-state became a “moderately prosperous society” – right on schedule for the CCP centennial.

  Since 1949, the size of the Chinese economy soared by a whopping 189 times. Over the past two decades, China’s GDP grew 11-fold. Since 2010, it more than doubled, from $6 trillion to $15 trillion, and now accounts for 17% of global economic output.

  No wonder Western grumbling is irrelevant. Shanghai Capital investment boss Eric Li succinctly describes the governance gap; in the U.S., government changes but not policy. In China, government doesn’t change; policy does.

  This is the background for the next development stage – where the CCP will in fact double down on its unique hybrid model of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

  The key point is that the Chinese leadership, via non-stop policy adjustments (trial and error, always) has evolved a model of “peaceful rise” – their own terminology – that essentially respects China’s immense historical and cultural experiences.

  In this case, Chinese exceptionalism means respecting Confucianism – which privileges harmony and abhors conflict – as well as Daoism – which privileges balance – over the boisterous, warring, hegemonic Western model.

  This is reflected in major policy adjustments such as the new “dual circulation” drive, which places greater emphasis on the domestic market compared to China as the “factory of the world”.

  Past and future are totally intertwined in China; what was done in previous dynasties echoes in the future. The best contemporary example is the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – the overarching Chinese foreign policy concept for the foreseeable future.

  As detailed by Renmin University Professor Wang Yiwei, BRI is about to reshape geopolitics, “bringing Eurasia back to its historical place at the center of human civilization.” Wang has shown how “the two great civilizations of the East and the West were linked until the rise of the Ottoman Empire cut off the Ancient Silk Road”.

  Europe moving seaward led to “globalization through colonization”; the decline of the Silk Road; the world’s center shifting to the West; the rise of the U.S.; and the decline of Europe. Now, Wang argues, “Europe is faced with a historic opportunity to return to the world center through the revival of Eurasia.”

  And that’s exactly what the Hegemon will go no holds barred to prevent.

  Zhu and Xi

  It’s fair to argue that Xi’s historical counterpart is the Hongwu emperor Zhu, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The emperor was keen to present his dynasty as a Chinese renewal after Mongol domination via the Yuan dynasty.

  Xi frames it as “Chinese rejuvenation”: “China used to be a world economic power. However, it missed its chance in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the consequent dramatic changes, and was thus left behind and suffered humiliation under foreign invasion …we must not let this tragic history repeat itself.”

  The difference is that 21st century China under Xi will not retreat inward as it did under the Ming. The parallel for the near future would rather be with the Tang dynasty (618-907), which privileged trade and interactions with the world at large.

  To comment on the torrent of Western misinterpretations of China is a waste of time. For the Chinese, the overwhelming majority of Asia, and for the Global South, much more relevant is to register how the American imperial narrative – “we are the liberators of Asia-Pacific” – has now been totally debunked.

  In fact Chairman Mao may end up having the last laugh. As he wrote in 1957, “if the imperialists insist on launching a third world war, it is certain that several hundred million more will turn to socialism, and then there will not be much room left on earth for the imperialists; it is also likely that the whole structure of imperialism will utterly collapse.”

  Martin Jacques, one of the very few Westerners who actually studied China in depth, correctly pointed out how “China has enjoyed five separate periods when it has enjoyed a position of pre-eminence – or shared pre-eminence – in the world: part of the Han, the Tang, arguably the Song, the early Ming, and the early Qing.”

  So China, historically, does represent continuous renewal and “rejuvenation” (Xi). We’re right in the middle of another one of these phases – now conducted by a CCP dynasty that, incidentally, does not believe in miracles, but in hardcore planning. Western exceptionalists may continue to throw a fit 24/7 ad infinitum: that will not change the course of history.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 02:00

• The Second Amendment's Right To Bear Arms: What It Means
  The Second Amendment’s Right To Bear Arms: What It Means

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

  – The Second Amendment to the US Constitution

  You can largely determine where a person will fall in the debate over gun control and the Second Amendment based on their view of government and the role it should play in our lives.

  

  In the first group are those who see the government as a Nanny State, empowered to look out for the best interests of the populace, even when that means overriding our rights as individuals and free will.

  These individuals tend to interpret the Second Amendment to mean that only members of law enforcement and the military are entitled to own a gun. Case in point: President Biden recently (and wrongly) asserted that “the Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon.”

  In the second group are those who see the government as inherently corrupt.

  These individuals tend to view the Second Amendment as a means of self-defense, whether that involves defending themselves against threats to their freedoms or threats from individuals looking to harm them. For instance, eleven men were recently arrested for traveling on the interstate with unlicensed guns that were not secured in a case. The group, reportedly associated with a sovereign citizens group, claimed to be traveling from Rhode Island to Maine for militia training.

  And then there is a third group, made up of those who view the government as neither good nor evil, but merely a powerful entity that, as Thomas Jefferson recognized, must be bound “down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” To this group, the Second Amendment’s assurance of the people’s right to bear arms is no different from any other right enshrined in the Constitution: to be safeguarded, exercised prudently and maintained.

  How to exercise this right is the question that keeps jockeying for supremacy before the U.S. Supreme Court. After declaring more than a decade ago that citizens have a Second Amendment right to own a gun in one’s home for self-defense, the Court has now been tasked with deciding whether the Constitution also protects the right to carry a gun outside the home. The case, NY State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Corlett, takes issue with a state law that requires a license in order to carry a concealed gun outside the home.

  On the heels of Corlett is another legal challenge to the state’s authority to regulate—or ban outright—gun ownership outside the home. The attorneys general of 21 states—including Louisiana, Arizona, Montana, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming—have filed an amicus brief in Young v. Hawaii asking the Supreme Court to uphold Hawaiians’ Second Amendment rights to bear arms outside their homes.

  Unfortunately, while the various federal circuit courts of appeal continue to disagree over the exact nature of the rights protected by the Second Amendment, the government itself has made its position extremely clear.

  When it comes to gun rights in particular, and the rights of the citizenry overall, the U.S. government has adopted a “do what I say, not what I do” mindset. Nowhere is this double standard more evident than in the government’s attempts to arm itself to the teeth, all the while viewing as suspect anyone who dares to legally own a gun, let alone use one in self-defense.

  Indeed, while it still technically remains legal to own a firearm in America, possessing one can now get you pulled over, searched, arrested, subjected to all manner of surveillance, treated as a suspect without ever having committed a crime, shot at, and killed. (This same rule does not apply to law enforcement officials, however, who are armed to the hilt and rarely given more than a slap on the wrists for using their weapons against unarmed individuals.)

  Now the Biden Administration is setting its sights on gun control.

  Mark my words: gun control legislation, especially in the form of red flag gun laws, which allow the police to remove guns from people “suspected” of being threats, will become yet another means by which to subvert the Constitution and sabotage the rights of the people.

  Giving police the power to preemptively raid homes in order to neutralize a potential threat is a powder keg waiting for a lit match.

  Under these red flag laws, what happened to Duncan Lemp—who was gunned down in his bedroom during an early morning, no-knock SWAT team raid on his family’s home—could very well happen to more people.

  At 4:30 a.m. on March 12, 2020, in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that had most of the country under a partial lockdown and sheltering at home, a masked SWAT team—deployed to execute a “high risk” search warrant for unauthorized firearms—stormed the suburban house where 21-year-old Duncan, a software engineer and Second Amendment advocate, lived with his parents and 19-year-old brother.

  The entire household, including Lemp and his girlfriend, was reportedly asleep when the SWAT team directed flash bang grenades and gunfire through Lemp’s bedroom window.

  Lemp was killed and his girlfriend injured.

  No one in the house that morning, including Lemp, had a criminal record.

  No one in the house that morning, including Lemp, was considered an “imminent threat” to law enforcement or the public, at least not according to the search warrant.

  So what was so urgent that militarized police felt compelled to employ battlefield tactics in the pre-dawn hours of a day when most people are asleep in bed, not to mention stuck at home as part of a nationwide lockdown?

  According to police, they were tipped off that Lemp was in possession of “firearms.”

  Thus, rather than approaching the house by the front door at a reasonable hour in order to investigate this complaint—which is what the Fourth Amendment requires—police instead strapped on their guns, loaded up their flash bang grenades and acted like battle-crazed warriors.

  This is what happens when you adopt red flag gun laws, which Maryland did in 2018, painting anyone who might be in possession of a gun—legal or otherwise—as a threat that must be neutralized.

  Meanwhile, the government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration placing orders for hundreds of millions of rounds of hollow point bullets. Moreover, under the auspices of a military “recycling” program, which allows local police agencies to acquire military-grade weaponry and equipment, $4.2 billion worth of equipment has been transferred from the Defense Department to domestic police agencies since 1990. Included among these “gifts” are tank-like 20-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, tactical gear, and assault rifles.

  Ironically, while the Biden administration’s gun control efforts have helped to spike gun sales nationally, the government has made no effort to curtail its own addiction to weapons of war, a significant number of which have conveniently been “lost” and used in violent crimes in communities across the U.S.

  We’re talking about rifles, pistols, machine guns, shot guns, and grenades. Some of these weapons were lost through gross negligence. Others, however, were trafficked by military police.

  The U.S. military boasts weapons the rest of the world doesn’t have, and it continues to develop even more weaponry, each deadlier than the last.

  Make no mistake: every last one of these weapons will eventually make its way back to domestic police forces to be used against the American people.

  Included in the government’s military arsenal are armed, surveillance Reaper drones capable of reading a license plate from over two miles away; an AA12 Atchisson Assault Shotgun that can shoot five 12-gauge shells per second and “can fire up to 9,000 rounds without being cleaned or jamming”; an ADAPTIV invisibility cloak that can make a tank disappear or seemingly reshape it to look like a car; a PHASR rifle capable of blinding and disorienting anyone caught in its sights; a Taser shockwave that can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button; an XM2010 enhanced sniper rifle with built-in sound and flash suppressors that can hit a man-sized target nine out of ten times from over a third of a mile away; and an XM25 “Punisher” grenade launcher that can be programmed to accurately shoot grenades at a target up to 500 meters away.

  What the government has yet to acknowledge, however, is that its own gun violence—inflicted on unarmed individuals by battlefield-trained SWAT teams, militarized police, and bureaucratic government agents trained to shoot first and ask questions later—is not making America any safer.

  Indeed, the U.S. government may be the most egregious perpetrator of gun violence in America, bar none.

  All the while gun critics continue to clamor for bans on military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and armor-piercing bullets, the U.S. military is passing them out to domestic police forces.

  Under the auspices of a military “recycling” program, which allows local police agencies to acquire military-grade weaponry and equipment, more than $4.2 billion worth of equipment has been transferred from the Defense Department to domestic police agencies since 1990. Included among these “gifts” are tank-like, 20-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, tactical gear, and assault rifles.

  There are now reportedly more bureaucratic (non-military) government agents armed with high-tech, deadly weapons than U.S. Marines.

  While Americans have to jump through an increasing number of hoops in order to own a gun, the government is arming its own civilian employees to the hilt with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment, authorizing them to make arrests, and training them in military tactics.

  Among the agencies being supplied with night-vision equipment, body armor, hollow-point bullets, shotguns, drones, assault rifles and LP gas cannons are the Smithsonian, U.S. Mint, Health and Human Services, IRS, FDA, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Education Department, Energy Department, Bureau of Engraving and Printing and an assortment of public universities.

  This is the double standard at play here.

  How is it that while violence has become our government’s calling card, from the more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by heavily armed, black-garbed commandos and the increasingly rapid militarization of local police forces across the country to the drone killings used to target insurgents, “we the people” are the ones who must be regulated, restricted and banned from owning a weapon?

  If we’re truly going to get serious about gun violence, why not start by scaling back the American police state’s weapons of war?

  I’ll tell you why: because the government has no intention of scaling back on its weapons.

  We’ve allowed ourselves to get so focused on debating who or what is responsible for gun violence—the guns, the gun owners, or our violent culture—and whether the Second Amendment “allows” us to own guns that we’ve overlooked the most important and most consistent theme throughout the Constitution: the fact that it is not merely an enumeration of our rights but was intended to be a clear shackle on the government’s powers.

  When considered in the context of prohibitions against the government, the Second Amendment reads as a clear rebuke against any attempt to restrict the citizenry’s gun ownership.

  As such, it is as necessary an ingredient for maintaining that tenuous balance between the citizenry and their republic as any of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, especially the right to freedom of speech, assembly, press, petition, security, and due process.

  Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas understood this tension well. “The Constitution is not neutral,” he remarked, “It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.”

  In this way, the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights in their entirety stand as a bulwark against a police state.

  To our detriment, these rights have been steadily weakened, eroded and undermined in recent years. Yet without any one of them, including the Second Amendment right to own and bear arms, we are that much more vulnerable to the vagaries of out-of-control policemen, benevolent dictators, genuflecting politicians, and overly ambitious bureaucrats.

  When all is said and done, the debate over gun ownership really has little to do with gun violence in America. It’s also not even a question of whether Americans need weapons to defend themselves against any overt threats to our safety or wellbeing.

  Truly, the debate over gun ownership in America is really a debate over who gets to call the shots and control the game.

  In other words, it’s that same tug-of-war that keeps getting played out in every confrontation between the government and the citizenry over who gets to be the master and who is relegated to the part of the servant.

  The Constitution, with its multitude of prohibitions on government overreach, is clear on this particular point. As 20th century libertarian Edmund A. Opitz observed in 1964, “No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words ‘no’ and ‘not’ employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.”

  In a nutshell, as I make clear in Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms reflects not only a concern for one’s personal defense, but serves as a check on the political power of the ruling authorities.

  It represents an implicit warning against governmental encroachments on one’s freedoms, the warning shot over the bow to discourage any unlawful violations of our persons or property.

  As such, it reinforces that necessary balance in the citizen-state relationship. As George Orwell, who plays a starring role in my new novel The Erik Blair Diaries, noted, “That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer’s cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 07/08/2021 – 00:05

• Surprise!? Womens' Rights Group Urge Newsom To End Prison Transgender-Mixing After Numerous Attacks, Rapes
  Surprise!? Womens’ Rights Group Urge Newsom To End Prison Transgender-Mixing After Numerous Attacks, Rapes

  File this under “another liberal experiment blows up that every rational thinking human could have seen coming”…

  

  On January 1, a law went into effect in California (foreshadowing Democrats’ “Equality Act” bill – requiring people to be treated according to their gender identity, not biological sex), holding that state prisoners must be housed in a facility consistent with their gender identity, regardless of their anatomy.

  Six months later and guess what has occurred…

  There has been numerous complaints of assaulted, abused, and traumatized women at the hands of male inmates transferred into their prisons.

  

  And one group of traditionally progressive activists – the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) – has sent a letter to Goverror Gavin Newsom, accusing the state of violating the constitutional rights of incarcerated women by allowing men into their living quarters to “prey on women.”

  WoLF Legal Director Lauren Adams said:

  “We are working with a woman who was punched in the face so hard by a new transfer that she couldn’t chew for three days. He was taken away and released back in a different yard with no restrictions,” Adams said.

  “He was her cellmate. She had to sleep with him.”

  Other women have been sexually abused in the past and must now contend with nude men sharing communal showers, Adams said.

  “One woman went in there with two naked men showering who still had penises,” Adams added.

  “It was incredibly traumatic and scary, to know for, [possibly], the rest of their lives they are going to be subjected to this.”

  Yahoo News reports that the state currently has 273 transfer requests; 266 are from people housed at male institutions requesting to be transferred to a female institution, and seven are from people at female institutions requesting to be transferred to a male institution, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

  Currently, 24 male prisoners have been transferred to female institutions.

  In a shockingly truthful (and sure to get you canceled) comment, WoLF theorizes that many men transferring into women’s prisons are not transgender but are just trying to escape their current living situation.

  “A lot of these men checking the box and trying to get transfers are probably trying to save their lives. I wouldn’t want to be in the men’s prison,” Adams said.

  “You are giving them a way to get out of that, but now it’s the women who are in danger.”

  WoLF is asking the governor to halt all new transfers and remove the inmates who have already transferred until a safety assessment can be made.

  Finally, remember Karen?

  The most famous transgender prison rapist in England is a man calling himself Karen White who was sent to prison after stabbing a neighbor. Despite a history that included sexual assault, exposure, sexually abusing minors, and cruelty to animals, he ended up in a women’s prison, where he promptly sexually assaulted women.

  

  The problem isn’t limited to England.

  It seems “Karen” has come to America… just as we warned.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 23:45

• Almost Overnight, Standards Of Color-Blind Merit Tumble Across American Society
  Almost Overnight, Standards Of Color-Blind Merit Tumble Across American Society

  By Richard Bernstein, of RealClearInvestigations

  A broad revolution is underway in the United States as traditional standards used to measure achievement and provide opportunity are being rejected by schools, corporations, and governments in favor of quotas based on race and gender.

  On taking office, President Biden signaled that the nation’s long-held principle of equality for all had come to an end, signing executive orders to advance racial equity “across the Federal Government” — equity referring to the idea that merely treating everybody the same is not enough, and that an equal outcome for all people has to be the goal.

  Over the last few months, many Ivy League and flagship state universities have moved away from a seemingly neutral measure long used to assess applicants – standardized test scores – to give minorities a better shot at admissions.

  In May, Hewlett-Packard, the technology company with 50,000 employees worldwide, decreed that by 2030 half of its leadership positions and more than 30% of its technicians and engineers have to be women and that the number of minorities should “meet or exceed” their representation in the tech industry workforce. 

  That same month, United Airlines announced that half of the 5,000 pilots it would train at its proprietary flight school between now and 2030 will be women or people of color, with scholarships provided by United and JPMorgan Chase helping with tuition. There was nothing in the United announcement showing that there were enough qualified blacks and women in the pipeline so that a black/female quota of 2,500 new pilots could be filled, and nothing about what the company would do if there weren’t enough qualified candidates.

  Delta Airlines, Ralph Lauren, and Wells Fargo are among other major American companies to announce hiring quotas recently as a way to redress racial imbalances, according to Bloomberg News. 

  These are just some of the many “woke” initiatives embraced by many of the pillars of American society in the year since social justice protests erupted across the country in response to the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

  Supporters argue that racial preferences and quotas are necessary to end deeply entrenched disparities. Critics say that they are a new form of discrimination, no more justified than old forms that are widely rejected. And while the stated goal of affirmative action was to simply eliminate unfair discrimination, the equity movement is rooted in a far more expansive and pessimistic view of the United States as irredeemably white supremacist, a view meant to continually challenge American institutions and values.

  The rapid transition from equality of treatment to equality of outcomes tests one of the basic post-civil rights principles of American life, namely that the same standards should be applied to all people. Once a measure is applied, not to the unique individual but to that individual’s group identity, the idea that there are neutral, common, universally applicable standards gives way to something else, something subjective and political, with different measures applied to different people, depending on their sex, race, or other characteristics.

  The issue of standards, moreover, is not just a matter of values or fairness. With the United States falling behind other countries in math and science, most notably China, standards are matters of competitiveness and national security — even as the military, CIA and other federal agencies embrace equity.

  

  But discontent over the pace of racial progress, fueled in the past year by the Black Lives Matter movement, has led to an explicit rejection of meritocracy and a call for old standards to make way for new ones. Explaining the company’s adoption of quotas, Hewlett-Packard Chief Diversity Officer Lesley Slaton Brown said the COVID-19 epidemic and the George Floyd murder has “really allowed us to do the double-click down on racial equality and the systematic and structural discrimination that exists.”

  In the recent past, that effort often involved working with the existing ideological framework of equality of opportunity and merit to identify worthy candidates. Now, the trend is to reject and redefine those standards.

  “As a community, we need a more comprehensive framework for what constitutes ‘best’ in hiring faculty and staff,” Gregory Washington,  the president of George Mason University in Virginia, wrote in an email sent recently to the entire school. Washington, who is GMU’s first ever black president, denied that his call for greater diversity amounted to a quota system; instead, he said, “it is a recognition of the reality that our society’s future lies in multicultural inclusion.”

  Certainly it is true that the American future is multicultural. Still, to say that the concept of “best” needs to be redefined in racial terms is already a significant departure from the idea of neutral standards. To go from there to the notion that meritocracy is a racist stratagem is a sea change, but there is a lot of evidence that that is exactly where society is going, in both small ways and large.

  In May, the Princeton University classics department announced that in an effort to combat “systemic racism,” it would no longer require classics majors to take Latin or Greek. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, but certainly it says that what was until recently a foundational qualification for the study of “the classics” — the ability to read texts in their original language — no longer applies, because some students, especially minority ones, didn’t have the opportunity to study Latin or Greek in high school. But is it really OK for future professors of classics not to know Latin? Is that simply a new standard or a decline in standards?

  From a very different area of American life, none other than the very august American Medical Association announced in May a new Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity in medical education and practice.

  The 80-page plan calls for, among other things, an expansion of “medical school and physician education to include equity, anti-racism, structural competency, public health and social sciences, critical race theory, and historical basis of disease.” It doesn’t say whether adding those subjects to the medical school curriculum, which sounds a lot like instruction in the indelibly racist nature of America, will take away time from such other subjects as anatomy, microbiology, and genetics that are clearly more germane to the practice of medicine.

  “Scientific evidence tells us that racism has caused significant harm to people – and their health – throughout our nation’s history,” Gregory E. Harmon, M.D., the AMA’s president elect, who is white, said in an email to RCI, explaining the initiative.

  Perhaps the most striking passages in the AMA document are those that have to do with equality and meritocracy, which it calls “malignant narratives.”

  “Seeking to treat everyone the ‘same’ ignores the historical legacy of disinvestment and deprivation,” the document says of equality, while meritocracy is “a narrative that attributes success and failure to individual abilities and merits. It does not address the centuries of unequal treatment that have historically robbed communities of the vital resources needed to thrive.”

  Some critics have noted that the Strategic Plan says nothing about competency; several doctors posting to the blog Legal Insurrection asked if members of the AMA would be comfortable allowing them or their families to be treated, as one of them put it, “by those who have MD attached to their names solely in the name of equity … not because of meritocracy or qualification.”

  The AMA rejects that view.  “Not only must we follow our oath to do no harm,” Harmon said in his email to RCI, “we must also prevent the harm that that inequity inflicts on communities and our nation.”

  There is, of course, some truth to the assertion that standards have been misused in the past. There was a time not that long ago when social connections, a genteel manner, even just having an Anglo-Saxon name, not to mention being white, were deemed to be qualifications in themselves, while to be black, female, or gay was disqualifying.

  But what the AMA document, like “woke” doctrine in general, ignores is that the national effort to redress past wrongs has been going on for a long time in American life, making the matter of racial advantage and disadvantage more a matter of multivariable calculus than simple arithmetic. To be sure, there are racial imbalances. Only 3.2% of senior corporate executives, for example, are black. It’s easy to see the demand for this number to increase, but there are many questions, involving both practicality and principle, about the use of racial quotas to achieve that goal.

  

  On the practical side are the people hurt by them, both those unprepared for the roles as well as the qualified passed over. There is also the question of whether efforts like those at United and HP may simply run into the inconvenient fact that, for many complicated reasons, there simply aren’t enough qualified minority candidates around to meet goals for rapid increases in their representation.

  According to the National Science Foundation, black men and women, who are 12% of the general population, make up just 5% of working engineers — this despite affirmative action programs and numerous other efforts over the years to recruit minorities into engineering programs in colleges and universities. How dramatic increases in a very short period can happen now remains unexplained.

  As for American medicine, it’s been a very long time since it was a white male preserve, as just about any visit to a large urban hospital, with their many Filipino and Indian physicians both male and female, will show. For several years now, more women have been accepted to medical schools than men, but while the numbers of blacks going to medical school has also increased, only 5% of physicians in the country are black or African American.  

  This is the case even though black students are now accepted into medical school at almost the same rate as whites, 41% of black applicants compared to 45% of whites. Medical schools, like other professional schools, have, moreover, been eager to increase these numbers for years, so that blacks, whites, and Asians are already being admitted under different criteria. In 2018, Princeton Review reports, blacks accepted at medical schools scored an average 505.7 on the MCAT, the standardized med school admission test – putting them in the 69th percentile of all test takers. By comparison, the average score for admitted whites was 512.2 (the 86th percentile) and 513.8 for Asians. Average undergraduate GPAs: 3.53 for blacks, 3.77 for both whites and Asians.

  The Strategic Plan offers no concrete suggestions for further increasing the numbers of blacks in medical school, and it makes no analysis of whether it’s even possible to do that. Is there a pool of qualified candidates that, somehow, is not being considered?  Should medical school admission committees admit some of the applicants rejected in the past, even though that would increase the gap in test scores and GPAs between them and other students? Will teaching critical race theory to existing medical students increase minority representation? 

  Asked about medical school admissions, Harmon pointed to studies showing that medical students with “midrange” scores on the MCAT “mostly succeed in medical school,” though “there is a tendency to overlook these applicants in favor of those with higher scores.” 

  The authors of the studies argue that admitting students with lower MCAT scores would “diversify the physician workforce.” But given that black students are already being admitted at a significantly lower standard, at least as defined by MCAT, than whites and Asians, how much lower can the standard go? The studies give no answer to that question.

  The AMA Plan also fails to address the question of principle raised by applying different standards to different groups. Is it fair to effectively prevent some qualified individuals from becoming doctors because their gender or race requires them to score higher than other genders or races? It’s the same question that applies to the different standards applied to Asians, compared to both whites and blacks, in school admissions, a matter that is the subject of several lawsuits.

  “We are taught to study for the test, to get good grades,” Kenny Xu, author of a forthcoming book “An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy,” said in an email. “Why? Because those good grades and test scores will, and should, lead to rewards in the future.

  “How would you feel if someone who studied a third as much as you did got an opportunity you’ve been wanting for years?  That would be absolutely unfair. And yet, that is what woke ideology does.”

  

  Despite views like those, standardized tests have been under assault for years as obstacles to minority advancement, especially tests for elite high schools in such cities as New York, Boston, and San Francisco, and the SAT used for college admissions.

  Elite schools including Lowell High School in San Francisco have dropped their admissions test in favor of a lottery system. This may increase racial diversity, but will the school be able to maintain its high academic standards?  The same question applies to other elite schools such as the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, rated by U.S. News as the best high school in the country, which is also jettisoning its former standardized test in favor of “holistic” admissions.

  Similarly, last year, in what might prove to be a watershed decision, the regents of the University of California voted to phase out the SAT in admissions for the entire system, whose nine campuses make up the largest public university in the country.

  All of this raises the possibility that the elimination of common, neutral standards will bring an end to the existence of elite schools for very gifted, very high-achieving students of the sort who will ensure American competitiveness in the future.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if in two or three years standardized testing is eliminated altogether,” William Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell who runs the Legal Insurrection website, said in a Zoom interview. “You see people saying that the whole concept of meritocracy is a device to maintain white supremacy. But if you eliminate testing that has commonality to it, how do you judge people?”

  A similar rejection of the idea of merit lies behind another initiative in California, where the state Board of Education has adopted a “Framework” proposing that all gifted programs in math instruction be eliminated, along with all “acceleration” and “tracking” – that is, grouping students in different classes according to their math aptitude.

  “The subject and community of mathematics has a history of exclusion and filtering rather than inclusion and welcoming,” the Framework states. “We reject ideas of natural gifts and talents … and the cult of genius.” Very early on, women and minorities get “fixed labels of ‘giftedness’ and are taught differently” in a system “designed for privileged white boys,” the Framework says.

  No doubt, there’s truth to the idea that some children are discouraged early when it comes to math, and that that holds them back. But the idea, as the Framework puts it, that “all students are capable of becoming powerful mathematics learners and users” seems utopian at the very least. Can all students become great mathematicians, violinists, or professional athletes, or is the very difference in natural abilities due to labels arbitrarily applied to children largely on the basis of their sex or race?     

  Moreover, the assertion that the system is “designed for privileged white boys” runs into someinconvenient facts: one is that plenty of “privileged white boys” can’t do math to save their lives; another  is that Asians, both boys and girls, many of them immigrants from very modest circumstances, outperform these privileged white boys by considerable margins.  In addition, overall, girls get at least equal or higher grades than boys in math from elementary to high school, despite the stereotyping “labels” that, according to the Math Framework, hold them back.

  As for gifted programs favoring whites while keeping minorities out, according to the very statistics included in the Math Framework, 32% of Asian boys and girls in California are in “gifted” programs, compared to 8% of whites and 4% of blacks. So it would seem indisputable that to eliminate these programs would have the effect of placing many Asians, but not many whites, in slower classes.

  The solution to math disparities, according to the Framework, is to group all students of all aptitudes in the same class and for teachers to give “differentiated work and more open math questions” to all of them.

  The Framework doesn’t say exactly why this would be better than grouping more proficient math students in their own classes. Emails asking that and other questions were acknowledged by the Board of Education press office, but it did not respond to the actual questions.

  American high school students have steadily been falling behind their Asian and European counterparts in math and science, most recently ranking 37th in the PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, which gives a test to 15-year-olds in countries around the world. China’s Shanghai ranks No.1.

  The California Math Framework does not acknowledge that in Shanghai, the entirely opposite ideas about testing and standards are followed and implemented, with students tested early and often and placed into classes in accordance with their scores.

  “Regarding minorities in particular, public K-12 education all too often produces students unprepared to compete, thus leading to large disparities in admissions at universities, graduate programs and faculty positions,” three math professors recently wrote in the online journal Persuasion.

  “This disparity is then condemned as a manifestation of structural racism. Resulting in administrative measures to lower the evaluation criteria. Lowering standards at all levels leads eventually to even worse outcomes and larger disparities, and so on in a downward spiral.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 23:25

• Delta Could Disrupt Emerging World's Post-COVID Recovery, Goldman Warns
  Delta Could Disrupt Emerging World’s Post-COVID Recovery, Goldman Warns

  Now that the Delta variant has revived fears about renewed COVID outbreaks from the US to Europe to Asia, a team of analysts at Goldman Sachs has published its analysis of the risks posed by the mutated strain. The conclusion: since full vaccination remains effective at preventing infections, countries with low vaccination rates are the most vulnerable to another outbreak of the Delta variant.

  As Goldman pointed out in an earlier note, the Delta variant represents a growing share of new COVID cases.

  

  Accordingly, the Goldman team sees the risk of high hospitalizations and fatalities, followed by economy-damaging lockdowns, as rising most rapidly in Russia, South Africa, and Indonesia.

  

  However, a more important takeaway involves the difficulty of achieving “COVID zero”, something no country – not even China – has managed to achieve. If nothing else, the rise of the Delta variant likely increases the risk that COVID will become endemic like the flu.

  Of course, most countries have already come to terms with the fact that “COVID zero” probably isn’t a realistic public health goal.

  But in Australia, Israel and China, it could complicate authorities efforts to move past the crisis (though Goldman expects a gradual H2 recovery in consumption as infections “stabilize” in Australia and continue to decline in China).

  The most likely scenario implies a slightly slower global reopening, with the risk highest in countries with low vaccination rates. Still, “our global GDP growth forecasts of 6.6% in 2021 and 4.8% in 2022 therefore remain optimistic in absolute terms, although they are now closer to the consensus than at any point since April 2020.”

  

  The rest of Goldman’s note consisted of a Q&A where analysts answered clients’ questions:

  Q. The Delta variant (first identified in India) is estimated to be 50-60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant (first identified in the UK). How effective are the Western vaccines against the Delta variant?

  A. While the Delta variant weighs on the efficacy of vaccines (and especially single doses) at preventing infections (especially asymptomatic infections), Pfizer and AstraZeneca full vaccinations remain highly effective at protecting hospitalizations, and Moderna and J&J lab results look encouraging

  A study from Public Health England estimates elevated Delta-specific efficacies at preventing hospitalizations of 94%/96% after one/two Pfizer doses and 71%/92% after one/two AstraZeneca doses. Public Health England estimates lower efficacies at preventing symptomatic disease after two doses for Pfizer of 88% and 60% for AstraZeneca. Similarly, a new study from Canada also estimates an 87% efficacy of full Pfizer vaccinations to prevent symptomatic disease. The symptomatic efficacy, however, is lower after one dose and estimated at one-third for both Pfizer and AstraZeneca in the English study, and 56%/72% for Pfizer/Moderna in the Canadian study

  Yesterday, Israel’s Health Ministry reported a 64% effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in preventing any infections and a 93% effectiveness in preventing hospitalizations. The 64% estimate likely corresponds to the effectiveness to prevent both asymptomatic and symptomatic infections while the studies from England and Canada and clinical trials assess symptomatic infections. Taken at face value, these headline numbers suggest a reduced ability of the Pfizer vaccine to stop the transmission of Delta infections relative to previously dominant strains, although the “additional” infections are more likely to be asymptomatic.

  Finally, in vitro studies from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson demonstrate their ability to neutralize the Delta variant with neutralizing titers that were lower compared to the ancestral strain but higher than for the Beta variant (first identified in South Africa), where high efficacy against severe disease was clinically demonstrated.

  Q. How effective are the Eastern vaccines against the Delta variant?

  A. Although data remain very limited, Chinese and Russian expert commentary and clinical trial results from India’s Bharat Biotech suggest that the Sinopharm, Sputnik V, and Bharat Biotech vaccines provide solid protection against severe disease.

  Q. What about Delta’s impact on reinfection risk?

  A. Although the data are particularly limited, research and experts suggest that prior infections continue to provide some protection against Delta, especially against severe disease.

  Q. The UK is experiencing a surge in infections although hospitalizations and especially fatalities remain relatively low (Exhibit 2). What drives this “decoupling” and will it continue?

  A. This mostly reflects the concentration of new infections among younger individuals but also a stronger vaccine protection against hospitalizations than against infections (especially for AstraZeneca). We therefore expect this decoupling to continue.

  

  

  Q. Are infections and hospitalizations/fatalities also “decoupling” outside of the UK?

  A. Most other economies with high vaccination rates and Delta outbreaks are also experiencing this decoupling, although it is particularly pronounced in the UK. We expect hospitalizations to remain relatively low in high vaccination countries.

  Q. Does the virus still matter for activity in North America and Europe if hospitalizations stay low?

  A. Yes. The virus GDP drag should, however, be much diminished and reflects travel restrictions, consumer risk aversion, and lingering softness in labor supply

  Q. Twenty-two US states have vaccinated less than half of their populations (Exhibit 11) and infections are rising rapidly in several low vaccination states. Do we not expect sharp Delta-induced rises in hospitalizations and substantial economic damage in these states too?

  

  A. While hospitalizations have already picked up in Arkansas, Missouri, and Nevada and are likely to increase further, we expect relatively limited economic damage for three reasons. First, higher elderly vaccination rates should limit the increase in hospitalizations (Exhibit 11). Second, the generally higher immunity rates from prior infections in these states should also limit the increase in hospitalizations (Exhibit 12, left panel and appendix). Third, the virus sensitivity of economic activity tends to be lower in low vaccination states (Exhibit 12, right panel).

  

  Q. The Delta variant has raised the theoretical bar to achieve herd immunity to probably at least 85% of the population. Does vaccine hesitancy imply that countries will never approach such high immunity levels?

  A. Not necessarily, and many medical experts believe the coronavirus will eventually turn from a pandemic to an endemic stage. The Delta variant likely implies higher ultimate vaccination rates (and immunity rates). In fact, further outbreaks appear to be sharply boosting demand in several countries, including the US, China, Australia, Israel, and especially Portugal (Exhibit 13).

  

  * * *

  Source: Goldman Sachs

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 23:05

• Remington CEO: "We're Working 24/7 To Get Ammo Back On The Shelves" 
  Remington CEO: “We’re Working 24/7 To Get Ammo Back On The Shelves” 

  Shell shocked consumers have experienced a nationwide ammunition shortage since the virus pandemic began. In a video update Tuesday, Remington Ammunition President Jason Vanderbrink said the company is working “24/7 to get ammo back on the shelves.” 

  Vanderbrink said, “We’re working 24/7 so that you can find Remington ammo back on the shelves at your local retailer.” He provides a map of the country where ammo is reappearing on store shelves. 

  

  He addressed the ammo shortage and said, “We know it has been hard finding Remington ammo, but rest assure that our all-American factory in Arkansas is working 24/7 to get ammo made.” 

  Vanderbrink shows that Remington ammo is returning to retailers “all over the country.” 

  In a separate video in late April, Vanderbrink spoke of an ammo shortage and surging prices per round. He also addressed bullet primers, a device responsible for initiating the propellant combustion that pushes the bullet out of the barrel, were also in short supply. 

  However, relief has been coming to the ammo market as prices per round for various calibers have decreased since May. Though we must note, it’s unlikely that prices will return to pre-COVID levels. 

  

   On a percentage basis, the cost per round compared to pre-COVID is coming down but still elevated. 

  

  The great ammo shortage of 2020/21 could be normalizing, though with millions of new gun owners in the last year, demand for ammo, weapons, and parts will remain high. 

  We wonder if Remington would consider building a manufacturing facility in West Virginia since lawmakers are now offering substantial tax credits to ammo and gunmakers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 22:25

• Largest Teachers' Union Quietly Scrubs Pro-CRT Agenda Items From Website
  Largest Teachers’ Union Quietly Scrubs Pro-CRT Agenda Items From Website

  Authored by GQ Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The nation’s largest teachers’ union has quietly taken down a series of adopted and proposed resolutions from its website, including one that calls for the organization to defend the teaching of Marxism-rooted critical race theory (CRT) in public schools.

  

  The National Education Association (NEA), which represents more than 3 million employees in public education, previously showed on its website resolutions proposed during its 100th Representative Assembly. As of the morning of July 6, three days after the online convention concluded, visitors could use the website to track the status of those proposals, including whether they were approved, denied, or referred to a committee.

  On Tuesday afternoon, however, a number of those agenda items disappeared from the NEA’s website. Their pages now redirect visitors to the 2021 assembly home page instead.

  Among the now-hidden approved resolutions was Business Item 39, which would cost the union at least $127,600 to advance a pro-CRT agenda. According to the plan, the NEA would share and publicize information about “what CRT is and what it is not,” dedicate a “team of staffers” to assist union members who “want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric,” and provide a study that critiques “power and oppression” in American society, including “white supremacy,” “cisheteropatriarchy,” and capitalism.

  The measure would also affirm the NEA’s opposition to attempts to ban CRT or the New York Times’ highly controversial “1619 Project,” which recasts American history on the claim that the United States was founded, and remains today, a racist nation.

  In addition, the measure called for an “accurate and honest” teaching of “unpleasant aspects of American history,” and described CRT as an appropriate framework for educators to address those topics.

  “The Association will further convey that in teaching these topics, it is reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory,” it said.

  Another erased resolution, classified as New Business Item 2, essentially called for NEA to “research” into organizations that are pushing back against efforts to indoctrinate American children with CRT, such as The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative think tank that has been hosting vocal CRT opponents. It was passed with an initial annual budget of $56,500.

  Also removed was New Business Item 33, which was not approved. Proposed by a representative from Oakland, California, it called for “mandatory safe and effective COVID-19 vaccinations and testing for all students and staff before returning to face-to-face instruction in the fall.”

  The disappearance of NEA resolutions was first revealed and posted to social media by Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of The Heritage Foundation.

  Here’s the recovered link from earlier today:https://t.co/PmAHhz9NSI pic.twitter.com/PLR01au96n

  — Jessica Anderson (@JessAnderson2) July 6, 2021

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

  “3 days after their annual meeting concludes, [National Education Association], the nation’s largest teacher’s union, scrubs the agenda items announcing their nationwide campaign to push CRT from their website,” Anderson wrote on Twitter. “Why are they covering up their support for CRT?”

  The NEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the resolution pages were removed from its website or whether they will be made public again in the future.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 22:05

• 4 Dead, 2 "Presumed Assassins" Arrested In Haiti President's Killing
  4 Dead, 2 “Presumed Assassins” Arrested In Haiti President’s Killing

  (Update 2200ET):  Four suspected killers of President Jovenel Moise were fatally shot by police, and two others were arrested, AP reported citing Haiti Police Chief Léon Charles. Three police officers who had been held hostage were freed in the incident, AP said.

  Haiti’s Communications Secretary Frantz Exantus said police had arrested Moise’s “presumed assassins” in an upscale neighborhood of Petionville, a suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince, AP previously reported. Acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph earlier said the president was murdered by highly trained and heavily armed killers who stormed the presidential residence in the early hours of Wednesday.

  * * *

  Update (1609ET): Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in an attack in the early hours of Wednesday at his private residence. Many are wondering how assassins penetrated the security perimeter of his heavily fortified home.

  Perhaps new insight from The Miami Herald shows “assailants claimed to be agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to videos taken by people in the area of the president’s home.”

  

  The Herald continued:

  On the videos, someone with an American accent is heard yelling in English over a megaphone, “DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. Everybody back up, stand down.”

  However, sources told the newspaper that the assailants, one of whom spoke English, were not with DEA but rather imposters. 

  “These were mercenaries,” a high-ranking Haitian government official said.

  Here’s the video:

  Insider Paper points out that in an interview on Democracy Now!, Haiti Liberté journalist Kim Ives said that while it is not yet clear who was behind the killing, “clearly this was a fairly sophisticated operation.”

  Haiti is reeling from news that President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated at his home early Wednesday, following months of unrest over his unconstitutional term extension. “Clearly this was a fairly sophisticated operation,” says journalist Kim Ives (@kimives13). pic.twitter.com/34EI1sH78S

  — Democracy Now! (@democracynow) July 7, 2021

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

  Biden Administration officials rejected the idea of DEA involvement.

  * * * 

  Haitian President Jovenel Moise was shot dead by unidentified attackers in his private residence overnight in a “barbaric act” shortly after midnight on Wednesday morning the government said, stirring fears of escalating turmoil in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

  

  The 53-year-old president’s wife, Martine Moise, was also shot in the attack that took place around 1 a.m. local time and was receiving medical treatment, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement. “A group of unidentified individuals, some of them speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president of the republic and thus fatally wounded the head of state,” he said.

  Haitian President Jovenel Moise has been assassinated at home, according to the country’s interim prime minister.

  Get more on this story: https://t.co/KczwOrKjVm pic.twitter.com/4xMBNnEk2h

  — Sky News (@SkyNews) July 7, 2021

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

  

  The assassination coincided with a wave of gang violence in Port-au-Prince as armed groups have battled with police and one another for control of the streets in recent months, turning many districts of the capital into no-go zones.

  Joseph denounced the assassination in what he described as a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.” The PM added the police and army had the security situation under control though gunfire could be heard throughout the crime-ridden capital of 1 million people after the attack.

  With Haiti politically polarized and facing a growing humanitarian crisis and shortages of food, fears of widespread chaos are spreading. The Dominican Republic said it was closing the border it shares with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola.

  Joseph asked the public to remain calm, and the “security situation of the country is under the control of the National Police of Haiti and the Armed Forces of Haiti.” He said, “all measures are taken to ensure the continuity of the State and protect the Nation. Democracy and the Republic will win.” 

  The Caribbean country has been plagued with economic, political, and social instabilities, with out-of-control gang violence surging in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Food and fuel inflation has spiked as the average wage per day is around $2. There’s been a lot of disgust around the Moise administration from a large swath of the civilian population. There have been calls for his removal from office before his term ends. 

  A UN peacekeeping mission – meant to restore order after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 – ended in 2019 with the country still in turmoil. In recent years, Haiti has been buffeted by a series of natural disasters and still bears the scars of a major earthquake in 2010.

  Moise, a banana exporter-turned-politician, faced fierce protests after taking office as president in 2017. This year, the opposition accused him of seeking to install a dictatorship by overstaying his mandate and becoming more authoritarian. He denied those accusations.

  “All measures are being taken to guarantee the continuity of the state and to protect the nation,” Joseph said.

  Moise had ruled by decree for more than a year after the country failed to hold legislative elections and wanted to push through a controversial constitutional reform.

  The United States is assessing the “tragic attack” and President Joe Biden will be briefed on the assassination, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in Washington. The U.S. Embassy said in a statement it would be closed on Wednesday due to the “ongoing security situation”.

  The United States had on June 30 condemned what it described as a systematic violation of human rights, fundamental freedoms and attacks on the press in Haiti, urging the government to counter a proliferation of gangs and violence

  “We stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed,” she said. “Of course our embassy and State Department will be in close touch but it’s a tragedy. We stand with them and it’s important that people of Haiti know that.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 22:01

• Millennials Face Another Housing Market Challenge, As Supply Of Starter Homes Dries Up
  Millennials Face Another Housing Market Challenge, As Supply Of Starter Homes Dries Up

  Not only have many millennials been priced out of the home market, as we have been documenting over the last few months, but now a supply constraint of starter homes is feeling like yet another roadblock. Starter homes are generally homes with smaller footprints and lower selling prices that allow first time buyers to enter the market.

  27 year old Samantha Berrafato told the Wall Street Journal: “It just feels like every little thing keeps getting put on hold. I’ve been putting having kids on hold, and I had put having a wedding on hold because we just couldn’t afford it. Now it’s like [that with] the house buying.”

  Berrafato and her husband started looking for a home about three months ago and only found one after including fixer-uppers and foreclosures to their search. 

  The Journal noted that supply of “entry-level housing”, defined as homes under 1,400 square feet, is at a five decade low. There is also rising prices and broad competition to tend with. 

  Ed Pinto, director of the AEI Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, said: “There just aren’t enough of these homes to fulfill the demand. It’s creating this ‘Great American Land Rush,’ as I call it. People are moving around and there’s tremendous demand, but the inventory is down.”

  

  Additionally, the median age of the first time home buyer has risen to 33 years old, from 30 years old a decade ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. 

  Sam Khater, chief economist and head of Freddie Mac’s Economic and Housing Research division, said: “This is a big deal. We need to think about how we talk about affordable housing, because for most people, when they hear affordable housing, there’s an instant negative reaction. They think ‘low-income,’ right? The issue now is these fissures have not just invaded the middle class. It’s now going up into the upper-middle-income strata.”

  Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, added: “It’s been the hardest kind of home to build over the last five, six or seven years.”

  35 year old Matthew Libassi is also looking for a home with a budget of about $500,000. He told The Journal: “We don’t have a crazy list of demands. But the stuff that we’re seeing is just major overhauls and with putting all the money that we have in, it’s just not doable.”

  Pinto concluded by stating that he believed many buyers were going to move outside of metro areas: “We think this is going to continue for some time, for years. Bottom line is, if you’re in an area like Phoenix or Raleigh or Austin, the people who are the current residents who would normally want to get on the first rung of that ladder—they’re going to have a much harder time.”

  Recall, we wrote back in May that millennials were resorting to “fixer-upper” homes because they were being priced out of the market. 

  

  That report noted that the U.S. has been underbuilding homes since the Great Recession, pushing millennials toward their “second housing crisis in 12 years”. Demand from millennials has “only exacerbated the shrinking inventory” and “led to cutthroat competition rife with bidding wars”, Business Insider noted at the time.

  Finally, we pointed out the growing number of housing-related Instagram pages like Cheap Old Houses, which focuses on historic homes selling for no more than $100,000 that offer fixer-upper opportunities. The account has grown to 1.5 million followers from 750,000 early last year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 21:45

• FBI Confiscates Lego Capitol Set; Agents Confirmed Among Jan 6th "Rioters"
  FBI Confiscates Lego Capitol Set; Agents Confirmed Among Jan 6th “Rioters”

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  An accused U.S. Capitol protester spoke with an undercover Washington police officer on Jan. 6 who later connected the man to an undercover FBI worker, according to a new court filing.

  

  Fi Duong is facing charges for allegedly entering the Capitol during a joint session of Congress in January, for disrupting the session, and for impeding the session. He faces decades in prison.

  In an affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint, FBI special agent Jason Jankovitz said that Duong and an associate introduced themselves to an undercover Metropolitan Police Department officer on the morning of Jan. 6. Duong allegedly described himself as an “operator” and asked if the officer was a “patriot,” to which the employee responded in the affirmative.

  Officers later ascertained Duong was inside the Capitol several hours later.

  A week later, the undercover Washington officer linked Duong with an FBI undercover employee. The FBI worker learned that Duong belonged to an unnamed group comprised of “loosely affiliated” and “like-minded individuals,” that Duong is said to have compared to a known militia group located in northern Virginia.

  Duong said, according to the court filing, that the mission was to “build resistances and what not, in terms of planning for what will inevitably come as a worst, right? Worst case scenario for any people that, freedom loving, liberty minded, pro 2A type of folks.”

  Duong related that his family spent two generations “running from communists,” first in China and then in Vietnam, and his belief that at some point, “you just gotta make a stand.”

  During the same meeting, Duong allegedly said he was in Washington on Jan. 6 and that he was dressed that day in all-black to try to look like a member of Antifa, a far-left, anarcho-communist network that has carried out violence in the United States.

  Duong added the FBI undercover agent to an encrypted messaging platform chat room and on Jan. 18, the agent asked if he was “masked up in the Capitol.” Duong answered yes, and said he was aware that people were being arrested for being inside the Capitol. He later described himself as “documenting” what took place in the building.

  The agent in February met with Duong and other members of the group for a Bible study and on other occasions participated in other meetings, including one on June 9. The group soon started to surveil the Capitol, according to the undercover worker. At one point, the FBI agent and Duong met with another undercover FBI agent at the site of a former jail, where Duong allegedly wanted to test Molotov cocktails he’d constructed.

  Duong was arrested on July 2, according to court records. He was ordered released later that day.

  A public defender representing Duong declined to comment.

  More than 535 defendants have been charged in the six months following the Capitol breach, officials said this week.

  

  In this image from video, a security video shows Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated as rioters breach the Capitol, as House impeachment manager Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) speaks during the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Feb. 10, 2021. (Senate Television via AP)

  FBI Seizes Lego Set

  In another case linked to the breach, the FBI said it seized a Lego set from an accused rioter.

  While arresting Robert Morss on June 11, law enforcement recovered a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, a black tourniquet, and a notebook with writings that included “Step by Step to Create Hometown Militia,” according to a memorandum that asks a judge to keep Morss in jail until a trial.

  “Law enforcement also recover[e]d a fully constructed U.S. Capitol Lego set,” the filing states.

  [ZH: The same Lego set that anyone over 12 is legally able to buy and build]

  

  Morss is in custody on charges including civil disorder and violent entry of a building on Capitol grounds.

  Authorities allege Morss stormed the Capitol while wearing tan camouflage clothing with a tactical-style vest. They say he was part of a group of rioters who pushed past police guarding the Capitol, that he later violently attacked officers inside a tunnel leading to the building, and ultimately gained entrance to the building through a broken window.

  “In this case, the Defendant was part of a violent mob that engaged in one of the most intense and prolonged clashes between the rioters attempting to overrun Capitol on January 6 and the law enforcement officers charged with protecting it,” prosecutors said.

  If Morss is released, they added, he poses a danger to the community and a flight risk.

  A public defender representing Morss did not return a request for comment. The attorney asked, and was granted, more time to compile a defense for the man, according to the court docket. A bail hearing is set for July 13.

  [ZH: Seriously…]

  Based On LEGO Evidence, FBI Believes Capitol Rioter Was Also Planning Attack On Hogwarts Castle https://t.co/J4hhl9EN1d

  — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) July 7, 2021

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 21:25

• Sydney Extends Delta-Inspired COVID Lockdown For Another 2 Weeks
  Sydney Extends Delta-Inspired COVID Lockdown For Another 2 Weeks

  Public health authorities in Australia have continued to confirm small numbers of new COVID cases despite Sydney’s latest economy-crushing lockdown. And with the Delta “scariant” helping to keep COVID paranoia at a fever pitch, authorities have decided to extend what was supposed to be a two-week lockdown for another two weeks.

  

  Authorities cited the “vulnerability” of Australia’s mostly unvaccinated population as the reason why such draconian measures must be extended, despite pleas from restauranteurs and other small business owners pleading with the government to consider other strategies.

  Parents are also griping since the extension also means school-age children won’t return to school next week.

  “The situation we’re in now is largely because we haven’t been able to get the vaccine that we need,” New South Wales state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.

  Only 9% of Australian adults are fully vaccinated.

  State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the decision to extend the lockdown through July 16 was made on the advice of the government’s advisors.

  Of 27 new infections attributed to the delta variant reported in latest 24-hour period on Wednesday, only 13 had managed to isolate while infectious, officials said, raising the risk of further spread. The delta variant is considered more contagious than the original coronavirus or other variants.

  Sydney isn’t the only part of Australia facing lockdown. Last week, almost 50% of Australia’s population was locked down as cities on the east, west and north coasts tightening pandemic restrictions due to clusters. However, most of those lockdowns have now been lifted. Sydney and its suburbs, representing a sizable piece of New South Wales, the country’s largest state, are the only part of Australia still facing lockdown restrictions.

  By the standards of most developed nations, Australia has done remarkably well. Australia has been relatively successful in containing clusters throughout the pandemic, registering fewer than 31K cases, and only 910 deaths total. Of those, Australia has recorded only a single COVID-19 death since October: an 80-year-old man who died in April after being infected overseas and diagnosed in hotel quarantine.

  Of the 27 new infections of the delta variant reported during the last 24 hours, only 13 had been in isolation while infectious, officials said, which raises the risk that the variant might be spreading more quickly than authorities realize.

  Additionally, there are 37 COVID-19 cases in Sydney hospitals. Of those, seven are in intensive care, the youngest in their 30s.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 21:05

• Buchanan: As America Recedes, China Rises
  Buchanan: As America Recedes, China Rises

  Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

  As our July Fourth celebrations were beginning, the U.S. quietly closed and abandoned Bagram Air Base, the largest American military base between the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea.

  Afghan looters were soon seen scavenging inside the base.

  The long retreat of the American Empire is underway, and this longest war is likely to end in bloody retribution for the Afghans who sided with us against the Taliban and are left behind.

  When the last American departed Bagram, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is making plans for “an emergency evacuation of the American embassy in Kabul amid concern that a worsening security situation in Afghanistan could imperil the remaining military and diplomatic corps.”

  Apparently, we are preparing for a possible Saigon ’75 finish to the war launched by George W. Bush 20 years ago. Pressed by reporters on the grim situation in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden did not want to reflect on or talk about what might be coming.

  “I want to talk about happy things, man,” Biden told reporters.

  “Look, it’s Fourth of July … it’s the holiday weekend. I’m going to celebrate it. There’s great things happening.”

  In that same edition, the Journal reported that China has moved 50,000 troops to the border region with India where forces of the two nations, in June 2020, had their bloodiest skirmish in decades.

  Other reports suggest that China intends to fill the vacuum left by the departure of America’s power and provide billions from its Belt and Road Initiative to build a highway from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Peshawar, Pakistan.

  As America executes its strategic retreat from Central Asia, China is on the move.

  

  In addition to militarizing its frontier with India, China is reasserting its maximalist claims to the South China Sea, ending independence and crushing democracy in Hong Kong, continuing cultural genocide against the Uyghurs, and regularly sending swarms of warplanes toward Taiwan to transmit the message to Taipei that annexation is but a matter of time.

  Nor was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s address on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party an exercise in nuance.

  “We’ll never accept insufferably arrogant lecturing from those ‘master teachers!’” said Xi, drawing a roar from the crowd of party members and veterans.

  Clad in a Mao suit, Xi had other warnings for those who seek to stand in the way of Communist China’s destiny:

  “The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to bully, oppress or enslave us … Whoever nurses delusions of doing that will crack their heads and spill blood on the Great Wall of steel built from the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese people.”

  Undeniably, Xi and his predecessors have an awesome record, as the Financial Times relates:

  “China’s emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191bn, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3tn, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019. It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America’s in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday.”

  China’s growth could not have been achieved had it not been for the U.S. decision to throw open the world’s largest consumer market to Chinese-made goods, to bring Beijing into the World Trade Organization, and to sit idly by as a huge slice of U.S. industry and manufacturing was transshipped to China for production there and not here.

  Between 1990 and 2021, U.S. imports of Chinese-made goods provided Beijing with the trillions it has accumulated to finance its strategic objective of becoming the first power on earth.

  But this is water over the dam. Where do we go from here?

  China’s assets are impressive. At 1.4 billion people, it has the largest population on earth. If its growth rate continues, it will have the largest economy. Its strategic arsenal of nuclear weapons is a fraction of ours, but given the horrendous damage these weapons can do, a nuclear war would be ruinous if not mortal for both countries.

  In terms of conventional military — ships, soldiers, planes, guns, missiles and bases in the East Asia-Western Pacific theater where any war between us would be fought — China’s advantages are greater.

  And of the issues over which we might fight — islands, rocks, reefs in the South and East China Seas, and Taiwan — none of them is claimed by us or vital to us. All are claimed by China as rightly theirs.

  In the Cold War with the USSR, time, it turned out, was on our side. But in the last decade, Xi Jinping might fairly see time as having switched sides. Either way, we are surely better off relying upon our abilities rather than our weapons to win the competition and settle the rivalry that may settle the future of mankind.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 20:45

• 'Cash For Junkies' – California Dems Want To Pay Meth Addicts To Seek Treatment
  ‘Cash For Junkies’ – California Dems Want To Pay Meth Addicts To Seek Treatment

  In keeping with President Biden’s push to approve “evidence-based” policies to help combat the worsening US drug overdose crisis (overdoses jumped to a new annual record last year according to data from the CDC) – not to mention the explosion of crime (both petty and violent) and homelessness that have rendered San Francisco almost unlivable for families – Democratic lawmakers in California have devised a new plan that we’d like to call “cash for junkies”.

  The same political party that embraced housing the homeless in expensive hotel rooms has proposed using public money to pay drug addicts to stay in treatment, and away from the growing street encampments.

  

  Senate Bill 110 would make “contingency management,” a therapy centered around positive reinforcement, a legal form of treatment in California eligible for payment by Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. In other words, addicts will be given “incentives” to attend treatment, including what are essentially bribes.

  The program will be targeted specifically at meth abusers, one of the fastest-growing contingents of California’s addict population (since all the opioid users are dying from the fentanyl poisoning the drug supply).

  “Contingency management has proven to be the most effective method of treatment for methamphetamine addiction, and is frequently used as a treatment program by the Veterans Affairs Administration,” Weiner’s office said in a news release. “This intervention program gives those struggling with substance use disorder financial rewards if they enter substance use treatment programs, stay in the program, and get and remain sober. This positive reinforcement helps people reduce and even fully stop substance use.”

  An analysis of the legislation, according to media reports, estimated the annual cost for 1K participants would be $179K. In theory, lifting Californians out of addiction would save the state money in other areas (for example, the burgeoning homeless encampments in San Francisco, populated by individuals with mental health and substance abuse issues). And according to one Democratic legislature, “contingency management” (academic-speak for doling out cash to addicts) has “proven to be the most effective treatment for methamphetamine addiction.”

  Generally speaking, drug-abuse treatment in general has very low rates of success. No matter the exact nature of their treatment, most addicts who enter treatment don’t management to stay sober for long. Even after a stay at a pricey rehab, the vast majority of addicts will relapse. What’s more, the vast majority of addicts see money – especially free money that they didn’t need to work to earn – as a potential trigger.

  Additionally, there are federal laws that prohibit bribing people for seeking medical treatment (not that California has any problem with flouting federal law).

  While a similar bill failed to gain traction last year, the new iteration is scheduled for consideration in the Assembly Health Committee on July 13 after receiving unanimous support in the state Senate.

  The key to success, if passed, will lie in not drug testing addicts, making it impossible to determine whether the money they’re receiving is being spent on food and shelter…or just more meth.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 20:25

• Tensions Run High On Border As Crisis Worsens
  Tensions Run High On Border As Crisis Worsens

  Authored by Charlotte Cuthbertson via The Epoch Times,

  Alison Anderson and her husband, a Border Patrol agent, moved from a remote ranch near Big Bend, Texas, after one too many armed encounters with illegal aliens on their property.

  

  Anderson grew increasingly concerned about her ability to protect her young daughters as groups of men would approach the house while her husband was at work. On multiple occasions, she was left to fend off illegal immigrants with her firearm, as the closest help was an hour away.

  The family moved to Del Rio at the beginning of 2020, and at first she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “We wanted a safe upbringing for our kids,” Anderson told The Epoch Times on June 25.

  “I want them to be able to play outside and not have to worry about a group of 15 people or 24 or 40 cutting through. Or someone snatching my kids.”

  But since January, the masses of illegal aliens traversing through her neighborhood has had Anderson more worried than ever. Border agents caught a convicted rapist several weeks ago on the edge of her property.

  “Having three little girls and having convicted sexual predators in and or around your property is terrifying,” she said. Her girls are aged 5, 3, and 1.

  “It’s terrifying, because I feel like I can’t let my guard down for one second. And that is why we left the ranch – because I couldn’t let my guard down for one second. I had little people depending on me, and I don’t like that feeling. I don’t like all the feelings that come with it – the stress, the anxiety, the constant worry.”

  

  Alison Anderson on her property in Del Rio, Texas, on June 25, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  Once a relatively quiet region for illegal border crossings, the Del Rio Sector is now the second busiest, after the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas.

  “We’ve seen a tremendous increase. So far this fiscal year, today, we’ve caught 144,000 people in the Del Rio sector,” Sector Chief Austin Skero said on June 24.

  Agents in the sector have also had a 1,400 percent increase in arrests of illegal aliens with sex-related criminal convictions so far this fiscal year, compared to the same period last year, Skero said. A large number of the detainees had convictions for crimes involving a minor.

  “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t read a paper or a report from my agents that talks about criminal aliens, sexual offenders that they’ve apprehended out there,” newly appointed Acting Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said at an event in Del Rio on June 24.

  As the crow flies, Anderson’s house is four miles from the international border, and the people she encounters are trying to avoid capture. The property lines up next to a road that has become a pickup spot for smugglers to load their vehicles and make a run to a large city, often San Antonio.

  Anderson said she’s in the process of installing a camera system, and she and her husband plan to build a fence around the house—both things they wouldn’t normally consider.

  Many of her neighbors are elderly and terrified, she said. “I have one neighbor that said she won’t even go out of her house if her husband isn’t home.

  “It’s unacceptable to not uphold and enforce the immigration laws that Congress put in place to keep U.S. citizens safe.”

  Dogs Make the Difference

  Rancher John Sewell said his three Blue Lacy dogs have likely helped change the outcome in his favor during several encounters with illegal aliens, including when a group of five men approached him and said they wanted a ride in his truck.

  “I said, ‘No, y’all just need to keep walking,’” Sewell said. “My car was in the opposite direction to where they should have been walking, but they started walking to my car. Well, of course, when the dogs smelled them, it was just a fiasco.”

  The dogs rounded up the group, but when the illegal aliens started looking for something to pick up in defense, Sewell said he pulled his gun out and told them to get going.

  “Finally, they got 50 feet or 70 feet away; I called the dogs back, and they went on,” he said.

  Sewell’s ranch is in Uvalde County, about 55 miles from the international border. It’s also six miles from a Border Patrol highway checkpoint, which means illegal immigrants use his ranch to skirt the checkpoint by foot before being picked up again on the other side.

  “In 25 years, I’ve never personally carried a gun. In the last five months, I carry one every single day. That ought to tell you all you need to know.”

  He’s getting a camera installed at his main headquarters, and his wife doesn’t answer the door without a gun in her hand.

  “Usually before, if someone came to the house, they were in dire straits—really dehydrated or lost or whatever. Now … they want you to give them a ride,” Sewell said.

  

  John Sewell on his ranch in Uvalde County, Texas, on June 12, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  Several months ago, as nine men ran straight toward him, Sewell grabbed his rifle and released his dogs, while yelling at them to stop. The dogs headed the men off, and they jumped a fence and ran off.

  “If I hadn’t had the dogs, I don’t know what would have happened. I felt like I was going to have to shoot,” he said.

  “I’m just at my wit’s end. I can’t sustain having to worry about the two out of 10, or two out of 100 bad guys that happen upon me.”

  Sewell estimates Border Patrol is catching about one-third of the illegal aliens that are crossing. Last week, he personally saw 45 people, and his ranch is 27 square miles of remote pasture.

  It’s also a hunting ranch, and he’s concerned about what will happen when the season opens on Oct. 2 and hundreds of people with high-powered rifles are in the area.

  “If it’s anywhere close to this, there’s going to be multiple confrontations every single day,” he said.

  He attributes the dramatic increase in illegal traffic to the Biden administration’s policies and doesn’t see help coming from Washington.

  “It’s not our position to send them more money to keep their people in their own country. It’s our position to protect our borders,” he said.

  “We live in a republic, the last I checked. And that means that our government is supposed to protect us from all of the things like this. But that is not happening.”

  Vice President Kamala Harris has said she is focusing on the “root causes” of illegal immigration and aims to send more aid to Central American countries.

  

  Border Patrol agents apprehend 21 illegal aliens from Mexico who had hidden in a grain hopper on a freight train heading to San Antonio, near Uvalde, Texas, on June 21, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  Train Traffic

  Archie McFadin lives near Uvalde, adjacent to where Border Patrol stops and inspects the trains traveling from the U.S.–Mexico border to San Antonio. As a train slows down to stop, often a stream of illegal aliens will jump off and run onto his property to avoid Border Patrol.

  “They were down here this morning, a helicopter landed out here in the field and [Border Patrol] picked up some,” McFadin said on June 30.

  McFadin said “everything changed” in January after President Joe Biden took office and revoked several key border security measures.

  McFadin now gets illegal immigrants running around his property at least five days a week. His dog has stopped anyone from entering the immediate area by the house, but the day The Epoch Times visited, McFadin was having a home alarm system installed.

  “We never even locked our vehicles,” he said.

  “Now we live like we’re in prison, and our government is protecting them, not us.”

  This year, Border Patrol has seen a 911 percent increase in the number of illegal aliens on the trains in Uvalde compared to last year.

  “The increase in the number of illegal immigrants that are going through Uvalde on trains has become a serious problem for Border Patrol, local law enforcement, and our community, as most of these individuals have criminal records or gang affiliation and wouldn’t be allowed in our country,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin told The Epoch Times on June 23.

  McFadin’s ranch hand now spends up to five hours a day checking and fixing fences on his other property that didn’t have a problem last year.

  “Some of them are small holes where they try to slip through at night to catch a ride out here on Highway 55. Some of them are bigger holes,” he said. “To me, that’s just uncalled for.

  “I wouldn’t even care if they came through here if they just wouldn’t tear up everything we’ve worked all of our lives for.”

  

  Archie McFadin points out a cut fence that was intact that morning, on his property in Uvalde, Texas, on June 30, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  McFadin replaced a wire fence around a ranch house on his property in February after it had been broken into and ransacked several times. The house now has a tall, steel welded fence with razor wire on top. No one has broken in since then, he said.

  He won’t let his grandkids swim in the pool without an adult present and a firearm handy. His daughter and son-in-law don’t go fishing at the pond anymore.

  Last week, four illegal aliens came up on his wife and one of his daughters as they were driving through a gate on the ranch. They called Border Patrol, but the four weren’t captured.

  He said he’s never been scared of illegal immigrants in the past, but now he’s “very, very cautious” because they’re so aggressive.

  “I honestly don’t know what to do. There’s nothing we can do. Vote, three and a half years from now. That’s the only thing I know of that I hope we can do,” McFadin said.

  “How do we leave? How do we leave our horses? How do we leave our dogs? How do we leave this place? Even if we wanted to sell it, no one would buy it right now because we’re on the railroad track.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 20:05

• Sky News Shows Taliban Seizing Abandoned US Bases & "Treasure Trove" Of Weapons, Ammo
  Sky News Shows Taliban Seizing Abandoned US Bases & “Treasure Trove” Of Weapons, Ammo

  Simultaneous to global headlines spotlighting the hasty “in the middle of the night” US forces quitting Bagram airbase for good, which briefly resulted in looting as Afghan security was caught by surprise, Sky News has aired exclusive shocking footage of the Taliban seizing freshly abandoned US bases (or perhaps not-so-shocking considering the constant follies of America’s longest ever war).

  “The Taliban are on the march and gaining territory at an astonishing rate,” the Sky News segment narratives. “They smell victory,” the report says. “They want to show us the treasure trove of military riches they seized with it.”

  That’s right – Taliban militants will gear up for the expected offensive on Kabul and other key parts of the country with fresh US-supplied RPGs, rifles, and ammo that were hastily abandoned by exiting US forces. 

  “Many of these boxes supplied by Americans haven’t even been opened before the Taliban got to them,” the Sky report continues.

  A Taliban commander was heard saying, “It does help us a lot to have a lot of new weapons to use in battle.” He went on to estimate some 900 guns obtained from one US base alone, as well as 30 armored Humvees and 30 pick-up trucks. Likely thousands more have been collected elsewhere. This as the Pentagon has estimated some 90% of US forces have now departed.

  Gleeful Taliban: Look at all of our wonderful American toys!

  

  Naturally, the pressing and outrageous question remains: why did the Biden administration and Pentagon fail to secure all this military hardware that can now be used to kill Americans and their Afghan allies and civilians?

  Below: screenshot of Taliban commander reading the weapon’s markings: “U-S-A!” …he proudly and mockingly declares…

  

  Meanwhile, as BBC reports the Taliban continues gobbling up territory: 

  The Taliban have entered a key city in western Afghanistan as they continue a rapid advance before Nato troops leave.

  All government officials in Qala-e-Naw, provincial capital of Badghis province, had been moved to a nearby army base, the local governor told the BBC.

  He said the militants were moving “towards the center of the city” and there was heavy fighting with government troops.

  And they are freeing prisoners everywhere they go – adding more terrorists to their ranks: “Local sources told the BBC the Taliban moved on the prison in Qala-e-Naw and freed about 400 inmates, including more than 100 of the group’s fighters.”

  The Onion 10 years ago, and AP today

  Ten. Fucking. Years. pic.twitter.com/ykEkrRXUbs

  — PanickedJanet (@SIGSYS) July 6, 2021

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

  And then there’s this key line in the BBC report, strongly suggesting precisely what disasters await and are imminent across much of the country: “Afghan forces guarding the prison are reported to have surrendered without a fight.”

  This after US intelligence and defense previously warned that Kabul could fall within six months. Or perhaps it’ll be more like six weeks at this rate.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 19:55

• Utah BLM Says Anyone Flying American Flag Racist, Vows Donations To AOC
  Utah BLM Says Anyone Flying American Flag Racist, Vows Donations To AOC

  The Soviet-era ‘long-con‘ of destroying America through division and self-hatred, as described by in 1985 by former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov, continues to bear yet more fruit. Let’s review:

  “Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism and American patriotism … The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already … Most of it is done by Americans to Americans thanks to lack of moral standards.” –Yuri Bezmenov, 1985

  Fast forward 36 years – as the left seethes with anti-American hatred, we now have the Marxist Black Lives Matter Utah Chapter declaring that anyone displaying the American flag, a “symbol of hatred,” is automatically racist and must be avoided – one day after the Fourth of July.

  In response to the post, BLM UT added: “Welcome racists. We know you are big mad about the racist flag post. You will not be heard here. You will be blocked and your comments will be deleted. We will be donating $1 to AOC’s election campaign for every racist that we block. Thank you for contributing to the re-election of AOC. We will jot down your names and attribute each donation to you. Comment below to help her once again head to Washington.”

  

  Let’s not forget, the New York Times published an article two days earlier proclaiming that flying the American flag ‘from the back of a pickup or over a lawn’ likely means you’re a conservative (and thus a racist).

  The horror. pic.twitter.com/Jx1hpKIzpd

  — George Alexopoulos 🇺🇲 (@GPrime85) July 3, 2021

  So – anyone flying the American flag, who loves their country, is automatically racist, and anyone who has a problem with it will be blocked – with  $1 will donated towards the re-election of socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 19:45

• Das Kapital, Dude: Polling Shows Sharp Rise In Support For Socialism Among The Young
  Das Kapital, Dude: Polling Shows Sharp Rise In Support For Socialism Among The Young

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Polling in the United States and internationally is showing a sharp increase in support for socialism among young people. 

  Support for capitalism is waning as a new generation embraces views of collective economic policies and programs.

  Two hundred years after the birth of Karl Marx, his views are now coming back into vogue despite a long history of economic failures in socialist countries.

  

  A new poll conducted June 11-25 by Momentive on behalf of Axios found that a majority (57% of U.S. adults) still have a favorable view of capitalism. However, the most notable data point is age. Those 18-34 now are evenly split on negative and positive views of capitalism. (46% vs. 49%). The dislike for capitalism rises further at younger age groups.  For those 18 to 24, the negative views outweighing positive views by a margin of 54% to 42%.

  The other groups showing stronger support for socialism are black and female Americans (60% and 45%, respectively).

  The same swing is being reported internationally. A new poll by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) shows younger people growing opposing to capitalism and support for socialism. The paper includes a Forefront Market Research poll of people aged between 16 and 34 in the UK. An astonishing  67 per cent say they would like to live in a socialist economic system.

  Notably, 75 percent view climate change is a specifically capitalist problem despite the terrible record of China and other socialist countries in the area of pollution and climate change.

  Nevertheless, capitalism is being blamed for an increasing number of disasters. Recently, Professor Richard Wolf, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, blamed “privatized housing” for the recent collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida.

  Wolf tweeted on June 30 that “Miami’s collapsed condo shows: privatized housing violates democracy. Only condo owners voted to defer building repair. Delivery workers, condo visitors, repairers knew nothing, didn’t vote, risked injury, death. As irreducibly social, housing must be run democratically by all.”

  As with climate change, the point ignores the building collapses  and lax enforcement in socialist countries. Central control has never translated to better building codes or pollution policies.

  The shift in favor of socialism is no surprise for some of us. My kids were often given material and lessons in their public high schools that criticized capitalism while rarely pointing out the failures of socialist countries like Venezuela.

  Indeed, Venezuela continues to receive support despite a blood-soaked regime that has destroyed free press and free speech rights as well as reducing the country into an economic basket case. Recently, the Democratic Socialists of America (which claims supporters in Congress) visited Venezuelan dictator, Nicolas Maduro.  Previously, we discussed the delegation of Chicago Teachers visiting the country and showering it with praise as political prisoners languished in the jails of Maduro.

  The pandemic has led to a massive increase in government spending which is also likely to shape the views of many on the benefits of government controls and centralized programs.  These polls show a generation coming to age that is ready to embrace aspects of Marx’s Das Kapital over Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 19:25

• While Fed Mulls Tapering, China Prepares To Cut Rates As Economy Stalls
  While Fed Mulls Tapering, China Prepares To Cut Rates As Economy Stalls

  With the Fed debating whether to keep talking about tapering or finally do something about it – even if that something means injecting another trillion of liquidity into the economy by the end of 2022 while nipping and tucking $10 billion per month here and there – China is starting to move in the other direction. 

  With China’s economy rapidly cooling, as the latest sharp drop the Caixin Services PMI demonstrated, after badly missing consensus expectations and poised on the edge of contraction…

  

  … a move which was predicted here months ago when we discussed the collapse in China’s all important credit impulse…

  

  … it is not just traders that are speculating that China’s next move may be a rate cut – Beijing itself is starting to make loud noises.

  Pouring gasoline into the debate whether Chinese and U.S. monetary policy will diverge further, overnight a former central bank official said that China should guide market interest rates lower to support economic growth and ease funding pressure on local governments.

  Reasonable rate cuts also would help create space for the PBOC to tighten policy if needed in the future, in order to cope with an expected weakening in the yuan, Sheng Songcheng, former head of statistics at the PBOC, said in a column published late on Tuesday on Sina Finance, a financial news outlet according to Reuters

  “It’s necessary to keep liquidity reasonable and sufficient, and guide the rational and moderate decrease of market interest rates,” Sheng said, adding that economic growth is likely to slow to 5-6% in the second half of the year, from an expected pace of around 8% in April-June.

  Cutting rate is not just to counteract the coming economic slowdown, it’s also to give China more space to hike when the need arises. According to Sheng, policy tightening in the future will help ease depreciation pressure on the yuan caused by rising capital outflows from China once the U.S. Federal Reserve starts to tighten policy from emergency pandemic levels, Sheng said.

  Unlike the Fed, which surprised investors last month by signalling it could start raising interest rates in 2023 or even next year, earlier than expected, Chinese officials have pledged to make no sharp policy u-turns and markets expect key rates will be kept unchanged through at least this year. And while a Chinese central bank official said in April that policy changes by the Fed will have a limited impact on China’s financial markets, Beijing appears to be getting increasingly concerned about a world in which the US is hiking while China’s economy is too weak to follow.

  Sure enough, shortly after Sheng’s comments, in the weekly State Council meeting on Wednesday, China’s Premier Li announced a few measures to “increase support to the real economy”, including “using RRR cuts to support the real economy” and a few other policy measures aiming at increasing income and improving social security support to vulnerable groups of the labor market. Here are key quotes from the meeting:

  • In response to the impact on business operations from the fast increase of commodity prices, and under the broad guideline of “avoiding flooding the economy with liquidity”, policymakers would use monetary policy tools such as RRR cuts to increase support to the real economy and in particular small to medium-sized companies;
  • The statement highlighted the need to push enterprises to pay wages “timely and in full amount”, and to increase social security support to “flexible employment” such as employment in the delivery industry.
  • For migrant workers, the statement also highlighted the need to enhance support for their health care needs, such as “further improving basic medical insurance settlement of medical expenses incurred by the insured away from home”.

  As Goldman’s Maggie Wei writes, in past experiences, PBOC would usually, but not always, follow up with actual RRR cuts after the mention by the State Council on “using RRR cuts” to support the economy. For example, PBOC cut RRR within one to two weeks after the State Council meeting’s hints in 2019 to early 2020, though the exception was in Jun 2020 when PBOC stayed put after the State Council meeting mentioned RRR cuts. That said, the absence of mentioning “using RRR cuts to support the economy” for the past year makes today’s mention notable and probably increases the chance of an actual implementation of the cut in our view. Incidentally, Goldman’s baseline expectation is an RRR cut over the next few weeks.

  Understandably, Chinese treasury futures rose sharply on Wednesday afternoon on Sheng’s comments (and ahead of the RRR commentary). 10-year bond futures surged by the most in over six months after a former central bank official made the case for a rate cut in the second half of the year to safeguard the nation’s recovery and deal with the Federal Reserve’s future tightening.

  10-year bond futures rise as much as 0.42 to 98.72; biggest increase since Dec. 22, 2020, although still well below where China’s bond futures traded for much of the post-covid period. At the same time, overnight repo rates rose as much as 16bps to 2.07%, the highest since June 30, 7-day repo rate rises 9bps to 2.12%

  

  To be sure, not everyone is convinced that a rate cut is coming. Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, told reporters on Wednesday that he expected the central bank to maintain a modest tightening stance, with no rate cuts or rises expected in the second half.

  “China’s policy response towards the COVID-19 pandemic has been different from the past rounds of easing, and one key factor is the strength in exports so that policymakers did not need to resort to mass stimulus in property and infrastructure sectors,” he said.

  Michelle Lam, chief China economist at Societe Generale said that “from the real economy’s perspective, I don’t think we are there yet to discuss rate cuts” adding that we “need to see much weaker data especially on the private-sector recovery.” In Lam’s view, “the domestic economic situation should still be a primary focus for monetary policy.”

  Lam also said that if China sees rising capital outflows they could reintroduce capital control measures as they did in the past; in fact the aggressive crackdown on crypto may be a hint of the coming rate cuts in China even as the rest of the world aggressively hikes to contain soaring prices.

  As for how China – if indeed it does go ahead with a rate cut – it remains a mystery how or why Beijing is convinced that inflation will remain transitory and that a rate cut won’t push prices even higher, sparking public unrest and anger.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 19:05

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• EU Proposes To Exempt Private Jets, Cargo From Jet Fuel Tax
  EU Proposes To Exempt Private Jets, Cargo From Jet Fuel Tax

  And so the oligarch and ruling class hypocrisy comes full circle…

  According to Argus Media, the European Commission – that murder of career bureaucrats – has proposed exempting private jets and cargo flights, two of the most polluting forms of transportation, from the planned EU jet fuel tax. A draft indicates that the tax would be phased-in for passenger flights, including ones that carry cargo.

  The draft, which the commission will on 14 July present with its proposed revisions to the bloc’s 2003 energy-taxation directive, indicates there could be an exemption from taxation for energy products and electricity used for intra-EU air navigation of cargo-only flights. It proposes allowing EU states to only tax such flights either domestically or by virtue of bilateral or multilateral agreements with other member states.

  The commission is worried that taxing fuel for cargo-only flights would adversely affect EU carriers, Argus reports adding that third-country carriers, also with a significant share of the intra-EU cargo market, have to be exempted from taxation due to aviation services agreements, the commission argues.

  Meanwhile, private jets will enjoy an exemption through classification of “business aviation” as the use of aircraft by firms for carriage of passengers or goods as an “aid to the conduct of their business”, if generally considered not for public hire. It gets better: a further exemption is given for “pleasure” flights whereby an aircraft is used for “personal or recreational” purposes not associated with a business or professional use.

  Non-governmental organization Transport & Environment (T&E) called the proposal “generally good”.

  “The downside, though, is the commission is considering exempting cargo carriers that are often US-run,” said its aviation director Andrew Murphy, who noted “multiple” solutions for taxing jet fuel used by cargo carriers that “tend to use older, dirtier aircraft”.

  Hilariously, none other than Murphy recently co-authored a report indicating that private-jet CO2 emissions in Europe rose by 31% between 2005 and 2019, with flights to popular destinations up markedly during summer holiday seasons. He has argued for a fuel tax for this “leisure-driven” private jet sector.

  But, naturally, the very rich people who use private jets, pulled just enough strings within Europe’s bureaucracy to avoid paying the tax.

  Of course, in a world of fake concerns about climate change and ESG poseurs galore, there needed to be some excuse for this glaring exemption, and sure enough Airlines for Europe (A4E) came up with on, saying that it feared setting minimum tax rates for intra-EU flights could lead to distortion of competition. The industry association, which counts 16 airline groups as members including Ryanair, Air France/KLM, Lufthansa, IAG, easyJet and Cargolux, indicated that the commission’s proposal could lead to aircraft deliberately carrying excess fuel bought outside the EU specifically to avoid the bloc’s jet fuel tax.

  So it’s best to just do away with the tax altogether.

  The draft may change before 14 July, and does not contain the all-important annexes with tax rates. To enter into force it must be approved by all 27 EU member states, and it may change markedly over the coming months. A commission proposal made in April 2011 to update EU energy taxation rules failed after finance ministers could not agree by unanimity in 2014.

  The commission wants to align energy taxation with EU climate goals, meaning that taxes should be based on the net calorific value of the energy products and electricity and that minimum levels of taxation across the EU would be set out according to environmental performance and expressed in €/GJ. These minimum levels should be aligned annually on the basis of the EU’s harmonised index of consumer prices, excluding energy and unprocessed food.

  Next week, the commission will propose changes to the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS). A draft of these did not detail how aviation will be treated, but no free allocations are envisaged for maritime, road transport and buildings sectors. Officials will also present the commission’s mandate for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), whereby all firms could be expected to fill up with blended jet fuels at EU airports.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 02:45

• UK Government Launches Multi-Front Attack On Freedom Of Expression Under Guise Of National Security
  UK Government Launches Multi-Front Attack On Freedom Of Expression Under Guise Of National Security

  Authored by Patrick Cockburn via Counterpunch.org,

  Matt Hancock’s bungling effort to conceal his affair with Gina Coladangelo may give hope to some that all government attempts to keep information from the public will be equally futile.

  Unfortunately, the government has launched a carefully targeted multi-front offensive to hide its activities more effectively. Among measures being considered or already under way are a reformed Official Secrets Act that will conflate investigative journalism and whistleblowing with espionage. On another front, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is being crippled by rejecting requests and under-resourcing. At an individual level, ministers and senior officials escape scrutiny by using encrypted messaging services that can make conversations disappear from the record.

  Hancock himself was apparently so concerned over the contents of his emails that he used a private email account. Any enquiry into the test and trace debacle or the mass deaths in care homes may find it difficult to discover with whom the former health secretary was in contact.

  

  In the last year, the rejection of requests for information from central government under the FOIA have soared to 50 per cent compared to 15 per cent when it was first introduced.

  “The importance of FOIA is that it is a symbol of transparency which is why politicians hate it so much,” says Ben Worthy, a senior lecturer at Birkbeck specialising in transparency and freedom of information.

  He says that governments do not dare to abolish the act, but they can defang it by across-the-board rejections, deliberately long delays or simple non-compliance.

  Most threatening of all to the public knowing what the government is doing are proposed changes in the Official Secrets Act which would treat journalists, whistleblowers and leakers as if they were spies. A little-noticed 67-page consultative paper issued in May by the Home Office and titled Legislation to Counter State Threats (Hostile State Activity)says anybody revealing information that the government chooses to label as a state secret would be liable for prosecution. The papers defines espionage particularly broadly as “the covert process of obtaining sensitive confidential information that is not normally publicly available”.

  Critics say the proposed legislation would leave journalists and others facing the threat of 14 years in prison for publishing whatever the government may say is damaging to national security. The burden of proof for a successful prosecution would be reduced and juries would not necessarily be told why some disclosure poses such a serious threat.

  In Priti Patel’s introduction to the document, the home secretary portrays Britain as beset by enemies at home and abroad who pose a mounting danger to the nation. Her declared purpose is “to empower the whole national security community to counter the insidious threat we face today”.

  Supposing all these proposals are implemented then Britain will be well on the way to joining those countries where the disclosure of any information damaging to the government is punishable. Offences range from revealing war crimes to disclosing trivial failures. The Indian government would like to silence anybody revealing the true death toll in the Covid-19 epidemic; Turkey has jailed journalists for writing that it had supplied weapons to al-Qaeda-type organisations; the Egyptian government once stopped an academic from publishing a paper showing that more Egyptian farmers were going blind because of the spread of a waterborne parasite.

  Britain does not have the same tradition of authoritarian censorship, but freedom of expression here is more fragile than it looks for two reasons. The Johnson administration has been more moderate than many nativist populist governments that have taken power around the world over the last decade. But it shares with them a strategy of systematic threat-inflation, frequently modelled on the agenda of the Republican Party in the US. In the paper cited above, Patel speaks of the necessity of introducing voter IDs and combating foreign powers interfering in British elections.

  A second feature of British culture makes the country particularly open to the belief that somewhere in the heart of government lie informational crown jewels, well-guarded secrets so important that their disclosure would pose an existential threat to us all. Such a myth is central to the plot of thousands of spy novels and films. But in my experience as a journalist few such earth-shaking secrets exist and what many people think of as a secret is either trivial or can be deduced by any reasonably well-informed person.

  The disclosures by Dominic Cummings, recently in the top ranks of government as Boris Johnson’s chief of staff, are a good example of what might be termed “the fallacy of the state secret”. For more than seven hours he testified to a parliamentary committee about the inner workings and personal likes and dislikes within the Johnson government. He made damaging allegations about Hancock, Johnson, inadequate preparations for the Covid-19 pandemic, the failure to protect care homes and shambolic mistakes in calling the second lockdown.

  Yet none of these revelations were “secrets” in any sense of the word since the facts about these disastrous decisions and decision-makers had long been obvious. What made Cummings’s testimony so fascinating was that it provided eye-witness confirmation of what most people already knew.

  Much the same is true of the Wikileaks publication of hundreds of thousands of classified US diplomatic and military cables in 2010 for which Julian Assange is currently incarcerated in Belmarsh high security prison in London. Despite the best effort of the US government to prove the opposite, these supposed “secrets” revealed little that was not known previously, deeply embarrassing though it was for the US government to see proof that its helicopters were machine-gunning civilians in the streets of Baghdad.

  To try to maintain the classic spy movie narrative that secrets betrayed means that there is blood on the hands of the betrayers, the US army set up a task force to try to find a US agent who had died because of the Wikileaks revelations. But after long researches the team of 120 counterintelligence officers failed to find a single person, among the thousands of American agents and secret sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the revelations.

  The real reason why governments fight so hard to maintain their monopoly control over information is not to keep security secrets vital to the nation, but to use or leak that information themselves.

  They know that it is one of the key levers of their power and will persecute and punish anybody who tries to take it from them.

  As Ben Worthy puts it, the struggle, which people imagine is about keeping secrets, is really about who discloses them and is consequently “a battle to control the news agenda”.

  *  *  *

  Patrick Cockburn is the author of War in the Age of Trump (Verso).

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 07/07/2021 – 02:00

• Pressed For Answers On Syria Cover-Up, OPCW Chief Offers New Lies And Excuses
  Pressed For Answers On Syria Cover-Up, OPCW Chief Offers New Lies And Excuses

  Authored by Aaron Maté via TheGrayZone.com,

  Facing growing outcry, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias went before the UN and told new falsehoods about his organization’s Syria cover-up scandal – along with more disingenuous excuses to avoid addressing it.

  

  Part 1 of 2…

  In the two years since the censorship of a Syria chemical weapons investigation was exposed, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Fernando Arias, has vigorously resisted accountability.

  Arias has refused to investigate or explain the extensive manipulation of the OPCW’s probe of an alleged April 2018 chlorine attack in Douma. Rather than answer calls to meet with the veteran inspectors who protested the deception, Arias has disparaged them. The OPCW Director General (DG) has even resorted to feigning ignorance about the scandal, recently claiming that “I don’t know why” the organization’s final report on Douma “was contested.”

  Facing growing pressure to address the cover-up – most prominently in a “Statement of Concern” from 28 notable signatories, including five former senior OPCW officials – Arias came before the United Nations Security Council on June 3rd to answer questions in open session for the first time.

  In a nod to the public outcry, Arias backtracked from a previous statement that the Douma controversy could not be revisited. But while appearing to suggest that the investigation could be reopened, Arias offered more falsehoods about the scandal, and new disingenuous excuses to avoid addressing it.

  This two-part report summarizes Arias’ latest evasions and distortions, which include the following:

  • Rejecting proposals for resolving the Douma controvery, Arias invoked restrictions that do not appear to exist. Arias falsely claimed that the OPCW’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) has “no authority” to examine the suppressed Douma evidence. Arias also claimed that he personally has “no authority whatsoever to reopen this investigation,” even though the OPCW’s regulations contain no such limits.

  • To discredit the vast quantity of work that was done for the investigation’s original report, which found no evidence of a chlorine attack, Arias falsely stated that the “bulk” of analysis was conducted after its chief author was no longer involved. To advance this falsehood, Arias cited a fabricated figure.

  • Arias tacitly retracted a previous false claim that no state has challenged the Douma report’s conclusions. But instead of acknowledging that prior falsehood, he replaced it with a new one.

  • Arias did not answer direct questions about the documented scientific fraud in the Douma probe, and how he plans to address it. The DG ignored a question from the Russian delegation about why the Final Report omitted the conclusions of NATO member state toxicologists who ruled out chlorine gas as the cause of death. And for the third time, Arias did not respond to a question asking whether he will agree to meet with the dissenting inspectors.

  • A recent BBC podcast interviewed a purported OPCW source who discussed sensitive information and criticized the Douma whistleblowers, as well as the organization’s first Director General, José Bustani. Arias offered an absurd excuse to avoid launching an investigation, stating that he would only probe the breach of confidentiality if the BBC’s source “is identified.”

  • Arias continued to deceptively minimize the role of the key dissenting inspector, Dr. Brendan Whelan. Arias downplayed the fact that Whelan was the scientific coordinator and chief author of the team’s original report, and falsely claimed that he was only involved “in a limited capacity.”

  • Arias also continued to falsely downplay the role of the second known whistleblower, Ian Henderson. Arias’ latest distortions about Whelan and Henderson are addressed in the second part of this report.

  Arias’ UN appearance was the latest chapter in a saga that has upended the world’s chemical weapons watchdog. In April 2018, the US, UK and France bombed Syria after accusing its government of committing a chemical attack in Douma. In March 2019, the OPCW released a final report that aligned with the US narrative that Syria was guilty of dropping chlorine gas cylinders on a pair of apartment buildings, including one where dozens of dead bodies were filmed. But an extraordinary trove of leaks soon exposed that the OPCW had published a whitewash.

  Internal OPCW documents showed that the inspectors who investigated the Douma incident had found no evidence of a chemical weapons attack. The files also revealed gross inconsistencies in the prevailing narrative that chlorine was the cause of death. These findings, if released, would have reinforced strong indications that extremist insurgents who controlled Douma had staged the incident, just as Syrian forces were set to retake control. But the Douma evidence was concealed in a multi-stage cover-up.

  Unknown senior OPCW officials were caught trying to doctor the team’s original report to falsely suggest evidence of a chemical attack. A delegation of US officials also visited the Hague and, in a highly irregular move, tried to convince the team that chlorine gas was used by the Syrian government. The bulk of the original team who deployed in Douma was sidelined, replaced by officials who, for the most part, had not even set foot in Syria. The result was a deceptive final report that erased the key findings of the censored original.

  Although the OPCW leaks first surfaced in May 2019, Arias did not face direct questioning about the controversy until December of last year, when he came before the United Nations Security Council. However, Arias refused to answer in open session, and reportedly gave vague, non-substantive answers in private.

  The Director General’s decision to return to the UN to answer questions in open session followed growing public pressure, led by former senior UN official Hans von Sponeck, as well as Bustani, the former OPCW chief. Arias’ reliance on falsehoods and hollow excuses offered the most stark display yet that his handling of the Douma cover-up cannot be defended in good faith.

  OPCW chief falsely claims “no authority whatsoever” to address Douma cover-up

  Just weeks before his UN appearance, Arias told the European Parliament on April 14th that when it comes to the OPCW’s Douma scandal, “the matter is closed.”

  But when he came before the UN Security Council on June 3rd, Arias changed his tune. Rather than personally closing the door on revisiting the probe, Arias now claimed that he does not have the authority to re-open it. Arias did so by citing OPCW rules and restrictions that do not appear to exist.

  Arias’ fallacious excuse came in response to a new proposal to break the impasse. In April, the Berlin Group 21 – established by former UN assistant secretary general Hans von Sponeck, former OPCW chief Jose Bustani and Richard Falk, an eminent Princeton Law Professor – put forward a way to address the dispute over the Douma report. They urged Arias to allow the OPCW’s own Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) — a subsidiary body made up of 25 independent scientific and technical experts who serve in their personal capacities — to assess the claims of the dissenting inspectors.

  “The SAB possesses the necessary scientific and technical expertise,” the Berlin Group 21 statement said.  “[We] believe that leaving the scientific debate to the scientists, who best understand the issues at hand, would provide a more objective and rational approach to begin resolving this unfortunate and highly damaging controversy that surrounds the OPCW and indirectly endangers global security by eroding confidence in future findings relevant to alleged uses of chemical weapons.”

  At the UN Security Council, Arias rejected this proposal, claiming that his hands are tied by the OPCW’s own regulations:

   The goal of the Scientific Advisory Board is written, in the terms of reference, is to enable the Director-General to render specialized advice in connection with very sophisticated, very complicated matters and issues related to chemicals and chemical weapons.  Which means that the SAB has no role to assess the findings of the FFM.  The FFM is entrusted to investigate and activate an investigation to produce a report.  And this report—I sign the report, I don’t touch it—it goes directly to the policymaking organs, in this case the Executive Council.  Which means that the SAB has no authority to reassess the investigation of the FFM or to assess any opinion of the inspectors produced on a personal basis.

  In claiming that the SAB “has no authority to reassess” the Douma FFM’s findings, Arias is invoking a restriction that does not exist.

  In citing the SAB’s terms of reference (ToR), Arias failed to mention that it – along with the Chemical Weapons Convention — explicitly allows for the establishment of a temporary working group of scientific experts to provide recommendations on “specific issues” – exactly as the Berlin Group 21 proposed. Paragraph 9 of the SAB’s ToR states:

  In consultation with members of the [Scientific Advisory] Board, the Director-General may establish temporary working groups of scientific experts to provide recommendations within a specific time-frame on specific issues, in accordance with Article VIII, paragraph 45 of the [Chemical Weapons] Convention.

   Contrary to Arias’ claim, there is nothing preventing him from convening a working group of scientific experts to review the particularly “specific issue” that is the Douma investigation – arguably the most internally contested specific issue in the OPCW’s history. Yet Arias is claiming that he is somehow hindered by regulations that, in reality, explicitly grant him the authority to do exactly what he now claims he cannot.

  In stating this excuse, Arias also dismissed the work of the dissenting inspectors as having been “produced on a personal basis”, and therefore not subject to reevaluation. Yet there was nothing “personal” about the Brendan Whelan authored-original report, completed in June 2018 and reviewed and sanctioned by other inspectors, including the team leader. What remains unknown is who exactly were the senior OPCW officials who personally doctored its contents – a question that Arias has refused to investigate.

  Arias also offered another hollow excuse. The OPCW chief claimed that he can no longer revisit the Douma investigation because it is no longer “in the hands” of his office, but instead the policy-making organizations of the OPCW. According to Arias, that power now lies in the hands of the Executive Council, (the rotating group of 41 member states who govern the OPCW), and the full Conference of State Parties (all OPCW member states):

   I have to say that the report of the FFM directed to Douma is in the hands of the Executive Council and the Conference.  The Director-General has no authority whatsoever to reopen this investigation that concluded and was reported to the Executive Council, and through the Executive Council to the Conference.  The matter is in the hands of the policymaking organs and not of the Director-General.  The Executive Council was already seized of the matter in March 2019.

   This is the first time that the Director General has claimed that the report is out of his control, and instead “in the hands” of a higher body. In introducing this escape-hatch, Arias is now giving the appearance that in principle he no longer objects to a reopening of the investigation. In reality, he is skirting responsibility for that decision by passing it to executive bodies that have blocked any efforts to discuss the cover-up right from the start. Upon the release of the Douma final report in March 2019, the Executive Council immediately voted down a proposal to hear from all of the experts who worked on the Douma case. The US delegation lobbied to block the vote by reportedly arguing that such a hearing would be akin to “Stalinist trials.”

  Contrary to Arias’ assertions, the Chemical Weapons Convention does not support his claim that once a final report is issued, it becomes “in the hands of the Executive Council and Conference.” The relevant passage of the CWC simply states that the “Director General shall promptly transmit the preliminary and final reports to the Executive Council and to all States Parties.” (Part XI of the Verification Annex to the CWC, Investigations of Alleged Uses of Chemical Weapons, Section D [Reports], paragraph 23.)

  There is nothing to suggest here that the Executive Council – or the State Parties — becomes the custodian of these reports, or that the Technical Secretariat (TS), which the Director General oversees, somehow loses control over them.

  This is indeed borne out by past practice. It is common for the TS to make amendments to final reports and issue them without the Executive Council’s permission. Such amendments, which are issued as official TS “Addendums” to published reports, can be minor technical or typographic corrections, but also major substantive additions.

  This practice includes a previous OPCW investigation in Syria. After publishing a final report on alleged chemical attacks by insurgents in Syria in December 2015 (S/1318/2015/Rev.1), Syrian authorities invited the OPCW to return in order to collect further evidence that the report claimed was lacking. The FFM team paid a second visit to Syria one month later and published an Addendum to the final report — with details of its additional deployment — in February 2016. (S/1318/2015/Rev.1/Add.1).

  The Addendum contains no mention of the Executive Council, and there is no record of any EC vote to authorize it. The opening paragraph reads:

   This addendum provides information further to “The Report of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria Regarding the Incidents Described in Communications from the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates and Head of the National Authority of the Syrian Arab Republic” (S/1318/2015/Rev.1, dated 17 December 2015’).

   In the case of Douma, no one is even proposing that the OPCW return to Syria, as it did after issuing that final report of December 2015. The OPCW is simply being asked to hear from the Douma probe’s own inspectors, and address their complaints, including the doctoring of the mission’s original report. Arias is passing the buck to a concocted higher authority in order to avoid exercising his own.

  Disparaging whistleblowers, OPCW chief cites a fabricated figure

  In one of his few attempts to make a substantive claim in defense of the Douma investigation, OPCW Director General Ferando Arias has repeatedly asserted that “most of the analytical work took place” in the last six or seven months, when the dissenting inspectors were no longer part of the Douma Fact-Finding Mission (FFM). Because of this, Arias has claimed that the whistleblowers “had manifestly incomplete information on the Douma investigation,” rendering their protests “egregious.”

  At the UN Security Council, Arias doubled down on this argument by adducing, for the first time, a purported figure to substantiate it. According to Arias, 70 samples were analyzed by the OPCW in the last six months of the investigation, when the dissenting inspectors were no longer involved. Arias made this claim twice:

  The FFM, after Inspector B departed, worked for more than six months, during which the bulk of the results of the investigation was got by the team.  For instance, out of the more than 100 samples, around more than 70 results were brought in those last six months of the investigation.

   …Of course, the bulk of the investigations related to Douma came after I arrived to the Organisation after July 2018.  Of the more than 100 samples, more than 70 good samples were analyzed after the summer of 2018.  The bulk of the investigation, the bulk of information, the bulk of analysis, of all the information that had been gathered came after the two inspectors left.” 

  Arias’ claim that “more than 70” samples “were analyzed after the summer of 2018” in the “last six months of the investigation” is a demonstrable falsehood. Unless the OPCW somehow failed to report dozens of analyzed samples until now, the claim of 70 samples is a fabricated figure. In reality, the final report on Douma shows that just 44 samples were analyzed throughout the entire probe. And just 13 of those samples were analyzed after the issuing of the interim report — i.e., after the dissenting inspectors were out of the picture.

  With just 44 samples analyzed for the entire probe, and just 13 new samples analyzed in the final six months, this means that 70% of the Douma investigation’s total sample analysis was in fact conducted in its first month.

  Completely inverting that reality, Arias has now produced a phony figure that paints a false picture of the work conducted in the six months after the dissenting inspectors were sidelined.

  

  According to the Final Report, 70% of the total chemical samples analyzed were analyzed in the probe’s first month. Just 13 samples were analyzed in the last seven months, undermining OPCW DG Arias’ new claim that 70 samples were analyzed in that period. (Excerpt of Aaron Maté’s UN presentation, April 16 2021)

  By claiming that the “bulk of the investigation” was conducted after the whistleblowers were no longer involved, Arias is also erasing other critical areas of work conducted in the first two months and included in the suppressed original report.

  As I recently detailed in a UN presentation, a comparison between the interim report of July 2018 and the final report of March 2019 shows that the vast majority of the investigation was already done in the first two months in multiple key areas: 100% of the research of the scientific literature; 87% of the total interviews had been conducted and analyzed; a meeting with four NATO toxicologists had been convened, and 98.5% of the metadata analysis of media files from Douma was undertaken. In addition, a complete epidemiological study was reported in the original report, much of which was expunged from the final report.

  This means that, contrary to Arias’ claim, the bulk of the work was in fact carried out in the probe’s first two months.

  Retracting one falsehood, Arias replaces it with another

  At the European Parliament in April, Arias falsely claimed that no state party has challenged any of the Douma report’s conclusions, and that Russia even “agrees” with them:

  The conclusions of the report, paradoxically, have never been disputed by a state party. Even the Russian delegation agrees with the conclusions.

  Arias’ implausible contention was that, despite the heated two-year public dispute over the Douma investigation, no member state has challenged it. Yet Syria and Russia have vigorously challenged the report’s findings, within the OPCW itself and in a series of UN Security Council debates.

  As The Grayzone has previously reported, this phony talking point was first put forward by the NATO-tied website Bellingcat last year. Bellingcat produced excerpts of a letter that it claimed was sent by Arias in June 2019 to Dr. Brendan Whelan, the key dissenting inspector. This letter, Bellingcat declared, “reveals that at a diplomatic level behind closed doors, the Russian and Syrian governments have both agreed with the conclusions of the OPCW report.”

  But The Grayzone then revealed that not only was this claim ludicrous, but based on a “letter” that was never actually sent. The Grayzone obtained and published Arias’ actual letter to Whelan, which contained none of Bellingcat’s text.

  In a sign that he has now recognized the fallacy of the Bellingcat-promoted talking point, Arias tacitly walked it back in his June 3rd UN appearance. But instead of acknowledging his previous error, he replaced it with a new one. Arias now claimed:

  None of the 193 Member States of the OPCW have challenged the findings of the FFM that chlorine was found on the scene of the attack, in Douma.

   To support his claim about chlorine found at the scene, Arias cited a note verbal (diplomatic correspondence) from Russia:

  I have here in front of me a note verbal of the Russian Embassy, dated the 26th of April 2019, note #759 that includes an attachment.  It’s a Russian Federation paper, based on the conclusions of the report of the FFM in Douma.  And this note required me to disseminate this report. This note, or report attached to the note by the Russian Embassy in The Hague said, “Conclusion.  The Russian Federation does not challenge the findings contained in the FFM report regarding the possible presence of molecular chlorine in the cylinders, etc.”  This is on the web page from the Organisation.

   Arias’ own source undermines his claim. Whereas Arias told the UN that no state has “challenged the findings of the FFM that chlorine was found on the scene,” his evidence for that statement – a Russian note verbal – simply states that Russia “does not challenge” that there was a “possible presence of molecular chlorine in the cylinders.”

  The Russian correspondence goes on to explain why it explicitly does challenge the final report’s conclusion that chlorine was likely used as a chemical weapon. Responding to Arias at the UN, Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya read the relevant passage in full:

  The Russian Federation does not challenge the findings contained in the FFM report regarding the possible presence of molecular chlorine on the cylinders.  However, the parameters, characteristics and exterior of the cylinders, as well as the data obtained from the locations of those incidents, are not consistent with the argument that they were dropped from an aircraft. The existing facts more likely indicate that there is a high probability that both cylinders were placed at Locations 2 and 4 manually rather than dropped from an aircraft. Apparently the factual material contained in the report does not allow us to draw a conclusion as to the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon. On that basis, the Russian Federation insists on the version that there was false evidence and on the staged character of the incident in Douma.

  Therefore, the only contention that Russia did not challenge is that of a “possible” presence of molecular chlorine in the cylinders found in Douma. That is for obvious reasons.

  No one has argued that there was no possibility of a chlorine presence. There were, after all, two chlorine cylinders found at the scene, so traces of chlorine could be expected. In reality, the OPCW did not even report any finding of chlorine gas on the cylinder. They found chloride, a breakdown product of chlorine gas but also a very common substance in the environment, and in household products like table salt and other chloride salts. Chloride theoretically could have been dispersed around the cylinders.

  Other possible evidence of chlorine gas use came from very low traces of various chlorine-containing organic compounds (CLOCs) found at the scene — most, if not all, of which can be present in the environment. Because the OPCW failed to test background samples – an oversight or deliberate omission that Whelan later described as scientifically indefensible – it could not determine if these trace quantities of CLOCs found at the scene pointed to chlorine gas use, or if they came from benign sources.

  When challenged at the UN on his misrepresentation of the Russian note verbal, Arias did not offer a rebuttal. He instead tersely stated: “The Russian note verbale is published and that is what they have to say.”

  Arias’ willingness to deceive the UN on the details of the Douma probe and the OPCW’s own capacity to address it also extends to his portrayal of the whistleblowers, as we will explain in detail in the second part of this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 23:40

• CDC Insists Benefits Of mRNA Vaccines Still "Clearly Outweigh" Risks Of Dangerous Side Effects
  CDC Insists Benefits Of mRNA Vaccines Still “Clearly Outweigh” Risks Of Dangerous Side Effects

  With a new round of data out of Israel seemingly confirming what we have been reporting for weeks now, fresh questions are emerging about the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines (those produced by Pfizer and Moderna) and whether they’re truly 90%+ effective, as advertised.

  As the number of confirmed COVID cases topped 184MM, the Israeli health ministry shared preliminary data appearing to confirm that these vaccines are less effective at preventing infection via the Delta variant. Although the data must still be peer reviewed, the Israelis went so far as to proclaim that the true efficacy number is closer to 64%. To be sure, the vaccines continue to mostly prevent severe infection and death (though they’re only 93% effective at this, less than the 100% number initially touted by their corporate parents).

  

  Now, with President Joe Biden publicly addressing the administration’s ongoing effort to combat COVID as case numbers continue to creep higher in the US, the CDC has chimed in – right on cue – to remind the world that the benefits of everybody taking the vaccine still far outweigh the risks posed by the rare (but sometimes deadly) side effects that have now also been documented.

  As we reported, the FDA now recognizes that the rare heart inflammation seen in some patients, including members of the military, have been linked to mRNA vaccines. So, with criticism and skepticism directed at the US-made vaccines mounting, the CDC on Tuesday tried its hand at a little damage control.

  Per Bloomberg:

  The benefits of messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccines clearly outweigh the risks despite heart complications seen in a relatively small number of mostly young men, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 1,200 cases of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart wall, were reported in people who received mRNA vaccines, the CDC said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Tuesday. But with about 296 million doses of mRNA vaccines having been administered as of June 11, the benefit is clear in all populations, including adolescents and young adults, the researchers reported.

  For the Biden Administration, the stakes have never been higher. COVID cases are rising, and many are blaming Southern and western states with lower vaccination rates as a potential vulnerability that could ignite another wave of COVID.

  

  Meanwhile, in the UK, PM Boris Johnson just confirmed that he plans to relax the last remaining COVID restrictions in England on July 19. But already, public health advisers and other “experts” are pressuring him to reconsider.

  And in the US, the daily case numbers have started to creep higher, while the pace of vaccinations has slowed dramatically. Still, just under 70% of American adults have received at least one dose.

  

  While the Biden Administration has already given employers the green light to pressure employees to get vaccinated, and will undoubtedly continue to do whatever it can to pressure more adults to accept the vaccine, Dr. Scott Gottlieb points out that most Americans will eventually acquire immunity either through natural infection, or the vaccine.

  Given how transmissible Delta variant is, around 85% of population will end up with some level of immunity to Covid before it stops spreading at present rates. People have choice how they acquire immunity: some will acquire it through vaccination, others through natural infection https://t.co/ZVfGnCcTaM

  — Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) July 4, 2021

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

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 23:20

• Dershowitz Predicts Charges Against Trump Org's CFO Will Be Tossed
  Dershowitz Predicts Charges Against Trump Org’s CFO Will Be Tossed

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

  Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says he believes federal tax fraud charges filed in New York City against The Trump Organization’s longtime finance chief will end up being dismissed.

  “You can’t get a city district attorney indicting somebody for failing to pay federal income taxes when the IRS hasn’t even gone after him,” Dershowitz said in a July 3 interview with Newsmax.

  “One of the charges, a major charge, is grand larceny against the United States government.

  “That shows the extent to which they are prepared to stretch existing law and the Constitution to give them authority over federal taxes. It’s absurd.”

  

  Allen Weisselberg, Trump Organization CFO, leaves Manhattan Criminal Court after his arraignment in State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan on July 1, 2021. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

  On July 1, The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, were charged in what New York prosecutors called a “sweeping and audacious” tax fraud scheme in which Trump’s company and Weisselberg allegedly cheated the state and city out of taxes by conspiring to pay senior executives off the books by way of fringe benefits, such as apartment rent and car payments.

  Prosecutor Carey Dunne said in court that the alleged scheme was “orchestrated by the most senior executives” at the firm and got “secret pay raises at the expense of state and federal taxpayers.”

  Weisselberg and attorneys for The Trump Organization have pleaded not guilty.

  Ahead of the unsealing of the criminal indictment on July 1, The Trump Organization criticized Manhattan prosecutors for what they claimed was a partisan criminal investigation designed to hurt Trump politically. In a July 1 statement, The Trump Organization said the probe “is not justice; this is politics.”

  Dunne pushed back on the claim, saying that “politics has no role in the jury chamber, and I can assure you it had no role here.”

  Alan Futerfas, a member of The Trump Organization’s defense team, disagreed.

  “I believe the political forces driving today’s events are just that. It’s political, politically driven, notwithstanding the statements by my colleague at the DA’s office in court today,” Futerfas said.

  Weisselberg himself has been accused of defrauding the federal government—along with New York state and New York City—of more than $1 million in unpaid taxes and tax refunds for which he was ineligible.

  The most serious charge against Weisselberg, grand larceny, carries a sentence of between 5 and 15 years behind bars.

  

  Attorney Alan Dershowitz, then member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, speaks to the press in the Senate Reception Room during the Senate impeachment trial at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 29, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

  Dershowitz told Newsmax he believes the charges against Weisselberg, who has intimate knowledge of The Trump Organization’s financial dealings, are a pressure tactic to get him to testify against Trump’s company.

  “If he doesn’t turn, they will sentence him to prison, probably will not be a long prison term. Generally for crimes like this relating to a relatively small amount of taxes, there’s either no prison time or a small amount in prison time,” Dershowitz told the outlet.

  “That’s the goal, to try to get people like him to testify against the higher-ups,” Dershowitz said.

  “The ultimate goal here obviously, is Donald Trump. And the question is, will they get people to turn on him?”

  This comes as Trump has been discussing a possible comeback run for president in 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 23:00

• Japan's No.2 Says US & Japan "Must Defend Taiwan Together" 
  Japan’s No.2 Says US & Japan “Must Defend Taiwan Together” 

  Washington appears to be successfully wooing Japan to its side after urging a more united ‘standing up’ against China when it comes to Taiwan and other contested sovereignty issues in the South China Sea. 

  Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso on Monday made some surprising statements, saying that any future Chinese invasion of Taiwan would likely be interpreted in Tokyo as a “threat to Japan’s survival” – allowing the government to deploy its Self-Defense Forces for collective self-defense.

  

  While not necessarily a new policy given recent updates to Japan’s post-World War II constitution allow the country to deploy armed forces only in instances it’s under attack,  Aso’s choosing to specifically invoke the hotly contested Taiwan issue alongside an expressed willingness to defend the island with the United States will be taken as especially bellicose and brazen in Beijing. 

  “If a major incident happened [in Taiwan], it would not be strange at all if it touches on a situation threatening survival,” Aso said. “If that is the case, Japan and the US must defend Taiwan together.” The number two highest Japanese official further noted “the situation over Taiwan is becoming extremely intense” – especially following a Xi speech days ago wherein he vowed to enforce Chinese sovereignty over the island. 

  At the moment Japan is actually locked in its own direct standoff with China over the uninhabited Senkaku Islands, recently giving its coast guard looser rules of engagement in dealing with Chinese fishing vessels, believed used of China to attempt a quiet de facto takeover of the disputed territory.

  Recall that in the very first phone call early this year between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Japan’s Defense Minister, the Biden administration had reaffirmed a previously agreed upon US commitment to defending Japanese sovereignty over the Senkakus.

  Meanwhile as was revealed last week…

  U.S. and Japan conduct war games amid rising China-Taiwan tensions.

  Secret table-top planning and joint exercises in South China Sea continue as concerns grow over Beijing stance.https://t.co/m3Z7KG6dX2

  — Curiously Curious (@justcurious1313) July 1, 2021

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

  “Secretary Austin further affirmed that the Senkaku Islands are covered by Article V of the US-Japan Security Treaty, and that the United States remains opposed to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East China Sea,” the late January call readout had stated. 

  Later in April Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and President Biden issued a joint statement that urged “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” – however at that time it’s likely the American side had pressed for more specific and assertive language.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 22:40

• Weimar Los Angeles: "You Can't Go Home Again"
  Weimar Los Angeles: “You Can’t Go Home Again”

  Authored by Roger Simon, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

  When I saw video online of Antifa attacking demonstrators in front of the Wi Spa in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, I realized why, in the immortal words of Thomas Wolfe, “You Can’t Go Home Again.”

  But unlike Wolfe, who, in his famous novel, was loath to return to his native Asheville, North Carolina, I am in the south, resistant to returning to California where I lived most of my adult life.

  It was the homeless coming down in the morning from Mulholland Drive on the way to free food and not-so-free drugs, making even walking the dog a perilous activity, that had initially propelled our family out—at least in part.

  

  But things have apparently only gotten worse since, considering what transpired at the Wi Spa. That was a place I knew because, in the eighties and nineties and into the first few years of this century, I had become an occasional habitué of LA’s Korean spas, excellent places to relax in the hot water, although I can only recall patronizing Wi once.

  Nothing happened there then remotely similar to what occurred the other day—a man walking buck naked into the women’s only side, declaring his “gender identity” female, while not bothering to hide the contrary evidence in front of the assembled biological women and their children.

  Later, a black woman expressed her justifiable anger at this display before management only to be herself confronted by a particularly obnoxious “woke” individual defending the right of the gender dysphoric to freak out kids. (This is also on video at the link, if you haven’t seen it.)

  The next chapter had defenders of traditional human privacy (aka “normals” as my friend Kurt Schlichter calls them) protesting in front of the spa when they are confronted by the violent Antifa psychos who are apparently immune to any kind of serious prosecution by the district attorneys of Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle or, for that matter, our Department of Justice.

  What are we to make of this other than it is all too predictable by now?

  America, in its blue states at least, and they are doing their best to spread the poison elsewhere, has turned us into a land of the “woke” where near-total conformity rules the day, the populace terrified to speak up against the real intention behind this basic Marxist behavior—the destruction of the family as we know it.

  When you look at the silent faces standing in the lobby of the Wi Spa while the “woke” spokesman pontificates, you see this fear and all you can say is “Welcome to Weimar Los Angeles.”

  Indeed, the direction of our republic is eerily similar to that of Weimar, Germany, in everything from social mores to inflation.

  One of the more interesting books that gives a sense of what it was like then is—doubly apropos since we are in the middle of Wimbledon—“A Terrible Splendor” about the epochal 1937 Davis Cup duel between America’s Don Budge and Germany’s Baron von Cramm—a handsome gay man who was under the thumb of the Gestapo at that time for his proclivities so that he would win against the Yankee.

  Meanwhile, license prevailed for others in 1930s Berlin beyond anything we would even conceive of today.

  What the self-described “progressives” of LA and elsewhere have to learn is this is not about whether you are pro or anti gay. There are plenty of gays on the right these days. Or how you feel about the transgendered. Personally, I’m live and let live.

  It is about something much more basic we all learned in school when school really was school and not a Cultureal Revolution indoctrination camp. I’m going to put it in caps, lest it be forgotten:

  RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS!

  Disrespecting others is what Antifa, BLM and virtually everyone else on the left is doing now at a level unknown since the Weimar Republic.

  We all know how that ended.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 22:20

• Texas AG: Biden Administration 'On The Side Of Cartels' When It Comes To Southern Border
  Texas AG: Biden Administration ‘On The Side Of Cartels’ When It Comes To Southern Border

  President Biden’s southern border crisis is growing increasingly grave by the week. A flood of migrants continues to pour into the country as the president, earlier this year, reversed many of his predecessor’s immigration policies, including having asylum seekers remain in Mexico instead of in the U.S. and ending border wall construction.

  Speaking first hand about the border crisis, because frankly, the mainstream media continues to ignore the issue, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently appeared on the Sara Carter Show podcast to discuss immigration. 

  “Not only are we fighting illegal immigration and the cartels,” Paxton said, “but we’re fighting the Biden administration.” Instead of lending a hand to the Lone Star state, “They’re on the side of the cartels literally helping them to transport human beings into our state.”

  As a result, the attorney general admits he’s afraid of his own federal government. “Look, I’ve never been more afraid of our own government than I am right now. I’ve never been more afraid of law enforcement,” Paxton told Carter. “These are people that we expect to hold to a very high standard, whether it’s whether it’s you know, the FBI or the CIA, these national federal organizations have become very political.”

  Every passing day, the Biden administration continues to mishandle the border crisis. The reversal in former President Trump’s policies has resulted in a massive surge in migrants, including unaccompanied minors, which has overwhelmed capacity at immigration facilities. 

  Paxton’s only solution to combat the administration is through a barrage of lawsuits:

  “We are definitely in the fight with the Biden administration. We have 11 lawsuits right now, that’s in the first six months of his administration,” he said. “They matter because we have to fight, we have to hold them accountable for violating federal law, for not following the President’s constitutional duty.”

  With the administration’s unwillingness to secure the border, South Dakota is sending their National Guard members to defend Texans from border chaos. 

  On Tuesday,  Fox News’ Bill Melugin snaped images of at least 100 migrants in La Joya, Texas, who just crossed the border. 

  He said this is the “largest single group of migrants I’ve ever seen is currently being apprehended here in La Joya, TX. At least 100+ and more still coming down the road. Many children coughing, some moms breastfeeding. Some I talked to are from Nicaragua, Honduras, & Guatemala.” 

  

  One of Melugin’s images shows the +100 group of migrants lined up alongside U.S. Customs and Border Protection trucks. Agents appeared to be interviewing the migrants. There was no word on what agents were discussing. 

  

  Here are other images of the large group. 

  

  

  On Monday, former Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Ron Vitiello told “Fox & Friends First” that the “root cause of the chaos” at the southern border is Biden’s quick reversal of former President Trump’s immigration policies. 

  Listen to the entire interview or skip to the 32-minute mark where Carter and Paxton talk about the border crisis. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 22:00

• Fake Chips Flood China Market, Fill Overseas Supply Chains
  Fake Chips Flood China Market, Fill Overseas Supply Chains

  Authored by Winnie Han via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Counterfeit products have been circulated in China’s electronics market for a long time. However, as the global chip shortage intensifies, a large amount of refurbished, substandard fake chips are flood the market, exposing major deficiencies in China’s quality control standards.

  

  China Economic Observer reported a chip agent revealed that to meet the growing demand, suppliers were no longer keeping their counterfeiting practices secret. Instead, they are openly creating separate production lines to expedite the sales of counterfeit or refurbished chips. Furthermore, businesses are no longer offering the shoddy products at half price. Many are being sold at full market value.

  The agent identified two types of counterfeit chips. The first involves recycling used chips from e-waste by removing the logo and cleaning them for resale with new packaging. The second involves packaging the substandard chips from the regular production line and selling them as good products.

  Not surprisingly, customers were often dissatisfied with the product’s performance, reliability, and durability. However, the deficiencies were not immediately evident until after the chips were used over time or under extreme conditions. At which point, it would be the customers or manufacturer of the final products who suffer a loss, while the fake chip providers often avoid troubles, according to the chip agent.

  Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Are Most Affected

  China has long relied on imported chips. Small and medium-sized enterprises are unable to directly order from overseas manufacturers due to the small quantities, and can only purchase through third-party distributors. Thus, small and medium-sized enterprises in China have become the largest buyers of fake chips, and also the largest group of victims.

  For example, a small company once designed a simple data acquisition card. The debugging stage always showed abnormal results. It raised concerns about the design. But through the help of a chip disassembly company that compared it with an authentic chip purchased through proper channels, they found that the problem stemmed from the chip being fake.

  Some of the Fake Chips Flowed Overseas

  The commercial district of Huaqiangbei in Shenzhen, Guangdong, is well known for its counterfeit chip dealers. It has become the largest distribution center for integrated circuit products in Asia. While most of the chips produced there stay in China, many are believed to be filling overseas supply chains, especially through the exporting of Chinese electronic products. It prompts legal liability concerns that rarely get resolved.

  Zhu Yicong, a senior equity partner at Yingke (Shenzhen) Law Firm, told Chinese state media that legal actions are rarely taken against China’s questionable chip manufacturers. This is despite how China’s laws consider it illegal to offer “substandard”  or counterfeit products. But because the term “substandard” is ambiguous, independent examiners may be needed to prove the chips being sold are not genuine and reliable.

  Another reason is that some buyers, due to supply shortages or cost-cutting, take a tacit attitude towards illegal chips, and deliberately mix the genuine chips with the fake ones, which encouraged the formation of a counterfeit industrial chain. Unfortunately, the end-users and consumers have to bear all the risks.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 21:40

• Iran: Major Electricity Blackouts During Hot Summer Lead To Growing Anti-Regime Protests
  Iran: Major Electricity Blackouts During Hot Summer Lead To Growing Anti-Regime Protests

  Widespread power outages in Iran which have continued this week have plunged entire cities into darkness and is fueling growing anti-government protests less than a month before hardline judiciary cleric Ebrahim Raisi enters office as president. Frequent power cuts have also high neighboring Iraq, given it’s currently reliant for much of its electrical supply on Iran’s infrastructure. 

  Multiple social media videos have spread across the internet which show Iranians chanting “death to the dictator” and other anti-Ayatollah slogans, though the footage can’t be verified. 

  Protests reported across #Iran tonight against power blackouts and electricity outages that major cities are seeing.

  This one in city of Ray, Tehran province, tonight outside electricity company. People calling for officials resignations: pic.twitter.com/67TEGlsomp

  — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) July 5, 2021

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

  Iranians have over the past months come to expect such disruptions, but starting late Saturday unusually long power outages impacted large swathes of Tehran and nearby Karaj, among others. 

  The weekend Tehran outage had been unannounced (after for months the country has implemented scheduled power cuts over a severe supply shortage and rising demand), and sparked widespread anger. It went from 11pm Saturday night through early the next morning in the middle of a hot summer.

  Iran hawks in the West are seizing upon the protests in an attempt to argue against restoring the JCPOA nuclear deal…

  More chants of “Death to Khamenei” tonight in Shiraz over power outages in #Iran. The int’l community obsessively focuses on reviving a stale nuclear deal. But regime mismanagement, abuses, & prioritization of terror proxies over its people continue with impunity. pic.twitter.com/LbcCOU2MHM

  — Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) July 5, 2021

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

  The regional news source Iran International explained that the country’s power consumption this summer “has topped 60,000 megawatts per day, a more than ten percent increase compared with last year, while electricity generation has remained the same at 50,000-56,000 megawatts.” And further the report notes:

  As electricity remains subsidized and cheap, there is no incentive for people to limit its use. It also makes Iran a magnate for cryptocurrency mining by huge computer farms that are consume perhaps up to ten percent of electricity supplies in the country.

  In recent months authorities have vowed to disrupt all illegal crypto mining, despite it once being a key way for the country to offset the severe US sanctions blow under the past Trump administration. 

  #Iranian agricultures from Khuzestan attacked Energy ministry offices due to electricity outages in last days which caused them heavy damages. pic.twitter.com/c4qrpog2xR

  — BenSabti (@BeniSabti) July 6, 2021

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

  The hotter temperatures and growing broad-level frustration has resulted in rare acts of self-criticism by the government, starting with speaker of the parliament Mohammad Qalibaf, who began this week with a written statement acknowledging the “frequent power outages throughout the country and disruption of people’s lives and businesses require planning and management.

  “If the increase in consumption and excess demand is not compensated in the short term for any reason, at least stick to the announced blackout schedule so that people can plan for problems,” he continued in unusually blunt recognition of the crisis.

  

  And this was followed Tuesday with an unprecedented apology from outgoing president Hassan Rouhani:

  In a government meeting broadcast live on state TV, Rouhani acknowledged that chronic power outages over the past week have caused Iranians “plenty of pain” and expressed contrition in an unusually personal speech.

  “My apologies to dear people who have faced these problems and pain,” he said.

  Some Iranian towns are actually experiencing water supply cut offs to boot, given in some places it relies on power to pipe supply.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 21:20

• US Forces Are Under Constant Rain Of Fire In Both Syria And Iraq
  US Forces Are Under Constant Rain Of Fire In Both Syria And Iraq

  By SouthFront.org,

  The United States seems to have stepped in a wasp’s nest after their most recent strikes on ‘resistance’ positions along the Syrian-Iraqi border. The US strike took place on June 27th. The response from the resistance came on the very next day.

  The largest American base in Syria – at the al-Omar Oil Field came under fire by at least 8 rockets, which resulted in no casualties but significant material damage. Exactly a week later, reports surfaced of another rocket attack on al-Omar, this time the rumors were first spread by a US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman.

  The reports of an attack were subsequently denied by both the US and the SDF. Other reports, however, said the blasts were caused as a result of “training” activity taking place among foreign forces there.

  Alongside all of this, US convoys in Iraq are subject to daily IED attacks, with the most recent one taking place on July 5th, in the Baghdad governorate.

  There is no single area of focus for these attacks, as they happen all across Iraq’s provinces.

  In the very early hours of July 6th, another attack took place in Iraq – this time in Baghdad’s “Green Zone” which hosts various important buildings, such as the US Embassy. The Union 3 US base is located there, and C-RAM air defense systems were activated in response to a suicide drone attack on the compound. In the middle of the night air raid sirens sounded and then the air defenses were activated and began hunting for the UAV, successfully downing it judging by footage that’s available online.

  A more successful attack was aimed at al-Asad Air Base, also located in Iraq.

  On July 5th, at least three rockets landed on the base, not causing any casualties and undisclosed material damage. Ain al-Asad has been the frequent target of rocket attacks attributed to Iran-backed Shiite militias operating both in Iraq and Syria. The base was also targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles in January of 2020, after the US killed Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad with an air attack. Soleimani was Tehran’s top Middle East operator.

  The United States accuses Iranian-backed militia groups of launching regular rocket attacks against its troops in Iraq. The American punitive air strikes on bases operated by these militias along the Syrian-Iraqi border come in response to these “violations”. The Hashed-al-Shaabi, an Iraqi paramilitary alliance that includes several Iranian proxies and has become the main power broker in Baghdad, said the raids killed four of its fighters in the Qaim region near the border with Syria.

  As such, it is likely that the response against Washington’s forces is far from over.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 21:00

• As Pandemic Restrictions In India Ease, The Price Of Gold Swings From A Discount To A Premium
  As Pandemic Restrictions In India Ease, The Price Of Gold Swings From A Discount To A Premium

  The price of gold has swung to a premium in India, one of the countries that helps drive the most demand for the precious metal. It marks the first time in more than two months it has sold for a premium, according to a new report from Reuters featured on Mining.com. 

  The demand comes after pandemic restrictions in the country were slightly relaxed over the last 60 days. This has catalyzed a bump higher in retail demand, as people make purchases for weddings, the report says. 

  Local gold futures on Friday of last week traded at about 47,400 rupees per 10 grams of gold and dealers were charging a premium of up to $3 per ounce this week compared to last week’s discount of $12. 

  One dealer based in Mumbai said: “There is slight improvement in demand from jewellers as some of them think prices could rise above $1,800 and want to stock up.”

  

  Meanwhile premiums in China – another major driver of gold demand – narrowed to between $3 and $4 per ounce versus between $3 and $6 per ounce last week. The report also notes that a growth in shipments from Switzerland in April and May was due to local prices trading at a premium, rather than an improvement in demand. 

  In Hong Kong, premiums were at $1 versus $0.70-$1 an ounce in the week prior. In Japan, demand was quiet, with premiums at $0.50 per ounce. 

  Vincent Tie, sales manager at Singapore dealer, Silver Bullion, concluded: “Investors’ demand for gold has marginally increased since May as they are back in the market buying the dip, seeing current prices as a good opportunity.”

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 20:40

• Why Is NASA Working So Hard To Learn How To Defend The Earth From Giant Asteroids?
  Why Is NASA Working So Hard To Learn How To Defend The Earth From Giant Asteroids?

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  Did you know that NASA is going to send a spacecraft on a suicide mission in an attempt to change the trajectory of a massive space rock?  The good news is that the space rock that NASA will be crashing this spacecraft into is not on a collision course with Earth.  It is only a test.  But why has NASA suddenly become so concerned with figuring out how to defend the Earth from giant asteroids?  Could it be possible that there is something heading toward Earth in the future that they haven’t told us about yet?

  

  According to NASA, there are more than 26,000 asteroids that pass near Earth, and more than 2,000 of them are classified as “potentially dangerous” asteroids.

  Most of those “potentially dangerous” asteroids aren’t that large, but 158 of them do have a diameter of more than one kilometer.

  If one of those monsters were to hit us, it would be a disaster of cataclysmic proportions.

  Of course there are countless other space rocks that our scientists have not discovered yet, and those probably represent the greatest threat.  Because if you don’t see a threat coming, you can’t get prepared for it in advance.

  These days, NASA officials have become quite preoccupied by the threat that giant space rocks potentially pose, and we are being told that “scientists are at work on a plan to avoid the destruction of Earth by an errant asteroid”.  The following comes from an article that was just published by the Boston Globe…

  NASA and a cadre of the world’s leading engineers and space scientists are at work on a plan to avoid the destruction of Earth by an errant asteroid like the one 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs, created a cloud of dust so impenetrable that it blocked out the sun, and plunged the planet into a prolonged winter that sent half of all plant life into extinction.

  Personally, I think that this is something that NASA should definitely be focusing on, because the threat is very real.

  Most people don’t realize this, but our planet is actually being pelted by space debris on a constant basis at this point.  In fact, NASA says that we are being hit by very small objects “every day”…

  Every day, Earth is bombarded by tons of dust and sand-sized particles from the solar system. Meteoroids burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere causing little or no damage. They are easy to spot, streaking across the night sky in brilliant, short-lived bursts of light. Of more concern are the asteroids that pass by Earth unnoticed; they are difficult to detect and track as observers depend on reflected sunlight to spot them.

  Thankfully, the vast majority of the objects that we encounter are too small to do any damage.

  But it is just a matter of time before a really big space rock comes along.

  NASA officials like to give the impression that they have a really good idea of what is going on up there, but the truth is that our ability to detect large space rocks is still quite limited.  In May, a “potentially hazardous” asteroid that came close to Earth was only discovered about a week before it arrived…

  The reason why 2021 KT1 is news is that NASA estimates that it’s between 492 feet/150 meters and 1,082 feet/330 meters in diameter. It wasn’t observed until late in May 2021 just a week before its closest pass.

  And late last year a fairly large asteroid was not discovered until it had already buzzed dangerously close to our planet…

  Wow. A low-flying space rock set a record last Friday (appropriately, the 13th), when 2020 VT4 passed just under 400 kilometers (250 miles) over the Southern Pacific.

  The asteroid was spotted by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 14th, just 15 hours after approach. This is not uncommon for fast-movers, especially asteroids that are coming at the Earth from our sunward blind-spot, like 2020 VT4.

  So if a major threat is headed our way, we may or may not see it coming in advance.

  If we do have advance warning that a huge asteroid is coming, obviously we would want to try to do something about it.  With such a scenario in mind, NASA will soon be crashing the DART spacecraft into a giant space rock called Dimorphos…

  Developed by a team of scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, DART is an unmanned, remotely controlled astronomical suicide mission designed to nudge an asteroid that is half a mile in diameter out of its orbit. Doomsayers take note: This is only a test. The asteroid in question, Didymos — Greek for “twin,” and so named because it was discovered to be paired with its own small moon — is not actually on a collision course with Earth.

  Sometime between Thanksgiving week (perhaps as soon as the evening of Nov. 23) and February 2022, the team behind DART will launch it from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft will, if all goes according to plan, travel 6.8 million miles to reach and collide with Didymos’s moonlet, Dimorphos, which is 525 feet in diameter.

  Is NASA testing out technology that they plan to use on another giant space rock at a later date?

  Some have suggested that an asteroid known as Apophis could hit us on April 13th, 2029…

  On April 13, 2029 (which happens to be Friday the 13th), something unsettling will happen.

  A decent-sized asteroid, the 1,100-foot-wide Apophis, will pass so close to Earth it’ll be visible in the sky from certain places. Crucially, the giant rock will not strike our humble planet. But it will pass closer than 20,000 miles from the surface, which is closer than where some of the United States’ most prized weather satellites orbit.

  But NASA insists that Apophis will not hit us “for at least a century”…

  After its discovery in 2004, asteroid 99942 Apophis had been identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth. But that impact assessment changed as astronomers tracked Apophis and its orbit became better determined.

  Now, the results from a new radar observation campaign combined with precise orbit analysis have helped astronomers conclude that there is no risk of Apophis impacting our planet for at least a century.

  Estimated to be about 1,100 feet (340 meters) across, Apophis quickly gained notoriety as an asteroid that could pose a serious threat to Earth when astronomers predicted that it would come uncomfortably close in 2029. Thanks to additional observations of the near-Earth object (NEO), the risk of an impact in 2029 was later ruled out, as was the potential impact risk posed by another close approach in 2036.

  The orbit of Apophis is now very well known by astronomers all over the globe.  To me, all of the giant space rocks that are floating around up there that we don’t know about represent a much greater threat.

  Unfortunately, the number of large space rocks going by our planet has been steadily increasing, and I believe that there is a good chance that we could see an asteroid impact long before 2029 ever rolls around.

  If NASA officials know about such a threat, for now they aren’t admitting that to the public.

  But they are admitting that they are trying to figure out how to deflect a very large asteroid, and that should definitely be getting our attention.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 20:20

• Eric Adams Wins New York Democratic Primary After Mail-In Ballots Tallied
  Eric Adams Wins New York Democratic Primary After Mail-In Ballots Tallied

  Former NYPD police captain Eric Adams has officially won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary despite a vote-counting ‘discrepancy’ last week which – had it not been caught – would have likely resulted in former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia clinching the win.

  

  The Associated Press called the race for Adams shortly after the most recent batch of results were released in New York’s ranked-choice primary on Tuesday afternoon, setting him up as the overwhelming favorite to win the general election in November, according to The Hill.

  Adams, a former police captain who entered primary voting as the frontrunner, bested a crowded field of Democrats, including former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley. -The Hill

  Adams will face Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who sailed to an easy win over restaurateur Fernando Mateo in last month’s Republican mayoral primary, receiving 68.9% of the Republican vote.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 20:05

• Pelosi's Husband Bought Amazon Calls Before Pentagon JEDI Shakeup Sent Shares Soaring
  Pelosi’s Husband Bought Amazon Calls Before Pentagon JEDI Shakeup Sent Shares Soaring

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) disclosed from her ivory tower late last week that her investor husband, Paul Pelosi, made several now-profitable trades in various securities.

  

  For starters, Pelosi bought Amazon calls on May 21 when it closed at $3,259.05. Fast forward six weeks and great news for Amazon after the Pentagon pulled the rug out from Microsoft’s $10 billion JEDI cloud computing deal (opening the door for Bezos), and the trade is looking great.

  

  

  That’s not all;

  Paul Pelosi on May 21 spent up to $250,000 on 50 Apple calls that have a strike price of $100 and that expire on June 17, 2022. He also bought 20 Amazon calls, costing up to $1 million, that have a strike price of $3,000 and that also expire on June 17, 2022. 

  On June 18, Paul Pelosi, exercised his Alphabet call options giving him the right to buy 4,000 shares at a price of $1,200 apiece, or $4.8 million. The Alphabet call options were originally purchased on Feb. 27, 2020. 

  The transactions were disclosed in a filing on Friday, July 2. –Fox Business

  According to Fox Business, “The speaker has no involvement or prior knowledge of these transactions,” adding “The speaker does not own any stock.”

  Pelosi purchases multi-million dollars worth of FAANG and $NVDA call options in a report out minutes ago pic.twitter.com/cKS0owvFZU

  — congresstrading.com (@congresstrading) July 6, 2021

  The Pelosis have at least one ardent defender in former Rep. Jill Long Thompson (D-IN), who insists that even though Paul is married to the House Speaker, it’s unlikely that he would “have any information that someone else wouldn’t,” adding “Members of Congress make it clear what their positions are on these issues and the fact that they’re working on a piece of legislation that would be public information.”

  On June 11, the House Judiciary Committee advanced several bills with bipartisan support which would limit the powers of FAANG companies. The bills, which passed through committee by slim margins, have yet to be voted on by the House.

  This is not the first time that investments made by Paul Pelosi have been made in close proximity to happenings in Congress. 

  Paul Pelosi in March exercised $1.95 million worth of Microsoft call options less than two weeks before the tech stalwart secured a $22 billion contract to supply U.S. Army combat troops with augmented reality headsets. 

  In January, he purchased up to $1 million of Tesla calls before the Biden administration delivered its plans to provide incentives to promote the shift away from traditional automobiles and toward electric vehicles. –Fox Business

  The SEC is a joke.#Tesla #GameStop #StockMarket pic.twitter.com/qrIUjZ3h5j

  — Roger Ver (@rogerkver) February 2, 2021

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

  Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats are going after Redditors who’ve banded together to squeeze meme stocks.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 20:00

• Critical Race Theory Should Be Banned, And A Black Parent Explains Why
  Critical Race Theory Should Be Banned, And A Black Parent Explains Why

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  The best case ever against critical race theory is in the following video, sure to go viral.

  Amazing parent testimony on Critical Race Theory in our schools. pic.twitter.com/Llbe0yBn4U

  — James Lindsay, uncitable (@ConceptualJames) July 5, 2021

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

  Partial Transcript – Emphasis Mine

  I’ve got two children her in the school district. It’s very apparent here by all the parents who have spoken, that this board and the school district is failing. More importantly, about Critical Race Theory, this theory was never meant to be brought into grade schools, high schools at all. 

  It’s actually taught in the collegiate atmosphere, more importantly, the legal portion of the collegiate atmosphere to see different laws through the lens of race from an ethics and ethical standpoint, not for grade schools and high schools.

  The problem in bringing it up at the high school and grade school level is we do not have the educators to properly teach the kids. 

  Instead, educators use it as their own agenda, to indoctrinate the kids to hate each other. And whether you believe that or not, the reality is that is what’s happening. 

  Critical Race Theory is teaching us that white people are bad. That’s not true. That would teach my daughter that her mother is evil.

  You have an educator within your staff that has pulled my daughter aside and said ‘You’re a minority. So you know better than to engage in certain things.’ [Audience gasps, wow, whoa, etc.]

  When I brought this to the school’s attention, nothing happened to that educator. Instead, my daughter was brought in, and she was ridiculed. [Again audience gasps].

   So my question is now, with Critical Race Theory being brought in, what is your criteria to educate the educators? And who are you to educate my children, or any of our children on life issues? That’s our job.

  Your job is to teach them math and science. Our job is to teach them about life. 

  I believe racial issues and tensions across the US are nowhere near what they used to be decades ago. Do we have a long way to go? Sure. Do we have individuals who need to be taught? Absolutely. 

  But people here do not look at me as a black man. They look at me as a man coming in front of you, addressing an issue that we all are passionate about. [applause!] 

  End Transcript

  That video is not an isolated event. You can find dozens of articles.

  Furious Mother Slams School Board 

  Mother Demolishes School Board Forcing Critical Race Theory

  To Promote Equality, California Proposes a Ban on Advanced Math Classes

  Please note To Promote Equality, California Proposes a Ban on Advanced Math Classes

  Adversity scores are the Latest in Dumbing Down of US Education.

  Bill Maher on Critical Race Theory

  Even the Left has serious issues. 

  In a must see video, comedian Bill Maher blast wokes who have no sense of massive progress on many liberal and Libertarian fronts.

  To play the video and for a partial transcript as well, please see The Woke Liberals Have a Bad Case of Progressophobia

  Backlash Coming

  This should have a major impact in the midterm elections, and I believe it will if Republican can put aside infighting.

  CRT is not (or at least should not) be a Left vs Right issue. Instead, it is a right vs wrong issue. 

  School boards, typically liberal progressives, are on the very wrong side of this debate.

  “Your job is to teach them math and science. Our job is to teach them about life!”

  Indeed. And a huge majority of the public would agree. Unfortunately, grade school kids are caught in the crossfire of Woke indoctrination and a Woke debate and that belongs in a collegiate law class.

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 19:40

• The Peak Is In For Global Manufacturing PMI
  The Peak Is In For Global Manufacturing PMI

  Two months ago, a forward-looking Wall Street responded to the Bank of America Fund Manager Survey for the month of May, and concluded that the peak of the post-covid expansion was now behind us, whether looking at growth expectations…

  

  … profit margins expectations (46% to 26%)…

  

  … capex spending plans (54% to 51%)…

  

  … and inflation (93% to 83%).

  

  Of course, these “forward-looking” expectations needed some hard data validation which they got today when the latest data confirmed that the Global Manufacturing PMI has now peaked.

  As DB’s Frances Yared writes, the Global Manufacturing PMI was running ahead of leading indicators (key exporters such as Taiwan, Chile and South Korea). Well, the latter indicators had been consistent with the Global PMI Manufacturing at 54 rather than the 56 observed at the peak last month. But the reversal is finally here, and the latest Global PMI print declined by 0.5pt in July and, based on the aforementioned leading indicators, should decline another 1.5 points.

  

  The good news: as Yared notes, a PMI at 54 would still be very high from a historical perspective and leading indicators are so far stable. “Thus, the decline from the peak should be seen as a correction from an overshoot rather than a trend at this stage.”

  The bad news: today’s peak PMI data definitively confirms that we are now “mid-cycle” as Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson has been warning for months.

  For those wondering what that means for market, we republish some of our observations from our May 12 article looking at just this question:

  Just days after Morgan Stanley said that it “rather than getting excited about the reopening, we are getting more concerned” pointing to the infamously volatile mid-cycle transition, when the the peak rate of change reverses and execution risk jumps as visualized by the following chart showing headline Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index and Prices Paid component…

  

  … BofA has jumped on board the mid-cycle bandwagon, and in a note from the bank’s chief quant, Savita Subramanian, she writes that the bank’s regime Indicator rose to highs seen only once before in the last 30+ years: in Feb. 2004, after which Mid-Cycle continued for four more months.

  

  Does this mean that the end-cycle – which is quickly followed by recession – is imminent?

  According to the BofA quant, “historically Mid-Cycle has lasted for 12 months, but today we are just four months in. Thus, the current phase could extend at least through summer and potentially beyond.”

  What does this mean for investing? Mid-Cycle is usually accompanied by rising interest rates and capex: thus valuation metrics which account for the firm value to incorporate more expensive debt, and profitability that reflects capex are important. P/E and Price to Book are less effective, but EV/EBITDA has outperformed the index 75% of the time in this phase (and today EV/EBITDA positioning is close to a record underweight.) Additionally, “quality value” tends to outperform “deep value” in this phase. And if we have reached peak stimulus, quality should outperform from here to the detriment of other factors.

  

  Picking up on this, Leuthold Group’s Jim Paulsen, who has analyzed bull cycles of the past 40 years, notes that while every bull market is different, “the pattern they follow is usually the same: a strong run at the start of the cycle, a period of hesitancy that lasts a year or more, then the resumption of the advance”, or a crash, of course, assuming no Fed bailouts. While we don’t know what the endgame is, we agree with Bloomberg that are now “at the pause stage of the current cycle right now.”

  In any case, describing the Mid-Cycle, or as he calls it the Revaluation phase, Paulson notes that’s when corporate performance continues to improve but valuations get stretched and the pressure of rising yields intensifies. That’s when stocks go nowhere for a year at best or decline by low-double digits at worst. And sure enough, as Bloomberg notes, the checklist of signals that led to prior swoon periods is here: rising valuations that have almost doubled from a trough, improving corporate performance and yields.

  Some examples:

  • In 1982, the stock market posted a sharp rally as profits and bond yields continued to decline. A 15% correction into mid-1984 followed, leaving the S&P 500 essentially flat for that year. The next year, earnings started to recover and bond yields went up.
  • In 1992, earnings and yields declined heading into the 1994 mid-cycle, when the S&P fell by nearly 10% in early 1994 and stayed flat until 1995.
  • A similar pattern occurred in 2004, when the S&P 500’s multiple declined from 22 times earnings in late 2003, to less than 17 times by late 2004.
  • After an initial recovery in the spring of 2009, the S&P 500 stumbled as stocks underwent a 15% correction in the second quarter of 2010.

  

  Finally, how did economically-sensitive sectors fare during the revaluation period? As Bloomberg notes, small-cap stocks gained in three out of four pause stages, adding on average 5.6%, after falling more than 7% during a pause period between the spring of 1983 and summer of 1984. Cyclicals gained in two out of four instances — in 2004 and 2010, when they posted a modest advance that exceeded the broader peers.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 19:20

• A "Great Listener And Collaborator": Stalinist Professor Under Fire For Praising Genocidal Soviet Leader
  A “Great Listener And Collaborator”: Stalinist Professor Under Fire For Praising Genocidal Soviet Leader

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Asatar Bair, an assistant professor of economics at Riverside City College, is under fire this week for his praise of one of the most blood-soaked, tyrannical figures in history: Joseph Stalin.  Bair is a self-described Marxist but most communists draw a line well clear of Stalin who was responsible for killing millions. As will come as little surprise to many on this blog, I strongly support Bair’s right to espouse his Stalinist views even though I find them utterly absurd and offensive.

  

  In tweets, Bair expressed his support for Stalin as “a very successful revolutionary, a great contributor to Marxist theory” and “one of the great leaders of the 20th [Century].”  He added Stalin was also a “great listener and collaborator during discussions.”

  and then there are his successes as a leader. First, the foresight to fear a belligerent German fascism, then the tactical ability to successfully defeat the world’s greatest invading army, combined with the strength to make tough decisions that have no easy answers

  — Dr. Asatar Bair (@asatarbair) June 27, 2021

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

  He may also have been a great dancer . . . in between sending millions to their deaths, murdering opponents, and destroying any semblance of freedom. Yet, Bair also heaped praise in tweets for the Chinese Communist Party.

  His Stalinist support is due to what he sees as tremendous improvements of health care for citizens.

  outcomes across the board, due to massive investments in public health at all levels. Soviet socialism brought universal literacy to a county in which only a small fraction had been literate, and invested huge sums in colleges and universities in which students were paid to study

  — Dr. Asatar Bair (@asatarbair) June 28, 2021

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

  Yet, Bair ignores the millions who were killed. The Stalin health care plan was a bit more lethal for them. Certainly Leon Trotsky found Stalin’s ice-axe remedies less than optimal. He also ignores that there were improvements throughout the industrial world after World War II and that such changes could have occurred without Stalin. Indeed, Stalin is blamed for a series of moronic plans that devastated the Soviet agriculture and economy due to his one-man rule.

  Putting aside the millions who were killed or sent to Siberia, consider just the Soviet famine of 1932-33 which killed many millions, including an estimate of 7.5 million in the Ukrainian population alone. Stalin ordered the eradication of the wealthy peasant or “Kulak” class. It wiped out agricultural production. The life expectancies of the millions who died was hardly a victory for the working class or a model of public health policy.  He has been accused of mass murder and genocide.

  Stalin was also responsible for leaving his country vulnerable to the German invasion after he conspired with Hitler as an ally against other countries. Stalin’s purges included wiping out the officer corp, leaving the Soviet Army without sufficient leadership and experience. When Hitler betrayed him, the Soviet Army effectively collapsed in disarray. Tens of millions were killed by the end of the war.

  Stalin relished murder on a grand scale. He famously stated “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” His health care plan was summed up in his declaration that “death is the solution to all problems. No man – no problem.”

  Nevertheless, Riverside college district’s Chancellor Wolde-Ab Isaac told Fox News that while Bair’s “statements and ideas may be unpopular or even controversial, his right to express himself is constitutionally protected.” That is absolutely correct.

  My only concern, again, is the consistency of universities in protecting controversial speakers on the left as opposed to those on the right. I have defended faculty who have made similarly disturbing comments denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. These comments were not protested as creating an “unsafe environment” and were largely ignored by universities. However, professors and students are routinely investigated, suspended, and sanctioned for countervailing views.

  As we have previously discussed (with an Oregon professor and a Rutgers professor), there remains an uncertain line in what language is protected for teachers in their private lives. The efforts to fire professors who voice dissenting views on various issues including an effort to oust a leading economist from the University of Chicago as well as a leading linguistics professor at Harvard and a literature professor at Penn. Sites like Lawyers, Guns, and Money feature writers like Colorado Law Professor Paul Campus who call for the firing of those with opposing views (including myself).  Such campaigns have targeted teachers and students who contest the evidence of systemic racism in the use of lethal force by police or offer other opposing views in current debates over the pandemic, reparations, electoral fraud, or other issues.

  A conservative North Carolina professor  faced calls for termination over controversial tweets and was pushed to retire. Dr. Mike Adams, a professor of sociology and criminology, had long been a lightning rod of controversy. In 2014, we discussed his prevailing in a lawsuit that alleged discrimination due to his conservative views.  He was then targeted again after an inflammatory tweet calling North Carolina a “slave state.”  That led to his being pressured to resign with a settlement. He then committed suicide. We are approaching the one year anniversary of his death.

  Riverside College should be praised for its support of free speech for Bair. He is part of a diversity of opinion that should be cherished on college campuses. While Stalin was a tyrant to killed those with opposing views, we value such freedoms.

  The question is whether such tolerance would be shown those on the other end of the political spectrum.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 19:00

• The Central Banks New Mandate: Social Justice, Race, Gender Issues, Climate Change And Inequality
  The Central Banks New Mandate: Social Justice, Race, Gender Issues, Climate Change And Inequality

  One upon a time, when central bank “independence” first materialized – even though as we have noted in the past central banks are anything but independent (see “Who Owns The World’s Central Banks“)…

  

  … their mandate was to control inflation and generally this was their absolute priority.

  However, as DB’s Jim Reid writes today, recent years have seen central banks increasingly enter the debate on numerous other topics including fiscal policy, social justice, race, gender issues, climate change and inequality.

  Enter Reid’s “chart of the day”, which shows a snapshot of this in terms of mentions of inequality over time in speeches from developed market central bank officials.

  

  As Reid says, while “these are all admirable and crucial topics to discuss and could help make the world a better place” it does however show “how central bank power and influence has changed and also how they seem to be giving governments cover to spend on these issues.”

  He also adds that this is one of the reasons an increasingly vocal minority of the DB Research staff thinks inflation is more likely going forward (see DB’s thoughts on why Inflation Is About To Explode “Leaving Global Economies Sitting On A Time Bomb“). As Reid concludes, governments want to spend more to deal with the issues above and central banks seem increasingly comfortable to support them in that aim. As a result, co-ordinated monetary and fiscal policy is more likely going forward. It’s also time to ask just who elected these “independent” central bankers, and demand independence from their ideological bias.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 18:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Suez Canal Deal Reached, Ever Given To Be Freed Wednesday
  Suez Canal Deal Reached, Ever Given To Be Freed Wednesday

  The owners and insurers of the massive container ship, Ever Given, which blocked the Suez Canal in late March and closed the world’s most important shipping lane for almost a week, settled Sunday with Egyptian authorities, allowing the vessel to exit the canal later this week, according to AP News. 

  The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) will allow Ever Given and its crew to set sail on Wednesday after settling compensation disputes. Since late March, owners and insurers of the vessel and SCA officials have been bickering over settlement figures for canal disruptions. 

  Last month, an “agreement in principle” between the vessel’s owners and SCA was announced, but it now appears finalized. 

  Readers may recall the 1,312 feet long mega-ship was traversing the southern part of the canal when high winds diverted it off course and become stuck, blocking all vessel traffic in the shipping lane for six days. After the vessel was dislodged, SCA demanded nearly $1 billion from the ship’s Japanese owners for lost revenue and the cost of salvaging it. But the amount was later publicly lowered to $550 million.

  

  “We are pleased to announce that… good progress has been made and a formal solution agreed,” said Faz Peermohamed, a member of the London-based Stann Marine law firm, which represents owner Shoei Kisen and its insurers.

  “Preparations for the release of the vessel will be made and an event marking the agreement will be held at the Authority’s headquarters in Ismailia in due course,” Peermohamed said.

  There were no details about settlement figures. The signing of the settlement contract would be held on Wednesday at a ceremony as the vessel departs from Great Bitter Lake, a large saltwater lake in Egypt that is part of the Suez Canal.

  

  The entire ordeal lasted more than three months and appears to be finally over. Ever Given and its crews are lucky because some maritime disputes can be locked up in courts for years, stranding crews and precious cargo. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 02:45

• The Taliban Are Unstoppable In Their Momentum
  The Taliban Are Unstoppable In Their Momentum

  By SouthFront,

  The Taliban seem unstoppable all over Afghanistan, as their gains are followed by even more gains.

  In recent days, the Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan gained momentum with the capture of several districts from fleeing Afghan forces. More than 300 Afghan military personnel crossed from Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province as Taliban fighters advanced towards the border. The Afghan soldiers escaped to neighboring Tajikistan, saving their lives from the enemy.

  On July 4th, the Taliban was on the verge of taking Faizabad, the provincial capital of the Badakhshan province.

  Senior local officials have already taken a flight and escaped to Kabul.

  Following the fall of dozens of districts of the Badakhshan province, Afghan commandos of special operation forces were deployed to the strategic city. The gains in northeastern Badakhshan province in recent days have mostly come to the insurgent movement without a fight.

  The areas under Taliban control in the north are increasingly strategic, running along Afghanistan’s border with central Asian states. Last month the religious movement took control of Imam Sahib, a town in the Kunduz province opposite Uzbekistan and gained control of a key trade route.

  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the fall of the districts and said most were captured without a fight. The Taliban in previous surrenders have shown video of Afghan soldiers taking transportation money and returning to their homes. From those who didn’t return, many have joined the Taliban ranks as deserters from the Afghani army.

  The Taliban reportedly captured the city of Farah, another provincial capital, and the largest city of the Farah Province in western Afghanistan. Footage of the city showed dozens of Afghani army soldiers, many of which were killed.

  Hundreds are being killed on each side every day, with reports coming in from scores of Taliban being killed by Afghan security forces, and still the Taliban are the ones coming in on top and capturing even more areas. A significant impetus to the Taliban was the fact that the US abandoned its key position – the Bagram air base – and has turned it over to the Afghanistan Army.

  Initially, the Taliban spokesman said that everything had been either been taken by the Americans or destroyed, but it seems that U.S. forces have left behind radar and navigation systems as well as hundreds of vehicles.

  On July 3, the Afghan Civil Aviation Authority revealed that the U.S. military left behind Radar and Very-Small-Aperture Terminal (VSAT) systems at the air base. The systems, which were deactivated by U.S. troops before withdrawal, were successfully reactivated by Afghan engineers.

  Seeing as how there’s significant equipment there, the Taliban may change their decision not to attempt to capture the base, and in exchange turn their gaze towards it, as it would be a great boon to their operations.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 02:00

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Genesis Of Our American Collective Meltdown
  Victor Davis Hanson: The Genesis Of Our American Collective Meltdown

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

  This Fourth of July holiday we might pause for a moment from our festivities to ask how we collectively lost our minds over the last 15 months—and are we yet regaining any semblance of our sanity? 

  

  A pandemic caused by the leak of a Chinese-engineered virus and its coverup was cause enough for nationwide madness. But the spread of COVID–19 was followed by a nationalized and often politicized “flatten-the-curve” quarantine that soon ensured a stir-crazy nation. Tens of millions saw no people, and heard nothing human other than what was fed to them through television and computers. No wonder they grew paranoid, conspiratorial, and angry, and soon forgot the therapeutic nature of personal interaction and the shared humanity of being in the physical presence of others.

  Our first self-induced recession came next and lasted over a year, destroying all the hard work of the prior three years. Next ensued the death of George Floyd and a subsequent 120 days of rioting, looting, and arson. The immediate costs were $2 billion in damage, over 25 deaths, 14,000 arrests, and a Lord of the Flies anarchy with no-go zones in our major cities. A McCarthyite frenzy followed, as remote-controlled America hunted down the supposed “racists” among us—while career agendas, personal grudges, and ideological hatred fueled the cancel culture.

  All this was antecedent to our first election in which Election Day voting was incidental, not essential, to the outcome. This was also our first presidential campaign in which the incumbent was stricken by a pandemic virus. And his opponent, due to his age and infirmity, simply reverted to the 19th century style of staying home and outsourcing the electioneering to the Democratic-media complex. Biden’s basement became the equivalent of the “front-porch” of homebound candidates of a century and more ago. 

  The derangement was then capped off, first, by a buffoonish riot at the Capitol followed by a Reichstag-fire style militarization of Washington, D.C., in a “never let a crisis go to waste” psychodrama. Then came a novel second and unprecedented presidential impeachment, without a special prosecutor, witnesses, or cross examinations. It was based on the myth of a deadly “armed insurrection” fueled by President Trump, which purportedly led to the murder of a police officer. Later most of the writs of the House impeachment were proven fantasies, from the idea of “armed” and “well-organized” to “murderous” revolutionaries. The only mysteries were the identity of the unnamed officer who fatally shot an unarmed female protester and military veteran, and why the government has still not released thousands of hours of video detailing the riot. 

  That impeachment charade was followed by a trial in the Senate—without the chief justice presiding—of a president, who was no longer in office. 

  The finale was the promise of a “moderate” good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton—the supposed correction to Trump. In reality, Biden’s first 150 days proved, as the cynics predicted, that he was mere cover and conveyance for the implementation of the most radical agenda since the 1930s.

  So we can cut America some slack when we ponder why the entire country is now descending into a collective madness, given the amount of propaganda and media distortion pumped out during the quarantine, and since. 

  The Chaos of Daily Living

  Within the space of about 6 months in 2021, the costs of the essentials of life have skyrocketed—food, gasoline, housing, appliances, cars and trucks, and building materials. Non-ending streams of stimulus money, huge deficits, and pent-up demand so far have ensured that Americans would pay such spiking prices. And soon radical inflation may trigger 1970s stagflation and then recession, as the “why-go-to-work?” checks and consumer zeal finally cease, but the government printing machine keeps going. What good is free government money if spiraling prices eat away the entitlement? 

  California is the worst run of our states. But it is also always a helpful bellwether of where we are descending. The state has plenty of oil and natural gas. There are still remnants of a once thriving nuclear and hydroelectric industry. But power outages are now commonplace—to the point that, like Third-Worlders, we merely shrug when the lights go out as if it were a green way of reducing carbon emissions.  

  Forty million people driving on roads and highways intended for 20 million people—27 percent of them not born in America—becomes a “Road-Warrior”-like wildness intended to discourage the kind of driving to which we became accustomed in the 20th century. Any trip over 200 miles cannot be calibrated by traditional “arrival times.” Ad hoc repairs on ancient roads paralyzes traffic not already slowed by accidents. Speeding and traffic violations are commonplace. Either the population ignores or does not know the law, or a paranoid law enforcement is reluctant to enforce the laws, or there are simply too few patrol cars responsible for too many drivers.  

  Gas can range from $4.00 to over $5.00 a gallon; $100 fill-ups are common. To go to a California Home Depot or Lowes store is to be amazed at grades of plywood priced at nearly $90 a sheet. 

  Californians are leaving in droves, but housing costs are still soaring. Californians love nice houses. But those who have them don’t like to allow anyone to build new ones for others. 

  A horrendous drought has dried up reservoirs and dropped the water tables of most aquifers. Privately, Californians know that it was madness not to build reservoirs, all cancelled over 30 years ago, or to allow the California Water Project’s infrastructure to decay, or to continue to allow scarce fresh water to flow into the sea, or not to invest in new technologies of underground water savings and storage.  

  But they also know that as long as the Bay Area’s activists have sufficient supplies of water (from their own early 20th century, far-seeing politicians who created the huge Hetch Hetchy transference and won first-dibs allotments from the subsequent California Water Project), they will continue to push green agendas, the disastrous consequences of which the elite avoid, given their own wealth and power.  

  High-speed rail is a tragic joke. It is inert and unfinished. The ostentatious half-built overpasses stand like modern graffiti-stained versions of Stonehenge. Its only ostensible purpose seems to have been a green plan to siphon money from road repair and expansion. 

  Mention San Francisco to a Californian, and the same, monotonous warnings arise: don’t go there! And if you must, don’t park there—since smashing into a car and stealing its contents are viewed as understandable redistribution rather than criminal acts. Others advise to check constantly the soles of your shoes: human and animal excrement is ubiquitous as the city’s sanitation regresses to something resembling Old Cairo or medieval London.  

  I drive often to the central Sierra. For the last 4 years the talk there was “Why don’t they do something about the millions of trees that have died from drought and bug infestation?” The locals now say of the incinerated forests “Why don’t they do something about the millions of those charred black trees?” Such sincere questions assume people matter more than ideology. They don’t.  

  In a state where defecation on the sidewalks apparently hurts no one, drought and fires consuming a forest are also OK—as long as it is likewise deemed a function of nature. In California, logging an acre of timber is insurrectionary; 400,000 acres going up in smoke is “stuff happens.”

  Policies and Politicians 

  The truth is that the necessities of life—safety, affordability of the essentials, transportation, power, and fuel—are now iffy. If 15 years ago, Americans more or less saw each other as fellow citizens rather than as members of rival tribes, now they are resegregating into Dark Age bands. In place of oral bards and mythic sagas, we have dry and racist “critical race theory.” 

  There is no media credibility left after assuring us for years that the Steele dossier was the gold standard, that Robert Mueller’s dream team would prove “collusion,” that Donald Trump sicced the federal police on demonstrators for a cheap photo-op stunt, that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, and that only conspiracists could make a looney connection between COVID-19’s ground zero origins in Wuhan and a nearby level 4 virology lab, with ties to the Chinese military. 

  The current chaos of everyday life of course follows from national policy and politics. The streets are on a reverse trajectory into the 1970s, since crime is redefined as either tolerable collateral damage, “equity,” or a collective indictment of society rather than one of individual culpability. When mayors claim that burning a police precinct is a mere loss of “brick and mortar,” or taking over downtown Seattle is just part of a “summer of love,” or when the architect of the “1619 Project” claims looting is not violence, then crime is no longer crime. 

  The Left says it has not defunded the police because there are still police to be seen. But progressives have done something far more insidious: America has destroyed police deterrence by a year of anti-police venom, by prosecutors selectively and asymmetrically exempting the arrested, and by prompting police retirements, resignations or simple slowdowns. There is now in the minds of all big-city cops a constant cost-to-benefit calculation: going into the inner city has become a lose/lose/lose/lose/lose proposition in which a 911 call from the danger zone can get an officer killed, injured, fired, suspended, imprisoned, or rendered a fool, as the successfully arrested are summarily let go.  

  The country has gone mad with debt. Both parties are responsible for the massive spending. The Republican defense is that Democrats would spend even more—and, if they are lavishing entitlements to buy votes, why shouldn’t we? 

  The Left’s excuse is not just the old idea of redistribution, but a new revolutionary myth that money and debt are really irrelevant constructs. A novel economic pseudoscience has revised or discarded the oppressive idea of having to pay back what was borrowed.  

  Traditionalists and conservatives always assumed that the military, the intelligence and investigatory agencies, and the prosecutorial industry were at least above politics, defenders of traditional and constitutional norms, and completely professional in their service.  

  No longer. There is now a new military-industrial-intelligence-legal complex. Its hierarchy is politically weaponized, and amply renumerated. The careers of John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, General Mark Milley and a score of retired 4-stars officers, Robert Mueller and his dream team, and the Department of Justice are characteristically determined and calibrated by politics rather than competence.  

  The usual consequences follow: half the country no longer trusts its once esteemed FBI, CIA, or military. And when these agencies veer from their assigned tasks, it is no wonder that they miss impending signs of terrorism in Boston, Fort Hood, and San Bernardino, had little clue that the “JVs” of ISIS were expanding in Iraq, and never really informed the American people about the costs, the benefits, the stakes and the likely future of the two-decade Afghan war. In the 1960s the Left sought to tarnish the reputation of what they saw as hated government institutions and failed; in the 2020s, the Left diminished the reputation of what they now saw as useful and malleable institutions and succeeded. 

  America does not quite know what will follow from the first months of the Biden Administration. Already, it has managed to destroy the idea of a border, with an anticipated 2 million entering the country illegally over a 12 month period. It demolished the idea of the police and prosecutorial deterrence curbing crime. It is ending the trajectory of America’s natural gas and oil renaissance that enriched the country, and freed it from Middle East entanglements. And it killed off the notion that government should seek to ensure that race is not how we collectively define the content of our individual characters.  

  Abroad 

  Meanwhile, our enemies and rivals—China, Iran, and Russia especially—are giddy at what America has become. The American Left, they believe, has done a much better job of denying Chinese culpability for a Chinese-engineered virus than had the Chinese communist media. 

  When billionaires, such as Michael Bloomberg, see China as essentially democratic (“The communist party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen to the public . . . Xi Jinping is not a dictator.”), when Charles Munger applauds their clampdown on outspoken capitalists like Jack Ma (“I don’t want the, all of the Chinese system, but I certainly would like to have the financial part of it in my own country, . .  . Communists did the right thing. They just called in Jack Ma and say, ‘You aren’t gonna do it, sonny.’””), and when Bill Gates believes that in the midst of the pandemic, a lying China had done “a lot of things right in the beginning,” we can conclude America’s richest are placing their bets on a Chinese-Communist controlled 21st century, and will adjust accordingly.

  Our adversaries can’t quite believe their good fortune. Had they thought up ways to divide and impoverish America, to see its cities burned, and looted, to weaken its economy and currency, to erode the unity of its once feared military, and to entrench the most effective critics of America in America—not in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang, or Tehran, but in corporate boardrooms, campuses, newsrooms, Hollywood, Wall Street and the Pentagon—they could not have improved on what has happened in 2020-21, the era of our collective meltdown.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 07/06/2021 – 00:00

• Two Taikonauts Complete First Spacewalk Outside Chinese Station
  Two Taikonauts Complete First Spacewalk Outside Chinese Station

  On America’s Independence Day, the Chinese were busy in low Earth orbit conducting their first spacewalk outside a new space station. 

  Chinese astronauts have completed extravehicular activities (EVAs) and returned to the space station core module Tianhe, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) has said. #GLOBALink pic.twitter.com/791MjcT2pm

  — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 5, 2021

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

  According to a China Manned Space Engineering Office statement, two astronauts (taikonauts) on Sunday made the first spacewalk outside the country’s new space station core module Tianhe or Heavenly Harmony. 

  Chinese astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo successfully opened the exit door of the space station core module Tianhe at 8:11 a.m. (Beijing Time) on July 4, 2021. As of 11:02 a.m., donning new-generation homemade EMU (extravehicular mobility unit) spacesuits Feitian, meaning flying to space, astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo have successfully exiting the module from the Tianhe core module, and also completed the installation of foot limiter and extravehicular workbench on the robotic arm. Follow up, with the support of the robotic arm, they will cooperate with each other to carry out the assembly of relevant equipment outside the space station. 

  China’s space agency plans another 11 launches through the end of 2022 to complete the new 70-ton station. This comes as the International Space Station (ISS) celebrated its 20 years in operation with an end of lifespan by 2030. Already, the space station has shown signs of wear and tear amid a series of malfunctions, including air leaks. 

  In early April, Russia said it would pull out of the ISS in 2025 and build a space station by 2030 if President Vladimir Putin provides funding. If not, Russia could soon find itself working with the Chinese in space.

  President Xi Jinping has touted China’s space dream as he was recently cited by state media as saying space is the path to “national rejuvenation.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 23:15

• One For The History Books: A New Control Regime In Oil
  One For The History Books: A New Control Regime In Oil

  By Larry McDonald, author of The Bear Traps Report

  You have to give pause when you think that the only news in markets that mattered today is OPEC+ and what the next move is by them. We live in a world with growing demand, shrinking supply. ESG matters, climate change, inflation, Iran, etc, mean nothing today in the global crude market.  All people want to know is what OPEC+ is going to do next. So clearly IT is an important issue for the market before we tackle anything else.

  The sticking point in the talks – the UAE (United Arab Emirates) want a higher baseline after large-scale CAPEX investments in recent years’ production capacity and wants to boost production by 700mbd. On the other hand, the Saudis do not want to offend the Russians and other players by adjusting the UAE baseline.

  • *BRENT CRUDE SURPASSES $77 PER BARREL FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2018 – Bloomberg

  Gasoline, Summer Driving Season

  

  After the U.S. handed far more control over the price of oil to the Saudis and Russians, consumers are paying the price. The White House wants this problem fixed by the time the 2022 midterm elections come around. Brent now up close to 116% since the eve of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.

  We are told OPEC+ is proud their “control of price” regime is back. A mere year ago, it was hard to grasp that they had any control after a 10-year hiatus as the dictator of pricing. We feel they canceled today’s planned meetíng just to save the pain of having to create more anxiety in the market when they say they could not land on a solution. Frankly, the solution likely lies behind closed doors with a few parties and not the whole group. That is likely what is happening. But there are a bunch of people out there that say they have ‘inside contacts’ that likely know or think they know.

  “The deal we see is, no extension past April 2022, gives time for UAE to argue for a higher baseline, both are sides committed, Larry, there is a low probability of a destructive breakdown with a large boost in production, not happening.”

  – CIO in Canada, in our live Bear Traps, chat on the Bloomberg terminal.

  The market hanging on the outcome of the weekend along with the meteoric rise of Saudi control of the market over the last year. All should be seen as a sign that they (OPEC+) don’t want to blow this opportunity. The March 2020 testosterone show inflicted a lot of pain on all sides, those scars are still healing. Oil price risk is to the upside. The likely UAE deal is a kick of the can to April 2022. The world is watching them again for signs of control or lack of it. OPEC lost control for 10 years when the Shale drilling spewed new non-OPEC supply into the market in ’09 and they don’t want to lose control like that again.

  We are in a period of strong demand and weak supply. The UAE weekend proposal says no extension past April 2022, OPEC + wanted the extension for all of 2022. In recent months, years, the Saudis have worked many other members into contained quotas, baselines.

  A total breakdown is highly unlikely, “the oil market globally is in a sweet spot, there is too much money on the line for all the players. Demand globally is strong, we are looking at a deficit of 2.3 to 2.5mbd in June, the highest since last year coming out of covid” – CIO of a large energy fund in Canada.

  If OPEC can’t make that perfect scenario work then it is sending a signal of significant weakness to the market, then volatility to pricing will be back. That means derivatives players will start controlling the price and we could see dramatic whipsaws in prices as we did in the last decade prior to COVID rebalancing the market. While Saudi is in control, you won’t see the shorts show up. They have warned the speculators to stay away or be hurt. They listened for the most part but would show up again if this cartel were to start showing significant cracks. We just don’t think that OPEC+ is that unwise to let all of their great efforts go to waste over this quota issue. Demand surge is real, summer driving. Overall market dynamics best in decades, the risk to oil prices is to the upside.

  “All the emergency spare capacity is outside the USA now Larry.” – Portfolio Manager in the U.S. Midwest.

  Spare capacity globally is mostly inside core OPEC, the ESG overdose has crushed US shale investments (see “Why One Bank Thinks ESG Could Trigger Hyperinflation“)

  “There is too much money in the hands of core OPEC, two years ago this was NOT the case with shale cranking” – CIO, Macro Fund in NYC.

  Further to that, there is an agreement that all parties are saying they are obligated to work with until Apr ’22. Even UAE says they are not trying to be a thorn or break up the cartel or even the agreement. So I think we can assume this agreement will be honored and we have relative stability until then. That is a lifetime in this market lately. Iran’s new supply risk is out in November in terms of getting oil to mkt, current shale new rigs coming online are not sufficient to impact prices near term.

  “Watch RIG equity as CAPEX investment start to come in, Q3. Very tight global market through year-end. One producer needs to produce 2.3mbd to get the mkt into a surplus, that is a high bar, not in anyone´s interest.” – CIO Energy Fund in Canada.

  US shale is not a threat as it is very high-cost production and requires higher prices or contango in the curve to see incremental supply enter the system. Also, the ESG (backfire) narrative still weighs heavy on their ability to grow. In this cycle, companies are being forced to return capital to shareholders, there is far less cowboy up speculation, drilling. Frankly, this ‘noise’ around OPEC+ stability only shakes the ground under the US producer to remember how quickly prices could collapse again.

  

  “It is time to think of the oil curve CL1 (front-month futures contract) is priced at $75.16 vs. CL36 (36 months out futures contract) down at $57.95. As you can see above the spread above is eye-opening looking back from 2005 to 2021. “Larry, the one-year backwardation roll is 11%, just wow” says a veteran oil trader in our live chat.

  “Spikes in oil prices have triggered economic slowdowns historically. Remember, oil isn’t a forward-looking product. It is a ‘demand is here now’ product.. The curve shows it, CL36 at 2y highs vs. CL1 at 7y highs speaks volumes. WTI is saying this is a short-term supply and demand imbalance, Otherwise, PBR would be at $50/sh, its closer to $12.” – Veteran energy sector portfolio manager in Brazil.

  Inventories are dropping and global demand is on the rise via economic re-opening, a massive increase in driving and massive unprecedented infrastructure spending around the world. We have yet to see the impact of global travel amongst countries via airlines which will add almost 3 mil b\d of demand. We don’t see any increase in OPEC+ production being considered as a threat to the current price. In this status quo market, we need more of their supply or we are going to see higher oil prices. The current situation is a very unique opportunity for OPEC to cash in. Non-OPEC – Ex USA production spare capacity around the world in decline.

  “We see strong demand (India, Europe) with real supply risk, it is not in OPEC´s interest to blow this opportunity.” – CIO London. Oil has a shot at $90 to $100 in, next 6 months.

  We do not believe that a price-destructive “non-deal” is in the cards at this time. This is the strongest period OPEC+ has had in the market in decades and they don’t want to give that all up.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 22:30

• Google, Facebook & Twitter Threaten To Pull Services In Hong Kong Over "Vague" Doxxing Law
  Google, Facebook & Twitter Threaten To Pull Services In Hong Kong Over “Vague” Doxxing Law

  The big three internet and social media companies Facebook, Twitter and Google have warned the Hong Kong government that they could quit the city altogether if new controversial data protection laws ostensibly to “combat doxxing” are pushed through. The Silicon Valley giants reportedly made their stance known “privately” according to reporting in The Wall Street Journal Monday.

  Without doubt the new proposed legal amendments to existing data protection laws are closely related to the pro-China crackdown which has for many months utterly stifled the kind of large-scale pro-independence protests which defined much of 2019. Facebook, Twitter and Google’s anger over the possible beefed-up law centers on the part that would make them liable for revealing individuals’ private information online. Also in the cross-hairs is Amazon.

  

  Doxxing was widely viewed as a favored tactic of young anti-China activists, which reportedly targeted pro-mainland HK officials and entities while sometimes violent protests raged in the streets. The amendments were first proposed in May by Hong Kong’s Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau and would also impose steep penalties on individuals caught doxxing, including up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 1 million Hong Kong dollars (or over $120,000). 

  The US companies are also alarmed at how vague the definition of doxxing might be defined by HK authorities at a moment the ‘national security law’ continues to be used as a broad, blunt instrument for pursuing activists and dissidents. At this point, a number of the most prominent protest leaders are either in jail or in exile, with Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Jimmy Lai currently serving prison sentences related to things like the “anti-mask” law and unauthorized assembly.

  The tech giants worry their own local employees and system administrators would inevitably be subject to criminal charges based merely on the actions of random individual users, including what might be viewed in the West as political free speech, but which Hong Kong and its Beijing backers would view as banned speech. Google’s Hong Kong Web site is considered to be much less censored when compared to mainland China’s filters designed to prevent access to government-critical information and sources.

  The previously undisclosed June 25 letter from an industry group through which Facebook, Twitter, and Google raised their alarm said bluntly that—

  “The only way to avoid these sanctions for technology companies would be to refrain from investing and offering the services in Hong Kong…”

  The letter calls the proposed penalties “completely disproportionate and unnecessary response” that will cast a broad enough legal net that will no doubt punish “innocent acts of sharing information online,” according to select quotes unveiled for the first time in WSJ.

  Anti-Doxxing Law Could Force Tech Giants Including Amazon, Google From Hong Kong, Industry Group Warns https://t.co/uq6B6r50DD pic.twitter.com/pHSi9x6US5

  — Forbes (@Forbes) July 5, 2021

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

  Though it remains to be seen whether they would go through with this ‘nuclear option’ – as Google and Facebook have elsewhere threatened to – for example in Australia for very different reasons (related to advertising revenue and new government efforts to ensure greater reward for local news sources).

  The city’ some 7.5 million population doesn’t make it a huge user-base compared to much of the rest of the US companies’ global presence; however, it’s unthinkable to many that such a central international financial hub could be without Google or Twitter, for example. It would also certainly negatively impact any future protests movements or activists’ ability to rapidly share information, as the law will also extend to Telegram, or any alternative platforms. 

  Paul Haswell of Hong Kong-based law firm Pinsent Masons summarized the slippery slope scenario easily foreseeable if the law goes into effect: “A broad reading of the rules could suggest that even an unflattering photo of a person taken in public, or of a police officer’s face on the basis that this would constitute personal data, could run afoul of the proposed amendments if posted with malice or an intention to cause harm, he said,” according to WSJ.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 21:45

• Billionaire Investor Charlie Munger Says US Should Learn From China's Authoritarianism
  Billionaire Investor Charlie Munger Says US Should Learn From China’s Authoritarianism

  Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

  U.S. billionaire investor Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, praised China’s communist regime for its silencing of Alibaba founder Jack Ma.

  

  “Communists did the right thing,” said Munger on what the Chinese regime did to Ma, in an interview with CNBC on June 29.

  JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
  pic.twitter.com/39kvjeZucl

  — INVESTMENT HULK (@INVESTMENTSHULK) July 4, 2021

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

  Munger, a longtime business partner of Warren Buffett, said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “just called in Jack Ma” and told him “you aren’t gonna do it, sonny,” pointing out that the Chinese tech billionaire was looking to “wade into banking” and “just do whatever he pleased.”

  “I don’t want the, all of the Chinese system, but I certainly would like to have the financial part of it in my own country,” Munger said.

  Ma had publicly criticized China’s financial industry in October last year, when he said that Chinese banks had a “pawnshop mentality” and added that the Chinese finance sector “basically doesn’t have a system.” After making the remarks, Ma disappeared, before making his first public appearance in January.

  Meanwhile, the Chinese regime launched an antitrust probe against Alibaba in December last year, before slapping a fine of $2.8 billion on it in April for anti-competitive tactics. In response to the fine, Alibaba issued a statement saying the company was “full of gratitude and respect” since it “would not have achieved our growth without sound government regulation and service.”

  Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Group has also been targeted. In April, Chinese regulators demanded the fintech group undergo a restructuring overhaul, five months after the company’s $37 billion initial public offering (IPO) in Shanghai and Hong Kong was suspended.

  Munger also criticized the U.S. free-market economy.

  He explained,

  “Our own wonderful free enterprise economy is letting all these crazy people go to this gross excess,” meanwhile the Chinese regime “step[s] in preemptively to stop speculation.”

  Additionally, Munger praised China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that as a totalitarian state, the Chinese regime could “simply shut down the country for six weeks.”

  “That turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. And they didn’t allow any contact,” Munger said.

  The Chinese regime took draconian measures to stop the spread of the CCP virus, the pathogen that causes the disease, after concealing the outbreak the outbreak by silencing whistleblower doctors. These measures included sealing off residents’ doors and forcing people to take unproven COVID-19 drugs.

  In January, Human Rights Watch called out these draconian measures, urging the Chinese regime to stop its campaign against people seeking redress for abuses linked to the outbreak.

  “The Chinese government’s narrative that it has won the COVID-19 ‘war’ is conditioned on silencing those who speak out about failings in the government’s pandemic response and abuses committed under the pretext of stopping the spread of the virus,” said Wang Yaqiu, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

  Some Chinese citizens have filed lawsuits against government officials in Wuhan, the epicenter of the CCP virus outbreak last year, over their handling of the outbreak.

  Munger has been open about his admiration for the Chinese regime in recent months. During a shareholders meeting in May, he praised the Chinese communist leaders for how they allowed “businesses to flourish” and that there were now “a bunch of billionaires” in China.

  In February, he told the annual meeting of the Los Angeles-based Daily Journal Corp., where he serves as chairman, that “the strongest companies in the world are not in America. I think Chinese companies are stronger than ours and are growing faster.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 21:00

• Ethereum 2.0 Will Supercharge Staking Industry By Tens Of Billions, JPMorgan Estimates
  Ethereum 2.0 Will Supercharge Staking Industry By Tens Of Billions, JPMorgan Estimates

  It’s hardly a secret that the Wall Street/central bank establishment is not a fan of energy-intensive proof of work (PoW) crypto tokens in general and bitcoin in particular. Even Elon Musk infamously U-turned in his support for bitcoin after he – gasp – discovered that electricity electricity is involved in the creation of cryptocurrencies (coincidentally, right around the time China made it abundantly clear that for the digital yuan to flourish and for Tesla cars to keep selling in China, Musk would have to turn his back on the largest cryptocurrency).

  But what about far more energy efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) tokens such as Cardano, Polkadot, Tezos, Polygon, and – soon – Ethereum 2.0?  Here things get a little confusing because unlike the rest of the crypto space which is almost universally loathed by Wall Street analysts, when it comes to the PoS subspace, the sellside appears to have developed a bit of a soft spot.

  Take JPMorgan analyst Ken Worthingon and Samantha Trent who in a lengthy primer on staking, meant to identify where the biggest growth opportunities are in the crypto space (for companies like Coinbase which they cover), they not only disagree with the most famous crypto skeptic of all, their own boss Jamie Dimon, who 4 years ago said he would fire anyone caught trading bitcoin, but by extrapolating current growth trends in the PoS space, conclude that as bitcoin and ethereum increase in popularity, staking – the process of pledging one’s cryptos to pocket interest –  will gain traction as a source of revenue for institutional and retail investors alike, and that once ethereum merge happens into ethereum 2.0, JPM estimates that staking, which is currently a $9bn business for the crypto economy, “will grow to $20bn following the  Ethereum merge, and could get to $40bn by 2025 should proof-of-stake grow to the dominant protocol” (at which point the duo expects Coinbase to get a $500mn staking revenue run rate).

  A quick aside for novices: currently the bitcoin and ethereum blockchains use an energy-demanding process called proof-of-work to ensure all transactions on the network are valid and that the network’s distributed record is accurate. It is this Proof of Work process that is the basis for all criticism that bitcoin and various other cryptos, are energy inefficient as they require brute force “mining” to maintain the system.

  However, in order to create a more scalable and energy-efficient system, blockchain development teams, including the decentralized finance movement, ethereum (which Goldman recently called the “Amazon of Information” in a lengthy report in which it panned bitcoin as a “one trick pony” and praised ethereum as the next big thing in crypto), are switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, where investors lock-up their funds on the blockchain in exchange for rewards.

  While we have discussed it at length previously, staking is an essential part of maintaining the integrity of the cryptocurrency ecosystem for proof-of-stake tokens. In order to record cryptocurrency transactions, the blockchain needs to be updated and validated. Two protocols are used for this validation, proof-of-work (the current dominant blockchain validating protocol, used by Bitcoin and currently by Ethereum) and proof-of-stake (the emerging and faster growing protocol that is the core of staking.) Both the PoS and PoW protocols incentivize blockchain validation by issuing (generally in-kind) rewards, with Bitcoin miners rewarded in Bitcoin and Ethereum 2.0 minters rewarded in Ethereum 2.0, for example.

  A selection of the largest PoS tokens is shown below.

  

  Staking cryptocurrencies like SOL or BNB earn yields ranging from 4% to as high as 15.9% annually, according to data from staked. The Winklevoss crypto exchange Gemini currently advertises to  investors the chance to earn annual yields up to 7.4% by holding on to their stablecoin.

  The report also says that as the volatility of cryptocurrencies declines, the ability to earn a positive real return will be an important factor in helping the market become more mainstream. That’s why, JPM projects that the number of tokens utilizing the proof-of-stake protocolwill continue to grow faster than the number of tokens using the proof-of-work protocol. Here, the greater the number of PoS tokens, the greater the market cap associated with PoS, the greater the investment income opportunity for token holders in the staking process and for companies that facilitate staking.

  The JPM analysts also echo what we said over a month ago, namely that in their view, “the PoS protocol is becoming increasingly popular and is benefiting from concerns about the energy consumption and resource utilization for tokens using the PoW protocol. When combined with a proof-of-stake system that better aligns token holders and their blockchain validation together with enhanced security, we see new tokens increasingly adopting the PoS protocol, driving the staking opportunity higher over time.”

  

  This is important for companies that JPM’s analysts cover such as Coinbase, because the analysts predict that staking will become a growing source of income for cryptocurrency intermediaries like Coinbase, especially after Ethereum 2.0 which is scheduled to be complete in 2022. JPMorgan estimates that staking presents a $200 million revenue opportunity for Coinbase in 2022, up from $10.4 million in 2020.

  As for the demand side, as cryptos mature and volatility declines, a key driver of investor interest will be yield PoS tokens generate:

  Individuals or institutions are incentivized to stake their cryptocurrencies to earn passive income rewarded in-kind from the network. Nominal yields can be high from staking and are contingent both on the design of the token as well as the participation rates in the staking pools. While not the main draw for individual or corporate participants in the cryptomarkets at this time in our opinion, yield earned through staking can mitigate the opportunity cost of owning cryptocurrencies versus other investments in other asset classes such as US dollars, US Treasuries, or money market funds in which investments generate some positive nominal yield. In fact, in the current zero rate environment, we see the yields as an incentive to invest.

  In other words, while most focus on the explosive capital appreciation (and depreciation) qualities of cryptos where bitcoin went from $30K to $60K and then back again to 30% just this year alone, a growing area of interest for less aggressive investors will be the yield they can generate on their various crypto tokens and stablecoins.

  To be sure, this transformation from PoW to PoS will take a while, and will require the successful conversion of the PoW Ethereum 1.0 into PoS Ethereum 2.0. Meanwhhle, as shown in the chart below, the cryptocurrency market remains dominated by proof-of-work, which accounts for roughly 70% of the cryptocurrency market capitalization. This is largely driven by the two largest tokens, Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are both (currently) proof-of-work, although it is critical to note that Ethereum is due to migrate to proof-of-stake protocol in the coming months (Ethereum 2.0 was originally supposed to launch in January 2020, and is now expected to enter its final launch phase in 2022.).

  

  Of course, there are risks, and the potential ability to earn consistent positive yield through staking cryptocurrencies is dependent on market volatility. For example, ethereum competitor Solana lets investors take the native SOL cryptocurrency, currently valued at $32.76, and earn SOL rewards. If the value of the SOL token were to tank, there would be no real gains. This is true of any staking cryptocurrency.

  That said, JPM is confident that as the crypto market matures and volatility decreases, staking will likely become a more reliable source of revenue (much more in the full JPM report).

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 20:15

• US Army Directs Commands To Prep For Mandatory COVID Shots For Troops; Report
  US Army Directs Commands To Prep For Mandatory COVID Shots For Troops; Report

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  The US Army is preparing to enforce mandatory coronavirus vaccinations for service members from the beginning of September, according to an Army Times report.

  

  The report published Saturday notes “The Army has directed commands to prepare to administer mandatory COVID-19 vaccines as early as Sept. 1, pending full Food and Drug Administration licensure.”

  “The directive came from an execute order sent to the force by Department of the Army Headquarters,” the report adds.

  An update to a purported leaked military directive says that “Commands will be prepared to provide a backbrief on servicemember vaccination status and way ahead for completion once the vaccine is mandated.”

  Both the Army and the DoD have denied that there are plans for mandatory vaccinations.

  Army spokesperson Maj. Jackie Wren staled that “As a matter of policy we do not comment on leaked documents. The vaccine continues to be voluntary.”

  “If we are directed by DoD to change our posture, we are prepared to do so,” Wren added.

  The military is experiencing vaccine hesitancy, just as in the greater population. This is sure to continue, with new research linking heart issues and chest pains in soldiers to mRNA vaccines.

  The latest study, published in JAMA’s Cardiology Journal on Tuesday, showed that 23 male soldiers (including 22 who were deemed “previously health”) between the ages of 20 and 51 presented “acute onset of marked chest pain” within four days of receiving their second dose. Patients who sought care for chest pain in the military health-care system following COVID-19 vaccination and were subsequently diagnosed with clinical myocarditis were included in the case study.

  In the UK, soldiers have been warned that if they decline the vaccine they will face ‘punishment and re-education’.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 19:30

• Staggering Numbers Of Shootings, Deaths In Chicago & NYC Over Bloody July 4th Weekend 
  Staggering Numbers Of Shootings, Deaths In Chicago & NYC Over Bloody July 4th Weekend 

  Every July 4th weekend police in Chicago brace for an uptick in violence – even more than is usual when typical weekends average about 40 shootings – and this holiday weekend was no different, easily registering as the deadliest and most violent this year given the total death count. New York City has also been witnessing a steady uptick in seemingly random shootings and violence, including brazen acts committed in broad daylight in heavily trafficked areas, such as the recent Times Square wounding of a US Marine. 

  On Monday the Chicago Sun-Times has tallied 92 people shot over the long July 4th weekend, with 16 killed. The Sun-Times database shows the numbers killed to be a weekend high for all of 2021 so far.

  

  Among the 92 shooting incidents, 76 were considered serious enough to receive hospital treatment, including six children and teenagers, according to Chicago police. 

  It was a particularly devastating weekend in terms of horrific headlines involving child deaths and woundings – with the Sun-Times listing the following: 

  • In one incident, two people were killed and four were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy, in a shooting early Monday in Washington Park on the South Side.
  • That happened around the same time that a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman and about four hours after an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side.
  • Late Sunday afternoon, a 5-year-old girl was shot in a leg, also in West Pullman.

  Like with other weekend spikes in violence, local media and even woefully understaffed police often struggle to gain an accurate tally of shooting incidents amid the rapidly incoming emergency notifications. 

  Fox News wrote earlier that “Reports on the total number of incidents ranged wildly from 37 to 88, but the fact remains that dozens of people were shot, with at least five children among the victims.”

  The youngest victim in Chicago was a 6-year old girl who survived what likely was a random act targeting someone else in a group which had been standing on a sidewalk: 

  The youngest victim was a 6-year-old girl who was shot while standing in a group on a sidewalk at around 1 a.m. Monday, WGN 9 reported. 

  A gray SUV pulled up and someone opened fire on the group, hitting a 43-year-old woman twice in the back as well as the little girl. Both are expected to recover. 

  New York City also saw a noticeable spike in violence over the holiday weekend, with by Monday morning NYPD data showing 26 total shot since Friday midnight. Later in the day that total rose to at least 30 as more detailed reports came in on the prior two days.

  SO FAR THIS JULY 4TH WEEKEND: Nearly 30 people were shot as a result of gunfire across New York City during the holiday weekend.

  — NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) July 5, 2021

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

  And then there’s this surreal story which suggests increasingly lawless streets where criminals strike with impunity often in broad daylight and in crowded places:

  A 23-year old woman was slashed in the chest and hand in Times Square early Friday morning when a stranger lashed out after she ignored his catcalls, police said. 

  The woman, whose name was not released, was visiting Manhattan from Michigan and leaving ‘Restaurant Row’ in Midtown, around West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue, around 4.30am with a friend when the man began shouting crude remarks, according to the New York Daily News.

  Her friend told the stranger to leave her alone, but he grew enraged and followed them before approaching the woman from behind a slicing her across the chest and hand with an unknown sharp object, police said.

  Police were not able to apprehend the man described in public alerts as a “dark-skinned man in black clothing” after he fled the scene. Surveillance footage was subsequently released as NYPD continue seeking the public’s help.

  Police appear to have few answers or done little in terms of practical solutions or prevention…

  “We’ve gone from that to now needing to bring in metal detectors because they can’t curb the violence in New York City … What a sad state of affairs” https://t.co/x9MVxsGHet

  — Jacob Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) July 1, 2021

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

  All the latest incidents which at times sent tourists running for their lives in central places like Times Square “mark the latest in a bloody summer as violent crime continues to spike in the Big Apple, jumping by a quarter over the past year, according to police data,” The Daily Mail wrote of recent incidents. “Shootings in New York City have surged by 43 percent in the past year, while murders are up 12 percent.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 18:45

• 'Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever' Writes Disaffected Co-Founder Larry Sanger
  ‘Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever’ Writes Disaffected Co-Founder Larry Sanger

  Authored by WikiPedia co-founder Larry Sanger via larrysanger.org,

  “All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia,” declares a policy page, “must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV).” This is essential policy, believe it or not. Maybe that will be hard to believe, if you have read many Wikipedia articles on controversial topics lately. But it is true: neutrality is the second of the “Five Pillars” policies that define Wikipedia’s approach to the craft of encyclopedia-writing. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales made a statement that Wikipedia now regards as definitive. “Doing The Right Thing takes many forms,” he wrote, “but perhaps most central is the preservation of our shared vision for the NPOV and for a culture of thoughtful diplomatic honesty.”

  

  Yes, Wikipedia is very earnest about its neutrality.

  But what does “neutral” mean? This is easy to misunderstand; many people think it means the same as “objective.” But neutrality is not the same as objectivity. If an encyclopedia is neutral about political, scientific, and religious controversies—the issues that define the ongoing culture war—then you will find competing sides represented carefully and respectfully, even if one side is “objectively” wrong. From a truly neutral article, you would learn why, on a whole variety of issues, conservatives believe one thing, while progressives believe another thing. And then you would be able to make up your own mind.

  Is that what Wikipedia offers? As we will see, the answer is No.

  

  What Is “Neutrality,” Anyway?

  “Now wait a second,” I can already hear some people saying. “I reject this distinction between objectivity and neutrality. Neutrality does not mean giving equal weight to all opinions. Neutrality means approaching issues without emotion, following standards of logic and science. The neutral approach seeks hard facts and assembles hard-won truths for a critical audience.”

  That might be a fine thing, but I am afraid that is not what “neutrality” means, certainly not according to Wikipedia. Logic, science, and factuality are admirable, but the words summing up those ideals are “objectivity” and “rationality.” Neutrality is something else. Wikipedia is supposed to be like Switzerland, proverbially speaking: not casting any side as the enemy, and certainly not taking pot-shots at one side. And this is roughly how Wikipedia still officially characterizes neutrality: “Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them.”

  Jimmy Wales is right. We did originally adopt the neutrality policy to foster “a culture of thoughtful diplomatic honesty.” In other words, the way to keep the peace among a radically diverse set of contributors is not to declare winners and losers. But that is only one reason we adopted the policy. There was another key reason: as I have explained, no one has a right to make up your mind for you, especially in an open, global project. That does violence to our basic autonomy and, if the project ever became very large and important, it would place an enormous amount of power in the hands of a ideological cabal. And on Wikipedia, There is no cabal (ask them; they’ll tell you). Such ideological control would turn Wikipedia into an engine of propaganda. The neutrality policy was supposed to prevent that.

  There is a crucial difference between propaganda and information that supports individual deliberation. The difference is neutrality.

  So does Wikipedia meet its own ideals of neutrality? Let’s find out. I already explored this question by looking for (and easily finding) bias in articles on important topics. In the present article, I take another approach: we can list a few big political issues, briefly summarize the warring views on them, and then look and see whether these views are presented neutrally, in a way that allows the reader to make up his own mind. Does that sound fair? I think it does. And does Wikipedia take such an approach?

  I propose to look and see. Which issues in the last year or so have caused the most acrimonious dispute? We can look at the main battlefronts of the culture war: politics, science, and religion. I will spend most of my time on politics.

  In U.S. politics, four of the biggest political issues would include:

  • Trump’s impeachments
  • Biden’s scandals
  • The Antifa and BLM riots
  • Alleged election irregularities

  

  Trump’s Impeachments

  Democrats and (most) Republicans were sharply divided on the question of whether Trump’s impeachments had any merit. The Democratic view was that Trump abused his office by encouraging the president of Ukraine to investigate his opponent, Biden. Later, he egged on the January 6 invasion of the Capitol building. The Republican view was that Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president was wholly innocent, that he had committed no “high crime or misdemeanor,” and that Biden was in fact guilty of dirty shenanigans in Ukraine. As to the January 6 invasion, his remarks did not cause it. Of course, there is much, much more to be said on all sides. Now, a neutral Wikipedia would not come down clearly on either side, and would fully lay out the Democratic and the Republican cases fairly and fully. Is that what we see on Wikipedia?

  No. As of this writing (and this caveat goes for all of the following), there was a section of the Donald Trump article about the first impeachment (2019-20). That section had absolutely no information about the Republican side in the House impeachment proceedings; only the Democratic side is presented. As to the Senate trial, here is the total extent of Wikipedia’s remarks about the Trump (i.e., majority Republican) position: “Trump’s lawyers did not deny the facts as presented in the charges but said Trump had not broken any laws or obstructed Congress. They argued that the impeachment was ‘constitutionally and legally invalid’ because Trump was not charged with a crime and that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense.” That is all; two transparently biased sentences. Among other things, the article omits the essential point that Trump’s lawyers also denied that there was any abuse of power in the first place.

  There is, of course, much more information to be found about the Republican case in the (very long) article, “First impeachment trial of Donald Trump“; but, and I suppose you will just have to take my word for this, the relevant section is extremely biased, for example, dismissing various what it calls “conspiracy theories.”

  As to the second impeachment trial (that of January, 2021), in the Donald Trump article, no information is offered on either side about the arguments for impeachment, either in the House or the Senate proceedings. Certainly there is nothing remotely representing the perspective of Trump and his defenders. Again, there is a much longer article, “Second impeachment of Donald Trump,” with a “Background” section that essentially lays out the Democratic case against Trump. No Trump rebuttal is given at all. The rest of the article is also extremely biased; there is a long section of opinions whether Trump should have been impeached. The “Opposition” section (i.e., listing people opposed to impeachment) skips entirely over all House Republican opposition, and presents only Senate opposition.

  This is hardly fair, neutral treatment on events that deeply divided the American people. Wikipedia took the Democrats’ side against Trump, period. The articles are so biased, in fact, that it is fair to call them “propaganda.”

  

  The Biden Family Ukraine Scandal

  President Biden faced, and has so far easily escaped, two potentially devastating scandals that were unleashed in the 2020 election. One concerned Ukraine and the other concerned the shady business dealings Hunter and his father allegedly had with a company controlled by the Chinese government. The issue dividing Republicans and Democrats here, obviously, was: Was there any evidence of wrongdoing? Not all national-level Republicans thought the scandals were worth talking about, but some certainly did; and a lot of the rank-and-file did. The Democrats, meanwhile, essentially circled the wagons and refused to report on or discuss the issues involved. When they did, they typically issued blanket denials and dismissals.

  A neutral handling of the many confusing accusations would not imply that Biden was guilty of anything. But it also would not clear him of all charges. Rather, it would present enough detail about the accusations and the purported evidence for them, leaving nothing important out; then it would explain in some detail how Biden was defended by Democrats and his allies. That much is the least that one would expect to find in a neutral treatment of the scandals. Is that what we see in Wikipedia?

  Not at all. We can look at some relevant articles, first about the Ukraine scandal. In the “Campaign” section of the Wikipedia article on Biden, there are two paragraphs explaining the allegations (footnotes and links have been removed from this quotation):

  In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, as of September 2019, no evidence has been produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden’s chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives.

  Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1 billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1 billion in aid was part of this official policy.

  This is, of course, an obviously one-sided whitewash which takes Biden’s side throughout. In these dismissive paragraphs, one cannot fully make sense of what the case against Biden was even supposed to be; Biden’s withholding of aid is mentioned, but the context and explanation essential to the case are omitted.

  Anyone passingly familiar with the story knows there is much more to it. There is nothing here about the fact that Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma paid Joe Biden’s son Hunter approximately $600,000 per annum from 2014 to 2019 to serve on the Board of Directors, never mind that he had no industry experience but only a connection to his father, the Vice President of the United States. Wikipedia even has the temerity to make the claim that “Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired, because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden.” While it was in dispute why Biden sought Shokin’s ouster, it is perfectly true that he did so. The statement, in fact, was one Joe Biden specifically made himself—with braggadocio and to laughter—in an infamous video of an interview before the Council on Foreign Relations. The video, of course, is not so much as mentioned by Wikipedia. Nor is there any discussion of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop and the damning evidence it contained.

  Wikipedia does have a whole article titled—indeed, its bias showing right in the title—”Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory.” It begins, “The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory [bold in original] is a series of unevidenced claims centered on the false allegation that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, he engaged in corrupt activities relating to the employment of his son Hunter Biden by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.” There are, of course, a great many people who believe the claims are not “false” and no mere “conspiracy theory.” Their point of view is not presented but dismissed out of hand. The article goes downhill from there, serving essentially as a hit piece on Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and the New York Post, with very few actual details about what the allegations even were. More details can be found in a section of the Hunter Biden article—which is something—but even this reads as a blatantly biased brief written by the Biden family’s own lawyers.

  

  The Biden Family Chinese Deals

  At this point, Wikipedia’s defenders might well fall back on their notion that only “reliable sources” are permitted, and, gee, no reliable sources thought much of the above-mentioned video or laptop. “But,” you might well observe, “it was big news for a time. And Wikipedia thought there were no reliable sources at all? Why not?” The reason is that the sources that provide mainstream coverage of conservative points of view, including Fox News, The New York Post, and the (U.K.) Daily Mail—as well as pretty much all of newer conservative news media sources, which are the only outlets doing any reporting on many important stories—have all been added to a list of sources “deprecated” for their coverage of political news. This is not a joke and not an exaggeration. Republican-favoring sources, even quite mainstream ones, simply may not be used on Wikipedia, not even to explain a Republican viewpoint. (I will discuss this more in the last section below.)

  The Biden China scandal is similar and is treated similarly in Wikipedia. Here, Hunter was a director of a joint venture between an American company, Rosemont Seneca, where Hunter was a partner, and Bohai Capital, a Chinese government-controlled investment firm. The joint venture was called BHR. According to the explosive testimony of Tony Bobulinski, the Bidens’ top executive for handling certain deals in China, Hunter arranged for Jonathan Li, CEO of Bohai Capital, to “shake hands” with his father, and Joe Biden was, according to Bobulinski, directly involved in the deals.

  In addition to the Bobulinksi interview, a great deal of supporting evidence comes from the same Hunter Biden laptop mentioned above, such as an email indicating that brothers Hunter and Jim Biden, along with “the big guy”—Bobulinski identified him as Joe Biden—would each be assigned equity shares in a business venture with Chinese energy giant CEFC.

  Can any of this information on the China Biden scandal be found—even in a twisted, biased form—in the Wikipedia article on Joe Biden? Nope. As of this writing, that article contains not a single word about the China deals, Rosemont Seneca, Tony Bobulinksi, the laptop, or the CEFC. But surely information can be found elsewhere on Wikipedia about these matters? Well, yes, there is a little. Most of it is again in the article on Hunter Biden, written in a way to make Hunter look as good as possible, the hapless victim of Trump’s “false charges” (those precise, dismissive words are actually used).

  Again, there is much more to the story, but the point is that the Biden scandals deeply divide the American people. An ideologically neutral resource would explain both sides fully and fairly, leaving the reader to make up his own mind. Is that what Wikipedia does? No. Wikipedia is clearly aligned with one side. You might maintain that it is the only legitimate side; but then, that is what many ideologues say of their own side. What you cannot seriously maintain is that Wikipedia’s treatment of the Biden scandals is neutral. It is grossly biased.

  

  The Antifa/BLM riots

  Next I propose to look at some articles on the 2020 Antifa and BLM riots. There could not be a starker cultural divide in the American body politic than in the reaction to these riots. The rioting was sparked particularly following the May 26, 2020 death (or, as most people think, killing) of George Floyd. National Democrats generally supported the rioters; portrayed them as “mostly peaceful” activists against fascism and racism, even contributing money to their defense; took seriously the notion that we should “defund the police” or backed similar police “reform” proposals; and stubbornly minimized the months of bloodshed, danger, and destruction the riots caused. Republicans made no secret of their hatred of the riots, if they had no objection to peaceful protests; their contempt for the violent rioters; their sympathy for the afflicted neighborhoods; and their wonder and disbelief at the very suggestion that we should “defund the police.” They also pushed back, somewhat, against the notion that the United States was so woefully racist that the country must make dramatic changes to, e.g., policing practices or anti-white indoctrination at schools. Both sides generally agreed that real examples of police brutality needed to be dealt with more severely and that society, more than ever, had no place for real racism.

  A neutral treatment would, of course, give broad factual coverage of such things as where the rioting took place, how many people were arrested, and numbers of injuries and deaths attributable to the rioting. The main Wikipedia article actually seems to do a good job there, as far as I can tell. But in addition, the reaction to the riots on both sides would be fully and fairly canvassed. Varying theories of the causes of the riots would be offered; Democratic theories would dwell, of course, on police brutality and racist attitudes and groups, while Republican theories, acknowledging that to some degree, would also discuss deliberate left-wing organization and dispute the extent of the problems exemplified by the George Floyd case.

  Wikipedia’s coverage is, unsurprisingly, very extensive. There is a long summary article, “George Floyd protests,” as well as a “List of George Floyd protests in the United States,” and a long article titled, “2020-2021 United States racial unrest.” The concern that conservatives have is not with any protest, but with political violence in the form of rioting. So let us focus on the last article. The article does helpfully have useful statistics. While labeled “unrest,” there is a “Casualties” section in the article’s infobox, saying there were “At least 25” deaths, injuries to 2000+ law enforcement offers and to “an unknown number of civilians,” and $1–2 billion in property damage. Indeed, after pointing out that 93% of the protests were “peaceful and nondestructive,” the bottom line was that, owing to that pesky remaining 7%, the riots were “the civil disorder event with the highest recorded damage in United States history.” So far, so good: the article in those respects states facts that all sides would want presented.

  As one gets farther into the article, however, the bias becomes much more pronounced. “A wave of monument removals”—an odd way to describe the deliberate, illegal destruction of public sculpture—”and name changes has taken place throughout the world, especially in the United States.” But what about the reaction to the riots? It was a “cultural reckoning,” we are told. “Public opinion of racism and discrimination quickly shifted in the wake of the protests, with significantly increased support of the Black Lives Matter movement and acknowledgement of institutional racism.” It is true that there was an increased of support for BLM early on. But support quickly dropped as the organization became associated with destructive violence in black neighborhoods, agitation against police funding, and radical communist views. Even by September of 2020, support had dropped 12% from 67% to 55%, in a Pew poll. The latter point can be found further down in the article, but is not mentioned in the more important article introduction, which says simply that BLM enjoyed “significantly increased support.” Also, BLM support later continued to drop to pre-riot levels. Even the New York Times, hardly a conservative mouthpiece, puzzlingly observes, “The data…contradicts the idea that the country underwent a racial reckoning.”

  The rest of the article—which, I confess, I did not read entirely, as it is very long—looks like a lovingly detailed Establishment brief about the causes and events of the 2020 riots. As to the causes, one key claim is: “Black people, who account for less than 13% of the American population, are killed by police at a disproportionate rate, being killed at more than twice the rate of white people.” While this is no doubt true, a relevant fact, often cited by Republicans, is omitted: black men are much more likely to commit crimes that might bring a call to the police. Hence, as one study put it, “We find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.” Such information, which appears inconsistent with Democratic viewpoints on racial injustice of police, does not seem to be found in the article.

  Finally, there is a “Social impact” section. This is focused entirely on broader social and political changes that were supposedly caused by a reaction to the riots (and protests). In this section, and indeed all throughout the article, there is complete silence about the Republican criticism of the riots and of Democratic politicians who supported the violence or pretended that it was not happening; of the conservative backlash against Antifa and BLM; and of resistance to the social fallout such as the “Defund the Police” campaigns and some police “reform” proposals that would make policing much more difficult. There is absolutely no mention of conservative and Republican claims that the riots were deliberately and even centrally organized by left-wing organizations. Criticism of Black Lives Matter cannot be found in the article in any form, despite looming large in the Republican reaction to the riots.

  

  The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

  Then of course there is the disputed 2020 U.S. presidential election. This was controversial not only across party lines, it was a wrenching fight within the Republican Party, with Establishment Republicans and centrists—who never liked Trump much in the first place—facing down Trump and his noisy rank-and-file supporters. Irregularities with massive amounts of mail-in ballots, failure to permit observers, and much more, caused massive uproar from Republicans. It came down to January 6, when Congress was going to vote on whether to accept the Electoral College vote count. As the Wikipedia article on the “Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election” has it, some 140 House Republicans and 11 Senate Republicans were prepared to lodge objections. Then, of course, the infamous invasion of the Capitol building happened—just in time to make such objections even more politically costly for representatives holding shaky seats.

  The above-linked article was bound to be another propaganda piece. And so it is—shot through and through with egregious bias. Here is how it begins:

  After the 2020 United States presidential election in which Joe Biden prevailed, then-incumbent Donald Trump, as well as his campaign and his proxies, pursued an aggressive and unprecedented effort to deny and overturn the election. The attempts to overturn the election were described as an attempted coup d’état and an implementation of “the big lie.” Trump and his allies promoted numerous false claims that the election was stolen from Trump through an international communist conspiracy, rigged voting machines, and electoral fraud.

  Further down, we have another gem:

  Stop the Steal [bold in original] is a far-right and conservative campaign and protest movement in the United States promoting the conspiracy theory that falsely posits that widespread electoral fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election to deny incumbent President Donald Trump victory over former vice president Joe Biden.

  I will not go into more details; you can imagine. There are actually several articles related to irregularities in the 2020 election and its aftermath. In addition to the one discussed above, there is also Republican reactions to Donald Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud, which states, “Trump falsely claimed to have won the election, and made many false and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.” Of course, the very title here is a good example of Saul Alinsky’s Rule 11: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.” In other words, the backlash against the 2020 election was not a broad Republican movement, but only one hated and discredited man’s outrageous and illegal attempt to overturn the election.

  Obviously, I could go on and talk about the January 6 Capitol invasion: what really happened? In “2021 United States Capitol Attack,” you will learn that the Capitol “was stormed during a riot and violent attack against the U.S. Congress,” by “a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump” who “attempted to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.” Never mind that several details here are in dispute. Many Republicans believe a number of leftists and FBI agents were among those who invaded the Capitol building. In any event, precisely what happened is not clear to those of us who have watched hours of video footage of the invasion. I watched with increasing horror and had questions even as it happened.

  Republicans are naturally of differing views on Trump’s speech on the day of January 6—some think it was justified, others concede it was irresponsible—but they generally agree that he cannot be blamed for the attack. Such nuanced points of view so unpopular with Wikipedia are, unsurprisingly, not presented in the article at all. Instead, it tells a story that, by omitting key details, makes it sound as if the invasion was a spontaneous uprising of crazy MAGA people that Trump deliberately whipped up into a treasonous rage. Perhaps that is precisely what happened; but a neutral article on the topic would sketch alternate narratives as well, present all the relevant information from which various people build their cases, and leave the reader to make up his own mind about what actually happened.

  I hardly need add that Wikipedia is firmly aligned with one political party, and its articles on the 2020 election read like party propaganda.

  

  Other Recent Issues in the Culture War

  This article is already long enough and I have made my point, but it will be interesting to dip briefly into other culture war topics, drawn from science and religion, that were in the news in the last year.

  In science, even more than global warming (or climate change), there has been significant controversy over Covid-19 and the official measures to combat it. You will not be surprised to learn that Wikipedia debunks everything the Establishment debunks, all conveniently collected into a single article on “COVID-19 misinformation.” Alongside silly things almost no one would take seriously, you can learn that it is “misinformation” to suggest a “Wuhan lab origin” of the virus. You will also be relieved to know that “masks do actually work.”

  Another article assures us, “Several researchers, from modelling and demonstrated examples, have concluded that lockdowns are effective at reducing the spread of, and deaths caused by, COVID-19.” Of course, there is no mention of any other research. What about the Covid-19 vaccines: are they effective? Safe? In the COVID-19 vaccine article, the introductory section mentions “demonstrated efficacy as high as 95%,” but nothing about side effects; further down in the article, a very short paragraph in a “Misinformation” section informs us that claims about such side effects are “overblown.” And that is it. You read that right: in an article about the experimental Covid-19 vaccines, the only thing Wikipedia has to say about their side-effects is that concern about them is overblown. Needless to say, you will not find anything in the way of information from the many skeptical physicians and medical researchers, who must not exist.

  Let us be clear on something here. You might support Wikipedia’s approach to Covid-19; but you cannot maintain that it is neutral. A neutral approach would acknowledge and fairly represent alternative views on the origin of the virus, the efficacy of masks, the effectiveness and defensibility of lockdowns, and the effectiveness and safety of the Covid-19 vaccines. You might maintain that the articles are better without such an approach; but then what you are saying is that you prefer the articles’ Establishment bias to a neutral approach that would let the reader decide.

  In religion, recently, a few different issues have divided conservatives from the more liberal Establishment, represented by mainline denominations and most (but not all) seminaries. One is this: Is Christianity in decline in the West—or just liberal denominations and churches? Wikipedia’s “Decline of Christianity in the Western world” article begins, “The decline of Christianity in the Western world is an ongoing trend. Developed countries with modern, secular educational facilities in the post-World War II era have shifted towards post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural and multifaith societies.” But, the article correctly notes, a similar decline is not happening in Latin America and Africa, and even recently, “71% of Western Europeans identified themselves as Christian, according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center.”

  In the section about the United States, the focus is (unsurprisingly) on mainline denominations, despite the fact that they are now among the smaller denominations; even as of ten years ago, taken together, the mainline Protestant denominations had fewer than half the adherents of evangelical and conservative Protestant denominations.” Only at the very end of the article do we learn that “‘intense religion’ including evangelicalism has persisted.” You will not learn, in this article, the name of the single largest Protestant denomination: the Southern Baptist Convention, with 16.2 million members. (The information can be found in the “Southern Baptist Convention” article.) You will also not learn that in an important segment, conservative church membership is actually growing: among others, nondenominational churches were booming as of 2014, and actually outnumbered even the Southern Baptists.

  Basically, to hear Wikipedia tell it, Christianity is in decline, because mainline denominations are in decline, and the conservative denominations and churches are barely worth caring about. And I can just hear the response: “Well, yeah. Sounds about right.” But if you agree with the Wikipedia article’s approach, that does not mean it is neutral; the point is that it is clearly biased.

  Among the hot-button topics in church politics is one that appears to be causing a schism in the United Methodist Church: same-sex marriage. The relevant article is “Blessing of same-sex unions in Christian churches.” The article has a section with five bullet points offering “Theological views of those who support same-sex unions and/or marriages,” but there is no parallel section—or any information at all, believe it or not—about the theology of those who believe same-sex marriage is unbiblical. Some major denominations that strictly forbid same-sex marriage, like the Southern Baptists, are simply not mentioned in the article.

  

  Conclusion

  These contentious issues are exactly where we should expect to see fair treatment of “alternative” views on Wikipedia. But we do not.

  This is hardly news, but it bears repeating. Wikipedia openly repudiates neutrality, and therefore it is shamelessly hypocritical in how it continues to pay lip service to its “neutral point of view” policy. Wikipedia’s editors embrace their biases sometimes so fervently that their articles emerge more as propaganda than as reference material.

  “But wait,” you say. “Come on. Fine, they’re hypocritical, but dodgy claims to neutrality are just marketing. Why should we care about actual neutrality? For journalists, it is totally passé. Sure, most of them don’t actually want you to make up your own mind on important issues. So? Of course they want experts to declare what is known, and then you should learn that—a lot of times that’s the whole point of ‘journalism.’ And here’s another thing. Wikipedia strongly prefers mainstream secondary sources. When it comes to the culture war, the educated classes, the readers of those mainstream sources, naturally skew liberal. Wikipedia just represents that mainstream view. And that’s reasonable; it is not a fault with Wikipedia. Live with it. It’s the new reality. How do you respond?”

  First, I refuse to accept such excuses for the bully tactics of propagandists. Second, it’s also false that Wikipedia just represents the mainstream. Wikipedia does not just mirror the biases found in the mainstream news media, because some of it is conservative or contrarian. A lot of mainstream news stories are broken only in Fox News, the Daily Mail, and the New York Post—all of which are banned from use as sources by Wikipedia. Beyond that, many mainstream sources of conservative, libertarian, or contrarian opinion are banned from Wikipedia as well, including Quillette, The Federalist, and the Daily Caller. Those might be contrarian or conservative, but they are hardly “radical”; they are still mainstream. So, how on earth can such viewpoints ever be given an airing on Wikipedia? Answer: often, they cannot, not if there are no “reliable sources” available to report about them.

  In short, and with few exceptions, only globalist, progressive mainstream sources—and sources friendly to globalist progressivism—are permitted.

  It is true that Wikipedia permits a few sources, such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, and Weekly Standard, which are more often tolerant of conservative viewpoints, but these are (or have become) as often centrist as conservative, and they are generally careful never to leave the current Overton Window of progressive thought. They are the “loyal opposition” of the progressive media hegemony.

  Why has Wikipedia systematically purged conservative mainstream media sources? Is it because such sources have become intolerably irresponsible and partisan? That’s what Wikipedians will tell you. As they put it, it is because they do not want what they dismiss as “misinformation,” “conspiracy theories,” etc., to get any hearing. In saying so, they (and similarly biased institutions) are plainly claiming exclusive control over what is thinkable. They want to set the boundaries of the debate, and they want to tell you how to think about it. A good illustration of just how radical Wikipedia’s source-banning policies have become can be seen in their treatment of Newsweek magazine, which is now marked as “no consensus” (i.e., avoid and use with caution), because ownership passed in 2013 to IBT Media, the publisher of the centrist, sometimes conservative-leaning, International Business Times, which is itself deemed “unreliable.”

  For these reasons, it is not too far to say that Wikipedia, like many other deeply biased institutions of our brave new digital world, has made itself into a kind of thought police that has de facto shackled conservative viewpoints with which they disagree. Democracy cannot thrive under such conditions: I maintain that Wikipedia has become an opponent of vigorous democracy. Democracy requires that voters be given the full range of views on controversial issues, so that they can make up their minds for themselves. If society’s main information sources march in ideological lockstep, they make a mockery of democracy. Then the wealthy and powerful need only gain control of the few approved organs of acceptable thought; then they will be able to manipulate and ultimately control all important political dialogue.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 18:00

• "The Alternative Sucks" – Matthew McConaughey Explains Why America Is Awesome
  “The Alternative Sucks” – Matthew McConaughey Explains Why America Is Awesome

  Superstar actor and recent additional to the plethora of podcasters, Matthew McConaughey released his “Happy Birthday America” and they are anything but the usual virtue-signaling Kow-towing we have come to expect from the celebrati.

  

  His thoughts were summarized will in the following sentence…

  “We’re all in this together… as the UNITED states of America… If you don’t purchase that, move on, go somewhere else!”

  Watch the full clip below:

   

   

   

   

  View this post on Instagram

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  A post shared by Matthew McConaughey (@officiallymcconaughey)

  //www.instagram.com/embed.js

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 17:25

• Morgan Stanley: Here's Why The Market Rally Is About To Take A Break
  Morgan Stanley: Here’s Why The Market Rally Is About To Take A Break

  By Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley

  It’s Getting Hot

  When the COVID lockdowns first hit, the primary risk facing companies centered on how to survive the sharpest economic downturn in 90 years. On reflection, what companies were able to accomplish over the past year with most of the labor force working from home is an economic miracle. In aggregate, the US economy surpassed its pre-COVID peak last quarter, just nine months after the trough of the recession. Profits returned to peak levels even faster, with many companies feeling no effects of the recession at all. In fact, essential businesses and technology enablers achieved an acceleration in pre-COVID sales trends, accompanied by record profitability as labor and other costs fell precipitously.

  Now, with the economic recovery from COVID in full bloom, companies and investors are facing different questions:

  1. First, how will consumers spend their money? Will their purchases of the items they bought last year remain elevated or will we see a wallet share shift toward the experiences they were unable to enjoy? Perhaps there’s enough pent-up savings to support both? In our view, as the stimulus checks and supplemental unemployment benefits run out later this summer, consumers will be forced to make choices. That likely means a rotation toward services and away from goods, which have been over-consumed.
  2. Second, higher costs are returning as businesses deal with supply chain shortages. Most investors are aware of the spike in certain materials like lumber, copper and semiconductors. However, they also view such increases as temporary, or transitory, as the Fed calls them. They believe materials prices will eventually simmer down as supply adjusts, the normal pattern for commodity markets historically.

  We’re not quite as confident in that view, but we do believe some commodity prices will subside where supply can adjust in a timely fashion.

  On the other hand, we think the risk is growing that rising labor costs are more structural. First, the pandemic lockdown has curtailed the labor supply in ways that may not be easily fixed. Many workers have moved on to new occupations, which means that labor shortages may be more persistent than normal. This is especially true of the hospitality, travel and leisure industries, where demand is now surging the most. Second, generous supplemental unemployment benefits and stimulus checks have given many the means to delay their return to the labor force or enroll in higher education or training to pursue a more attractive career. Third, thanks to the extraordinary rise in asset prices, including homes, some older workers are choosing to retire earlier than planned. All these factors suggest that there is less slack in the labor force than usual at this stage of the recovery. In fact, aggregate payrolls are already well above pre-COVID levels even though total payrolls are still well below (Exhibit 1). That suggests higher labor costs for businesses as we fully reopen and lower profitability.

  

  A powerful political shift toward fostering social equality is also under way, increasing pressure on companies to pay higher wages. This trend began in 2015 with the push for an increase in the minimum wage. Since then, minimum wages in many states are up as much as 50% or more. At the federal level, ever greater increases have been proposed. Nevertheless, when adjusted for inflation, real minimum wages are still down almost 40% from their highs in the late 1960s. This suggests there’s a long way to go before policy-makers are satisfied.

  Finally, globalization and the outsourcing of manufacturing and labor costs have been on a one-way track for the past 25 years. In addition to increasing political pressure to reverse course, the pandemic has exposed the outsourcing model as vulnerable when supply is less than fluid, leading many companies to rethink and reshore, which could mean higher costs.

  The bottom line is that the US economy is booming, but this is now a known known and asset markets reflect it. What isn’t so clear anymore is at what price this growth will accrue. Higher costs mean lower profits, another reason why the overall equity market has been narrowing. It also supports our view that equity markets are likely to take a break this summer as things heat up.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 16:47

• Black Dems & NPR Trashed The Declaration Of Independence Yesterday
  Black Dems & NPR Trashed The Declaration Of Independence Yesterday

  Authored by Thomas Lifson via AmericanThinker.com,

  Our founding document, The Declaration of Independence, changed the world by establishing that human rights come from God, not courtesy of a ruler, and that justice requires governments operate with the consent of the governed. That the nation built upon the principles flourished and became the leader of the free world changed the rest of the world. Without the Declaration, there would be no such thing as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and no social democracies in former kingdoms of Europe, much less the expectation even in dictatorships that sham elections must take place.

  But because some of the states that declared their independence permitted slavery, and because eighteenth century society had different customs and linguistic conventions than now, a growing chorus of progressives condemns the document on its anniversary day.

  

  Three Black Democrats serving in the House of Representatives ignored the free Blacks in the North when they spoke out against the Declaration yesterday:

  Further, the Dec. of Ind. says we hold these truths to be “self-evident”… yet:
  – 17 states have enacted voter suppression laws
  – Supreme Court gutted Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act
  – George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice

  Need I say more? #July4

  — Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) July 4, 2021

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

  When they say that the 4th of July is about American freedom, remember this: the freedom they’re referring to is for white people.

  This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free.

  — Cori Bush (@CoriBush) July 4, 2021

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

  Let us reflect on the full story of America today.

  Black people were not freed in 1776.

  Despite a system stacked against us, we must continue to use our collective power to change that system. #4thofJuly https://t.co/msYg7TQaDt

  — Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) July 4, 2021

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

  They also ignore the fact that the language of the Declaration served as justification for the abolitionist movement that ended up electing a Republican president and Congress that ended slavery during a bloody civil war fought to end slavery, that was defended by Democrats.

  Even worse than these radical politicians whose political careers are founded on hatred and resentment is National Public Radio, the taxpayer-funded entity that has become a propaganda organ of the left.  Penny Starr reports for Breitbart:

  Taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) reluctantly repeated its tradition of staff reading the Declaration of Independence, this year framing its report to point out the “flaws” and racist elements of one of the most cherished U.S. documents. (snip)

  NPR included remarks from author David Treuer, who is Ojibwe from Leech Lake Reservation.

  “But a deeper look at history also shows that one of the reasons why the colonists wanted to rise up against the British — and wage the Revolutionary War — was over the question of who would try to colonize Native lands west of the colonies,” Treuer told Morning Edition.

  It boiled down to power and money, Treuer argued. 

  “The crown wanted that money for themselves,” he said. “The colonists, understandably, would have preferred to have it for themselves. So the whole revolution was in large part fought over who got to take our stuff.”

  “One of the reasons”? Maybe a few people thought about control of the rest of North America, but the Declaration makes no such mention, nor was the question of colonizing other lands much of an issue in the discontent leading up to the American Revolution. Besides, Spain and France controlled a lot of the land that eventually became the United States. The most charitable description I can make of Treuer’s argument is to describe it as thinly-justified.

  Then there is the question of the “stolen” land, a continuing libel of the United States. The universal condition of the globe is that land is ruled by sovereigns that gained control of it by conquest. That is as true of the native tribes that controlled land in North America in 1776 as it is of Alsace-Lorraine, whose sovereign authority has changed and then changed back, in the last couple of centuries.

  The Ojibwe Tribe from which Mr. Treuer alleges land was “stolen”:

  …migrated from the east along the Great Lakes, pushed by newly arrived Europeans and other tribes.

  With the help of guns acquired in the fur trade, they pushed the Dakota south and west in the 18th century and replaced them in the north woods.

  Mr. Treuer’s tribe owns the Leech Lake Reservation because they “stole” the land from the Dakotas.  Using guns!

  Had American settlers not “stolen” the land from Native Americans, they would be living in the Neolithic conditions that predated the arrival of the Americans, complete with life spans of roughly four decades, partly fueled by starvation, curable diseases, and of course, strife with other tribes not constrained by notions of just war or human rights that also arrived with settlers that followed the Declaration as their founding document.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 15:40

• Multiple Rockets Hit Iraq's Largest US Base In Apparent Revenge Attack
  Multiple Rockets Hit Iraq’s Largest US Base In Apparent Revenge Attack

  A fresh rocket attack was unleased Monday on the largest military base where US troops are hosted in Iraq. Ain Al Assad airbase in western Iraq’s Anbar province was hit by at least three rockets, the American coalition has confirmed.

  An official US coalition statement said that “At approx. 2:45 PM local time, Ain Al-Assad Air Base was attacked by three rockets. The rockets landed on the base perimeter.” It indicated no injuries and that damage is being assessed.

  #BREAKING: Initial reports of a rocket attack on Ain al-Asad air base in #Iraq. Photo circulating below on Telegram: pic.twitter.com/1ZsksjpsBc

  — Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) July 5, 2021

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

  Though the perpetrators of this new attack are as yet unknown, it will likely be seen as part of broader revenge attacks for the June 27 series of US airstrikes on Iran-backed militia groups along the Iraq-Syria border, which killed and wounded multiple fighters as well as reports of civilians. 

  Immediately after the US military action, which was the second of Biden’s presidency, a coalition of pro-Iranian Iraqi militias vowed revenge in a statement issued immediately afterward, which said “We will avenge the blood of our righteous martyrs against the perpetrators of this heinous crime and with God’s help we will make the enemy taste the bitterness of revenge,” they said.

  The Iraqi Army issued a blistering statement condemning the “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and national security.”

  

  Such airstrikes began growing commonplace during the last year of the Trump administration amid growing tit-for-tat attacks between Iranian-backed Iraqi militias.

  Now it looks to continue under Biden, creating greater pressure in terms of the growing Iraqi demands for foreign troops to finally exit the country.

  At least three rockets landed today on an air base in #Iraq, which hosts US and other international forces. https://t.co/bYarxwf21e

  — Steve Herman (@W7VOA) July 5, 2021

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

  During 2020 the series of attacks nearly sucked Iran and the US into direct war, especially following the January assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 15:05

• Leftists Blame Capitalism, Global Warming For Mexican State-Owned Oil Company's Gulf Fire
  Leftists Blame Capitalism, Global Warming For Mexican State-Owned Oil Company’s Gulf Fire

  Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

  To get a whiff of just how unserious the left is, take a look at the leftist knee-jerk reaction to a recent oil fire in the Gulf of Mexico:

  The sea is on fire but some people *still* think capitalism can be managed. pic.twitter.com/akxbZzlNXs

  — Laura Pidcock (@LauraPidcock) July 3, 2021

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

  The ocean is literally on fire.

  But yeah, sure — we can’t afford climate action. pic.twitter.com/DPEziIYytw

  — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 3, 2021

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

  “Capitalism breeds innovation”

  The innovation: A literal portal to hell opening in the gulf https://t.co/HnwIjGhOiC

  — kait 🌈🌻 (@huicholaaa) July 3, 2021

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

  These tweets are stupidities because while the boiling gas fire at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is spectacular, it hasn’t a single thing to do with either capitalism or global warming. 

  It’s the result of an accident from a poorly maintained pipeline owned by Pemex, the state oil company of Mexico.

  That’s a 100% government-owned entity that was created in 1938 based on uncompensated expropriation from private-sector energy companies.

  State energy enterprises are never capitalist, they are socialist state entities.

  Mexico’s is worse than most of them – even Venezuela’s state oil company has some private ownership. Mexico’s, though is a full socialist state creature with zero accountability to shareholders.

  It calls to mind that it’s not capitalism, nor global warming that’s causing these accidents, but the hard fact that socialist state energy enterprises have an amazing environmental record.

  In Venezuela, we see state oil company pollution on an untold scale, with this sort of thing going on:

  While the collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry and what was once the richest economy in South America are well documented, there is little coverage of the immense environmental damage being caused by the decay of its energy infrastructure.

  The autocratic Maduro regime is determined to squeeze whatever oil and gasoline production it can generate from Venezuela’s crumbling oilfields, corroded refineries and rusting pipelines. The situation is so dire that oil spills are a regular event in the near-failed state, especially since Washington ratcheted up sanctions, preventing Caracas from obtaining the capital required to conduct critical maintenance and overhauls. Under Maduro’s leadership Venezuela’s government, including national oil company PDVSA, has ceased collecting and releasing data, making it near-impossible for international observers to ascertain what is occurring in the country. PDVSA data (Spanish) from 2016, before the national oil company stopped releasing operational information, showed that oil spills had multiplied fourfold since 1999. This was a worrying portent of what was to come because the worst of the decline for Venezuela’s oil industry did not start until 2018 as progressively stricter U.S. sanctions were imposed.

  Aside from PDVSA ceasing to publicly report operational data, Caracas regularly attempts to ignore or even cover up oil spills. That makes it extremely difficult for neighboring countries and the international community to discern just how much environmental damage is occurring.

  Notice the cover-ups, easy to do in a socialist state when the state controls the press.

  In Ecuador, we’ve got another state oil company situation that’s just about as bad:

  Chevron has never conducted oil production operations in Ecuador. Its subsidiary Texaco Petroleum Co. (TexPet) did operate in Ecuador, mostly in minority partnership with Ecuador’s state oil company, Petroecuador, which owned 62.5 percent. TexPet left Ecuador in 1992, and at that time it fully remediated its share of environmental impacts arising from oil production. The $40 million remediation operation was certified by all agencies of the Ecuadorian government responsible for oversight, and TexPet received a complete release from Ecuador’s national, provincial and municipal governments. Chevron acquired TexPet in 2001.

  For more than two decades, Petroecuador has been the sole owner of the operations TexPet left behind, and the state oil company has greatly expanded them. Petroecuador has been slow to remediate its majority share of pre-1992 impacts and has amassed a poor environmental record since that time. All remaining environmental conditions in the region are the sole legal responsibility of Petroecuador, and in December 2011, Petroecuador announced a $70 million remediation program that would address the balance of the necessary clean-up.

  A phony lawsuit pinning Chevron for blame for the Ecuadorean state oil company’s oil pollution in the Amazon fell apart after Chevron spent hundreds of millions to get the truth out. That has not just left Ecuador with state environmental pollution, it’s poisoned the environment for future foreign investment. Lucky Ecuador, and since that happened, the ChiComs have rolled in. In December 2018, I wrote:

  If there was ever an example for nations worldwide of What Not To Do, take a look at what socialist Ecuador has done to itself in dumping the U.S. and turning to align its interests to China. The New York Times has a superb (albeit stomach-churning) report about how Ecuador sold itself out as a vassal of China, getting for itself a junk dam that is already collapsing, and turning over 80% of its oil production to the communist behemoth in order to pay its massive, massive debts from it. That, in exchange for scrapping its military ties to the U.S. and skipping out on its tab with western banks.

  All that state capitalism, and pollution, too, yet somehow the West with its capitalism and rule of law, plus existing environmental standards that don’t exist in the socialist state-owned third world, is now to blame.

  Similar cases of socialist state oil company mismanagement and the horrible consequences of it abound in Russia, China, Nigeria, Iran, the list is pretty amazing.

  Now we have this Mexican case, and Mexico’s state oil company, Pemex, to its credit, has said it has since got the fire out.  

  If anything, this fire amounts to an argument against state oil companies and the inevitable results of their activity, where profit is not the foremost concern, profit is not a thing, and making shareholders happy is not an issue. These state enterprises just serve as a cash cow for socialist governments that have so impoverished their people they’ve lost their tax base.

  Now, if there’s any argument at all about global warming in this, it’s that countries like Mexico and China need to be held to the same standards as every other nation signed on to the Paris accord. That of course, is not happening, so this garbage goes on, useful to the left for pointing fingers at capitalism and global warming and, in reality, the West

  That brings us back to these leftists with their dishonest narratives about capitalism and global warming.

  Two of the idiots who posted those statements are leftist politicians who have a big thirst for attaining more power, for the state, and for themselves.

  And now before any facts are in, they’re assuming the voters are idiots, too, and will buy hook, line, and sinker the notion that capitalism and global warming are to blame for the Gulf fire.

  According to these tweets, it doesn’t seem to be working. Voters seem to be onto them and their ignorant, cynical game. Twitchy has curated some choice tweets educating these charlatans about the nature of the beast, too.

  It just goes to show that they’ll use a condemnation of capitalism, or a claim to global warming, to blame anything, no matter what disaster went down, on the West. It’s like a knee reflex.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 14:30

• Search And Rescue Continues Following Demolition Of Surfside Condo Building
  Search And Rescue Continues Following Demolition Of Surfside Condo Building

  Update (Monday 1410 ET): Rescuers began searching for survivors of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, FLA., after the remaining structure was demolished late Sunday night. 

  Three bodies were recovered Monday after search efforts resumed, bringing the death toll to 27. There are still 118 people unaccounted for since part of the condo collapsed on June 24.

  The demolition was planned and ahead of the approaching storm, Elsa. 

  

  With the threat of Else looming, local and state officials, along with rescue crews, were worried about the safety of the building and made the decision last night to demo the remaining structure. 

  

  “It appears as though the approaching storm may have been a blessing in disguise for us in that it initiated the demolition discussion,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Sunday night.

  “We want to make sure that we control which way the building falls and not a hurricane, so all of this together I think ended up being a good thing,” Burkett said. 

  Miami-Dade County mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, told NBC Monday, “We understand that families realize the fact that time has gone by, they realize that the chances are growing all dimmer.” 

  

  Rescue crews could be seen combing through debris Monday alongside cranes to lift concrete and steel. 

  * * * 

  Update (Monday 0616 ET): Around 2230 ET Sunday, the remaining portion of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, FLA., was demolished ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa’s arrival late Monday night into Tuesday. 

  

  Video: Champlain South Demo 

  Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told CNN during a Sunday night press conference that once the area is safe, search and rescue teams will resume. 

  As of Sunday, the death toll sits at 24, according to the mayor. At least 191 people have been accounted for, but 121 remain missing. 

  * * * 

  Ten days after the condo building in Surfside, FLA. collapsed, search-and-rescue efforts have been suspended as officials prepare to demo the rest of the building ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa. 

  

  According to AP News, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava halted search-and-rescue efforts around 1600 ET Saturday as demolition crews were preparing to demolish the portion of Champlain Towers South still standing. 

  “Search and rescue does have to pause while the demolition preparation is underway,” Cava said at a news conference. “Preparation includes actions like drilling into columns in the unsafe structure.”

  “It has been determined by our engineers and our fire department in constant communication with the demolition team as the process is underway, that we need to put a temporary pause,” she said. 

  “We will begin the search and rescue once again on any sections of the pile that are safe to access as soon as we are cleared,” she added.

  Plans for demolition of the upright portion of Champlain South were accelerated in the last 48 hours as weather models forecast Tropical Storm Elsa could impact South Florida early next week. 

  

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “We have a building here in Surfside that is tottering, it is structurally unsound. If the building is taken down this will protect our search and rescue teams.”

  “If the building is taken down, this will protect our search and rescue teams, because we don’t know when it could fall over,” DeSantis said. “And, of course, with these gusts, potentially that would create a really severe hazard.”

  Cava also declared a local state of emergency as Elsa moved west-northwest at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. The storm’s center is about 85 mph east of Kingston, Jamaica. 

  There remains a lot of uncertainty about the storm’s trajectory after it tracks across central and western Cuba on Monday, then moves near the west coast of Florida on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

  Local and state officials are taking no chances and are set to demolish the remaining portion of the condo building before the storm hits. 

  As of Sunday, the death toll sits at 24, according to the mayor. At least 191 people have been accounted for, but 121 remain missing. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 14:10

• Evacuations Ordered After Thai Plastic Factory Explodes
  Evacuations Ordered After Thai Plastic Factory Explodes

  A massive explosion has rocked a chemical plant in the suburbs of Bangkok early Monday. Authorities have evacuated the surrounding area for fear the thick column of black smoke is highly toxic and secondary explosions may occur. 

  In the early hours of Monday, an unexplained explosion occurred at the Ming Dih Chemical factory located on the capital’s outskirts. The factory produces expanded polystyrene plastic material consisting of small hollow spherical balls that are expanded when molded. The lightweight cellular plastic material is then molded into packaging and storage products to ship goods worldwide. 

  

  According to the company’s website, its products are mainly used to safely pack televisions, computers, electric tools, household and kitchen appliances, automobile accessories, among other things, in boxes for transport overseas. 

  

  AP News reports the fire broke out around 0300 local time, with an explosion so large that it blew out windows of surrounding homes and sent debris flying across the area. The blast was reportedly heard miles away. The fire was brought under control by mid-morning, but it ravaged the factory in a stunning inferno for hours. 

  The explosion was captured on a nearby security camera. 

  #Thailand
  Explosion captured on a nearby CCTV camera. pic.twitter.com/qYFsf2N2BL https://t.co/bAb1o3Xdgo

  — Shane B. Murphy (@shanermurph) July 5, 2021

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

  Here’s another view of the initial blast. 

  Massive factory explosion in Thailand pic.twitter.com/pab3Qycy3G

  — penanam anggur (@anthraxxxx) July 5, 2021

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

  A better view of the blast via CCTV camera. 

  #BREAKING : At least 30 people were injured and 300 homes damaged in an overnight explosion at the Ming Dih Chemical Co plant in Samut Prakan, Thailand, south of Bangkok. pic.twitter.com/jHuNCvK7Bc

  — Sushmit Patil Сушмит Патил सुश्मित पाटिल (@PatilSushmit) July 5, 2021

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

  The inferno from a firefighter’s perspective. 

  

  Thick black plumes of smoke were seen from miles away. 

  hey hey please rt!! /srs

  a factory exploded in thailand over night, and the chemical explosion affected many people and destroyed many houses already. a firefighter has also already lost his life on duty.

  pic.twitter.com/S0HIIiiUYD

  — ًdusk 🍃 check rts /srs (@kagehiraswife) July 5, 2021

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

  Helicopters were called in to dump fire retardant onto the blaze as the fire was too hot for firefighters on the ground to fight. 

  

  There are still isolated fires and plumes of black smoke visible from the factory. Another concern is that three large chemical tanks may explode. 

  #Urgent #Thai police ordered an urgent #evacuation within a radius of 5 km from the explosion site. Because the chemical tank may explode again. There are 3 large tanks of chemicals left. #โรงงานกิ่งแก้วไฟไหม้ #SamutPrakan #Thailand #โรงงานกิ่งแก้วไฟไหม้ #โรงงานกิ่งแก้วไฟไหม้ pic.twitter.com/wiibrHbjgS

  — Chaudhary Sahab (@JournalistSahab) July 5, 2021

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

  The blast injured 62 people, including 12 firefighters, and at least one person has been confirmed dead. 

  Compound the loss of this factory in the already stretched global supply chains as exporters in the country who use this company to export their products overseas may have to source styrofoam packing material elsewhere.  

  In the last few days, we should remind readers that an oil refinery in Romania caught fire, a Mexican state-owned PEMEX offshore rig experienced a massive underwater pipeline fire, and a powerful explosion was observed in the Azerbaijani region of the Caspian Sea, known for offshore gas production. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 14:00

• Justice Or Just Desserts? Trump, Cosby, & Georgia Cases Show Rising Cost Of Political Litigation
  Justice Or Just Desserts? Trump, Cosby, & Georgia Cases Show Rising Cost Of Political Litigation

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is my column in the Hill on a series of cases that appear propelled by political rather than legal considerations. 

  

  The costs to the legal system, the public, or victims in such cases are often overlooked but they are considerable.

  Here is the column:

  “It’s not about politics.” New York prosecutor Carey Dunne’s words were repeated like a mantra after this week’s indictment of the Trump Organization and its financial chief, Allen Weisselberg. The problem is that it is manifestly untrue.

  In fairness to Dunne, he is prosecuting a case given to him by his superiors. Nor is he alone in pursuing a case driven more by political than legal considerations. From the prosecution of Bill Cosby to a federal lawsuit against Georgia, courts are dealing with cases where government lawyers repeat the same implausible claims with the same unconvincing results. The political gains from these cases ignore the real costs borne by others.

  The Weisselberg indictment

  Dunne’s statement was made after Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James paraded triumphantly in front of hundreds of cameras with a handcuffed Weisselberg in their wake. The excitement — if not euphoria — expressed by many in the media was barely containable.

  Weisselberg is charged with failing to pay taxes on executive perks, including cars, apartments and holiday gift accounts; prosecutors added up every possible perk and came up with roughly $1.7 million in taxable benefits. There is no question that such tax violations can be charged criminally; however, if they prosecuted all untaxed executive perks, half of Manhattan would be frog-marched to the hoosegow. That does not make Weisselberg a Mother Teresa figure, but neither does it make him John Gotti.

  More importantly, it does not make him Donald Trump.

  The piling-on of charges clearly is intended to coerce Weisselberg to flip on Trump. However, prosecutors are not investigating anything involving Trump’s election or presidency. Instead, they are investigating another common practice in business — whether Trump undervalued assets for taxes while overvaluing assets for securing loans.

  It simply does not matter what the eventual charges are, however. James pledged to get Trump or his associates on any charge, and she found someone to charge. It is the name on the caption — not the name of the crime — that matters in a prosecutorial trophy kill. (James previously targeted the National Rifle Association.) Politicians like James who run for office by promising to bag political opponents, or their associates, do so at great cost to our legal system and to the concept of blind justice.

  The Cosby ruling

  In Pennsylvania, another prosecutor insisted that politics had nothing to do with a case. Kevin Steele, the Montgomery County district attorney who convicted comedian Bill Cosby in 2018, remained defiant after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Cosby’s sexual assault conviction on Wednesday.

  In Cosby v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the court found that Cosby was trapped by a “bait-and-switch” after a prior prosecutor assured that he would not be prosecuted if he testified in four civil depositions. Cosby proceeded to incriminate himself and admitted giving drugs to women who alleged sexual assaults. Steele later dismissed that agreement, introduced the incriminating statements, and then called five women to testify about their own uncharged alleged rapes. Those gross errors were allowed by Judge Steven T. O’Neill (who the defense sought to force off the case for bias). O’Neill refused to accept the prior agreement and mocked the notion that “The rabbit is in the hat and you want me at this point to assume: ‘Hey, the promise was made, judge. Accept that.’”

  The state’s justices had no problem “seeing the rabbit in the hat,” nor did many of us who criticized the trial. However, it was hugely popular to disregard Cosby’s legal rights in the first major trial of the #MeToo period, given the magnitude of the accusations against him.

  DA Steele is unapologetic and insists he was trying to show that “no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful.” What he missed is that the rule of law should particularly apply to prosecutors who enforce it — and the costs of violating it are borne not just by Cosby but by his alleged victims, who lost any chance for a fair trial and a formal adjudication. The public will pay, too, not just the millions spent on the case but possible damages if Cosby sues for malicious prosecution based on the prosecutor’s public aggrandizing.

  The Georgia lawsuit

  Last week, the Biden administration surprised many observers by filing a civil rights action against the state of Georgia over its recent election reforms. The lawsuit was less surprising than its timing: It was filed just days before the release of Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, an Arizona case in which the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the very statutory provision (Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act) being used as the basis in the Georgia challenge.

  The Biden administration has made opposition to Georgia’s law into a rallying cry for its stalled legislative efforts to federalize state election laws. The problem is that President Biden has been long on rhetoric and short on facts in denouncing the law as “Jim Crow on steroids.” The Washington Post awarded him four “Pinocchios” for his characterization of the law, including the false claim that it reduces the hours for voting; the law actually does the opposite. Likewise, Biden falsely claimed Georgia’s law prevents voters in line at polling places from getting water. Georgia was responding to complaints that campaigns circumvent rules barring politicking around polling places by giving food and drinks to voters in line; the law allows “self-service water from an unattended receptacle.” On these and other provisions, Georgia’s law has considerable overlap with provisions in other states.

  In its 6-3 decision upholding Arizona’s election rules, including a bar on vote “harvesting,” the Supreme Court rejected presumptions of racial discrimination due to partisan objectives. Justice Samuel Alito declared “partisan motives are not the same as racial motives.” The ruling builds on earlier cases limiting the reach and meaning of the Voting Rights Act. The new Georgia challenge takes a considerable risk of magnifying these losses in court.

  The legal cost of this ill-considered move could be immense. Important questions are being raised about the impact of some laws on minority votes. Yet the attack on Georgia’s law is a poor choice, despite Biden going “all in” on the narrative, because it locks the administration into proving a weak case. While the court declined to issue a sweeping new standard for all Section 2 voting rights cases, this case could open the door for precisely that type of ruling. The Biden administration — which has lost a remarkably high number of legal cases in its first year — is likely to lose this one, too, before the next presidential election.

  Politically motivated cases like these impose costs that are rarely paid by those who bring them. The more a prosecutor feels it necessary to repeat that “It’s not about politics,” the more likely a case is entirely political.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 07/05/2021 – 13:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Escobar: The Long & Winding Multipolar Road
  Escobar: The Long & Winding Multipolar Road

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

  The West’s “rules-based order” invokes rulers’ authority; Russia-China say it’s time to return to law-based order…

  

  We do live in extraordinary times.

  On the day of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi Jinping, in Tiananmen square, amid all the pomp and circumstance, delivered a stark geopolitical message:

  The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to intimidate, oppress or subjugate them. Anyone who tries to do this will find themselves on a collision course with a large steel wall forged by more than 1.4 billion Chinese.

  I have offered a concise version of the modern Chinese miracle – which has nothing to do with divine intervention, but “searching truth from facts” (copyright Deng Xiaoping), inspired by a solid cultural and historical tradition.

  The “large steel wall” evoked by Xi now permeates a dynamic “moderately prosperous society” – a goal achieved by the CCP on the eve of the centennial. Lifting over 800 million people out of poverty is a historical first – in every aspect.

  As in all things China, the past informs the future. This is all about xiaokang – which may be loosely translated as “moderately prosperous society”.

  The concept first appeared no less than 2,500 years ago, in the classic Shijing (“The Book of Poetry”). The Little Helmsman Deng, with his historical eagle eye, revived it in 1979, right at the start of the “opening up” economic reforms.

  Now compare the breakthrough celebrated in Tiananmen – which will be interpreted all across the Global South as evidence of the success of a Chinese model for economic development – with footage being circulated of the Taliban riding captured T-55 tanks across impoverished villages in northern Afghanistan.

  History Repeating: this is something I saw with my own eyes over twenty years ago.

  The Taliban now control nearly the same amount of Afghan territory they did immediately before 9/11. They control the border with Tajikistan and are closing in on the border with Uzbekistan.

  Exactly twenty years ago I was deep into yet another epic journey across Karachi, Peshawar, the Pakistan tribal areas, Tajikistan and finally the Panjshir valley, where I interviewed Commander Masoud – who told me the Taliban at the time were controlling 85% of Afghanistan.

  Three weeks later Masoud was assassinated by an al-Qaeda-linked commando disguised as “journalists” – two days before 9/11. The empire – at the height of the unipolar moment – went into Forever Wars on overdrive, while China – and Russia – went deep into consolidating their emergence, geopolitically and geoeconomically.

  We are now living the consequences of these opposed strategies.

  That strategic partnership

  President Putin has just spent three hours and fifty minutes answering non-pre-screened questions, live, from Russian citizens during his annual ‘Direct Line’ session. The notion that Western “leaders” of the Biden, BoJo, Merkel and Macron kind would be able to handle something even remotely similar, non-scripted, is laughable.

  The key takeaway: Putin stressed US elites understand that the world is changing but still want to preserve their dominant position. He illustrated it with the recent British caper in Crimea straight out of a Monty Python fail, a “complex provocation” that was in fact Anglo-American: a NATO aircraft had previously conducted a reconnaissance flight. Putin: “It was obvious that the destroyer entered [Crimean waters] pursuing military goals.”

  Earlier this week Putin and Xi held a videoconference. One of the key items was quite significant: the extension of the China-Russia Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, originally signed 20 years ago.

  A key provision: “When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that…it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats.”

  This treaty is at the heart of what is now officially described – by Moscow and Beijing – as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era”. Such a broad definition is warranted because this is a complex multi-level partnership, not an “alliance”, designed as a counterbalance and viable alternative to hegemony and unilateralism.

  A graphic example is provided by the progressive interpolation of two trade/development strategies, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which Putin and Xi again discussed, in connection with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was founded only three months before 9/11.

  It’s no wonder that one of the highlights in Beijing this week were trade talks between the Chinese and four Central Asia “stans” – all of them SCO members.

  “Law” and “rule”

  The defining multipolarity road map has been sketched in an essay by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that deserves careful examination.

  Lavrov surveys the results of the recent G7, NATO and US-EU summits prior to Putin-Biden in Geneva:

  These meetings were carefully prepared in a way that leaves no doubt that the West wanted to send a clear message: it stands united like never before and will do what it believes to be right in international affairs, while forcing others, primarily Russia and China, to follow its lead. The documents adopted at the Cornwall and Brussels summits cemented the rules-based world order concept as a counterweight to the universal principles of international law with the UN Charter as its primary source. In doing so, the West deliberately shies away from spelling out the rules it purports to follow, just as it refrains from explaining why they are needed.

  As he dismisses how Russia and China have been labeled as “authoritarian powers” (or “illiberal”, according to the favorite New York-Paris-London mantra), Lavrov smashes Western hypocrisy:

  While proclaiming the ‘right’ to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries for the sake of promoting democracy as it understands it, the West instantly loses all interest when we raise the prospect of making international relations more democratic, including renouncing arrogant behavior and committing to abide by the universally recognized tenets of international law instead of ‘rules’.

  That provides Lavrov with an opening for a linguistic analysis of “law” and “rule”:

  In Russian, the words “law” and “rule” share a single root. To us, a rule that is genuine and just is inseparable from the law. This is not the case for Western languages. For instance, in English, the words “law” and “rule” do not share any resemblance. See the difference? “Rule” is not so much about the law, in the sense of generally accepted laws, as it is about the decisions taken by the one who rules or governs. It is also worth noting that “rule” shares a single root with “ruler,” with the latter’s meanings including the commonplace device for measuring and drawing straight lines. It can be inferred that through its concept of “rules” the West seeks to align everyone around its vision or apply the same yardstick to everybody, so that everyone falls into a single file.

  In a nutshell: the road to multipolarity will not follow “ultimatums”. The G20, where the BRICS are represented, is a “natural platform” for “mutually accepted agreements”. Russia for its part is driving a Greater Eurasia Partnership. And a “polycentric world order” implies the necessary reform of the UN Security Council, “strengthening it with Asian, African and Latin American countries”.

  Will the Unilateral Masters ply this road? Over their dead bodies: after all, Russia and China are “existential threats”. Hence our collective angst, spectators under the volcano.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 23:50

• South China Port Congestion Worsens As Traffic Jam Of Container Ships Builds
  South China Port Congestion Worsens As Traffic Jam Of Container Ships Builds

  We have previewed for months that port congestion in southern China could be a more severe problem than the shutdown of the Suez Canal in March. Port congestion at Yantian International Container Terminal, a deepwater port in Shenzhen, Guangdong, is operating at 40% capacity and is seeing vessel delays of more than 16 days, significantly impacting exports to the US. 

  Just outside of Yantian is the Outer Pearl River Delta (OPRD) Area, where the number of container vessels is waiting to access ports on the mainland has hit multi-year highs. 

  

  At the end of June, 75 container ships were moored in OPRD, surpassing levels from early February of around 35 and about 50 in February 2020. These vessels are waiting for berths to open up at ports. 

  

  The congestion has surpassed March’s Suez Canal blockage in terms of container disruption with median wait times around 18 days, according to data from project44.

  “From port handling in Yantian alone, the sheer number of containers (not vessels) impacted now exceed the number of containers impacted in Suez,” Lars Jensen, CEO of advisory Vespucci Maritime, said in a post on LinkedIn. 

  Jensen warned: “Add to this ripples such as problems in recent weeks getting new empty containers into South China. Then you will have a pile of cargo in backlog coming out of Yantian once everything re-opens given rise to a surge on the destination side with some timelag. You will have a pile of reefer cargo already on vessels inbound for Yantian but which is now being discharged in other ports increasing the risk that other ports will run out of reefer plugs (as we also saw in early 2020).”

  Meanwhile, international container shipping rates have hit never before seen levels amid a historic global scramble to secure goods and inventory…

  

  Congestion and soaring shipping costs are more bad news for Walmart, Target, Amazon.com, and top retailers who are now placing holiday orders for Chinese-made merchandise weeks earlier this year, as a global shipping backlog threatens to leave many gift buyers empty-handed this Christmas shopping season.

  The latest shipping data out of China suggest port congestion continues to worsen as supply chain woes are expected through the second half of this year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 23:15

• The Bay Area Has Become An Absolute Paradise For Violent Criminals
  The Bay Area Has Become An Absolute Paradise For Violent Criminals

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  Over the past couple of decades, northern California has prospered more than any other area in the country.  In fact, the two wealthiest metropolitan areas in the entire nation are located in northern California. 

  But even though the region is absolutely swimming in cash, crime is completely and totally out of control and violent criminals are having a field day.  We have never seen the sort of crime wave in the Bay Area that we are seeing now, and it seems to be getting worse with each passing month.

  

  Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  According to the local CBS affiliate, the number of car break-ins has risen “by more than 700 percent in some parts of the city”…

  Car break-ins have skyrocketed in San Francisco, increasing by more than 700 percent in some parts of the city. With more people visiting after county and state restrictions were lifted, thieves are taking advantage of tourists by breaking into rental cars.

  “Sucky end to our vacation but what can we do,” said Kaitlin Lore, visiting from New Jersey.

  The politicians running the city don’t like to admit this, but San Francisco is dealing with an absolutely massive epidemic of street drug abuse.

  The addicts that endlessly wander the streets are constantly looking for more drug money, and they have discovered that tourists are easy targets.

  So I would not recommend making San Francisco your next vacation destination.

  But of course tourists are not the only ones being hit.  In fact, a news crew was just robbed at gunpoint right in the middle of a television interview…

  The attack took place outside City Hall on Monday just hours after the police chief blasted his city’s decision to defund its police department by $18.5 million despite a 90 percent increase in murders.

  The NBC Bay Area news crew was interviewing Guillermo Cespedes at around 3 pm when two armed men tried to take their camera, the Oakland Police Department said.

  It boggles my mind that Oakland politicians would want to slash 18.5 million dollars from the police budget in this environment.

  Shootings are up 70 percent in Oakland and murders are up 90 percent, and so the answer is to radically reduce police funding?

  Are they nuts?

  This is the same sort of thinking that caused California politicians to make all theft below $950 a misdemeanor.  As a result, thieves have learned that they can engage in wild shoplifting sprees as long as they keep the value of goods stolen in each store to under $950…

  A steady increase in shoplifting at big chains like Walgreens and CVS prompted a recent hearing before the Board of Supervisors, with some city leaders expressing shock after hearing how bad things are. One executive said thieves would hit several stores in a day, keeping each theft below the $950 threshold, but stealing more than $30,000 of goods overall. City leaders promised to explore the idea of “aggregating” such crimes for prosecution.

  “Like other retailers,” said a statement from Safeway, “we’ve seen a dramatic increase in shoplifting incidents and losses from shoplifting since California sentencing laws changed in 2014 to make all theft below $950 a misdemeanor when it was previously a wobbler, either a felony or a misdemeanor based on prosecutorial discretion. Enterprising thieves have figured out there are few consequences to shoplifting if they keep the value of their crimes below $950.”

  The shoplifting in San Francisco has gotten so bad that it has started to make headlines all over the globe.

  Politicians will give a lot of speeches about the problem, but don’t expect any real solutions any time soon.

  Meanwhile, homelessness is another crisis that just continues to grow in the Bay Area.

  Even though the region is swimming in more cash than ever before, the number of people camping out in the streets has just kept on climbing.

  At this point, many local residents have had enough.  Just check out the results of one recent survey…

  The SF Chamber of Commerce released results Thursday from their annual CityBeat Poll, which asks San Francisco voters a range of questions about the state of the city and their perceptions of it.

  This year’s poll, like last year’s, found 70% city residents saying that quality of life in the city has declined. 80% of residents polled said that addressing homelessness needs to be a high priority for the city, and 88% said that the problem had gotten worse in the past few years.

  Some of the homeless have been herded into a large encampment run by the city, but that has turned out to be a rather expensive proposition.

  In fact, it is being reported that each tent in that homeless encampment is costing the city “$60,000 per year”…

  Today in “liberals making wonderful capital allocation decisions with your tax dollar news”…

  It turns out “solving” the homelessness problem that has (along with sky high taxes) been plaguing San Francisco, driving residents out of the city (and state), is a costly endeavor.

  In fact, a homeless encampment run by San Francisco costs the city $60,000 per year, per tent, the NY Post reported this week.

  To put that in perspective, putting each one of those homeless individuals into a $5,000 apartment for 12 months would also cost $60,000 a year.

  If things are this bad in San Francisco now, how bad will they get when economic conditions really start going downhill?

  And if such an incredibly prosperous city cannot solve the problems that I have discussed in this article, how will other less prosperous cities fare as the fabric of our society continues to steadily deteriorate?

  Understandably, a large number of San Francisco residents have chosen to leave the city for good in recent months, and of those that remain 40 percent say that they intend to move out of the city permanently within the next few years.

  If I was living in San Francisco right now, I would definitely be planning to relocate as well.

  But the truth is that the entire country is on the exact same path that San Francisco has gone down.

  So what are you going to do when the conditions that we are currently witnessing in San Francisco seem like they are virtually everywhere?

  As California goes, so goes the nation.

  All around us we can see evidence of America’s decline, and the clock is ticking.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 22:40

• Chicago Restaurants Blame COVID For $100 Minimum Per Person Just To Get A Table
  Chicago Restaurants Blame COVID For $100 Minimum Per Person Just To Get A Table

  This is insanity, driving local public outrage and vows to avoid these establishments: high-end restaurants in Chicago are still blaming COVID social distancing polices for a strictly enforced policy of a $100 minimum for each person to dine.

  “A Chicago man was outraged when he was faced with a minimum payment to eat at a restaurant, and he thinks the rule should go away now that the city is opening back up,” a local CBS affiliate reports. But the rule isn’t going away, many restaurants say while claiming the continued requirement is toward ensuring operations are in line with COVID-related health and distancing measures.

  

  One man interviewed in the report, Howard Tolsky, booked a dinner online for a well-known downtown steak restaurant and was required to pay a minimum of $300 for three total people just to ensure a table there. 

  “I figured, well, we’re not going to spend $300,” Tolsky said. “We might spend $250. But I don’t want to spend $300 dollars on a meal that costs $250.” He went elsewhere on that basis, telling CBS-2 that “Now is the time for them to attract customers and not detract them.”

  The restaurant itself echoed the policies of a number of other Chicago dining establishments, saying in response to the report:

  “Like many in our industry, we had to make some updates to our policies. The $100 per person minimum will remain in effect to provide the ability to be successful as a steakhouse designed for the full sit-down experience and support our restaurant’s operations and staff.”

  The restaurants say that with the past year of severely restricted numbers on diners they were allowed to seat, last-minute cancelled reservations were especially brutal, causing them to also implement unusual requirements like non-refundable deposits on reserving a table. 

  Terms and conditions for a restaurant? A non refundable $100 deposit for a reservation?!! https://t.co/OlYEWWhpOl

  — 1 (@BlackNoir91) July 3, 2021

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

  And on top of all this, “Chicago restaurants said of the reservation issues and minimum wage hike, we can expect to see prices rise in the next months or weeks,” the report notes. 

  Americans are by and large returning to restaurants and entertainment venues in record numbers during this “post-pandemic lockdowns” summer, providing a badly needed revenue boost for an service sector that barely survived. 

  But in Chicago and elsewhere, a family of five for example might think twice going to “$100 minimum” establishments, considering it would be a whopping $500 minimum just to get in and eat.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 22:05

• The "Deprogramming" Begins: Public Defender Representing January 6th Defendants "Re-Educates" Them
  The “Deprogramming” Begins: Public Defender Representing January 6th Defendants “Re-Educates” Them

  Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

  Remember the potential re-education of Trump supporters that everyone said was a conspiracy theory? Welp, it turns out (as I said in this article where I “blew someone’s comment on social media out of proportion,”) it’s a fact. So far on a small scale. But having Americans re-educated politically in any way smacks of communism. Particularly problematic is that it’s been done on the taxpayer’s dime.

  

  Defendants in the Jan. 6th Capitol case are being deprogrammed by their own lawyer.

  A public defender named H. Heather Shaner, we’re assured by Ryan J. Reilly of the Huffington Post, has no option but to defend the January 6 “attackers” because “who can’t afford their own attorneys, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and as laid out in the Criminal Justice Act.”

  But she’s also taking the opportunity to re-educate her clients, so they aren’t racist anymore.

  “Reading books and then watching these shows is like a revelation,” Shaner told HuffPost. “I think that education is a very powerful tool … So I gave them book lists and shows that they should watch.”

  …

  Shaner said her clients had poor educations and knew very little about the country. Her two female clients took to the task with zeal, Shaner said and got library cards for the first time in their lives.

  “Both my women are like, ‘I never learned this in school. Why don’t I know about this?’” Shaner said. (A couple of the male clients weren’t quite as eager students, she said. “The men are very much like ‘Oh, I’ll get to it.’” But she said some of her male clients have been doing some self-education.) (source)

  S0, if I understand this correctly, those poor dumb hick women just needed someone to help them see the error of their ways and introduce them to the joy of the public library, but the men refused to be womansplained to?

  And how was this case race-related? It was purely political.

  Shaner represents six of more than 500 Capitol defendants: Anna Morgan-Lloyd, Annie Howell, Jack Jesse Griffith (aka Juan Bibiano), Israel Tutrow, and Landon Kenneth Copeland.

  What’s on the reading/movie list?

  Shaner’s re-education program points out many of the worst moments in history (not just American history) to convince these white folks they have been racist. The program suggests the Capitol protest (even though it was based on what many believe to be a fixed election) happened due to their inherent racism.

  • Schindler’s List

  • Just Mercy

  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

  • Mudbound

  • Slavery By Another Name

  • Tulsa Burning

  Different political views? Get ready to face persecution.

  While one of the books mentioned was not set in the United States, most will agree the rest showcase some low points in American history. However, when combined and forced upon a client by an attorney to “reform” them, it seems to be the beginning of another low point in America – the persecution of those guilty of having a different political opinion.

  It assumes all Trump supports are actively racist and therefore need to be shown the error of their ways.

  While Huffington Post cheers the actions of Shaner, not everyone agrees that the indoctrination of clients the government pays one to defend is an acceptable course of action.

  Note: It would be as challenging to contest American Greatness as unbiased as it would be Huffington Post. So let me be clear when I say both of these sources have their own political agendas. But here, we like to take a look at both sides of the issue.

  Let’s take a look at the other side of this.

  Small newspapers across the country widely picked up an article written by Julie Kelly for the website American Greatness. Kelly wrote a powerful argument about the danger of Shaner’s actions. Here are a couple of excerpts:

  Shaner’s legal captives are learning the hard way what the government will do when one resists their commands to comply. Not only have their personal lives been shattered, finances depleted, and reputations destroyed by an abusive Justice Department investigation, Shaner’s clients must be indoctrinated with leftist propaganda about America’s alleged systemic racism.

  The purge of the populist mindset is underway, courtesy of the fetid Beltway judicial system and the Joe Biden regime. Judges routinely lecture January 6 defendants about the wrongthink of a “stolen election” while prosecutors openly mock their political beliefs, including homeschooling and gun ownership…

  …On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with watching or reading any of Shaner’s “booklist.” What is very wrong is a taxpayer-paid attorney—one who is supposed to fight the government’s charges related to January 6, not play along with its phony depiction that “white supremacists” attacked the Capitol—using her authority to reprogram the political views of people she is supposed to be defending. The presumption of racist beliefs is automatic. (source)

  You support who? You must be racist.

  Anyone who supported Trump – no – let me rephrase that – anyone who did not emphatically denounce Trump – was deemed “crazy” and “racist.” By the very nature of their political beliefs, conservatives are looked down upon by tech giants, the mainstream media, and our government. And, this has been the case ever since Trump announced his run for the presidency.

  Thinking outside the far leftist box is akin to treason, and people who do so are now being treated like traitors in a country that was founded on freedom of thought.

  Politically correct prosecution?

  Kelly cites Joshua Rothstein, the assistant U.S. attorney handling one of Shaner’s cases, who said, “We don’t prosecute people based on their beliefs.”

  But we all know that’s not really true…

  • More than 500 people involved in the protest-turned-riot on January 6 were diligently hunted down like dogs. Family members and “friends” proudly snitched on them and they are being systematically prosecuted with a range of charges.

  • When people rioted and looted in Chicago last year over the death of George Floyd, we were told it was “reparations,” and celebrities bailed out those arrested. Only a handful of the 3000 who were initially arrested is being prosecuted.

  • Then we have the destruction that took place in Minneapolis, in which the city sustained over $500 million in damage. Only 14 people were charged with arson, despite dozens of fires. “91 others are facing state felony charges for looting. Hennepin County prosecutors have charged 35 people, mostly with third-degree burglary. Another 56 are facing charges in Ramsey County. One man, Jaleel Stallings, 28, of St. Paul, is accused of attempted murder for allegedly shooting at police on Lake Street on May 30.” (source)

  • And who can forget the chaos in Kenosha, in which the highest-profile prosecution was that of Kyle Rittenhouse? Rittenhouse came to defend private property from rioters and ended up shooting one. (The case is ongoing.) Rittenhouse is being accused of being a violent racist by the prosecution. Meanwhile, Kenosha police only recommended 55 people be charged for the rioting and arson that devastated the city.

  • Riots have been going on in Portland, Oregon, for over a year. Approximately half of the federal charges against rioters have been dismissed. The Portland Tribune reported in January that a whopping 91% of arrestees were not facing charges.

  • And what about the CHOP zone in Seattle, where protestors took over Capitol Hill for nearly a month, leaving widespread destruction in their wake? Only about 20 people were to be prosecuted after a month of havoc, vandalism, attacks on police, and arson.

  Meanwhile, approximately 800 people breached the Capitol, and 500 are facing federal charges. Doesn’t that seem a bit skewed?

  More woke, less white…?

  Look at the ever-increasing lists of things we’re not supposed to say because someone, somewhere, might take offense. Businesses like Coca-Cola and Disney are re-educating their employees to be more “woke” and “less white.”

  Disney is pushing critical race theory on employees through a new plan called “Reimagine Tomorrow.” The program urges workers to recognize their “white privilege” in a battery of training modules on topics such as “systemic racism” and “white fragility,” according to internal documents obtained by City-Journal’s Christopher Rufo.

  Staffers are told to reject “equality” for “equity.” They must “reflect” on America’s “racist infrastructure” and “think carefully about whether or not [their] wealth” is derived from racism, according to the documents. (source)

  If we’re fighting against each other, we can’t stand up beside each other.

  That, of course, is the goal. It’s “othering” at its finest, and it sets us up for civil war or the quiet disappearance of conservative views. 

  People have been put in a difficult place. Speak up, and you’re likely to lose your job. Disagree, and you’re deemed a heinous racist, homophobic, or some other flavor of bigot. That’s what cancel culture is all about – silencing anyone who dissents with the threat of social and financial destruction. The deprogramming of Trump supporters and the re-education of white people to believe we owe penance to every person of other races is dangerously divisive. 

  I’m not a huge government supporter, preferring instead to govern myself. However, our government was designed to have checks and balances to keep the pendulum from swinging too far to one side. Currently, that system is being overridden, and re-education is just the start.

  *  *  *

  Daisy Luther is author of Be Ready for Anything and The Prepper’s Book of Lists

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 21:30

• Model S Plaid Caught Fire "While Driver Was At The Wheel", Local Fire Chief Says
  Model S Plaid Caught Fire “While Driver Was At The Wheel”, Local Fire Chief Says

  Over the last 48 hours, we have been documenting the story of an allegedly spontaneously combusting Tesla Model S Plaid that became engulfed in flames in a Philadelphia suburb last week.

  Now, according to Charles McGarvey, chief fire officer for the Lower Merion Township Fire Department, it has been revealed that the driver was at the wheel when the vehicle went up in flames, according to CNBC. 

  We also learned from the new report that it took two crews of firefighters “just over 3 hours” to deal with the fire. Firefighters took the 2021 Tesla Model S Plaid to a complex to safely store it overnight after the fire, the fire chief said. The owner is going to have the vehicle investigated independently and McGarvey’s team has been in touch with Tesla, and will be releasing more information via public records soon, he said. 

  The NHTSA also commented for the first time, telling CNBC it was “aware of the Tesla vehicle fire in Pennsylvania and is in touch with relevant agencies and the manufacturer to gather more information about the incident”. 

  “If data or investigations show a defect or an inherent risk to safety exists, NHTSA will take action as appropriate to protect the public,” a NHTSA spokesperson told CNBC. 

  

  Earlier this weekend the owner of the vehicle’s lawyer spoke out, claiming the vehicle “burst into flames while the owner was driving” it. The driver of the vehicle has been identified as an “executive entrepreneur” who is being represented by Mark Geragos, of Geragos & Geragos.

  Geragos said that the driver wasn’t initially able to get out of the vehicle because its “electronic door system failed”, requiring the driver to push and use force to open the door.

  He said the car moved for 35 to 40 feet before “turning into a fireball”. He called it a “harrowing and horrifying experience”.

  “This is a brand new model… We are doing an investigation. We are calling for the S Plaid to be grounded, not to be on the road until we get to the bottom of this,” Geragos said. 

  A separate source reported that the Tesla belonged to a top executive at one of Tesla’s biggest investors. The driver was identified in that report as Bart Smith, also called the “Crypto King” by CNBC, who works as the head of the digital asset group at trading firm Susquehanna International.

  Susquehanna owned about $1.1 billion worth of Tesla shares as of March 31, the report noted. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 20:55

• "Happy Birthday America"
  “Happy Birthday America”

  Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

  The U.S. Capitol building has been an iconic symbol of democracy for well over two hundred years, much like the U.S. itself.  It remained so through the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and too many lesser crises to count, all while remaining largely accessible to the citizens whose interests those who work there are supposed to represent.  However, this Independence Day finds the Capitol off-limits to all but a select few.  Our elite overseers can’t be expected to open themselves up to a possible “insurrection,” can they?  Sad.

  The tragic events of the past year and a half, and our “representatives'” reaction to them, as well as our own response, have left me wondering what the Founders and other astute political observers might say to us now if they had the chance.  

  

  Then I realized they would say pretty much what they said back then.  Here are some of the most profound, universal — and yet timely — words of wisdom ever uttered with regard to societies, governments, and freedom:

  “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin.  COVID-19?

  “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” —Benjamin Franklin.  

  Sound familiar?  I wonder what Franklin’s preferred pronouns were.

  “For true patriots to be silent, is dangerous.” —Samuel Adams.

  “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” —Thomas Jefferson.

  “But a constitution of government once changed from freedom can never be restored.  Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” —John Adams.  

  We might want to take this one to heart.

  “When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.” —John Basil Barnhill.  

  One of the great truisms of all time.  

  “My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” —Adlai Stevenson.  

  Stevenson was a Democrat.  He would’ve been summarily canceled today.

  “Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.” —Hubert H. Humphrey.  

  Trigger warning!  Humphrey was a Democrat!

  “When plunder has become a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.” —Frédéric Bastiat. 

  We are seeing this now with our elites on Wall Street, in Big Tech, and in government.  So sad.  

  “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it.” —H.L. Mencken. 

   The most accurate description of leftists ever stated, in my humble opinion.  No truer words have ever been spoken.

  “I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited.  There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.” —Ronald Reagan.  

  Absolute and irrefutable.

  “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” —Abraham Lincoln.

  “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” —Abraham Lincoln.

  The last quote is from Lincoln’s message to Congress on December 1, 1861.  It is just as true today.  We are once again at a tipping point, an existential moment.

  And I leave you with another quote, this one from Toby Keith’s new song, “Happy Birthday America”:

  “Seems like everyone’s pissin’ on the red, white, and blue.  Happy birthday America, whatever’s left of you.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 20:20

• OPEC On Verge Of Collapse After Saudis, UAE Refuse To Budge
  OPEC On Verge Of Collapse After Saudis, UAE Refuse To Budge

  Is the world about to go through another 2014 Thanksgiving massacre when OPEC collapsed sending the price of oil crashing and unleashing a brief if catastrophic wave of destruction across the US shale sector?

  That’s what commodity traders are wondering this long weekend when just two days after the UAE refused to fall inline with the rest of OPEC+, late on Sunday, in a Bloomberg TV interview, Saudi Prince Abdulaziz said that “we have to extend,” referring to the deal agreed upon by all but the UAE on Friday, according to which oil production would be increased by 400kbd over the next few months, while also extending the broader production quota agreement until the end of 2022 for the sake of stability: “the extension puts lots people in their comfort zone” said the Saudi, adding that Abu Dhabi was isolated within the OPEC+ alliance.

  “It’s the whole group versus one country, which is sad to me but this is the reality”, the Saudi summarized the potentially explosive situation, which has seen Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates crank up the tension in their OPEC standoff which as Bloomberg summarizes, has left the global economy guessing how much oil it will get next month.

  The bitter clash between the Saudis and UAE has forced OPEC+ to halt talks twice already, with the next meeting scheduled for Monday, putting markets in limbo as oil continues its inflationary surge above $75 a barrel. With the cartel discussing its production policy not only for the rest of the year, but also into 2022, the solution to the standoff will shape the market and industry into next year.

  While traditionally the oil cartel has been shy of publicity, keeping its spats behind close doors, on Sunday the fight between the two key producers broke into public view with both countries, which typically keep their grievances within the walls of the royal palaces, airing their differences on television, with Riyadh insisting on its plan, backed by other OPEC+ members including Russia, that the group should both increase production over the next few months, while also extending the broader agreement reached in the aftermath of the oil price collapse of 2020 until the end of 2022 to avoid a production glut.

  Just hours earlier, the Emirati energy minister, Suhail al-Mazrouei, again rejected the Saudi-proposed deal extension, supporting only a short-term increase and demanding better terms for itself for 2022.

  “The UAE is for an unconditional increase of production, which the market requires,” Al-Mazrouei told Bloomberg Television earlier on Sunday. Yet the decision to extend the deal until the end of 2022 is “unnecessary to take now.”

  What happens next is binary: while on one hand, Abu Dhabi is forcing OPEC into a difficult position: accept its requests, or risk unraveling the cartel without an output agreement in place, which would squeeze an already tight market, sending crude prices sharply higher. But only briefly because as Bloomberg notes, a more dramatic scenario is also in play – a repeat of Thanksgiving 2014 – when OPEC risks breaking down entirely, risking a free-for-all that would crash prices in a repeat of the crisis last year. Back then, it was a disagreement between Saudi Arabia and Russia that triggered a punishing price war, which according to some sparked the March 2020 liquidation panic, not the covid shutdown panic.

  Speaking to Bloomberg, Prince Abdulaziz said that without the extension of the agreement there’s a fallback deal in place  under which oil output doesn’t increase in August and the rest of the year, potentially risking an inflationary oil price spike. Asked if they could hike production without the UAE on board, Prince Abdulaziz said: “We cannot.” Which, of course, is false: should OPEC collapse it will be every oil exporter for themselves, and after a brief price spike oil will crater once again.

  According to Bloomberg, OPEC+ nations, oil traders and consultants have been stunned by the severity and duration of the fight, and the apparent lack of communication between the two. Prince Abdulaziz said he had not spoken to his counterpart in Abu Dhabi since Friday — even as he insisted he remained his friend. “I haven’t heard from my friend Suhail,” he said, adding he was ready to talk. “If he calls me, why not?” Asked if more senior officials had been in touch, he declined to comment.

  At the center of the dispute is a word key to OPEC+ output agreements: baselines. Each country measures its production cuts or increases against a baseline. The higher that number, the more a country will be allowed to pump. The UAE – a relatively minor oil producer – says its current level, set at about 3.2 million barrels a day in April 2020, is too low, and says it should be 3.8 million when the deal is extended into 2022.

  That, however, is a non-starter to Saudi Arabia and Russia, which have rejected re-calculating the output target for the UAE, fearing that conceding to one member would prompt everyone else in OPEC+ to ask for the same treatment, unraveling the deal that took several weeks of negotiations, and the the help of U.S. President Donald Trump as broker, with the ultimate outcome being another glut of supply.

  Prince Abdulaziz suggested that Abu Dhabi was cherry picking its new output target, and it would set a bad precedent. “What kind of compromise you can get if you say my production is 3.8 and this is going to be my base,” he said.

  For its part, Abu Dhabi – which in April 2020 accepted its current baseline – said it doesn’t want the straitjacket to stay on for even longer, arguing that it has spent heavily to expand production capacity, attracting foreign companies too.

  Meanwhile, as OPEC+ bickers, a potential wildcard is the flood of even more oil supply: Iran is expecting to return to the oil market as soon as it reaches a nuclear deal with Biden, boosting global supply by several millions barrels of oil.

  And so, markets remain on edge ahead of the next OPEC+ virtual meeting scheduled for Monday at 3 p.m. Vienna time, although Prince Abdulaziz suggested it wasn’t set in stone. He wouldn’t comment on the chances of finding a consensus, saying he would work hard to seek one. “Tomorrow is another day.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 20:02

• Watch: Powerful Explosion Rocks Azerbaijan's Umid Gas Field In Caspian Sea
  Watch: Powerful Explosion Rocks Azerbaijan’s Umid Gas Field In Caspian Sea

  Moscow-based news website Gazeta reports a powerful explosion has been observed in the Azerbaijani region of the Caspian Sea, known for offshore gas production.  

  A powerful explosion took place in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. At the moment, there is no official information about the incident. According to local media, the explosion allegedly took place at the Umid gas field. – Gazeta

  The incident occurred at 2130 local time, with multiple videos show a large explosion.

  Large explosion and fire seen in the Caspian sea just off the coast of Alat, Azerbaijan in the area of the Umid gas field #Azerbaijan pic.twitter.com/G8lmUIdaXK

  — CNW (@ConflictsW) July 4, 2021

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

  JUST IN – Major explosion at the Umid gas field in the Caspian Sea near Baku, Azerbaijan.pic.twitter.com/W6satBoiUL

  — Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) July 4, 2021

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

  A photo from Russian news agency TASS shows a dramatic picture of the fireball. 

  

  A security analyst in Yerevan, Armenia, Neil Hauer, tweeted: “Massive explosion off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea. Reportedly occurred in the Umid gas field, Azerbaijan’s second-largest.”

  

  Aurora Intel said the video from “Umid Gas Platform shows the platform itself is safe and the explosion is off in the sea in her vicinity.” 

  Video form Umid Gas Platform shows the platform itself is safe and the explosion is off in the sea in her vicinity. pic.twitter.com/VdPSYGVWna

  — Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) July 4, 2021

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

  They suggested it may be a tanker that exploded, but it’s only speculation at the moment. 

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

  IF it was a tanker, it doesn’t appear to have been broadcasting on AIS, but I’ve not had a chance to play back time (hours/days) to check. https://t.co/0BkF5J3jLJ pic.twitter.com/t7PX0C3sOQ

  — Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) July 4, 2021

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

  In the last few days, we should remind readers that an oil refinery in Romania caught fire and a Mexican state-owned PEMEX offshore rig experienced a massive underwater pipeline fire. 

  *This story is developing, and questions swirl at what caused the massive explosion.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 19:45

• Target To Close Stores Early In San Francisco Due To Chronic Shoplifting
  Target To Close Stores Early In San Francisco Due To Chronic Shoplifting

  Authored by AllahPundit via Hot Air,

  Normal store hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. They’re cutting back to 6 p.m. because, the company claims, “for more than a month, we’ve been experiencing a significant and alarming rise in theft and security incidents at our San Francisco stores.”

  Only a month? Walgreens has closed 17 stores in San Francisco since 2016 because it didn’t pay to keep them open with so many locals taking the five-finger discount. Target’s new policy raises the ominous possibility that the problem is getting worse, which would make sense. With the pandemic all but over in the highly vaccinated Bay Area, more thieves may be out and about lately.

  

  Read this post for background on San Francisco’s problem with shockingly brazen shoplifting.

  A state law that passed several years ago made it a misdemeanor to steal less than $950 worth of goods, a wrist-slap that’s encouraged repeat offenders. Go figure that three California cities (San Fran, L.A., and Sacramento) are among the top 10 in the United States for organized retail crime. Not all of the theft is organized, of course — sometimes it’s random homeless people or addicts acting alone — but a surprising amount is being driven by rings selling the stolen merchandise on the black market.

  And so the cost of doing business in the Bay keeps rising, and not just for Target:

  Target has now acknowledged that San Francisco is the only city in America where they have decided to close some stores early because of the escalating retail crime…

  Target isn’t the only store in San Francisco to make changes because of the continuous shoplifting. After 10 p.m. the 7-Eleven on Drumm St. in the Financial District only does business through a metal door. But first you have to ring the bell to let them know you’re outside.

  “This window was installed like two to three months ago because it was not safe. Sometimes they would break that glass of the door,” explained Manager Bobby Singh.

  That’s from KGO, which also reports that San Francisco PD has exactly one officer assigned to the organized crime “task force.”

  Shoplifting isn’t the only form of theft that locals need to contend with:

  SFPD’s Central Station reported auto burglaries skyrocketed 753% in May compared to the same time last year during lockdowns and they’re still up 75% compared to the same period in 2019…

  “They don’t even care. They tell us what the hell are you going to do,” said [a] tourism operator who did not wish his business to be identified.

  One family who did not wish to be identified showed KPIX 5 pictures they took as they witnessed thieves in action just before pulling into a parking lot on Embarcadero and Bay Street.

  Visit beautiful San Francisco and take in the sights: The Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, and random derelicts doing smash-and-grabs on parked cars in broad daylight. According to a survey conducted by the local chamber of commerce, 70 percent of city residents say their quality of life is down over the past few years and 44 percent say they’re likely to move within the next few.

  Mention this subject on social media and progressives will come out of the woodwork to try to convince you that it’s fine or that it’s … not actually happening. At least, not as rampantly as the media hype would have you believe. Crime data compiled by the local PD suggests shoplifting is down since 2019 — but is that because it’s happening less or because some stores aren’t bothering to report it anymore due to inaction by the police and D.A.?

  While shoplifting incidents haven’t surged this year or last, the rate of shoplifting incidents ending in citations or arrests did go down — a continuation of a decline that goes back at least as far as January 2018, the earliest month included in SFPD’s detailed incident data.

  The San Francisco Police Department did not return a request for comment on the shoplifting data, and why citations and arrest rates are declining. However, in a recent Board of Supervisors meeting, police officers said that shoplifters are getting more brazen, and that shoplifting incidents are likely underreported.

  If the shoplifting wave is a figment of our collective febrile imagination, what’s the theory for why Walgreens bugged out of the city and Target is now scaling back hours? If that’s due to economic factors rather than crime — sky-high rents, difficulty hiring — we’d expect many more local businesses besides convenience stores to be reacting similarly. Are they?

  It’s possible, I suppose, that the sort of brazen theft customers have repeatedly witnessed in San Francisco convenience stores tells us nothing about how common shoplifting is in the city. San Fran might not have an unusual number of thieves, just an unusually bold cohort of them. But that would defy common sense. A culture in which theft can happen with so much impunity that perpetrators are willing to commit the crime in front of security guards, while bystanders record them on smartphones, is a culture in which we’d expect to see a high rate of shoplifting. If the deterrent to larceny is weak, there’ll be more larceny. Yet lefties assure us that it’s just not so.

  Here’s local news reporting on the new Target policy.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 19:10

• Here Are The Best And Worst Performing Assets Of The First Half
  Here Are The Best And Worst Performing Assets Of The First Half

  As we enter the second half of the year, a quick look at asset returns in June, Q2 and the first half shows that it has been a stellar performance across most financial markets, with 33 of the 38 non-currency assets tracked by Deutsche Bank moving higher over the last three months in local currency terms.

  Having been left for dead in much of 2020, it should come as no surprise that the star performer in both H1 and Q2 was oil, with WTI up +51.4% and +24.2% respectively. Even in June it was up +10.8%. On the other end, Gold (-6.8% YTD) saw its worst month in June (-7.2%) since November 2016 with the Federal Reserve’s hawkish shift allaying concerns about inflation that had been very supportive for the precious metal. Silver (-6.8%) lost ground too, but the losses weren’t just confined to precious metals, with the industrial metal of copper (-8.1%) experiencing its worst monthly decline since March 2020 when the initial pandemic selloff took place, amid a Chinese crackdown on commodity prices, but it was still up +7.5% in Q2 and +22.1% YTD keeping it near the top of the pile.

  Meanwhile, a favorite of many traders in 2021, DB’s Jim Reid notes that the reopening trade stumbled in Q2 and especially in June with the delta variant spreading. This is best highlighted in more micro numbers with the Euro Stoxx Travel & Leisure index -8.4% in Q2 on a total returns basis, bringing to an end a run of 4 successive quarterly gains as it recovered after the pandemic. Meanwhile in the US, the S&P 500 airlines index is down -11.4% over Q2 and -11.6% in June, similarly ending a run of 4 quarterly advances.

  Despite the June swoon in reflation stocks, equities overall had another decent month for the most part that saw them cement their YTD gains, with the S&P 500 (+2.3%) and the STOXX 600 (+1.5%) both rising on a total returns basis in June, leaving their gains for the quarter at +8.5% and +6.8% respectively.

  To round things off, after climbing 82.7bps in Q1, 10yr USTs rallied -27.2bps in Q2. Where this goes in Q3 is probably one of the most important variables going forward as it will tell us a lot about inflation, growth, delta, the Fed and more generally about the funding glue that holds financial markets together.

  Last but not least, and sadly not on the Deutsche Bank graph, Bitcoin continued to deflate as it fell for a 3rd consecutive month with another -5.7% decline, and was down -41.3% in Q2 meaning it is now ‘only’ +19.3% YTD having been +123.7% at its intraday peak on April 14.

  

  In terms of other currencies, the main story for June was the dollar’s +2.9% gain after the Fed meeting saw the median dot bring forward the first hike into 2023, which (in the reverse image of gold) is the currency’s best month since November 2016. However, for the quarter as a whole the dollar remains -0.9% lower. EM currencies also saw some pretty sizeable moves, with the Brazilian real strengthening +13.4% over Q2 against the US Dollar, whereas the Turkish Lira fell another -2.5% in June as part of its 5th consecutive monthly decline.

  The sovereign bonds in the DB sample all remained in negative territory on a YTD basis, though Q2 saw a more divergent performance as Treasuries (+1.9%) and gilts (+1.8%) recovered, whereas their European counterparts including bunds (-0.4%) and BTPs (-0.8%) lost ground. Separately in credit, HY has continued to outperform on a YTD basis.

  And here is the performance charted for the month of June in local currency and in USD…

  

  … Q2…

  

  … and YTD.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 18:35

• The New State Of Play Post Biden/Putin
  The New State Of Play Post Biden/Putin

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  Sometimes the significance of events doesn’t hit you until far after the event took place. One of the hardest parts of this job is knowing when not to write about a subject and let it sink in for a bit rather than burp out the first thing that comes to mind. It also helps to spend that time considering what others say on the subject.

  

  The Saker’s thoughtful post on the outcome of the Biden/Putin summit is worth your time.  He rightly points out that the main outcome was a signal from Biden’s team, and handlers, that the hyper-aggressive war against Russia going on since 2013 is now over.

  … what Biden did and said was quite clearly very deliberate and prepared. This is not the case of a senile President losing his focus and just spewing (defeatist) nonsense. Therefore, we must conclude that there are also those in the current US (real) power configuration who decided that Biden must follow a new, different, course or, at the very least, change rhetoric. I don’t know who/what this segment of the US power configuration is, but I submit that something has happened which forced at least a part of the US ruling class to decide that Obama’s war on Russia had failed and that a different approach was needed. At least that is the optimistic view.

  I have some ideas about who actually ordered this shift in tone which has become readily apparent in the weeks since the meeting. More on that in a bit.

  This summit was the signal of the major shift in policy.  Kissinger is no longer the driving force intellectually for U.S. foreign policy.  Divide and conquer hasn’t worked.

  As Alex Mercouris brought up in my talk with him recently, the likely main offer made on Biden’s behalf by Jake Sullivan to his Russian counterpart, was to cut Russia in on the infrastructure deals in Africa if Russia would loosen ties to China. China is the new pivot for U.S. foreign policy.

  If that offer was made then it was a calculated move to tell Putin that the U.S. was unserious about changing the dynamic between them.  I think there was a lot more said than just this. But Putin didn’t say it directly to Biden. This summit was a ceasefire in the war against Russia, a typical move to retrench and rethink options after a major defeat. That defeat was not ginnng up a war in the Donbass.  The two events are intimately connected.

  In fact, that show of force and ultimatum by Putin to NATO (and more specifically The Davos Crowd) in Ukraine is what catalyzed this summit in the first place. Between that and the collapse of the COVID-19 narrative were all the excuse needed to publicly pivot U.S. aggression from Russia to China.

  This was a major summit, with hundreds of people on both sides, as The Saker points out, that took months to put together. My initial reaction to it was that nothing substantive had changed. A ceasefire with Russia isn’t an end to the war with her so, what changed exactly.

  That’s why I took some time to think things through.

  In order to understand my broader point I’m about to make you have to see things from Davos’ point of view and their goals. I took the time to work through this in Part I of a recent podcast series I did to lay the background out (listen to it here).

  Most importantly, keep in mind that Davos isn’t a monolithic organization under complete control of puppet master WEF Chair Klaus Schwab. It is, at best, a loose coalition of interested parties all looking for their piece of the globalist pie. And it only hangs together for as long as Schwab et.al. win and continue doing so.

  Davos sees the best path now for them to complete their Great Reset agenda comes from placing the U.S. and China on an irrevocable path to war. Making a temporary peace with Russia is part of that plan. It’s also a major defeat for Davos.

  Russia has refused to fight the war Obama’s started and MI-6 ran during the Trump Interregnum on Davos’ behalf. It played the long game of freezing the conflict in Ukraine while allowing the political attrition to take its toll on everyone involved. It also allowed Russia the time necessary to complete its strategic theater dominance in Eastern Europe now having hypersonic missiles capable of neutralizing any thought of NATO air superiority.

  Culturally, Russians understand how to deal with this type of European aggression.  The Russian people have pride in themselves but are not nationalistic, i.e. they are not subsumed by cultural hubris the same way both China and Europeans/Americans are. This is a critical difference in understanding why events have played out as they have.

  European/American ethnic hubris is nothing new. However, anyone who doubts my read on the Chinese in this respect, I only have to remind you of how easy it was to blow up Japanese/Chinese relations in 2012 over the Senkaku islands, which led to vandalism against Toyota and Honda dealerships… over nearly worthless rocks.

  So, by this calculus, now that Ukraine refused to show up for the war Davos threw, war with Russia is off the table for the time being and the pivot to China commences.  You have to force an existential crisis on Russia to get them to fight and failing that there is no point in pursuing it directly.  Putin made the point very clearly that any aggression in the Donbass would be an act of war which would not end at the contact line in Gorlovka.

  Their response would target the real enemy, NATO. And this is why both nothing changed and everything changed with this summit.

  Davos is still going to run their script of destroying the U.S. and China by pitting them against each other while trying to pull off the full-blown remaking of Europe into a technocratic supranational police state. On that last part, they are more than 80% of the way there.

  But, at the same time, the only reason for the European Union’s existence as it has been sold to Europeans is to prevent any further devastating wars fought on European soil. If Putin threatened a wider war with NATO he assured them Russia would this time win, then the whole rationale for the EU vaporizes like the first F-16 or logistics center hit by a Kinzhsal missile.

  Rock meet hard place, Herr Schwab. For once someone else presented you with a no-win scenario.

  So, in order to insure that Russia remains placated and happy to reopen somewhat normal relations with the EU, Biden was sent to Geneva to craft a face-saving summit and co-sign a simple statement committing to reopening arms control talks, coordinating on terrorism and not nuking Europe.

  Part II of my podcast series went over in detail the whys and hows of the summit in much more detail.

  The two exceptionalist-minded empires, the U.S. and China, make for much easier adversaries to spark into conflict because of the intense need for both sides not to lose face. For the U.S. as the global ‘hegemon’ losing face is a clear loss of potency. When you rule the hierarchy through dominance and fear, any moment of weakness is deadly.

  It’s why Putin’s intervention in Syria, the freezing of the Donbass and reunifying with Crimea were so significant. They were a series of events which blew holes in the perception of U.S. potency. And since then it has been one brush fire after another which has not panned out.

  As The Saker rightly points out in his article, Biden took a big hit with the Davos-controlled media for not “standing up to Putin.” And it was significant that that they even entertained that calculus no less made the diplomatic overtures. It’s why I feel my analysis of the situation is right. Only a real, credible military threat by Putin could have forced the outcome we saw at Geneva.

  That said, weakening Biden and the U.S. only to sets the stage for when he or (more importantly) his Republican/mid-term successor has to confront China for real.

  Now that I’ve laid that out, did anyone miss the Fed’s surprise hawkish statements released the same day as the Biden/Putin summit?  

  Did anyone not notice the extreme reaction to the supposed nothingburger statements from the FOMC?  

  All the Fed did was move a couple of dots on the rate forecast ‘dot-plot’ and bump IOER and RRP up by 5 basis points.

  And yet the Euro crashed into the end of Q2 and opened Q3 still crashing.  And yet the Yen was thrashed. And yet, everyday more people jump on the bandwagon highlighting the huge run up in the Fed’s Reverse Repo Facility. Since that announcement what was a record amount of reverse repos at around $450 billion has more than doubled to just under a trillion.

  Since the Fed no longer reports Excess Reserves of the banking system we have no idea how much has flowed into those either. In short, a measly 5 basis points drained at least half a trillion in dollar liquidity in less than two weeks.

  And too many people can’t make the connection.

  The dollar spiked to a significant bullish monthly reversal in June. The Fed followed up Powell’s statement with Bullard’s to ensure the technical reversal in the minds of currency and bond traders.  

  

  And the question is why?

  Just before the meeting I told my Patrons I thought at some point the Fed would have to come in and defend the U.S. dollar. Biden’s consistent trashing the dollar for Davos simply couldn’t stand forever.

  I’ve written in the past about what Davos’ Great Reset plans are for the commercial banks, to scapegoat them for the next crisis and throw them to the angry Millennials they’ve taught to hate all things not-Marxist and be pilloried on the altar of egalitarian envy. And honestly, it’s not like these fucking people deserve anything less for what they’ve done to the world.

  But at the same time, they still have allies and cards to play. And that means the Fed may align with Davos on some issues but not all of them. And I think it’s clear to everyone now that this is the plan and that plan is not workable.

  The Fed is now ready, I think, to go to war with Davos over the future of money and they aren’t ready to hand over the keys to the candy store to a bunch of European commies, at least while also cutting Wall St. out completely of the New World Order.

  Part III of the podcast series goes over the Fed’s moves and how it ties into what comes next.

  The plan is pretty obvious at this point: hand over the keys to capital formation to the central banks and destroy all risk assessment. Commercial banks aren’t needed.  Only socially acceptable projects going forward will get funded. This is what Christine Lagarde wants with her new all-European Green Stock Exchange she introduced at Ankara last week.

  But what’s clear to me now is that Davos went for the boob too fast on Prom Night at the Eschaton.  It’s too much, too soon and the acceleration is exposing its flanks.  Why would China and the U.S. go to war over COVID-19 and trade issues when they are being manipulated into it by a bunch of feckless Eurocrats with delusions of adequacy.

  Why not turn on them first, at a minimum, wipe them out with a wave of your hand, i.e. 5 basis point rise in RRP, and remind everyone where the real power in the markets lies.

  It’s hard to ignore what’s happened during the week of June 16th both geopolitically and monetarily.  There are no coincidences here.  If Powell hadn’t blown up the markets that week then I would be writing a different take on the Putin/Biden summit today.

  But he did so I am.

  So many people mischaracterize the Fed’s policies.  They miss the global significance of what they do by hyper-focusing on bad and misleading U.S. economic data. But the dollar is the global reserve currency, a point Martin Armstrong makes every single day, and that means Fed policy is made in the context of global capital shifts and politics.

  Most analyst myopia comes from their training. They’ve trained a particular skillset and because of that miss the bigger picture. They get lost in the miasma of low-quality, conflicting and purposefully confusing domestic data and miss the bull rampaging through the political china shop.

  What’s lacking, for example, in The Saker’s analysis of Geneva is looking at it, for the most part, from a monolithic Russia v. U.S. perspective, while ignoring the bigger picture of who is vying for control over the monetary system. This isn’t a rebuke, it simply isn’t his top priority.

  But it is a rebuke of those trained in these areas to know better.

  Geopolitics stems from control over the flow of capital, not the other way around.  So, when you see big changes on both fronts from one major player like the U.S. it means something. The U.S. changed it’s stance on Russia while also course correcting monetary policy and throwing markets into a tizzy on the same freaking day!  

  That’s why you have to do the multi-variant analysis of ALL the players, not just the two dominant ones and analyze all of their motivations. This was a story so big I took two hours of podcasts to scratch the surface of it.

  The bottom line is this: I maintain that Powell isn’t the same kind of globalist other Fed chairs have been, like Yellen and Bernanke. His private equity background marks him with a different mindset and set of priorities than his predecessors. That means he may be more willing to buck Davos when the time is right.

  That understanding along with Davos’ needle-scratch mistakes has a lot of powerful people questioning the plan. It can easily explain why the cracks are beginning to widen as to who should actually be in charge after this is all done.

  The real war now isn’t between the Empire and Zone B.  Or the Commies vs. the Conservatives.  It’s Davos against itself and we are now, unfortunately, caught in the middle between these factions.

  All hierarchies built on force are meta-stable.  Up until recently Davos maintained its control because it competently managed all of the players, moving pieces where they needed them.  Now, they’ve made fatal errors — COVID, Trump, Brexit, NS2, Russia’s intransigence, the JCPOA, Syria, Ukraine, — and from where I sit it looks like the various factions are going all Knives Out on each other, quickly.

  And as Daniel Craig said so eloquently in that movie, “I do suspect… foul play.”

  I don’t doubt for a second Powell would crash the global economy in 2021 to protect Wall St. and back China down.  I also don’t think he was given the green light to do so by Biden. I think he was told to fire a warning shot by, for lack of a better term, Wall St.

  If Davos listens to that in the same way the Brits listened to Russia’s warning shots at the HMS Defender in Crimean waters recently than the expect a full salvo at Jackson Hole. Can anyone say 25 basis points?  

  Biden and Obama have been told to pull back and refocus on China by Davos, but those behind Powell are setting them up for a massive backlash for the mid-terms.  

  The smartest thing for Xi Jinping to do during all of this is nothing. If he is truly interested in carving up the world and not replacing the U.S. with a Chinese hegemony then these next few months of turmoil in the West will prove that.

  Given his recent actions and statements, however, the likelihood of that is slim.

  The more things change…well, you know the rest.

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you want to learn how to play the game

  Donate via

  BTC: 3GSkAe8PhENyMWQb7orjtnJK9VX8mMf7Zf
  BCH: qq9pvwq26d8fjfk0f6k5mmnn09vzkmeh3sffxd6ryt
  DCR: DsV2x4kJ4gWCPSpHmS4czbLz2fJNqms78oE
  LTC: MWWdCHbMmn1yuyMSZX55ENJnQo8DXCFg5k
  DASH: XjWQKXJuxYzaNV6WMC4zhuQ43uBw8mN4Va
  WAVES: 3PF58yzAghxPJad5rM44ZpH5fUZJug4kBSa
  ETH: 0x1dd2e6cddb02e3839700b33e9dd45859344c9edc

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 18:00

• "Activist Athlete" Gwen Berry Made Rape Jokes And Mocked White People, Mexicans And Asians In Old Tweets
  “Activist Athlete” Gwen Berry Made Rape Jokes And Mocked White People, Mexicans And Asians In Old Tweets

  Once again, the liberal strategy of mining someone’s Twitter from years prior to find “un-woke” statements to implicate them, cancel them and ruin their future has come back to bite the SJW crowd in the back. 

  Gwen Berry, most recently known as a self-proclaimed “activist athlete” because she turned her back to the national anthem and U.S. flag at U.S. Olympic Team trials for the hammer throw looks as though she may not have always been so concerned with virtue signaling as she is now.

  According to new Tweets unearthed by the NY Post, Berry made disparaging remarks about Asians, Mexicans and white people.

  “Mexicans just don’t care about ppl,” she wrote in a Tweet in November 2012.

  In another Tweet from 2011, she wrote: “This lil white boy being bad as hell!! I would smack his ass then stomp him!! Smh #whitepplKids hella disrespectful.”

  

  “Just saw this gurl wearing heels with white socks!! What the Hell..#chineseppl always try to start new trends..smh..ggguuurrrllll,” she also wrote in 2011. 

  She also made a joke about rape in 2012, Tweeting: “I’m about to rape my lunch. [Shout out] to all the females that’s gon get drunk, get recked by 4 dudes, then cry rape this weekend.” 

  The posts came before her Olympic career, the Post article notes, and when she was in her 20’s. However, we all know that such items would not have been – and have not been – off limits for a “woke” SJW that will use any excuse to cancel someone that doesn’t surrender to their ideologies. 

  But for some reason, we feel like Berry will be overlooked and won’t get the same treatment. Recall, even the White House came out and defended Berry’s actions last week, with WH press secretary Psaki stating, on behalf of President Biden: “He would also say, of course, that part of that pride in our country means recognizing there are moments where we as a country haven’t lived up to our highest ideals, and it means respecting the right of people granted to them in the Constitution to peacefully protest.“

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 17:25

• Stockman: No, We Weren't All Born Yesterday
  Stockman: No, We Weren’t All Born Yesterday

  Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

  According to the mainstream narrative, we were all born yesterday. There is no such thing as context, history or critical analysis – just cherry-picked short-term data-deltas, which are held to be either awesome or at least much improved from last time.

  

  That’s why we predictably got this headline from the Wall Street Journal with reference to today’s June employment release, which allegedly showed “employers added 850,000 jobs last month”: Stocks Tick Higher With Strong Jobs Report

  Well, no, it wasn’t and they (employers) didn’t.

  In fact, total hours worked in June actually declined from the May level, and, far more importantly, were still down 4.4% from the pre-Covid peak in February 2020.

  When expressed in total hours, there is absolutely nothing “strong” at all about the numbers. To wit, at the end of Q2 2021 total hours employed in the nonfarm economy were still down 8 billion hours from the Q4 2019 level.

  That’s right. Eight billion worker hours are MIA, yet the lazy shills at the WSJ, Bloomberg, Reuters et. al. keep pumping out bilge about an awesome economic rebound!

  Actually, what has never been noted notwithstanding the fact that it sits there in plain sight on the BLS website is that Dr. Fauci and his economy wreckers dug a far deeper hole in the main street labor market last spring than the narrative led you to believe. At the pre-Covid peak in Q4 2019, the nonfarm economy utilized 257.2 billion labor hours at an annualized rate, but that plunged by nearly -12% to just 227.6 billion hours in Q2 2020.

  So doing, Fauci & Co wiped out all of the aggregate nonfarm labor hours gain since Q4 2011. That is to say, it obliterated the awesome gains that had been contained in 102 monthly Jobs Friday reports in the interim. And now, after $4 trillion of freshly printed fiat cash and $6 trillion of stimmies and other bailouts and free stuff only 73% of the state-imposed shrinkage of hours worked has been recovered as of June 2021.

  Indeed, the not-at-all awesome June jobs report was even more squirrely than usual. Our memory may fail, but we are quite sure that back in the day, June was the time when school let out. The city kids all got to got to go to the beach, and we farm kids got to pick the berries, cherries, sweetcorn, cucumbers, peaches and tomatoes, as they took their turn in rotation.

  Perhaps, no longer. The BLS claims that state, local and private educational institutions went on a hiring binge during June, bringing on a total of 269,000 new teachers to superintend presumably empty classrooms!

  Moreover, when you add in the 192,000 bartenders and waiters who were rehired in June, that adds up to 461,000 jobs or 54% of the ballyhooed 850,000 gain during the month.

  Meanwhile, when it comes to the high pay, high productivity jobs in construction, manufacturing, mining and energy, not so much. Those sectors accounted for 23.338 million jobs in May and reported an increase of, well, 20k jobs in June. That’s a 0.0008 gain, if you have your HP 12c set to four decimal places.

  More importantly, the 20.358 million goods producing jobs reported for June were still down by 780,000 from the pre-Covid peak in February 2020; and, on the more appropriate and accurate hour-based measurement, employment in the goodsproducing sector truly remains mired in the dumps.

  Thus, the index of aggregate hours worked for June (black line) was down by -6.4% from its 2019 interim high, and off by -21.1% from its turn of the century level, -23.1% from its all-time peak in March 1979 and down by -4.8% from the level first attained in, well, May 1947!

  You can’t make this up. Employment in the goods-producing sector of the US economy has been dying on the vine for a half century. And even as these jobs paid a living wage of $56,000 per annum in the month of June, the purchasing power of those paychecks was no higher than January 1979 on an inflation-adjusted basis (purple line).

  In summary, after real wages in the goods-producing sector doubled between 1947 and 1979, what has followed is one-half century of real wage stagnation, coupled with a 23% shrinkage of hours worked. That alone should ixnay the “strong” and “blow out” descriptions that have been used hundreds of times in the interim to describe the Jobs Friday reports.

  Real Weekly Earnings Versus Aggregate Weekly Hours, Good-Producing Sector, 1947-2021

  

  Then again, there is truly no mystery as to where the Fed’s endless injections of fiat credit have come out in the wash. For three decades, the nation’s central bank has been primarily inflating financial asset prices on Wall Street, not jobs, incomes and prosperity on main street. And that’s especially been the case since the pre-crisis peak in Q4 2007, when today’s $8.1 trillion Fed balance sheet stood at just $800 billion.

  For want of doubt, you only need to ponder the message of the chart below in order to ascertain what an 8X increase in the Fed’s balance sheet has actually generated. Since Q4 2007, cumulative gains have been as follows:

  • Nonfarm Labor Hours (red line): +4.3%;

  • Nonfarm Output (black line): +24.8%;

  • Nominal GDP (blue line): +50%;

  • NASDAQ 100 (purple line): +600%

  Q.E.D.

  Do these knuckleheads have the slightest idea that this is their true handiwork?

  Really, is there any more proof needed that all of their lunatic money-pumping never actually leaves the canyons of Wall Street?

  Cumulative Gains Since Q4 2007: Stocks Versus Main Street

  

  So we perforce return to the central topic. Namely, that the Fed’s MOAAR inflation mantra is one of the most perversely idiotic and inequitable public policies ever imposed by an arm of the state.

  In fact, hitting the “averaged over time” 2.00% inflation goal remains the only reason for the Fed’s $120 billion per month of what amounts to financial fraud. After all, with employers from coast-to-coast scrambling to find workers, continued money-pumping is surely not needed to further the so-called “full-employment” goal. For crying out loud, private employers are already on it.

  Then again, would it be too much trouble for these power-intoxicated, groupthinkinebriated dolts to examine exactly what their pro-inflation policies have actually produced? And we mean over an extensive period of time where the cumulative impact can be clearly observed?

  Well, here’s an inflation-targeting stopper if there ever was one. During the approximate half century since real hourly rates peaked in 1972, the average American worker has been on the mother-of-all-treadmills:

  Change From 1972 Through 2020:

  • Nominal hourly wages: +533%;

  • Real hourly earnings: +2.2%

  It doesn’t get any more dramatic than that. Even the proverbial squirrel in the cage would have gotten the bends after that 50-year journey to nowhere.

  50-Year Trend: Nominal Versus Inflation-Adjusted Hourly Earnings

  

  As is evident in the chart above, the Fed made a cataclysmic mistake in the 1990s and thereafter. Due to the high inflation of the 1970s and to a lesser extent through the 1980s, nominal hourly wage had tripled between 1972 and 1995, when Mr. Deng’s shiny new export factories were cranking up with ultra-cheap labor drained out of China’s endless rice paddies and peasant villages.

  And, thank you, all that 200% gain in nominal wages had not done domestic workers one damn bit of good. In 1995, real hourly wages (purple line) were actually 18% below the level that had obtained in 1972, when Fed Chairman Arthur Burns, to his everlasting shame, grabbed his ankles upon Nixon’s presentation of what amounted to an election year bar of soap.

  Nixon got his temporarily booming economy and landslide election victory, of course, but that had also set up the hard hats, Nixon labor Dems and forgotten middle class like sitting ducks vis a vis the new Chinese (and Mexican et. al.) export factories. By the mid1990s the dollar wage gap was now enormous—so what was needed was deflation of domestic prices, wages and costs, not more of the same.

  As it happened, under Greenspan’s phony “disinflation” policies and then Bernanke’s formal inflation-targeting regime thereafter, the domestic price level was inflated by another 70% or 2.14% per annum between 1995 and 2020. What that meant was fully two-thirds of the gain in average hourly wages during that period was eaten-up by domestic inflation when the order of the day should have been wringing out some of the staggering 240% increase in the domestic price level that had occurred between 1972 and 1995.

  Yes, inflation-adjusted hourly wage rates (purple line above) did manage to crawl back to their 1972 starting point by 2020, but at the expense of another doubling of nominal wage rates. That is to say, the Fed’s idiotic pro-inflation policies drove the wage gap between domestic factories and the new low wage export economies dramatically wider. In all, average dollar wages in the US were 533% higher by 2020 than they had been when Nixon destroyed the gold-backed dollar in 1971-1972.

  Needless to say, when the average domestic wage rate went from $3.90 per hour in 1972 to $24.68 per hour in 2020 at absolutely no purchasing power benefit to workers, it left corporate executives with no choice except to outsource and off-shore to the maximum feasible extent. And that set in motion the hollowing out of America’s industrial economy.

  The chart below is surely the smoking gun implicit in the Fed’s Faustian bargain. That is, it got its fetishistic 2.00% inflation and showered the household sector with cheap debt to augment living standards that would have otherwise diminished owing to the export of good jobs.

  As a result, real consumption spending (PCE) for goods rose by 87% or 3.0% per annum between Q1 2002 and Q1 2021. Yet during the same 19 year period, the industrial production index for manufacturing rose by only 9% or barely 0.41% per year.

  Needless to say, we are not talking here about some marginal item that is better produced abroad where some venue has comparative advantage as Adam Smith originally saw it. To the contrary, this is the entire goods economy and for all practical purposes the growth in consumption of goods during this century to date has been supplied by imports.

  It is no wonder, therefore, that the burned out zones of the rust belt voted for “high tariff man” Trump. Twice.

  Real PCE For Durables Versus Manufactured Goods Output, Q1 2002-Q1

  

  2021 In throwing good-producing workers under the China/import bus, the powers that be urged them to make up the difference by buying stock. Wall Street had plenty of rapidly inflating shares on offer, and the Donald could not stop telling workers to check their 401ks.

  But here’s the thing. To ride the drastically inflated stock market higher, you had to have material savings to invest, and growing wages to allocate to investment rather than current consumption.

  Alas, American workers had neither. When Greenspan was nominated to head the Fed in July 1987, the average wage was $9.12 per hour and the NASDAQ 100 index stood at 196. That is, it took about 22 hours of work to buy the index.

  At the close of June 2021, the average hourly wage– as we learned this AM—was $25.68 per hour, while the NASDAQ 100 had taken flight to another financial planet, posting at 14,554. That is, it now took 566 hours of work to buy the index or 26X more than when Greenspan inaugurated wealth effects monetary policy.

  To paraphrase a famous black panther slogan of the 1960s, trickle-down might have been televised on CNBC, but it most definitely did not happen.

  Number Of Worker Hours to buy the NASDAQ-100, 1987-2021

  

  What happened, of course, is them’s that had, got.

  Our friend Tim Knight, who publishes at the must read Slope of Hope, captured the moral of this story about as well as can be said, while his accompanying chart truly does tell you all you need to know.

  Well, if you weren’t born yesterday.

  The economy, the capital markets, and wealth distribution have become more grotesquely-distorted, perverted, and warped than at any other time in human history. I have written about this endlessly and prefer to simply point you to this page where I’ve stacked up countless charts to make the point about the maldistribution of wealth.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 16:50

• Watch: Video Captures "Unintentional Discharge" Of Fireworks On Maryland Beach
  Watch: Video Captures “Unintentional Discharge” Of Fireworks On Maryland Beach

  A stunning video has surfaced on social media showing an explosion of fireworks on a Maryland beach Sunday morning. Beachgoers ran for their lives when a premature detonation of fireworks occurred around 1100ET. 

  

  Ocean City Fire Department said the “unintentional discharge” occurred when employees of a fireworks company were handling fireworks for tonight’s Downtown fireworks event. 

  During the unintentional discharge, employees of the fireworks company received minor injuries and refused transport to the hospital by Ocean City Paramedics. No beach or boardwalk patrons were injured.

  “Our Fire Marshals are on the scene and will investigate the cause of the unintentional discharge,” said Ocean City Fire Chief Richie Bowers. “Prior to the fireworks being off loaded from the vehicle, Fire Marshals secure a safe zone around the fireworks and put other safety protocols in place. It is this very zone and safety protocols that kept anyone else from being injured,” he concluded. – Ocean City Fire Department said in a statement. 

  The video captured by one beachgoer shows the dramatic explosion that appears to briefly transform the beach, packed with thousands of tourists, into a warzone. 

  So this just happened in Ocean City, MD. pic.twitter.com/B0djA8JxF7

  — Gilly Gene (@GillyOfThe412) July 4, 2021

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

  After the “unintentional discharge,” Ocean City Fire Marshals have “canceled all firework shows” in the beach town, located down the street from President Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Deleware. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 16:15

• CHS On July 4th: Sorry, America, You Lost Me
  CHS On July 4th: Sorry, America, You Lost Me

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  Star Wars 24 plus the novelized version, amusement park ride, podcast, action figure and OnlyFans pages, anyone?

  I happened to be in a Big Box Emporium, buying two bags of whole wheat flour, when a strange revelation struck me: almost nothing in this giant emporium was made in the USA. Apologists will quickly point out that the two bags of whole wheat flour were “made in the USA,” and note the US-made items in the food, liquor and beverage aisles; but wander out of these aisles and tell me how many of the hundreds of items are made in the USA (not assembled of foreign components, but made entirely in the USA). The answer is very few.

  I suppose this fact is unremarkable to the majority of Americans, but my reaction was, sorry, America, you lost me: how is this not insane to depend on sweatshops thousands of miles away to make virtually everything on the shelves and warehouses of the U.S.?

  It’s as if a war was declared on manufacturing in America and we lost–or simply surrendered.

  If you want to buy a bulldozer or electric vehicle, you can Buy American, and if you buy an iPhone, the firmware is conjured in Cupertino (the phone is assembled in China of components sourced globally). But below a certain price point and outside the snacks, magazines and beer aisles, U.S.-made good are “special order” if they’re available at all.

  Is this because the foreign made stuff is so high quality? No, it’s virtually all garbage quality. A war was declared on quality, and America lost. Virtually nothing on the shelves of America’s Big Box Emporiums and fulfillment warehouses is durable; it’s either designed to fail (planned obsolescence) or it’s so poorly made that it breaks, fades, rips, tears, delaminates or fails, and is dutifully hauled to the landfill as part of the entire Landfill Economy. (Forget trying to repair it; it’s been designed to be impossible to repair, and all the components are junk, too.)

  If stuff breaks or fails in short order, it isn’t cheap, no matter what the price says. It’s expensive because it must be constantly replaced. A war was declared on value, and America lost. Sorry, America, you lost me. How is the transition from quality and value to junk not a complete disaster for the nation?

  So what is the business of America? Marketing. Everything boils down to marketing in America. Everything is a channel to collect consumer data that can be monetized (no, you can’t monetize your own data; that’s not how it works) or a channel to upsell anyone ensnared in the value chain.

  You may naively think an iPhone is a device for phone calls and texts. Silly you! It’s nothing but a channel to upsell you Apple services. The “settings” on my old SE still have a nag notice because “setting up” your iPhone means signing up for Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Pay, Apple Skim and Apple Scam.

  My Mom-in-law is in her 90s and like many in her age group, she enjoys watching TV. She lives with us and so we handle the cable TV subscription for her. She asked us to get the commercial-free English-language network from Japan, NHK, and of course this is only available in a package of rubbish channels.

  Since I have a basketball hoop for my fitness amusement and have long been a roundball fan, I clicked to the NBA channel listed. It was nothing but a series of moronic adverts. I tried again later, nothing but moronic adverts. I gave up on the third try, because it dawned on me that apparently this channel doesn’t actually televise any actual basketball, it only promises to do so at some later date; and in the meantime, here is an endless stream of moronic adverts.

  Sorry, America, you lost me. Marketing and upselling is not prosperity or success, it’s ruination.

  The list of channels that are nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling is endless in America. Every subscription service is nothing more than a channel to upsell you on “Premium services.”

  Social media: nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling.

  Internet Search: nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling.

  Media, telecommunications, banking, etc.: nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling. Look at the most profitable and highest valuation corporations in America, and their sole business model and reason to exist is data mining, marketing and upselling.

  The Healthcare Borg is also nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling. If you want to get a look indicating profound suspicion of your motives and beliefs, tell your healthcare provider, “I’m over 65 and don’t take any meds.” Within the Borg, such a statement can only mean 1) you haven’t yet signed up for Medicare/Medicaid, and we need to get you in the gravy-train pronto; 2) you’re some kind of nutcase who refuses medications, or 3) you’re a dangerous subversive who should be reported to Facebook as a potential extremist.

  The Healthcare Borg’s marketing has reached extremes of absurdity. Practitioners are under extreme pressure from Corporate HQ to bill you for something on a regular basis, and so I received increasingly frantic phone calls and emails demanding I set up a telemarketing, oops, I mean telemedicine confab with my PCP (primary care physician–the Borg loves acronyms as much as the Pentagon).

  I halfway expected to be accosted on the street by thugs informing me to make a telemedicine appointment or “we’re gonna have to break something.” Sorry, America, you lost me. When healthcare stopped being about nurturing health, especially via basic preventative measures, and became a profit center and marketing channel, the well-being of the nation spiraled into the sewer.

  While I foolishly waited for a basketball game to appear on the NBA channel–how naive of me!–I clicked through a few movie channels. The offerings were the most recent batch of the super-hero genre. As a huge fan of action films, I had hopes these might reverse my disinterest in the genre. Nope. The movies were not bad, they were simply… uninteresting and derivative.

  Sorry, America, you lost me. Everything that’s a derivative of something that was creative and fresh decades ago is uninteresting, and virtually everything is a derivative. America is subjected to a remake of a remake of a remake, with a switch of media being the supposed creative magic.

  

  Star Wars 24 plus the novelized version, amusement park ride, podcast, action figure and OnlyFans pages, anyone?

  America’s cultural obsession with super-heroes made me wonder, in a dangerously subversive fashion, what this means beneath the superficiality of reaping reliable profits. Does it now require super-human powers to survive the onslaught of exploitation, profiteering, overwork and exposure to fanatical marketing, data mining and upselling that is life in the USA?

  Or does this cultural obsession reflect our fear that we’re so far gone down the road of worshiping billionaires blowing billions on space tourism that only super-heroes can save us?

  Sorry, America, you lost me. Many readers will write all this off as the sour rantings of some out-of-it geezer. But ask yourself: what if everything said here is correct, but nobody dares talk about it because that might make it real?

  

  *  *  *

  If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  My new book is available! A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet 20% and 15% discounts (Kindle $7, print $17, audiobook now available $17.46)

  Read excerpts of the book for free (PDF).

  The Story Behind the Book and the Introduction.

  Recent Videos/Podcasts:

  It Always Ends The Same Way (34:33) (with Gordon Long)

  My COVID-19 Pandemic Posts

  My recent books:

  A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

  Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
  (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

  Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 (Kindle), $10 (print), ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

  The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

  Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).
   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 15:40

• Biden Insists "We're Not Sure" Russians Behind Ransomware Attack On 200 US Companies
  Biden Insists “We’re Not Sure” Russians Behind Ransomware Attack On 200 US Companies

  “We’re not sure if it’s the Russians,” President Biden said Friday in response to the latest allegations that a ‘Russian-linked hacker group’ targeted some 200 US companies in a massive ransomware attack. But he’s vaguely promising a “response” if Kremlin links can be found.

  This latest major incident unveiled at the end of this past week is being described as akin to “SolarWinds with ransomware,” which paralyzed the networks of the US companies. Wired explains the inevitability that the “the two dominant cybersecurity threats of the day— supply chain attacks and ransomware—would combine to wreak havoc.” It’s also being called “colossal” in scope and appears to involve blackmail payment demands just as in prior major breaches.

  Wired writes further of the aftermath as details continue to fall into place, “That’s precisely what happened Friday afternoon, as the notorious REvil criminal group successfully encrypted the files of hundreds of businesses in one swoop, apparently thanks to compromised IT management software. And that’s only the very beginning.”

  

  The hack targeted the Florida-based software management firm Kaseya, which said Friday afternoon it was the “victim of a sophisticated cyberattack” which caused it to immediately alert all of its clients to shut down their impacted servers. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) quickly said it’s launching an investigation the same day, “taking action to understand and address the supply-chain ransomware attack against Kaseya,” according to its statement.

  Soon after disembarking Air Force One, Biden appeared a bit confused but also bluntly insisted there’s no certainty it was the Russians: “First of all, we’re not sure who it is for certain, number one,” he said while being peppered with reporters’ questions over the then developing incident:

  “I’ll be in better shape to talk to you about it—hang on a second,” the president said as he reached into his pocket to pull out a note card.

  “I’ll tell you what they sent me, OK?” the president continued. “First of all, we’re not sure who it is for certain, number one.”

  “And the fact is that I directed the intelligence community to give me a deep dive on what’s happened, and I’ll know better tomorrow. And if it is, either with the knowledge of and/or a consequence of Russia, then I told Putin we will respond,” Biden said.

  Here’s his awkward interaction with reporters inside a store during a Michigan stop…

  Based on his quickly referencing the initial intelligence he was sent, the president seemed to clearly confirm that US agencies have reached no conclusions on Russian involvement as yet, despite a slew of media reports hastily pointing in that direction, as is usual.

  Biden reiterated this position when asked about phoning President Putin over the new breach:

  Asked if has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the hack, Biden said he has not.

  “I haven’t called because we’re not certain. And the initial thinking was it was not the Russian government, but we’re not sure yet,” Biden said.

  He had said he “got a brief as I was on the plane and that’s why I was late”. The FBI is also said to be involved in probing the large-scale cyberattack which is being called by cyber security specialists a “colossal and devastating supply chain attack.” 

  John Hammond, senior security researcher at Huntress Labs, on the Kaseya breach: ~200 companies that use Kaseya’s tech had their networks encrypted by REvil (think of this as SolarWinds but with ransomware).

  “This is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack.” pic.twitter.com/c9xDnrJw9f

  — Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker) July 2, 2021

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

  According to multiple reports that emerged over the weekend, the hacking collective REvil is demanding that victim companies pay $45,000 in the cryptocurrency Monero to gain back access to their systems, warning that the payment will double each week they fail to pay up.

  Despite Biden denying anything conclusive pointing to Russia being behind it, US mainstream media will undoubtedly hype a “Kremlin attack” through Sunday into Monday, which will in turn likely put more pressure on the administration to more aggressively put blame on Russian intelligence and in turn “take action” – evidence or not – likely in the form of more sanctions. The president has so far ordered a top level investigation into the ransomware attack.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 15:05

• Trump Promises To Restore Free Speech In America
  Trump Promises To Restore Free Speech In America

  Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times,

  Former President Donald Trump warned at his third “Save America” rally on Saturday night that Americans no longer have free speech, describing a powerful system “for media and online censorship” that only presents the Democratic Party’s view of politics, including that Trump is attacking democracy by discussing potential election fraud.

  “We have a truly sick election system, it’s got to be changed,” the 45th president told thousands of supporters gathered in Robarts Arena in Sarasota, Florida.

  “Remember this, I am not the one trying to undermine American democracy,” he said in response to the legacy media and Democrat claims.

  “I am the one trying to save American democracy.”

  

  Democrats and Republicans have exchanged barbs since the chaotic 2020 election, which Trump maintains he will not concede, awaiting the results of a complete audit for Arizona’s Maricopa County that has been run independent of the secretary of state’s office. Additional audits are expected to follow in other jurisdictions.

  “We can’t let them take away our free speech so we can[‘t] talk about corrupt elections. Otherwise you’ll have … that’s communism. That’s what they do in these communist countries, you have no voice,” Trump warned.

  Communist and socialist states like Cuba and Venezuela remain embroiled in repeating cycles of contested elections, with their populations split between recognizing two heads of state, and both sides of politics accusing the other of election fraud.

  “Democrats used COVID to cheat. They illegally changed the rules in key states. They stole the votes,” Trump continued.

  “They abolished signature verification requirements, created a powerful system for media and the online censorship of their opponents, and did everything possible to facilitate fraud just like you would do in a third world country. That’s what happened with this election.”

  Trump gave special mention to the Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), which was suspended by YouTube from live-streaming to their channel for a week just hours ahead of the rally. RSBN has carried feeds of Trump’s public appearances since July 2015. Following the suspension, the company migrated to the video platform Rumble to stream Trump’s speech.

  The former president also mentioned how left-wing billionaires had allegedly funded unsecured drop boxes in the 2020 election. He named Facebook as an example, referring to reports that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, partly funded a nonprofit that irregularly distributed $350 million to nearly 2,500 election officials in 48 states and the District of Columbia, which could have helped increased voter turnout for Democrats.

  

  People listen to former U.S. President Donald Trump during a rally in Sarasota, Florida, on July 3, 2021. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

  Trump, true to the stated mission of his “Save America” campaign office, said he will continue working to help secure support for “Republicans or MAGA” in the upcoming 2022 elections, with the goal of retaking the House and the Senate.

  But in order to do so, the 75-year-old said that actions are needed to restore trust and transparency for all Americans in the nation’s election systems.

  “We got them by surprise in 2016. And then they work for four years to make sure it didn’t happen again,” Trump said of the Democrats, accusing them of election fraud.

  He again questioned President Joe Biden’s vote count, saying that he found it hard to believe that Biden got more votes from black people than President Barack Obama. Trump said that, like many other things including the Wuhan virus lab leak theory and his border policies, he believes his claims about a “rigged election” will be proven right.

  “I wonder what I will be proved right about next. Perhaps it will be the election, perhaps,” he said.

  Trump said that Republicans around the nation are uniting around efforts to secure future elections, by progressing legislation to demand voter ID, universal signature signature verification, citizenship confirmation, chain of custody integrity controls, and updated voter rolls.

  “That’s before the elections, not after the elections,” Trump added, amid his criticism of Democrat actions passed ahead of the 2020 election to expand voter access that he said in effect reduced voter security in the name of needing to allow people to vote from home during the pandemic.

  He said that Republicans “will restore the right to free speech in America again, which we don’t have.”

  Hundreds of Trump’s supporters had lined up for the event overnight, with a large crowd staying until past 8 p.m. for Trump’s speech despite a thunderstorm ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa.

  Trump remarked that if American voters had faith in the integrity of the 2020 election, he wouldn’t have so many people still attending his rallies.

  “If we lost the election … I wouldn’t have a crowd that goes beyond what the eye can see, that stays in a thunderstorm,” he said of the crowd.

  He then joked that some of the women in attendance were “a mess” from the pouring rain, adding “but the truth is, you look more beautiful now than you did when you went to the beauty parlor … You’re real, it’s great.”

  

  People wait for former President Donald Trump to speak at a rally in Sarasota, Florida, on July 3, 2021. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

  He also dismissed legal efforts launched by New York prosecutors to bring charges against his company, the Trump Organization, and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg over “fringe benefits.”

  “It’s really called prosecutorial misconduct. It’s a terrible, terrible thing,” Trump said of the legal efforts, contrasting them against cases of murder and human trafficking that he said were not pursued to the full extent by prosecutors. Weisselberg has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did not join Trump at the rally after both decided the state leader would remain in South Florida to oversee recovery efforts for the condominium collapse at Surfside and preparations for Elsa, according to state GOP Chairman Sen. Joe Gruters, local media reported.

  Trump’s speech was followed by a fireworks display in celebration of Independence Day, when “56 brave patriots at Philadelphia proudly declared our independence and boldly proclaimed the eternal truth that we are all made equal by the almighty hand of our creator,” Trump said.

  “With the spirit of July 4, 1776 stirring in our souls … We will make our elections free and safe again, we will make America powerful again, we will make America wealthy again, we will make America strong again, we will make America proud again, we will make America safe again, and we will make America great again,” he said in his closing remarks.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 14:30

• US Rolls Back More Sanctions On Iranians With Vienna Talks Still Stalled
  US Rolls Back More Sanctions On Iranians With Vienna Talks Still Stalled

  After last month quietly dropping sanctions on multiple Iranian entities amid ongoing nuclear negotiations in Vienna, the US Treasury Department on Friday announced the removal of sanctions against three more Iranian officials who have now had their access to their US assets restored.

  However, like prior moves toward sanctions relief, the Biden administration is claiming this has nothing to do with Vienna nuclear talks, which have appeared stalled over the past weeks, given lack of any monumental breakthroughs and with both sides threatening to cut things off as neither side wants things to drag on indefinitely.

  

  According to Axios, “Treasury officials said Behzad Ferdows, Mehrzad Ferdows and Mohammad Reza Dezfulian should not be sanctioned but that the roll back had nothing to do with ongoing indirect talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.”

  “Their assets had been blocked under Executive Order 13382, which focuses on proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters,” the report noted. 

  An unnamed Treasury official had sought to assure Reuters: “These delistings do not reflect any change in U.S. government sanctions policy towards Iran. They have nothing to do with ongoing JCPOA negotiations in Vienna.”

  The attorney representing the three Iranians had argued the US had “insufficient basis” for their initial designation, and thus he said “there was a dismissal of the claims” based on the legal flimsiness of the case.

  Meanwhile, a feeling of distrust seems to continue to pervade the atmosphere in Vienna, given that days ago the Iranian side said it is requiring a “guarantee” that the US doesn’t unilaterally leave the JCPOA deal again, as President Trump did in May 2018, after which unprecedented numbers of sanctions were slapped on Tehran.

  The talks have gone on for three months and six rounds. Both sides have strongly signaled they wish to see a finalized restored deal before Iran’s new president, hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi takes office.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 07/04/2021 – 14:05